The Twelve Days of Gheorghemas: Day 5

On the third day of Gheorghemas 

Big Gheorghe gave to me...

Five golden auctions

Four Teams for Bitching

Three Tiny Scrappers
Two books for your Gheorghemas wish list
And a doofus to lead this country

Gheorghemas Day 2 commentators insinuated that I did not muster sufficient Gheorghemas effort for that post, so I'm pulling out all the stops on Day 5.  As you know I enjoy looking at online auctions, and I have five of them from which to procure gifts for all the Gheorghies on my Gheorghemas list.

1. The Mark Knopfler Guitar Collection

As the title suggests, Mark Knopfler is auctioning off over 120 guitars and amps.  Knopfler says:

It’s time to take some of these treasured six-string companions out of their cases and leave them in the care of Christie’s to allow them to have new adventures with new owners. You can be sure I’ll be sad to see them go but we’ve had wonderful times together and I can’t play them all. To you fellow players, enthusiasts and collectors, I wish you many good times with these old friends of mine.

Notably, "[t]wenty-five percent of the total hammer price will be divided equally and donated to The British Red Cross, Tusk and Brave Hearts of the North East."  

This auction is only available as a limited preview and I know nothing about guitars but it's Gheorghemas so I can't take myself too seriously.  For as long as I've known rootsy he had a guitar, including the time I scooped him and his baby Martin up along the Appalachian trail.  I'm picking (puns!) this one for rootsy:

No idea what's going on with my screencap tool.  That's an obscure, old-timey looking instrument from Arkansas and rootsy plays obscure, old-timey Roots music so it will serve him well.  

Dave makes music too, but it's pretty much the opposite of rootsy's.  Dave is a contrarian (and he will argue against this assertion) who revels in his quirkiness.  You would think he wants an acoustic guitar because they don't use electricity, and Dave likes to look down on people who consume energy and other natural resources.  But he owns a minivan and an SUV, big heavy cars that scarf gas and kick up shredded tire debris, and he likes to play sports that require outdoor courts, which requires cutting down trees to clear a space for the courts.  He disposes dead squirrel carcasses carelessly.  And he lives in NJ, one of the most polluted states in the country.  So he doesn't really buy into any of that environmentalist stuff.  I'm getting Dave this Rudy Pensa by John Suhr guitar for Gheorghemas.

It's obscure and modern and purple and from New York so it should hold Dave in good stead.  I look forward to a Greasetruck song about me recorded using this beast.

2. Selections from the Geddy Lee Collection and Important Baseball Memorabilia

That's a long name!  Rush frontman Geddy Lee is, apparently, an ardent baseball memorabilia collector and he's auctioning off a bunch of stuff.  There's something for almost anyone.

If you ever find yourself in the emergency room of Boston Medical Center, find the guy in charge, slip him the grip and present this Reggie Jackson World Series home run baseball and he will take amazing care of you.  He will take amazing care of you anyway, but he will bump you to the head of the line because he's a tremendous fan of Rush and the Yankees.

But I digress.  Whit will get married soon and I couldn't be happier for him.  His lady is a peach--she put up with Whit and me, at the same time, after we drank a bunch of bourbon and dragged her around Manhattan in a rain storm.  I wish them all the best and no rain the next time they visit NYC.  In the meantime, our overgrown friend needs a ring, so for Gheorghemas he's getting this one originally made for the 2000 NL Champs.  Amazin' again indeed.

I used to have a friend named TR.  I always thought that he and I would someday write a book chronicling all the stupid stuff we did together.  Maybe we still have a chance to do so.  It makes me sad not to see his comments.

Anyway, if TR is still lurking around out there, I'm getting him this Lou Gehrig card.  That dude loves baseball cards.

I always find it intimidating to publish my ill-conceived ideas and mangled prose alongside OBX Dave's professional quality posts.  As our resident expert sports scribe I think he would like an autographed copy of Cap Anson's book "A Ballplayer's Career."  The book was published in 1900 and the autograph still looks sharp 100-and-some-odd years later.  I hope OBXD enjoys it for another 100.

3. Pop Culture Then & Now

This one is a banger.  I don't know the auction's full backstory but it looks like someone won a storage locker previously owned by an old Hollywood producer.  All sorts of great stuff in here.  Right off the bat, this Centurian costume from Ben-Hur called out saying "Teedge needs me!!"

Can't you see Teedge traipsing around the District in this thing, stopping random people and demanding of them "Are you not entertained!?!"

Pee-Wee Herman's bike might seem ideal for Teedge too, and Danimal could use it in a triathlon, and if you remember TR's college beach cruiser (and the shenanigans he pulled on it) you'll argue that he's the right person for it.  But I'm giving it to Mark.

Mark lives at the beach so he needs a beach cruiser.  He's also the only one of us with a cool enough style and mien to realistically pull this off.  And have you watched Pee-Wee Herman's Playhouse recently?  Dude was totally on one.  It's as if David Lynch teamed up with Cheech and Chong to make a kids' show.  Mark fits right in.

There's more!  William Randolph Hearst's personal desk intercom is up as well.  The instrument that a domineering publisher used to rant angry missives at his minions sounds perfect for the tiny overlord of our publication.  I don't know how to connect it to anything but maybe that's for the best, rob can just rant at it and see what happens.

