Just a Quick Recap

Yesterday the White House released a memorandum summarizing a conversation between Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Soon thereafter, millions of pundits analyzed the document and pontificated as to whether or not the conversation amounted to a quid pro quo--a grant of military funding from the US to Ukraine in return for Ukraine initiating an investigation into Joe Biden's son. I think it's pretty clear that the conversation resulted in a bartered-for exchange:

Trump said "United States has been very very good to Ukraine. I wouldn't say that it's reciprocal necessarily because things are happening that are not good but the United States has been very very good to Ukraine."

Zelenskyy replied "Yes you are absolutely right .... I would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps specifically we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes."

Trump immediately replied "I would like you to do us a favor ..." and asked for Ukraine to look into CrowdStrike.

Zelenskyy's next words were "Yes it is very important for me and everything that you just mentioned earlier. For me as a President, it is very important and we are open for any future cooperation." He then said he's looking forward to seeing Rudy Giuliani.

Trump rambles for a sentence or two and then says "The other thing, There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it... It sounds horrible to me."

Zelenskyy responds that "the next prosecutor general will be 100% my person, my candidate, who will be approved, by the parliament and will start as a new prosecutor in September. He or she will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue."

Trump replies "I will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call and I am also going to have Attorney General Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it. I'm sure you will figure it out."

Zelenskyy notes that he stayed in the Trump Tower the last time he visited New York City and adds that he "would like to thank you very much for your support."

Satisfied, Trump wraps things up with "Good. Well, thank you very much and I appreciate that. I will tell Rudy and Attorney General Barr to call. Thank you."

These guys just did a deal, right? In a nutshell, the first guy told the second guy that the second guy takes but doesn't give; the second guy offered to make it up to the first guy by "coooperating" to buy some stuff from him; the first guy asked for a favor; the second guy said yes and noted that he's open to "future cooperation"; the first guy asked for another favor; the second guy said he'd put someone on it right away; the first guy said his boys Rudy and Bob would be in touch to discuss next steps; they both thanked each other.

How is this not a quid pro quo exchange? More importantly, WHO THE FUCK CARES IF THIS IS A QUID PRO QUO EXCHANGE!?!?!? THIS IS FUCKING COLLUSION OR CONSPIRACY OR COOPERATION OR WHATEVER ELSE YOU WANT TO CALL IT!!!

Robert Mueller and his team spend close to two years investigating Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election. He was not looking for "quid pro quo," he was looking for "coordination" between the Russian government and the Trump campaign. I know this because page 2 of the Mueller Report says "we addressed the factual question whether members of the Trump Campaign 'coordinat[ed]'—a term that appears in the appointment order—with Russian election interference activities." Page 2 of the Mueller Report notes that "[l]ike collusion, 'coordination' does not have a settled definition in federal criminal law. We understood coordination to require an agreement—tacit or express—between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government on election interference."

Isn't that exactly what Trump and Zelenskyy did? They tacitly agreed to interfere with the upcoming 2020 Presidential election, right? Why isn't anyone saying this? Why is everyone debating "quid pro quo"? You mean to tell me that if Mueller found a tape recording of a phone call between Trump and Putin saying what I outlined above, Mueller still would have concluded that there was no "cooperation" between Trump and Russia? If you're telling me that, please pass me whatever you're drinking.

The Mueller Report also analyzed the facts under the rubric of conspiracy, applying 18 U.S.C. § 371 and statutes with similar standards. Mueller Report at 181. The elements of conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. § 371 are:

(1) Two or more persons
(2) conspire (i.e., intentionally agree--you can't have a conspiracy between a criminal and an undercover cop because the cop doesn't really intend to commit the crime)
(3) to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and
(4) one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy

Trump's call with Zelenskyy had two people. Element 1, check. They intentionally agreed to do something, namely to investigate CrowdStrike and Biden. Element 2, check. Trump hopes that investigating Biden will result in information adverse to his political rival, so he's asking a foreign government to provide information that will influence the next election. Element 3, check (see 52 U.S.C. § 30121(a)(1)(C); United States v. Renzi, 769 F.3d 731, 744 (9th Cir. 2014)). So long as Zelenskyy took a single step towards investigating Biden, we have element 4 and thus a conspiracy.

I just explained this in under 1000 words (987 to be exact) and I could definitely pare it down if I wasn't lazy. Why doesn't anyone else with a bigger platform point this out? Probably because DJ Trump Jedi mind tricked everyone again, and has us all talking about quids and pros. To paraphrase KRS-ONE, I encourage you to wake up, take the pillow from your head and put a book in it. Or at least a few statutes.

Stupid Human Tricks

Courtesy of the most accomplished rugger in the G:TB family (with apologies to Whitney and TR, if only to be polite), here's a bit of Rugby World Cup color*.



As the first comment below the video pithily notes, ook maar lekker dom ne.

* It's possible that this isn't from the 2019 Rugby World Cup. Nevertheless, our editors have deemed it representative.

The Old 49er

At some point this morning, probably not early, our man Whitney's gonna wake up and crank this tune:



All the best to our favorite Southsider. Hope you close out your 40s in style.

(We've hidden a sublime joke opportunity in this post. Let's see if our birthday boy notices.)

Official G:TB Rugby World Cup Preview

"There’s going to be some sort of drama that unfolds that changes whatever the popularly accepted narrative is about the winner or who’s going to be in the semifinals or who’s even going to be in the quarterfinals.”

Hightower takes the game very seriously.

So sayeth no less a sage than our own Brian Hightower on the eve of the 2019 Rugby World Cup. That may seem like anodyne stuff put out by NBC as part of the pre-tournament publicity package. But Hightower doesn't do anodyne. I think he's picking the USA Eagles to make a run to the Final Four. And I'm right beside him.

Though the Eagles are ranked a modest 13th in the world, they did win the Olympic gold medal. In 1924, but that's hardly relevant. Coach Gary Gold's squad recorded the US's first-ever tier 1 win last summer, knocking off Scotland, 30-29. The team followed that up with a win over Samoa. Most observers believe that the Americans find themselves in the World Cup's Group of Death, where they'll face France, Argentina, England, and Tonga. (As an aside, the Tonga Toast at Disney's Polynesian resort is absurdly good, especially accompanied by french press coffee, and has the added benefit of carrying enough calories to get you through an entire day.)

Those observers believe that the U.S.A. will be lucky to get one win out of the event, most likely against Tonga. I think we all know what Brian Hightower thinks of that conventional wisdom. The Eagles play England in Kobe on September 26 to kick off their tournament.

As for the rest of the entrants in the 20-team tournament, USA Eagle legend Dan Lyle frames it this way, "I call this the five-five-and-five. You’ve got five teams who can absolutely win it. You’ve got five teams who have beaten those five, and then you’ve got five more below that that have beaten those five."

That first five consists of the legendary All-Blacks of New Zealand, Ireland, England, South Africa, and Wales. A punter putting cash down on any of the other 15 sides is in it for a lark.

Your likely winners.

The tournament starts today, with hosts Japan taking on Russia in Tokyo. Ireland are actually the top-ranked side in the world rankings, narrowly ahead of New Zealand. The All-Blacks are the betting favorite at 6/4, having won the previous two World Cups. Ireland's fly half, Jonathan Sexton, was the 2018 world player of the year, but he's battled injuries recently. With him healthy, the Irish are dangerous. Without him, they may not get out of their group. Wales briefly occupied the top spot in the world rankings earlier this year, though they fell to Ireland, 22-17 just a few weeks ago.

Our fearless (and clueless) prognosticators have pooled their limited mental resources. Here's the official G:TB Rugby World Cup prediction:

Pool A: (Ireland, Scotland, Japan, Samoa, Russia)
Winner: Scotland
Runner-Up: Ireland
Faux-knowledgeable Commentary: The hosts are an up-and-comer, and could give the Scots and Irish a tumble, but there's too much quality from the traditional powers.

Pool B: (New Zealand, South Africa, Italy, Canada, Namibia)
Winner: South Africa
Runner-Up: New Zealand
Faux-knowledgeable Commentary: They really needn't bother play out all the matches in this one. The drop in quality from the top two teams to the rest is river deep and ocean wide. New Zealand will rest their best players against South Africa, which will give the Springboks a chance to take the group.

Pool C: (England, France, Argentina, USA, Tonga)
Winner: England
Runner-Up: France
Faux-knowledgeable Commentary: What was all that crap about the USA making the semi-finals? Turns out we've never won more than one match in a World Cup, but this year we're gonna beat Tonga and upset Argentina, so...progress! And Remember 1924!

Pool D: (Wales, Australia, Fiji, Georgia, Uruguay)
Winner: Wales
Runner-Up: Fiji
Faux-knowledgeable Commentary: We're going a little out on a limb here. The Fijians are playing (sort of) close to home, they're fast and creative, and we really feel bad about picking chalk in all the rest of the pools. Vei Lomani!

Quarterfinals:
England over Fiji
Ireland over South Africa
Wales over France
New Zealand over Scotland

Semifinals:
Ireland over England
New Zealand over Wales

Finals:
New Zealand over Ireland

And if the All-Blacks do lift their fourth Webb Ellis trophy, the guy second from left in the shot below won't be all that happy. Drunk, but not all that happy:

If you get Fairfax County Public Access television, you can watch Mr. KQ
wax knowledgeable about all things Rugby World Cup while wearing that hat.

In keeping with our tradition of finding the important things about sports, we'll also call your attention to a cool review of the kits worn by each of the teams. Rugby shirts sure have come a long way from when they were de rigueur for high school preppy kids. I had a few.

Follow this space for plenty of coverage from Japan. (Note: not likely to be plenty, and probably not from Japan, unless Zman or TR makes another trip there.) There will be plenty of Hightower references here over the next few weeks, though.

Time is a Flat, Lefthanded Circle

When I was a lad, my favorite professional athlete was Carl Yastrzemski. I practiced his pigeon-toed lefty stance, leaning forward just a bit, twirling my Wiffle bat towards the pitcher with my right hand before cocking it above my left ear. I was in Fenway Park on July 24, 1979 when he hit his 400th homer against Oakland's Mike Morgan.

So how cool do you think I found it when his grandson Mike, an outfielder for the San Francisco Giants, played his first big league game in Boston this evening? Or when he did this?



There are occasions in sport that are almost too good to be true. This one was both.

State of Play

From the desk of our OBX correspondent, a topic that hits close to home for several amongst the assembled Gheorghies, the role adults play in making youth sports more stressful and less fun than they should be and the associated consequences.

It’s a familiar sight. An athlete sits at a table behind a bank of microphones. He announces that he is retiring from competitive sports. The pressure has become too great at his age. He says that sports are no longer fun. He will miss his coaches and teammates, but it’s time to quit. Except that he is nine.



The commercial, which began running in August, was produced by the Aspen Institute as part of an initiative called “Don’t Retire, Kid.” The average child plays sports fewer than three years and quits by age 11, according to a recent study by the institute and Utah State University. In 2018, only 38 percent of kids age 6-to-12 played a sport, down from 45 percent a decade earlier, according to the Sports and Fitness Industry Association. The reason most often cited is that sports were no longer fun.

The Aspen Institute is a think tank known mostly for convening smart and influential people to discuss high-minded issues – business, education, the environment, justice, global affairs. It also contains a division devoted to Health and Sport. Within that is the Sport in Society program, which began in 2011 and whose mission is, in its words: to convene leaders, foster dialogue, and inspire solutions that help sport serve the public interest, with a focus on the development of healthy children and communities.

Impediments to that goal are rising costs and, far too often, the adults in charge. On average, parents spend almost $700 per year on one child’s sports participation, according to the institute’s 2019 State of Play report. Plenty of parents spend thousands per year, depending on the sport and level of competition, with travel accounting for the largest outlay.