 

Squeaky is my guy but I had a hard time finding the perfect Gheoghemas gift this year.  Until Mrs. Squeaky asked me to confirm my mailing address and followed up with a photo of the Squeaks dressed as Barbie and Ken for a costume party (at least that's my assumption, maybe they dress up for other reasons).  Now I know that he will love this vintage 1950s life-sized early Barbie store display mannequin.  Clocking in at 73 inches tall this Barbie is a tall drink of plastic.  She comes with a swimsuit, an earring, high heeled shoes, and a blond wig.  The lot description observes that she is "[e]xhibiting expected age, wear, some cracking to seams and minor rubbing to painted areas."  Minor rubbing is right up Squeaky's alley so this doll is his for Gheorghemas.

4. Whiskey & Whiskey

If you read that quickly you might think it's "Whiskey & Whitney" which makes more sense than what it actually says, but I don't name these auctions, I just write about them.  According to Sotheby's:

The Whisky & Whiskey | Festive Spirits and American Classics auction features one of the most extensive collections of American whiskey ever assembled from what may be the true Golden Age of bourbon and rye, the years spanning the late 1980s to the late 2000s. Strangely, this was a time of cratering interest in the United States for brown spirits, particularly for highly aged, highly priced whiskey. Yet visionary distillers and producers like Heaven Hill, Julian Van Winkle III and Even turned out precisely this sort of whiskey, often for export to Japan, where a small but eager community of collectors awaited. Van Winkle and others knew the whiskey was good, but they were just trying to keep the lights on – little did they know that decades later, their bottles would become some of the most sought-after whiskeys on the planet.

There's plenty of super-expensive, super-exclusive, and super-tasty stuff listed here, but there are a dozen-or-so really old bottles that jump out at me.  In particular, this pint of Old Crow distilled in 1913:

The lot details say:

Up until Prohibition, Old Crow was among the most renowned names in Kentucky bourbon, respected as far as London and Paris as the pinnacle of American whiskey. Though it traces its roots to an innovative Scotsman named James Crow, who created the brand – and many of the techniques that shaped modern bourbon – in the 1830s, the Old Crow name came into its own during the Gilded Age, when it was produced at the Hermitage distillery in Frankfort, Kentucky. This bottle represents one of the last times that Hermitage-made whiskey went up for sale; Prohibition shut its doors, and they never reopened. Today Old Crow is a bottom-shelf whiskey, a shadow of its former self, and this bottle is a testament to how glorious that former self really was.

This pint is perfect for a connoisseur, one of great taste and refined sensibilities.  Mr. KQ gets the bottle of Old Crow.

5. Watches Online: The Geneva Edit

It's no secret that I like watches.  Danimal likes them too.  This April we finally met IRL under the scoreboard behind the 7th hole at Augusta, and this confirmed my previous statement that Danimal is a fucking baller.  He knew everyone and everyone knew him.  And everyone was looking for him.  It was great that he took the time to hang out despite being in the middle of what is a major work event for him.  For Gheorghemas D-Train gets a 1968 Rolex GMT Master ref. 1675.  This reference is my personal grail, 39mm of magnificence and I'm sure the second time zone hand will suit Danimal's world traveller lifestyle.  This one is perfectly patina'ed and appears to have the original lume.  Chef's kiss.

 

Vacheron Constantin is a Swiss watchmaking company that has been around since 1755.  Along with Audemars Piguet and Patek Philippe, they form the Holy Trinity of Swiss watchmakers.  And they are probably the most under-the-radar of the three.  Rocking a Vacheron is stealth wealth.  In 1977 they launched a new model called the 222, named for their 222nd anniversary.  Everything around me came to a screeching halt the first time I saw one.  Christie's has a ladies model available in stainless steel and yellow gold.

I need to say nothing more, but I will say it is exquisite and so is Shlara.  It's her Gheorghemas gift.

Another lesser-known magnificent Swiss watch manufacturer is Jaeger-Lecoultre.  They've only been around for 190 years, spring chickens in the Swiss timepiece game.  JLC (as they are known, and which is much easier to say) does funky stuff from time to time, like their classic Reverso.  Marls is funky (did you ever smell his room in the house?) and classic so he will enjoy this JLC reference E501.

This one is from 1957 and has a cool two-tone sector dial, Arabic numbers at every other (as opposed to the usual every third) hour marker, and a power reserve indicator in the subdial at 9.  It's funky because it doesn't have a crown--you wind it by moving it around as you would any other automatic, and you set the time using a little wheel on the back.  It's so damn cool that I'm tempted to keep this one for myself but it belongs to Marls at Gheorghemas time.

Merry Gheorghemas to all!

The Twelve Days of Gheorghemas: Day Four

On the fourth day of Gheorghemas, big Gheorghe gave to me:

Four Teams for Bitching

Three Tiny Scrappers
Two books for your Gheorghemas wish list
And a doofus to lead this country

And here you thought it was fair, or at least an attempt at fair. Or maybe that merit counted for something. College football again demonstrated that it is and it does, provided you reside in the right neighborhood and pass the eyeball test. 

The College Football Playoff announced its four-team field, and the outrage was equal parts predictable and naïve. We get Michigan, Washington, Texas and Alabama – all heavy hitters, all deserving of spots, all appointment watching, the latter quality carrying extra weight in an endeavor partnered with TV and its wheelbarrows of cash. But it's an affront to the game, a traveshamockery! To which we say, Settle down, Beavis. 

The CFP is a football tournament that doubles as a TV show. Or vice versa. Florida State has a legitimate beef after being snubbed. The Seminoles are the first unbeaten team from a Power Five conference to be left out in the 10-year history of the current format. The ACC champs will watch from distance as one-loss Texas and one-loss Alabama compete in semifinals. 