The report is interesting reading, 32 pages of trends, problems, charts, recommendations, and initiatives both local and national. Among the report’s troubling findings were that fewer than 20 percent of youth coaches have been trained within the past three years in CPR, basic first aid, concussion management and injury prevention. Parents surveyed that their kids’ greatest source of pressure comes from coaches. Specialization causes early burnout and repetitive stress injuries in still-developing bodies. Some parents push their kids behind the idea of earning college scholarships and perhaps professional careers. Some parents who wish to dial back from increasingly competitive and costly situations fear they can’t because to do so would cut off outlets and opportunities for their kids.

Kobe Bryant, who the institute enlisted as a spokesman in its effort, says in a spot, “Sports used to be something that kids go out and do for fun. But now it’s become so regimented where parents start to inject their own experiences or past failures onto their children, and it just takes the fun out of it.”

Granted, sports aren’t for everybody. But studies show that being active and playing sports as a kid can have physical, social and psychological benefits. Kids who play sports are less likely to be overweight or develop Type 2 diabetes. They are less likely to suffer from stress and depression, and more likely to be academically successful and attend college. They are more likely to remain active as adults and at least sweat a little between beer sessions.

(Ed Note: The institute may be rethinking its choice of spokesperson after Bryant publicly chastised a sixth-grader on Instagram for missing a playoff hoops game in favor of a dance recital. Hear the message, disregard the messenger, or something.)

For me, the most disheartening trend is the widening gap between the haves and have-nots, and how it relates to youth sports. One-third of kids age 6-to-12 in households with less than $25,000 income were physically inactive in 2018, compared to fewer than 10 percent of kids in households with income greater than $100,000. In households with incomes between $25,000-50,000, almost one-fourth of kids (24.5 percent) did not participate in a sport. The most promising and gifted kids are always going to be helped and subsidized, but this is about the vast majority being systematically excluded.

The report’s first recommendation is: ask kids what they want. In surveys where kids are asked to rank different components of playing sports, having fun, hanging out with friends, and learning new skills rate very highly. Elite level competition is generally way down the list.

Other recommendations include: reintroduce free play, so that not all activity is regimented; encourage sport sampling, and cut back on specialization and overtraining; revitalize in-town leagues, so that activities are available for kids and families of modest means; train coaches in basic first aid practices, as well as age- and talent-appropriate methods and messages.

It’s kids and sports. How did we muck it up this badly?

People, Every Once in a Great While, Don't Suck

Arkansas State football coach Blake Anderson's wife Wendy passed on August 19, succumbing to cancer, that motherfucker. Anderson returned to coaching the Red Wolves last week, leading them to a 43-17 win over UNLV.

Today, in Athens, GA, Arkansas State is taking on the University of Georgia. The Bulldogs' colors are famously black and red.

And yet, a significant portion of the Sanford Stadium crowd is wearing pink in Wendy Anderson's honor.



That's a cool thing you've done, Bulldogs.

Life In Vain, Not So Much

Daniel Johnston died yesterday.

It's likely that at least some of you have heard of this enigmatic figure.  He was fascinating. Like can't-look-away fascinating.

Visual artist, musician, poet.

Manic depressive, bipolar, schizophrenic.

NPR called him a "troubled soul." This bit of information about sums him up, from Wikipedia:

In spite of Johnston being resident in a mental hospital at the time, there was a bidding war to sign him. He refused to sign a multi-album deal with Elektra Records because Metallica was on the label's roster and he was convinced that they were of Satan and would hurt him. Ultimately he signed with Atlantic Records in February 1994.

And the music... just wow. When he sings, your initial takeaway is... yeah, there's something wrong with Daniel. Your inner five-year-old voice is Daniel Johnston's outer persona, particularly when he sings. So... it sounds like a little kid with a disability singing super-simple lyrics over two chords of guitar? That must sound terrible, right?

Wrong. It's great. Well, by traditional aesthetics it may be unlistenable, and it's not for everyone, for sure, but if you can dig in, you'll definitely hear it in there.  The real beauty.

This is someone who was working at McDonald's in the early 1980's and would hand out his homemade cassettes with homemade cover art.

Kurt was a fan

Someone who sings about life -- and make no mistake, life was very difficult for Daniel Johnston -- in an unadulterated, wide-eyed way.
Someone who lived with his parents or in institutions for much of his life.
Someone who gained a cult following, defying all logic.
Someone who made his own brand of music and toured all over, playing his songs.
Someone who had a documentary made about him.
This is Daniel Johnston.

I could write more about him, but others have done it plenty, and done it way better than I could. His backstory in an article from the Austin paper, where he lived for a long time. Here's a recent NPR Tiny Desk recording. And you can just Google his name to find more than a few posthumous tributes. Here's the Austin rendition.

I mean, it's easy to shake your head when you read this.

In 1990, Johnston played at a music festival in Austin, Texas. On the way back to West Virginia on a private two-seater plane piloted by his father Bill, Johnston had a manic psychotic episode; believing he was Casper the Friendly Ghost, Johnston removed the key from the plane's ignition and threw it outside. His father, a former U.S. Air Force pilot, managed to successfully crash-land the plane, even though "there was nothing down there but trees". Although the plane was destroyed, Johnston and his father emerged with only minor injuries. As a result of this episode, Johnston was involuntarily committed to a mental hospital.

But then, watch this Austin City Limits rendition of one of my favorites of his, "Life in Vain." Judd Apatow says it "makes me cry every time."

His pièce de résistance is a song called "True Love Will Find You in the End."

The song is so simple. It's 1:48 long. It has a guitar quietly emanating a pair of chords in the far-off background. And the lyrics are just so simple. But they're really quite nice.

True Love Will Find You in the End

True love will find you in the end
You'll find out just who was your friend
Don't be sad, I know you will
But don't give up until
True love will find you in the end

This is a promise with a catch
Only if you're looking can it find you
'Cause true love is searching too
But how can it recognize you
If you don't step out into the light, the light

Don't be sad I know you will
Don't give up until
True love will find you in the end


And that voice.

Wilco, Beck, and many, many others have covered it. Decently. My favorite cover is by a band called Hey Marseilles.

But what any cover lacks is what makes Johnston's songs remarkable -- his plain, plaintive singing, the childlike quality that makes you not just hear it, not just listen to it, not just feel it, but it makes you think.

About what the fuck must be going on with that cat's head.
And his life.
And what it must have taken to throw himself out there like that.
And what odds he overcame in his life.
And how if he can do this, why can't I?
And lots of other things more specific and personal to you. That's the cool part of it.

People took to calling him "genius." Which bothered him, and which you don't need to do to someone suffering from those conditions. It's just a word in the end, and whether it bears truth or not when applied to Daniel Johnston, it doesn't matter. He created something that wasn't there, and his legacy is permanent. And it was, in its own way, really beautiful. Beauty does take some interesting shapes. 

Rest in peace, Daniel Johnston. In the end, it seemed that many people found their true love in your music and your art and your message. Here's hoping it found you.

"Don't be sad, I know you will."

Post

I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice. Still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they're gone. I guess I just miss my friends.

In Praise of Badass Women

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing white dudes that they were somehow superior to the rest of the human race. We'll pay for that original sin for the rest of our natural lives. And this stupid blog ain't gonna make any kind of real dent in the problem. So we'll do what we can.

Here's to some badass women doing amazing stuff this week.

G:TB fave Elena Delle Donne just finished one of the best seasons in WNBA history. It's impressive enough that she averaged 19.5 points and 8.3 rebounds for the Washington Mystics, who finished the regular season with the league's best record. But the way she did it was unprecedented. Delle Donne dropped the first 50/40/90 season in the WNBA's history, making 51.5% of her shots from the field, 43.0% of her three-pointers, and an absolutely absurd 97.4% of her free throws. She might be the best free-throw shooter on the planet right now, regardless of gender.

Staying in the sporting domain, I certainly hope you got to see the U.S. Open Women's Final between Serena Williams and Bianca Andreescu. Down 3-6, 1-5 and match point, Williams summoned Wyatt Earp crossing the river to gun down Curly Bill Brocious, going anything but gently into that good night. When she drew even at 5-5 in the second set, the Flushing Meadows crowd roared a collective cathartic yawp that should've overwhelmed the 19 year-old Andreescu.



When the young Canadian steeled herself and won the final two games of the second set to take her first major championship, she displayed a mental toughness that's hard to fathom.



Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby, Amanda Shires and Maren Morris are accomplished artists in their own rights. Now, as The Highwomen, they're a supergroup on paper, and a protest movement in reality, cloaked in amazing harmonies and killer tunes. "Highwomen", the eponymous tune that kicks off the group's debut album echoes The Highwaymen's similar song, but packs the haunting emotional punch of three centuries of women killed fighting for their power-threatening beliefs. As Vulture.com puts it, "...the message being that in spite of radical changes in the human experience, the main theme — people in power keeping other people out of power — endures. These women just wanted to live, love, and be loved, but the planet couldn’t handle that."



The Vulture.com review linked above celebrates The Highwomen and their continuation of a long legacy of strong women in country music. That's the easy part. The essay also pointedly remarks, "Most people believe in equality, but their numbers tend to thin when you ask what they’re willing to sacrifice to secure it."

That's a whole lot harder.

NFL Kickoff Open Thread

I don't watch much football these days, at least not the American kind. But lots of folks do, and we're all about inclusion at G:TB. So here's The Sundays singing about the summer. I definitely like Harriet Wheeler and summer.

I Don't Work There No More

Many of us endeavor to play at the games that brought us joy (and pain) as younger men. Mark plays basketball. I play soccer. Dave wears visors. Danimal swims, bikes, and runs. Increasingly, our bodies send us signals that question the wisdom of such efforts. I sprained my ankle badly enough playing soccer last November that it still hurt in February, for example.

I recently set a personal fitness goal, putting a stake in the ground and saying that I plan to be playing soccer when I turn 60. Ambitious, perhaps, but even if I'm successful, I've got nothing on Ryuichi Nagayama.

The 86 year-old Nagayama is a physician in Tokyo. More relevant to our topic today, he also plays lock for the Fuwaka Rugby Club, which is comprised of players aged 40 and above. Fuwaka RC was founded in 1948, and is one of about 150 clubs in Japan that field over-40 squads.

“You tackle and battle each other, but the gathering after the play is so enjoyable and fun,” says Nagayama, who knows his way around a rugby party, and according to legend, fucks up 'I Used to Work in Chicago' on purpose so he can shoot the boot for kicks. (Pun not intended, but it made me giggle so I left it in.)



As I type these words, I know for a near certainty that Whitney and Mr. KQ are feeling an itch that they can't quite explain. In Whitney's case, there's medication for that.

Here's to Dr. Nagayama and to never really growing up.

Gheorghasbord

Whittling some metaphorical sticks while avoiding grappling with the issues of our time. Here's what's rattling through the aging brain.

Watched a bit of Federer/Dimitrov last night, an evening after watching Nadal play Maren Cilic. I texted Zman on Monday wondering how Nadal's body doesn't simply explode from the force he applies to his strokes. Lots of HGH, according to our expert. Nadal is 33 years old, Federer a preposterous 38. The Swiss star looked every one of those years last night, fading badly over the final two sets to lose his quarterfinal match to the journeyman Bulgarian. The Flushing Meadows crowd was visibly upset at the champion's wilting. He's defied time for an amazingly long stretch. Perhaps time's caught up. Fed's always had a pretty good perspective on his career, and he seems to understand what's important, saying post-match, “I’m looking forward to family time and all that stuff. So life’s all right.”

Life's all right, indeed.

My dog, thinking deep
thoughts. Right before
rolling in dead fish guts.