The ‘Noles are victims because of two things out of their control: their league; and injury/injuries to their quarterback(s). To the first point: Florida State was fourth in the penultimate CFP rankings heading into conference championship weekend. The Seminoles beat Louisville in the ACC title game to finish 13-0. Elsewhere, Michigan (No. 2) and Washington (No. 3) had already clinched two spots in the field with wins. 

Texas (No. 7) dump trucked Oklahoma State in the Big 12 championship game. Then, Alabama (No. 8) upset top-ranked Georgia in the SEC title game, creating what many believed would be chaos for the selection committee. Nos. 2, 3, and 4 won their games, while No. 1 lost. How would the committee separate Georgia, which lost to ‘Bama, which lost to Texas? 

But SEC commish Greg Sankey reminded everyone, inadvertently or not, of who’s who and what’s what. Asked prior to last Saturday’s games about the possibility of the SEC getting left out of the playoff field should ‘Bama beat Georgia, he responded, “That’s not the real world of college football. Let’s go back to Sesame Street to make it real basic, because one of these things is not like the other, and that is the Southeastern Conference. We have five of the top 15 teams.” Sankey continued: “… the reality is that no one has experienced the success that we have in the playoff. So when you actually put us against the teams rather than in committee rooms, we stand alone.” 

In other words, the SEC was going to have a seat at the table, regardless. As would the Big Ten. Bonus points if you realized that all four semifinalists are current or future members of the SEC and Big Ten. 

Which brings us to the second point: Florida State was without starting quarterback and offensive rainmaker Jordan Travis. Its backup QB missed the ACC championship game in concussion protocol, forcing the Seminoles to use their third-string quarterback, a true freshman who looked the part. The ‘Noles’ top-shelf defense smothered Louisville, but their offense toggled between meh and unwatchable for 3½ hours in a 16-6 slog. 

After Florida State was left out, several committee members remarked that the Seminoles were a different team without Travis, a fairly thin justification. Now, choosing the playoff field based on which teams look best or are playing best at the end of the season or on championship weekend isn’t an unreasonable gauge. The problem is that there’s no hard and fast selection criteria. Sometimes it’s season-long accomplishment, other times it’s how a team appears when everyone’s watching. It can be tailored to desired outcomes or whenever the check clears. Were Travis healthy and had the Seminoles bounced Louisville 30-6, the committee likely would have had to do some hair-splitting. As it was, members didn’t have to separate Alabama and Texas; they defaulted by separating Florida State altogether. 

All of this year’s outrage will be moot a year from now when the 12-team field begins. Florida State would get in, as would Georgia, Ohio State, Oregon and several others. It would be a helluva tournament. That’s little consolation right now. 

Truth is, there are going to be gripes no matter the size of a playoff field. The No. 5 team gripes when there’s a four-team field. The 69th team gripes when it’s left out of the 68-team NCAA basketball tournament field – or to be more accurate, the 37th-rated at-large team. Next year, the 13th team will wail at being omitted from the football playoff. The difference is that the smaller the field, generally the more legit the complaint. 

Remember, too, that college football's postseason, if not the entire sport, has always been about money. Historically, the bowl system and its civic graft controlled postseason. If the No. 1 team's conference was tied to the Rose Bowl and No. 2's to the Orange Bowl, well, that's the way it was. A playoff would supposedly devalue the regular season, and split national champions were simply part of the "charm" of major college football. Never mind that basketball, baseball, soccer, volleyball, heck, even lower level college football, staged tournaments to decide national champions. 

When TV money surpassed bowl money, with a side of public demand, suddenly championship matchups were more palatable. We had 1 vs. 2, then the four-team field and now a dozen teams playing for a title, with mega football conferences led by the Big Ten and SEC here and in the near future. College football is an attractive, lucrative pastime. On its way to the next phase of world domination, it couldn’t resist reminding everyone who and what call the shots.

The Twelve Days of Gheorghemas, Day Three

On the third day of Gheorghemas 

Big Gheorghe gave to me...

Three Tiny Scrappers
Two books for your Gheorghemas wish list
And a doofus to lead this country

Near as I can tell, it's been close to two years since we celebrated the littles, Bite Me Randy Newman-style. That's a wrong we gotta rectify. 

Fortunately, a trio of the wee-o have made sporting news over the past several weeks.

First, on November 13 Corbin Carroll was named the National League Rookie of the Year after a stellar debut campaign with the Arizona Diamondbacks. Carroll became the first rookie in history to hit 25 homers and steal 50 bases. He slashed .285/.362/.506, and compiled 30 doubles, 10 triples, 25 homers and 54 steals in 59 attempts, finishing in the NL's top ten in runs, OPS, steals, triples, and WAR. He was key to the D-Backs deep post-season run, as well, hitting two homers, driving in 10 runs, and stealing five bases as Arizona made it to the World Series before falling to Texas.

Of note, Carroll is listed at 5'10", 165 pounds. We have questions. He's also dating Miss America 2022, Emma Broyles, which is a victory for short kings everywhere.

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A post shared by Emma Broyles (@emmabroyles_)

Last week, FC Cincinnati attacking midfielder Luciano Acosta, all 5'3" of him, was named the 2023 Major League Soccer Most Valuable Player. Including the playoffs, Acosta scored 17 goals and recorded 14 assists for the league's best regular-season side, contributing to nearly half of FC Cincinnati's 64 goals.

I've been a Luchi fan for some time, ever since he made his debut in 2016 for my local eleven, DC United. He scored 24 goals and delivered 35 assists in 126 matches for the Black and Red before departing for a season in Liga MX with Atlas. He returned to MLS with Cincinnati in 2021. During his time with DC, he was the exclamation point on one of Wayne Rooney's most remarkable highlights.

Finally, while this may be the first time you've ever heard of Jenna Nighswonger (and I'd be gobsmacked if any of our community knew of her), it says here it won't be the last. The 23 year-old Florida State graduate earned her first USWNT cap on Saturday, playing the final 28 minutes of a 3-0 win over China in Fort Lauderdale.

The 5'3" Huntington Beach, CA native won a national championship at Florida State in 2021 before winning Rookie of the Year and an NWSL Championship this season as a rookie with Gotham FC. Nighswonger plays outside back and midfielder, and appears to have the look of a winner, if her teams' history is any testament. She's got a lethal left foot, and played attacking midfielder in college, which highlights her versatility.

As always and forever, Bite Me Randy Newman, and Merry Gheorghemas!

The Twelve Days of Gheorghemas: Day 2

On the second day of Gheorghemas 

Big Gheorghe gave to me...

Two books for your Gheorghemas wish list
And a doofus to lead this country

I assume you're all working on your Gheorghemas wish lists.  For Day 2 of Gheorghemas, I'm channeling my inner Dave and recommending two books for you to include.  But I'm not Dave so my list will be fun and reflect the spirit of Gheorghemas.

First is Ghostface Killah's forthcoming biography titled "Rise of a Killah."  According to the publisher, the book "is intense rather than comprehensive," which I guess translates to "it's short."  It isn't available until May 14, 2024, but Gheorghemas often drags on for several months (and in fact Gheorghemas 2015 is still ongoing as the twelfth day hasn't published yet) so it will be a timely gift nonetheless.  I, of course, will opt for the digital audio version, nah mean.   Hopefully Jack Urbont and Andrew Coffman will enter appearances.

Second is "The Ananda Accords" by Zeke Springer.  I've known Zeke for over 20 years and I'm stumping hard for his self-published first novel.  It's a sci-fi thriller about a peace mission gone wrong.  Go get it on Amazon.

Gheorghemas, Day 1: LFG

The natives (particularly the tiny one) are restless, demanding the Day 1 post. Gheorghies, it's officially go time once again on your favorite faux holiday...

On the first day of Gheorghemas

Big Gheorghe gave to me...

A doofus to lead this country

Pre-Gheorghemas Filler

As we eagerly await the Teej coming out of his den and seeing his shadow, here's something light and silly to start your week.

This is an actual headline on CNN.com from 2018:

"Paul Ryan says a family of woodchucks ate his car"

There's a metaphor in there for the state of our current body politic, but I'm not wise enough to tease it out.

Farewell II, Part 2

Musings about the death of Shane MacGowan, as spoken into my phone whilst driving around the region today. 

65. I can’t believe he made it to 65. News of people's passing, especially the famous kind, can be sort of wistful. Shane McGowan, dying at 65... all that popped into my head was Damn, it’s a miracle he made it to 65. 

This was a guy who was booted out of his band in 1991 because he was drinking so much that he was on a downward spiral to hell. Not only did he resuscitate and rejoin the band 15 years later in a Comeback Player of the Year sort of performance, but he lived 17 years beyond that. He outlived his bandmate Phil Chevron, amazingly. He outlived Dave Flynn, sadly. 

When I think of my appreciation of the Pogues and Shane McGowan, it begins in college. A Pi Lam pit dance floor, as "Fiesta" blared. And "Fairytale of New York," a Christmas song unlike any other, in small part because I could enjoy it midsummer as much as anytime. Our buddy Paci did and does still look just like Shane McGowan. If either of them ever aged at all, it’s hard to tell. You could say neither has aged all that well, but did you see what they looked like at the starting gate?  Sorry, Paci. 

What can you say about Shane McGowan's singing voice? It is equal parts fantastic and puzzling. It’s the opposite of lilting, as so many of his duet companions were. It’s semi-spoken, with a gravelly grit the waves of whiskey helped create. Make no mistake, it’s beautiful, but it’s Picasso beautiful. 

The Pogues piqued my interest in what can be called Celtic rock, I guess. I dug into The Waterboys and Big Country. Later the Dropkick Murphys and Flogging Molly.  Joe Strummer got involved with the Pogues and Shane McGowan. Amazingly, and not in the blessed kind of amazing, Joe died 21 years ago. Shane McGowan fucking outlived Joe Strummer, and all bets were against that. Whiskey drinking more than... well just a bit more than any other good Irishman, I suppose. Shane was a mess; there’s a documentary on him from a long time ago (2001, ghooghle says!) where you can hear him talk but you can’t really understand what he says because he’s down to a few teeth. He seemed on death's door then! I can’t believe he lived to the age of retirement. 

Maybe he just wanted to stick that middle finger up at all his doubters, reach the end zone age, and punch out. He outlived Kirsty McCall, tragically. He outlived Sinéad O’Connor. Outlived Dolores O’Riordan. All his duetters. 

The comeback show of 2006 was a story unto its own. Shane had been touring for a number of years with his band the Popes. They put out a couple of albums, Not terrible, not in the canon of the Pogues. Word got to us in DC that the 930 Club would be the venue where the Pogues would land for the first stop on American soil on their Reunited with Shane and It Feels So Good tour. Subtitled "Shane... Come back!" It was a big deal, and not just for those of us of Irish descent, or those of us who enjoyed good blarney rock ‘n’ roll, or those of us who had been following the Pogues. It was a big fucking deal. 