All right for me and the fam, too, which is a blessing. We spent last weekend at friends' river house at the confluence of the Rappahannock River and the Chesapeake Bay. Many of you know that we adopted a puppy a few months ago. This weekend was her first chance to really cut loose off the leash. Between the various families at the house, there were a total of five dogs. It was bedlam from breakfast to bedtime. There's a little salt pond on one side of the house, and our puppy, JoJo, discovered how much she loves water. There may be no return. Hard to imagine how much we love this goofy spaz that only entered our life in June.

Speaking of goofy spazzes, check out Charlie Slowes' call of Kurt Suzuki's walkoff homer from last night's Mets/Nationals game. As Whit noted in the comments from the previous post, the Mets blew a 10-4, 9th inning lead, giving up seven runs in the bottom of the 9th to lose 11-10. Thomas Boswell says it's one of the 20 worst losses in the long history of Major League Baseball. Ouch, babe.

The radio call of Kurt Suzuki's #WALKOFF home run is the song of the summer.@CharlieSlowes // @DaveJageler pic.twitter.com/bOavak1BxI

— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) September 4, 2019

Moving along, please fasten your seatbelts, because the jarring disconnect between the last nugget and the next may cause injury.

I've been reading the New York Times' epic 1619 Project, which traces the history of slavery in America from its beginning to its undeniable impacts on our present day society. The project is comprised of a series of stories on a broad range of topics, from the actual mechanics of slavery, to enslaved people's impacts on music and art, to how slavery explains Atlanta's current fucked-up traffic patterns, among many things. It's unsparing, and it's hard to read. Predictably, elements of our intelligentsia call it leftist propaganda, probably without having read any of it. Regardless, it's important, and more of those of us who live comfortable lives free from ever having to personally confront what it's like to be the other should try to digest it. Slavery colors our world today, whether we try to deny it.

A little bit more whiplash to end these meanderings. Someone on Twitter posted yesterday that the President* stands like he's a centaur whose missing his hind legs and now I can't unsee that image. Here for your viewing pleasure.

In Solidarity with Mark and Danimal

While Team Gheorghe sends well wishes to our Florida brethren, and in a desperate need for more #content, this morning I give you a smattering of songs associated with liquid water in the form of droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor and then become heavy enough to fall under gravity. Please feel free to jump in the comments and tell me what I missed. In the immortal words of Ollie Williams, IT'S GON' RAIN!

Take Me to the River

Good morning, GheorghieFriends! A brief drop-by this morning for me, as I cap a four-week whirlwind of travel with a relatively short three-hour jaunt to Whitestone, VA, at the confluence of the Rappahannock River and the Chesapeake Bay. Our friends have a house there, and I plan to spend the next three days paddling around on a kayak, chasing my puppy around, and drinking too much good beer.

Al Green and Talking Heads played a song for me.

May you all have a labor-free Labor Day.

G:TB State Fair Month

Molten cream cheese hurts when it spills from within the crispy envelope of a perfectly fried pickle and lands on one's hand.

This was one of many things I learned when I visited the Minnesota State Fair last week.

Like the Teej before me, I ventured boldly into that Midwestern staple on a mission to see, smell, taste, and experience all of nature's bounty. At least all that can be fried.

I went with colleagues on the Fair's opening day. I was told by everyone that the first day of the Fair's two-week run is generally the best, because the grounds are in the best shape and the yellowjackets haven't yet figured out where the good trash cans are. Everyone was right.

The first day of this year's Fair set a new attendance record, with more than 133,000 Minnesotans (and me) passing through the turnstiles. As you can see in this shitty photo I took as I turned onto one of the main thoroughfares, that's a shitload of folks.

Shortly upon my entry, I met up with my team, and one of the fellas who works for me made it a point to grab me a beer. It's good to be the king. Our meeting point was Fresh French Fries (one of two on the 322-acre property). We met there because it's operated by the family of a colleague of mine. His father started the concession 40 years ago. It's grown to the point where each of the two stands go through 240,000 pounds of potatoes each year, and gross more than $1.2m in 12 days. My colleague Dan always takes vacation during the Fair to run one of the stands. Pretty tidy little business.

And so my first fried food of the Fair was all in the family.

After we scarfed a good helping of fries, we played some midway games. I lost at a shooting game where one shoots actual bb's at target, at whack-a-mole, and at that stupid game where you try to knock over three leaded bottles with a softball. Then I lost to Tony at bumper cars. Tony's a former Green Beret, so he knows how to handle his ride.

Trained killer, that Tony

It was at that point that I went to the fried pickle stand. Man, do I love fried pickles. It turns out that I also love fried pickles with cream cheese, but I didn't learn that until after I received a second-degree burn on my hand and realized that the prudent course of action was to wait until they cooled down.

I recovered quickly, numbing the pain with another beer, before enjoying cheese curds, lefse, shrimp and grits balls, fried feta, and roasted corn in relatively rapid succession. I closed out my gustatory efforts with a sampler courtesy of the Minnesota Brewer's Guild.

I didn't take any pictures with my head inserted into a cartoon body, but I did visit The Current's booth, which was cool. I missed out on seeing Belinda Carlisle and Hootie & The Blowfish, because bad planning, but I saw Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar's teams working their booths with gusto. Saw the Trump booth, too, but gave it a wide berth.

Crowds annoy me as much as the next guy, and perhaps more, but the Minnesota Nice vibe in St. Paul, combined with postcard-perfect weather, several tasty brews, and gleeful work friends happy to be playing hooky to make for a most excellent afternoon. If you have the means, I highly recommend it.

Just let your cream cheese-filled fried treat cool for just a minute.

Walkoff

With last night's surprise announcement from Andrew Luck fresh in our minds, a video tour of dudes who left us way too early. At least for the sake of our entertainment. They probably left right on time for their own purposes.

                   

And one who left after a very full career on his very own terms.

Group Participation Post

It's back to school time around the nation, and I suppose there are lots of photos of fresh-faced kidlets all over Facebook. I rarely go there anymore, so I'm missing out. So let's fill some space and brag on our progeny all at the same time.