I haven’t known many Americans of Irish descent who so embodied the spirit of Erin as my large-and-in-charge friend Dave Flynn. Drinking with Dave was one of my very favorite pastimes of the late 1990s and early 2000s, and something I miss many Saturdays a year. And many Tuesdays a year. We got tickets for the March 9 show, that inaugural evening. Flynn's wife Marguerite was pregnant with their second daughter, and that Pogues show, momentous and unmissable as it was, was a little bit dicey in its timing. Until my mind goes for good, I will never forget the phone call I received from Dave about a week prior. 

Hey, when’s that Pogues show again?
March 9.
Perfect!! Marguerite gets induced on the 10th!! 

That's perfect?? I will still never get it, but I laughed heartily. We pregamed like ungated banshees, and we boozed whiskey the whole show while singing along with that long lost friend I’d never had, Shane McGowan. Old college mate Cap came up to us out of nowhere with two slugs of Jameson for us, then whisked away into the shadows of IRA whispers. The Pogues played every song on the desired docket. (Set list here.) Four songs in, however, Shane made a beeline off stage, and Flynn and I shrugged and looked at each other as if to say, it was a good run, and four songs was enough. What we didn’t know was that he would only remain off stage for two songs and then come back with a vengeance. And a bottle. 

As he sang "Fairytale of New York" with so-and-so (ye olde internet says Ella Finer, the daughter of Pogue Jem Finer), fake snow fell from the rafters of the 930 Club. It was fucking lovely. 

For "Fiesta," the night's closer, I charged up front to the moshpit. At 35, I still thought I had it. I did not. That muddy floor meant I hit hard. Some heavenly messenger in black denim scooped me up and set me upright so as not to be trampled by the masses. Maybe I’ve got a little luck o' the Shane in me as well. 

Dave Flynn died nine months later of a weekend heart. (I meant weakened but the dictation robot is clever as hell.) Shane McGowan outlived Flynn by 17 years. The world is weird and sometimes sad. 

So turn on the Pogues and tune into Shane McGowan today. I'll be heading to Grace O'Malley's (it's an Irish pub, for obtuse readers) in just a few moments and will raise a glass to Shane and Dave and a dozen more besides. Join me in spirit, if not in body.

65 years old. 

May we each defy the epitaph that others have constructed for us. And may we live on the sunnyside of the street forever.

A Farewell of a Different Sort

RIP to the amazing, debauched, brilliant, tortured Shane MacGowan. There are a ton of tunes that come to mind, but this one jumped into my head first. Come all you rambling boys of pleasure, indeed.

Farewell

This is a lovely eulogy by Jason Carter for his grandmother, former First Lady Rosalynn Carter. May we all live lives with such purpose and impact.

Jason Carter reached out to Jason Isbell last week and said this:

Hey ⁦@JasonIsbell⁩ you may not have known it, but you wrote this about my grandparents. Jimmy and Rosalynn. From a small town in Georgia. They were the flagship of the fleet for sure. https://t.co/4VPuG0QqcJ

— Jason Carter (@SenatorCarter) November 22, 2023

High praise, that. 

It's News to Me [***NEW RECURRING BIT ALERT!***]

I know a lot of things. Mostly inconsequential and esoteric things, but a lot of things nonetheless. But as Bill James tells us, the world is a billion times more complicated than our minds, and so there's a universe of stuff out there that someone knows, but that I don't.

Case in point, the origin story of Old Bay Seasoning.

Gustav Brunn was a successful spicemonger (we should use 'monger' for more things: zman is a lawmonger, for example) in Wertheim, Germany in the late 1930s. On Kristallnacht, he was one of 30,000 Jewish men who were captured by the Nazis and taken to the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp. At this point in history, the Nazis had yet to initiate their ghastly final solution, and men of means were often able to purchase their freedom. Brunn's family paid a lawyer 10,000 Deutschmarks to secure his release.

Brunn and his family left immediately for the United States and settled in Baltimore. He emigrated with very little, but he was adamant that he take his hand-crank spice grinder on the trans-Atlantic journey.

Unable to secure funding from banks to start a new business because he was Jewish (and after getting fired from McCormick for the same reason), Brunn got an assist from Katz American, a Jewish-owned competitor in the spice game. Katz loaned him the seed capital necessary to start Baltimore Spice Company, which in 1940 developed a seafood spice to pair with the crabs coming into town at the Wholesale Fish Market, which was immediately across the street from Brunn's business.

The rest, as they say, is history, save for one ironic coda. Brunn's business and McCormick feuded for years as the latter marketed a seafood seasoning in a suspiciously yellow tin. In 1990, five years after Brunn passed, the company sold the recipe for Old Bay to McCormick. Those dicks. 

Some of you may know this story, but it was news to me. 

Weird-Ass Filler/Audience Participation

My wife headed to Pittsburgh today to visit her folks. Her father had a bit of a medical scare and didn't get to travel to us for Thanksgiving (all is well, thankfully), and he's getting on in years, so she felt it important to get to see them. Took my youngest to the airport this morning, so my oldest and I got to hang for most of the day. 

If you know my oldest, you'll be clued into the fact that they're wildly creative, a bit provocative, and a perpetual motion machine. They're recovering from a stress fracture to a big toe, so the usual physical outlets aren't available. Which has manifest itself in a manic artistic spree: short stories, poems, drawings, vocalizations that may or may not make one think they're in the presence of a lunatic.