Here are my two at 15 and 17. The one on the left is the younger, though she long ago passed her sister in height. It's the last first day of school for my 17 year-old, which caused no shortage of weepiness for my wife. That's a weird thing.

Pile on below - let's see how handsome your kids, pets, nieces, nephews, etc, are. I know you're a good-looking bunch, so give us a look at the extended G:TB family at this milestone time.

Danimal's Animals: 11, 8, 7. They are two weeks in because Florida. Happy Friday everyone! And in the last one hour, have spoken to two different work associates, one of whom dropped their oldest off to college, and the other the youngest. Message of the day - cherish the moments or whatever.

Back in the Saddle

The days during and following the annual OBFT interlude tend to be sparse here from both a content perspective and the quality of thought on offer. I aim to make no particular improvement in the latter, though I suppose this is definitive evidence of the former.

I understand that my man TR is in need of some balm for his injured self, and so I offer this obituary headline from today's Washington Post:

Ralph Whittington, erotica collector extraordinaire, dies at 74

This could be an exercise in prurience, but in actual fact, Mr. Whittington was a serious archivist of things pornographic. Employed by the Library of Congress for his entire professional career, Whittington cataloged such things as telephone books at work ("I was in charge of every phone book in the freaking world.") and developed a collection of more than 5,000 recordings of blues and doo-wop music in his spare time.

But porn was his passion, curatorially speaking. In a 2002 article in the Post, he explained his collection: “I have bawdy house coins from whorehouses in the 1860s,” he told gettingit.com. “One coin says, ‘10 cents for lookie, 25 cents for feelie, 50 cents for doie.’ I have one film from 1913 called ‘Free Ride,’ which is supposed to be [the] oldest film they’ve found in the U.S.”

He had a copy of the first commercial sex videotape sold to the general public, a version of “Deep Throat” playable only on an obsolete Betamax machine. Mr. Whittington had a Betamax player, of course, but one piece of equipment he never owned was a computer. As a result, his expertise remained rooted in the era before magazines and videotapes gave way to the Internet."

Whittington sold most of his collection in 1999 to the Museum of Sex, but retained a few items that appealed to his sense of history. And while he had the collection, he had an amusing attitude towards the views of others, saying, “When people come here, at least I don’t bore them,” he said. “They may leave shaking their heads, but they’re not bored.”

Get to work, TR. I've found something that'll keep your mind off the pain.

Goon for Goons

A not insignificant contingent of Gheorghies is tearing it up at OBFT. They could probably use more content. In an effort to facilitate good times, I’ve embedded “Heaven is Humming,” a new album by a new-ish band called Goon. Squeaky and Dave will like it because it sounds like other stuff they like. Whit will like it because he likes everything. Everyone else will tolerate it because they’re too drunk to care.

I think it sounds like My Bloody Valentine smushed with Alice in Chains. "Northern Saturn" and "Critter" are my faves so far. Enjoy.

What's With the Whitneys?

It's been a busy week for the Whitneys.  We had a team conference call yesterday, and whew, there's just a lot going on.

Whitney Houston, still the most famous Whitney among us despite leaving the World o' Whitneys in 2012, was celebrated once again last week on what would have been her 56th birthday. In addition, a Hologram Tour is being planned -- you know, in which you would go to a Whitney Houston concert even though she died seven years before. They say:

In a BASE Hologram production, audiences are not watching a show, they are drawn into an ultra-realistic experience where fantasy becomes reality. More importantly, they are interacting, applauding and enjoying the production together, which is the basis for all communal entertainment.

It's akin to what we are doing at this year's fishing trip with Dave not being able to make it, or when you can't see Rob because of the fairly tall bar at Tortuga's.

The band Whitney, last spotted in the Gheorghie Dome in a 2016 post that included a felchy video, has a follow-up album set to release in two weeks. It's called Forever Turned Around, and it features the lead single below, "Giving Up." The falsetto is still there, and it's the same variety of pleasant sleepop that will put a little spring in your . . . bed so you can get those precious moments of REM (the sleep, not the band).

A. Whitney Brown, last seen blogging politically a couple of years ago, apparently gave that up after the cataclysmic election of 2016. But just last week, he appeared in Austin with Lauren Hough and Shannon McCormick for a public reading of Volume II of the Mueller Report. So there's that.

Eli Whitney, generally regarded as the most important among Team Whitney, reported to the group that he was still dead, as was the modern usage of his cotton gin. Frankly, this member of our unit has been coasting a bit of late and could use some newsworthy action to surround him.

Whitney Cummings, comedienne extraordinaire, has been all over social media the past couple of days.  It seems that sometime recently she accidentally posted a semi-nude picture of herself on Instagram, deleting it quickly but not quickly enough to keep some scoundrels from capturing it and threatening to make it public unless she paid them.  Coolly, she turned the event on its ear by posting the unabridged nipple pic herself. Amusingly, fans and strangers have responded by posting embarrassing and/or nude pics of themselves. And if she engineered this stunt as a promotional tool, then color me impressed. The full pic is here, for you pervs.


Gheorghie Whitney, well he's still here. Thursday is his first day on the 26th Annual Outer Banks Fishing Trip.  Today, meanwhile, is his last day at his current job. After eight years working for a nonprofit serving people with disabilities -- his role being to find and create jobs for people with disabilities -- it's time to move on. The new gig is in workforce development and involves talent development. The "talent" isn't what you think, pervs.  It's a reasonably high-profile position for him, locally speaking, and there may be some resultant absence and/or pseudonymmetry at G:TB ahead. Perhaps not. There will certainly be plenty more 3rd person usage.

Anyway, like I said, it's been a heck of a week in Whitney World.

Living on a Fair

My twitter timeline has been bombarded the last few days with news that 2020 Democratic Presidential hopefuls are hitting the Iowa State Fair, presumably to try and win the hearts and minds of those corn-loving folks who have too much influence in Presidential politics, but also I presume to consume mass amounts of delicious fair food.

Here's a full list of the new 2019 foods at the Iowa State Fair. Some of my favorites...

If you'd like some balls in your mouth:
Berkshire Bacon Balls on a Stick
X-Treme Balls

I'm always a big proponent of any food item placed on a stick:
Chicken Parmesan Stick
Brownie Waffle Stick
Chocolate Brownie Waffle Stick

How 'bout dem apples:
Apple Cider Shake Up
Apple Fritter Funnel Cake
Apple Nachos
Apple Slices with Fresh Ground Honey Roasted Peanut Butter
Boozy Pecan Caramel Apple
Caramel Apple Bites
Caramel Apple Cider Shake
Salted Caramel Apple Shake

Poutine on the Ritz:
Dessert Poutine
Double Pork Poutine
Slaughter House Poutine
Rainbow Poutine
Chicken Bacon Ranch Poutine

Bacon tastes gooood. Pork chops taste gooood:
Bacon Wrapped Pig Wings
Bauder Ultimate Bacon Crisp
Smoked Ham & Eggs
Tangled Onion Pork Po-Boy
Chuckie's Pork Strip Basket

As you might recall, I too enjoy fair foods. I jumped in the wayback machine, and found my trip to the Indiana State Fair in the GTB archives. Here, in it's entirety, is that now ten-year old opus:

Some of you may remember I had a pretty fun time at the fair last year, so I figured this time around I'd chronicle my gastronomical conquests in picture form for our loyal readers (right now rob is sobbing in his office, realizing this is the post that pushes his LeBron extravaganza down the page). No more intro required, let the gluttony begin...

12:15pm
Arrive at the fair
It's 95 degrees and humid as shit. I'm a moron and didn't wear a t-shirt. Land war in Asia...now this blunder. Tough start to day.

12:29pm
Regular corn dog, small diet Pepsi
I mean, it's the fair. You've got to start with a corn dog. And you have to be careful in your corn dog selections - they need to be fresh out of the fryer or else they're not worth it. If you go to a stand that only has corn dogs rotating on a rack, move on. It's not like you're limited in corn dog stand choices.

12:46pm
Pick up free Blow Pop from Better Business Bureau of Indiana at ridiculous Expo Hall
The BBB slogan? "Don't Be a Sucker". Seriously folks, the team of monkeys you had working around the clock couldn't come up with something better? [Note: Blow Pop was eaten as "dessert" exactly 12 hours later]

12:53pm
Sample Shoup's new hogburger
It's freakin' delicious. Went back through the line two more times.

1:59pm
Photo op with Indiana state hero Veal Armstrong...and a talking goat
Stepping into the different animal barns at the fair is like walking through a portal into another dimension. A dimension of denim and poor dental hygiene. Hard to describe, but entertaining as all hell.

2:16pm

Pulled pork BBQ sandwich from the Indiana Pork Association, another diet Pepsi
You like how I keep getting the diet sodas, as if that's gonna make a difference?

2:21pm
Snack on other people's absurd World Famous King Taters
What exactly are they, you say? Take a look.

3:33pm
Fish fry (jackson pollock white fish), yet another small diet Pepsi
The fish fry stand had zero shade around it. I almost passed out waiting for this item.

5:00pm
Ribeye steak sandwich at Indiana Beef Association tent, a Lemonade
Starting to develop some serious stomach issues at this point, had to stop halfway through this sandwich as I had the meat sweats. Genuine concern is starting to show on the folks I am at the fair with. Burgess Meredith urges me on.

6:09pm
Deep fried pizza, more diet Pepsi
In six hours I've developed diabetes and have surely clogged three arteries. And a big middle finger to deep fried pizza. What a disappointment. I assumed we would take a slice of pie, dip it in a fryer, and then hand it to me. Nope - the dough is simply fried and then lathered with marinara sauce and some cheese. Of course I still ate the whole damn thing.

7:05pm
Deep fried cookie dough
Anyone had a portable defibrillator?

8:45pm
One chicken tender, one fry, one ping only
By now we are at the Keith Urban concert at the fair (I would never be called a country music fan by any stretch, but I have now seen this guy twice, and he puts on a damn good show). Apparently, if you are a female going to a Keith Urban concert, you wear daisy dukes so short the pockets show and cowboy boots that make you like like an Amarillo whore. And you wear that no matter what shape or size you are. I was partially blinded by some of the sartorial choices.

11:48pm
Exit fair.

Victory pose. Note corndog stick in right hand.

Obviously, I have no choice but to go back next year. However, I need your help in deciding how I'll entertain myself in Year 3, without ended up in the ICU of St. Vincent's.

A Part of History

This evening in Leesburg, Virginia, I'll be one of 5,000 people to attend the very first game at Segra Field, the home of Loudoun United. The Loudoun team is the USL affiliate of DC United, competing in the second division of American professional soccer.

The outlying elements of the stadium aren't quite complete, but we're ready to kick off this evening. 
Our soccer Club's complex is in the center-left part of the image, up the hill from Segra Field.

Loudoun United is in the midst of its inaugural season as a franchise. Despite having no real home of its own (the team has played at Audi Field in DC and various small venues in the area), the squad has carved out a respectable 5-4-9 record, good for 14th in the 18-team league. Of note, the local side trounced defending USL champions Louisville City, 3-0, on July 28.

Most of you will recall the vital role yours truly played in ensuring our local political officials approved the stadium plan for Loudoun United. Humility being my general modus operandi, I don't take credit for it. But I think we all know how big a deal I am. Just happy to help, really.

As I scan the USL standings, it's a bit of a kick to see Loudoun County, my home, listed among places like Charlotte, Indianapolis, Louisville, Memphis, Atlanta, and Ottawa. The team is putting us on the map, baby.