Because I wanted to extend my time with my kid, I agreed to play along when they suggested we make art together. We drew for five minutes and then switched pages and drew for five more, and so on. Friends, I give you...shit, I don't know. But I enjoyed it.

The pencil work is mine. The ink, my kid's. Please don't try to psychoanalyze us.

Might or might not be a Muppet sex party

Jesus doing a kick-flip

In addition to our illustration, we dug up a poetry prompt website and did some speed poetry. In the interest of expanding your parameters, this is a call to y'all. Using the random prompt generator at robertpeake.com, I got the following:

Include as many of the following words (or variations on these words) as you like:

pore-wise, derived, neighbor's, petrified, deaf, bright, norden, orphant, lemmate, goddesses, kools, rain-beaten

Also:

Mention an aspect of agriculture or farming

Make up an unusual name for a person and include it in the poem

And I turned it into:

Pore-wise Lemmate Orphant

Rain-beaten by the norden windspray

Deaf to his neighbor’s petrified plea

Skin alive buoyed by goddesses

Kools from his pocket, bright

With sparks derived from fakeflint

Hoping reaping pleasure

Sown from hopeful flirtation

Now it's your turn, Gheorghies. Use the poetry prompt generator at the link above, write as fast as you can, and share your work in the comments. Flex those right brains, my friends. Embrace your inner lunatic. I'm glad I got to do that with my kid.

Tim Ballard and the Story That Was Too Good to Be True (Allegedly)

I've had a few interesting brushes with fame and newsworthy items over the years. There was the LeBron thing, obviously. And I once told Katie Couric to stop asking questions of my high school classmates during a time one of my friends' fathers was held hostage and later murdered in Lebanon. There's a new entry to this category of my biography, and it's way weird.

Several years ago, i was a speaker at the Conference of Western Attorneys General (CWAG). The event itself seemed to be a bit of a boondoggle for the generals - held at the Biltmore in Scottsdale, which is a really nice resort, copious amounts of food and drink, and a handful of mildly interesting sessions. 

As a part of my company's sponsorship of the event and the organization, I got to interview a couple of attorneys general to get content for our marketing team to use in various communications. I met with Arizona AG Mark Brnovich, who I found very smart and dedicated, even though his politics are way different than mine. In that meeting I was accompanied by a colleague and several of General Brnovich's staff.

Tim Ballard

I also met with Utah AG Sean Reyes. The two of us were the only people in the room. It was a fascinating conversation that lasted more than two hours. That dude can tell stories, and he seems to like to do so. In particular, he told me a story of an operation he participated in where he posed as a customer interested in procuring underaged girls for sex as part of a sting organized by a former Department of Homeland Security agent. I remember telling him someone should make a movie of that sequence of events.

Seems I have an eye for that sort of thing, because they did. It's called Sound of Freedom, and it was released earlier this year to great fanfare from the political right. Reyes has a producer credit on the film, which purports to tell the true story of a guy named Tim Ballard, who founded an organization called Operation Underground Railroad (OUR) dedicated to freeing victims of sexual exploitation around the globe.

Ballard has been something of a darling of the right for quite a while. From its founding in 2013, OUR has been a useful tool for the QAnon crowd, with its ready-made mix of sex trafficking and border insecurity. And nearly from its founding, the organization and Ballard have been accused of overstating its impact and potentially traumatizing trafficked youth.

Now, Ballard faces multiple lawsuits from women alleging that he sexually abused them under the auspices of training them to participate in OUR operations. Here's an excerpt from a Slate article about the allegations:

On OUR missions, men posed as sex tourists or those supplying customers with underage victims to entrap the traffickers. But the men were not supposed to actually touch the victims themselves. (This was the principle, at least: The criminal investigation into OUR found that one operative, who was also an executive producer of Sound of Freedom, touched the naked breasts of an apparently underage trafficking victim during a 2016 undercover operation.) The “couples ruse” was OUR’s tactic of having a “jealous girlfriend” present with the man posing as a sex tourist to object to his inquiries in order to deflect suspicion from the undercover men.

But, according to the lawsuit, Ballard demanded that his female partners in this ruse show full commitment. He seemed to believe—or at least said he believed—that to be convincing, the two would have to act as a very “kinky” and highly sexual couple, unable to keep their hands off one another. And so to prove they would be right for the roles, the women would have to convince him that they would have “chemistry.”

To do so, they would “act out” that chemistry, privately. Ballard had two rules for the ruse: no kissing on the lips, and no touching or exposing genitals. But everything else was fair game. Ballard would grope the women. He would order them to strip and give him lap dances and prove they could “turn him on.” One woman recalled that in his first test of whether she would be a fit for the ruse, he pushed her up against the office door, grinding on her. The incident ended as someone walked in while he was trying to undo her jeans.

Ballard denies the allegations against him, but it's worth noting that The Church of Latter Day Saints (of which Ballard is a member) denounced his behavior as "morally unacceptable", and that he left OUR in July of this year under a cloud of suspicion related to the sexual improprieties as well as financial misdealings.

Tim Ballard is certainly innocent until proven guilty. It is undeniable, though, that multiple accusers have independently come forward with very similar stories. Ballard's alleged behavior and public persona are of a piece with the kind of macho MAGA preening all too common in modern America. If he's proven to be guilty, I hope he pays a stiff penalty. 

And Sean Reyes, well, better call your office.

Baby, if you've ever wondered, wondered whether it was gonna post...

🎵I'm posting on the morn for you this Thanksgiving
This Thanksgiving...that clip from WKRP...🎵

Back on my bullshit bonus holiday content:

Props Given

Imagine for a moment Shane Battier winning the 2001 NCAA Tournament title in his senior season, being named national college player of the year to boot, and instead of moving on after graduation, replacing his legendary head coach as the leader of the program. The stakes and details aren't exactly the same, but a reasonable facsimile of that scenario just played out in NCAA field hockey.

Erin Matson is regarded as one of the greatest field hockey players in American history. She was ACC Player of the Year five times at North Carolina (COVID year and everything) and national Player of the Year thrice. Her Tar Heels won four NCAA titles during her time in Chapel Hill. She's a member of the U.S. national team. And now, after UNC defeated Northwestern in a penalty shootout on Sunday to win their fifth title in six years, she's a national champion coach.

Legendary Tar Heel coach Karen Shelton resigned in December 2022 after 42 years at the helm of the nation's all-time winningest program. While still a student at UNC (but after her final season) Matson approached UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham and expressed her interest in succeeding her mentor. To his credit, Cunningham took her seriously, though he admitted in an interview, it was "...an idea that you probably do have to sit with for a while to say, ‘OK, am I really going to consider this?’ After an interview process, Matson was named the head coach of the UNC program in January 2023.

Her teammates (and in one case, roommate) went from friends hanging out on Franklin Street with her to players dealing with her demanding standards. Romea Riccardo (who happens to be nine months older than her coach), said “Right away she did a great job of kind of separating herself from us. We respected her right away. We always respected her as a player. But now obviously it’s a little bit different when she’s our coach and our person that we kind of look up to as a mom figure.”

Kinda mean to do this to your mom, though:

Had to know that was coming 💦 pic.twitter.com/X9CMU1hEWO

— UNC Field Hockey (@UNCFieldHockey) November 20, 2023

Gheorghasbord

Your usual collection of flotsam and jetsam painstakingly fished from the eddies and tributaries of my mind.

The team at Meadowlark Media has been incredibly prolific in the company's first two years. Recently, Dan Le Batard's folks launched a podcast featuring former ESPN personality Pablo Torre called Pablo Torre Finds Out. The Harvard-educated Torre is incredibly bright, and voraciously curious. The show has proven to be equally adept at handling serious topics and delving into extreme goofiness with entertaining results regardless. I commend to your attention as an example of the former the episode entitled The Teenage Athlete at the Heart of America's Culture War... Isn't Very Good at Sports, which is a well-reported and good-natured discussion of a trans female's high school softball career. Torre's recent interview episodes with Action Bronson and Desus Nice fall nicely into the latter category. Once you're caught up on We Defy Augury, I highly recommend PTFO.

In other self-entertainment news (that's fit for a family blog like this one), I've changed my social media habits a bit. I left Twitter a few months ago after Elon Musk's cringy anti-semitism and the site's increasingly bitter tone got too much for me. It's a bummer, honestly, because I once got real value from my interactions there. I've been hanging out on Bluesky, instead. To date, I find it eccentric, good-natured, and a bit wonky. It's still invite-only, so if you'd like your micro-blogging on the weird side, hit me up - I've got a handful to distribute.

There's been a new development in the war between the neighboring Catholic church and my dog-walking habits. Two days ago, I noticed that the church maintenance team had set up a barrier made of branches and a large stump blocking access to one of three pathways to the road that leads from the church to downtown Leesburg. It's clearly an intentional escalation of the simmering hostilities. So I took a page from the Bible (Matthew 28:2-4, in particular) and rolled the stump away from the path, just like an angel of the Lord did at Jesus' tomb. As Proverbs 12:10 says, “A righteous man cares for the life of his beast, but the compassion of the wicked is cruel.” I'm just doing right by my beast.

Michigan, Man

This is a post in the form of a question. Or maybe vice versa. Either way, it’s something I’ve mulled for a few days. In the drama concerning sign-stealing by University of Michigan football, the outing of an over-enthusiastic minion with an expense account, and head coach Jim Harbaugh’s suspension by the Big Ten Conference, why is this anything other than a high-profile case of workplace discipline? 

We’ve been subjected to varying degrees of outrage, calls for stricter or lesser punishment depending on rooting interest, and peeks behind the curtain related to sportsmanship and coaching practices. We’ve heard endless yammering about due process and legal challenges and NCAA overreach and temporary injunctions – a sampling of the elements that make sports a magical draw for so many. The fact that it’s major-college, high-dollar athletics adds layers of passion and gasbaggery beyond reasonable measure. 

Harbaugh sat out the first game of his three-game suspension last Saturday at Penn State when Michigan Big Hats were unable to arrange an immediate hearing in hopes of getting the punishment overturned or at least delayed. The Wolverines dedicated their performance to their absent leader and afterward some reacted as if Harbaugh had perished while rescuing nuns from a burning convent. 

Harbaugh remains with the program each week. He is barred from the stadium for four hours during the final three regular season games, the last of which is the annual blood feud versus Ohio State. He returns to the sideline if the Wolverines make the Big Ten championship game and the College Football Playoff. 

This has been characterized as “unfair” and “extreme” and as much as “irreparable harm” by the Maize and Blue crowd, while others think the punishment insufficient for the transgression revealed. A hearing is scheduled Friday, which figures to be at least a one-ring circus, particularly if Harbaugh testifies. But again, if I may, isn’t it within the Big Ten’s purview to impose discipline or punish people and institutions as it sees fit? 