For those that follow these things, there's a W&M connection at play tonight, as well. Antonio Bustamante, W&M Class of 2019, is a striker for Loudoun United. In the aforementioned 3-0 win over Louisville City, he scored his first professional goal and recorded an assist. The buildup to the tally starts around 0:15 in the video below:



The stadium is a little gem of a thing, just down the hill from my local youth club's facility. In the coming year, DC United also plans to build a new headquarters facility in the same area, moving their training operations to Leesburg, as well. Soccer mecca, y'all.

I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't excited about tonight's game and the team's presence in my town. As the game grows in our country, and I work to help kids grow as people and players, this is a pretty damn cool thing.

Viva Loudoun!

Excerpt from an Autobiography

BBD's "Poison" used to play incessantly in the Pizza Hut delivery/take-out store on Monticello Avenue in 1990.

Rob and Doug Malone and I would make pizzas and fold boxes and clean the store. Orders would come in and we would rush out to get it to them within 30 minutes or . . . you know. Rob drove his Escort, when the steering wheel worked. I drove my Accord. Doug drove an old Audi with New York plates, evincing his Long Island heritage and Yankee demeanor.

It's driving me out of my mind
That's why it's hard for me to find

Upon our return to the store, we'd rejoin the motley cast of characters. Big Bruce, the elephantitic young fellow. The married couple working together, which was kind of an amusing novelty until we later learned they'd once been jailed for pedophilia. Such can be an impediment to gainful employment, so fold a box and take the next call for a Meat Lover's at the Rodeway Inn, you two.

Can't get it outta my head 
Miss her, kiss her, love her

Rob kept me from getting fired one time when I ducked out to go to Harborfest in Norfolk. I never properly punched him in the face for doing that. We all three were nearly terminated when we skipped out in favor of Buffett at Cary Field. That weekend we delivered nothing, nothing but stupid jokes and drunken attempts at romance with our then-and-not-future girlfriends. It was a soundtrack reprieve. Somewhat.

You got fins to the left, fins to the right 
And you're the only bait in town

Soon, though, it was back to the Hut, and not some Buffettian bungalow . . . though that word shares a syllable with what Pizza Hut represented to us. I kept drawing snake eyes on deliveries: a trailer here, Bruce Hornsby's dad there. The latter notorious for issuing an Andrew Jackson on his repeated, identical $19.70 order and telling drivers to keep the change. That's just the way it was, and some things would never change. Or qualify as "change."

Ah, but don't you believe them

To look back and think of the torment of that summer . . . the three classes I "took" in the Department Soon To Be Known As My Former Major . . . the marathon 1985 season of Strat-o-matic baseball sprawled out across a misnomer of a dining room table . . . MTV . . . the incessant mockery 'twixt the finest collection of my college era's comic comrades ever assembled, a clown-car residence of 6 adult males in a 2 BR/1 BA . . . the 40 ounces per vessel and the 4 dollars per hour . . . and the Bell . . . and the Biv . . . and the DeVoe . . .

That girl is poisonnnnnnnn
Never trust a big butt and smile

Years later. Decades later. I'm re-enrolled in the College. As a free treat on the evening of the last class of the summer 2019 session, there's a stack of large, 16" circular gestures topped variably for the students. From the Hut. That food is poison.

Poisonnnnnnnn

Folks around my world are always stunned when I inform them that this episode, this small chapter of magnets on car doors and punch-clocks and embossed name plates and differing definitions of "supreme" and taking pies home to housemates and gas bills (but $1.15/gal) and three bad brothers two of whom you know so well and the endless box making and the really, really endless playing of BBD, I mean endless nonstop ceaseless and any other way you and Roget could label it, it . . . well, it created this devastatingly amusing and despondently sad cry for help, the kind of help like you need if you ingested

P O I S O N N N N N N N

A Solution to All of Our Problems

Usually, I meander my way through the beginnings of a post, constructing a comma-filled and clause-ridden introduction that defies everything I was taught as a high school journalism student about who, what, where, when, how lede construction. Not today, though. No sir. Not today. Today, I'm gonna get right to the point, quickly, succinctly, without fanfare. In fact, I'm not even going to use my own words, such a hurry I'm in to tell you about what may well be the biggest news of the week. Possibly of the year. Or maybe of all time. Hard to say, really, as I'm not a scientist, or a historian. But still, really big news. Here's what National Geographic has to say about it. It being the big news:

"A tiny, old star just 12 light-years away might host two temperate, rocky planets, astronomers announced today. If they’re confirmed, both of the newly spotted worlds are nearly identical to Earth in mass, and both planets are in orbits that could allow liquid water to trickle and puddle on their surfaces."

Shit.

With all that said, I actually buried the lede. The star's name, my friends, is most fortuitous.

I give you Teegarden's star:

Teeg's star, as you've undoubtedly concluded, is very close in name to Teej's star. And while we all know that Jess is Teej's terrestrial star, the celestial version, being so close to our own solar system, offers us potential salvation.

Those planets, that's what I'm thinking about. We're fucking ours up something fierce. We need options. Teej's star gives us exactly that.

We're gonna jump into big-ass spaceships, Battlestar Galactica-style, don our best funky socks and Brian Posehn t-shirts, and colonize those motherfuckers. We're starting over as a race, and Teej is gonna lead us. No nazi sympathizers. No guns allowed. People of all shapes, sizes, colors, sexual orientation, and creeds. Except for Mike Pence's creed. Some things shouldn't be tolerated.

Garden of Eden, meet Teej's Garden of Olive. All you can eat breadsticks with a hate-free trompe l'oeil backdrop. We've solved the problem.

Hallelujah.

I Know It When I Hear It

Shoutout to Justice Potter Stewart in today's filler: The New Pornographers have announced a new record, entitled In the Morse Code of Brake Lights. It'll be released on September 27. Of note, A.C. Newman, Neko Case, and the gang will be at the 9:30 Club on November 5, should anyone like to join me.

Here's the first single from the new album, "Falling Down the Stairs of Your Smile":

Llenwer

We need filler. Our Doofus Overlord is in Wales. Et voila! Videos from my favorite Welsh band.