It’s not as cut-and-dried as some perceived offense at Microsoft or McDonald’s and granted, Harbaugh isn’t an “employee” of the Big Ten. He’s employed by Michigan. Which agrees to certain guidelines and conditions as a member of the conference, one being ‘don’t play us and make us look like feebs.’  

Attorneys both credentialed and armchair have gone all pro bono and talked up the points of lack of due process and fair practices in the Big Ten’s suspension. But this isn’t a criminal case. Heck, it’s barely an NCAA case at this point, only the notice of an investigation and some preliminary findings. This situation strikes less as due process and more about the expectation that the Big Ten should cut the membership some slack. 

Part of Michigan’s defense is: everybody does it, an extension of the old NASCAR credo, “If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’.” It seems that many programs do indeed attempt to steal signs, but using electronics to relay signals to coaches and players is forbidden, and in-person scouting and attempted sign-stealing has been an NCAA violation since 1994. 

Another component is that Harbaugh himself supposedly was unaware of the assistant’s sign-stealing M.O., his visits to various stadia and upcoming opponents to videotape their sidelines. The Big Ten looked at the preponderance of examples of the assistant, Connor Stalions, purchasing tickets at different venues and cozying up to Wolverines’ coordinators and determined that the practice was ongoing and systemic. That other Big Ten schools called out Michigan for its sign stealing methods didn’t bolster its defense. 

The Big Ten stopped short of saying Harbaugh knew, though someone who famously micro-manages his program being completely unaware over an extended period stretches credibility. The conference was careful to say that it was punishing Michigan and not Harbaugh. Jumping ugly on an expendable second-tier assistant coach wasn’t sufficient, however, hence the call to suspend the CEO. 

Certainly, it may be ham-handed or poor timing or hastily considered, or all the above. It hardly needs pointing out that corporations and governing bodies are as entitled to questionable decisions as those they oversee, and they happen to wield the hammer (Here I should point out that I welcome the G:TB Legal Dept., or those in the audience who aren’t self-employed, weighing in to tell me if I’m missing something). 

Michigan’s athletic director was predictably huffy after the suspension, saying in effect: “You’re happy that they banged us? That just means they can come for you, too.” A mite short on the contrition scale, and unfortunately permits them to focus on the process and punishment, and not the violation. No telling what will come from Friday’s hearing. Regardless, the Big Ten offices will want to scrutinize incoming holiday packages. Food tasters may not be a bad idea, either.

Gheorghe Explains White People's Thanksgiving Food

For quite some time, I've harbored the belief that the best part of Thanksgiving is fellowship and daydrinking, and the worst part is the food. I come to this understanding with a set of priors based upon my upbringing and subsequent maturing among very white people. I've heard tell of bountiful harvests of mustard greens and mac and cheese and hamhocks, but I've never partaken in such glorious repast. I'm not qualified to offer an opinion on the full range of Thanksgiving gustatory blessings.

I am, however, fully qualified to rank white people's Thanksgiving food. As our families descend upon us, or we travel to be with them, this seems the perfect time to share. And so, into the kitchen breach, my friends, with Gheorghe's Definitive Ranking of Thanksgiving Food:

Dead Fucking Last: Yams, Sweet Potato Pie, and any other derivatives. 

Fucking disgusting. Too sweet, too squishy, too orange, and why would you ruin perfectly good marshmallows like that? Dislike.

12. Pumpkin Pie

Awful consistency, tastes like feet.

11. Turkey

Boring, bland, way too much effort to cook, carve, and serve. Unfortunately, this is always our main dish. White people hate change.

10. Pecan Pie

Too sweet. Makes my teeth hurt. 

9. Cranberry sauce (from the can)

Shouldn't be as good as it is. My move is always to eat my first plate without it, then slice a little bit for my second round. Kinda like a dessert appetizer.

8. Creamed corn

Okay. Don't love the consistency, but corn tastes good. And the original Pilgrims had it with their meal, so it's historically accurate.

7. Roasted carrots

Gotta cook 'em so there's some carmelization but still some crunch. Little butter and parsley. That's an orange foodstuff I can get behind.

6. Green Beans/Green Bean Casserole

As long as they're cooked with ham, and have enough butter (and cream in the case of the casserole), these are top notch. Now we're getting somewhere.

5. Stuffing

The Stove Toppier the better. Mix it with some mashed potatoes and green beans? Oh hell yes.

4. Apple Pie

The GOAT holiday dessert. Serve it warm with a dollop of cinnamon ice cream, finish it and drift off to fat sleep.

3. Mashed potatoes

My wife got her recipe from her father, and it's fantastic. Lots and lots of butter and cream. Silky texture, and you can feel it coating your arteries. One of the few things for which I'm willing to go back for seconds.

2. Creamed onions

Little pearls of perfection. You don't like 'em? Fine, I'll eat yours. 

1. Booze

Red wine, beers, whiskey, whatever your tipple of choice. Alcohol is the only Thanksgiving menu item that's non-negotiable. This year, I'm making something called a Cranberry Mule, which is basically a whiskey-based Dark & Stormy with cranberry sauce. I'll let you know how it turns out.

I'm aware that there are other popular Thanksgiving foods, like scalloped potatoes (meh), roasted Brussels sprouts (dig 'em, but we usually don't have them with our meal), dinner rolls (excellent vehicles for more butter), and such, but I can only rank what I know.