Dog Days

Belated Glen Hansard Appreciation Post

Not exactly dipshittery, but a return to a normality. Glen Hansard, who passed away in a motorcycle accident on July 29, was your favorite musician's favorite musician. Hansard was beloved by the greats, the goods, the unknowns, and the up and comers because he just absolutely loved music with all his being. Here are just a few of the things he did, and a few of the ways the community celebrated him.

I didn't realize until his passing that he'd played guitarist Outspan Foster in The Commitments. Check out his story about getting the part and then enjoy his stylings.

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Hansard started as a busker, playing on the streets of Dublin. He never forgot those roots, and organized a annual Christmas Eve Busk starting in 2010 to raise money for the Dublin Simon Community, a group that works to support homeless Dubliners. Here he is at the 2015 edition of the Busk with a few folks you might know.

Look at how much he loves watching others - this is him at a recent Busk glowing as he looks on while young Dubliner (who started as a busker herself) Allie Sherlock plays. Shit breaks your heart.

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In addition to his solo work and numerous collaboration, Hansard recorded three gorgeous records with Czech singer-pianist Marketa Irglova as The Swell Season. Shlara turned us on to them years ago. The 2007 movie Once is a fictional depiction of their musical pairing, with the pair starring. You'll be familiar with "Falling Slowly". Just fucking beautiful. True story: I have a female friend with whom I share tunes I think are cool (and she with me). I sent her this song when I first heard it. And then had to quickly explain that I just thought it was a cool song - no deeper meaning. 

Here he is eulogizing Shane MacGowan just a few years ago.

Just hours before he passed, he spent an evening in a pub in West Dublin. Cliche to say he died doing what he loved, but he certainly did what he loved right to the too-early end. He was celebrated by just about everyone:

Indulgence

Person Is Killed in ICE-Involved Shooting in Maine

Person
Passive
Forever now

Agents
Active
Shot him dead

Our polite society
Chooses to forget
The words that
Describe the truth

So a person is killed
Impunity granted
A little girl grows up 
Fatherless. 

Our editors write
The next headline.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Financial precarity aside, being one of the founders of a startup has its perks. in my recent case, it means i can fuck off for a few weeks to various locales and not worry about job security. It doesn't hurt that our little company is entirely virtual and I can check in from places far and wide. 

What follows is a journey in (mostly) pictures from a river in Maine to the mountains of Colorado to the Atlantic Ocean white with foam in North Carolina.

I've chronicled my various paddles down the St. Croix River in northeastern Maine before, so I won't bore you with all of the details, but my fifth multi-day canoeing and camping trip with family and friends was top notch once again. Water was a little bit higher than most trips, so we got to run some rapids that had been previously inaccessible (and required portaging, which is less fun than paddling). Saw some eagles, cool ducks, chipmunks, couple of sunrises over our four days and three nights. 

We paddled the stretch between the Vanceboro Dam and the Grand Falls Dam

Smaller crew this time

Little Falls, site of our first night's campsite

Egg Point, last night on the river

Logo of the St. Croix International Waterway Commission 
captured at Loon Bay. Would make a good tattoo.

After a seven-hour delay at Logan, dragged my tired ass into my house at 3:00 am and spent most of the next day napping. Two days later, my wife and I headed out west to help our daughter move into a new place in Boulder, but we took advantage of the occasion to spend a few days in Colorado Springs before shlepping household goods.

I'd been to the Springs once before for a conference on youth sports. Met Jeff Ament and Edwin Moses (shoutout KQ!) at the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Museum, but otherwise didn't get to do too much sightseeing. As an aside, Ament has run a non-profit called Montana Pool Service since 1992. It's dedicated to creating skate parks to connect kids in the state to arts and skateboarding opportunities. 

This time, a lot more opportunity to see, do, eat, and drink. Our AirBnB was almost literally in the shadow of Garden of the Gods, which is a city park fill of spectacular rock formations and meandering hiking trails. These photos really don't do it justice.

This formation is called the Siamese Twins

You can see Pike's Peak off in the distance
through the keyhole in the Twins

Mrs. Rob and I scrambled up a rock,
unaware of the impending danger

We drove up the aforementioned Pike's Peak, all the way to the summit at 14,115 feet. The effects of altitude at that height are no joke - felt like I'd had a few high octane beers in a short span of time. We saw marmot and mountain goats, though we missed out on Bigfoot, despite warning signs that he might be around.

The view from 14k'

We had an opportunity to see the Olympic museum, and had great meals in Old Colorado City. Missed out on a chance to climb the Manitou Incline (2,744 steps, a 2,000 foot altitude gain over 0.9 miles at an average incline of 41%) due to storms. Bummer?

This is the actual scoreboard from the arena in 
Lake Placid used in the 1980 Olympic hockey
tournament

Jimmy Craig's gameworn

Not much worth reporting from Boulder - been there a bunch and shared a lot of photos. Moving out of a third-floor apartment is a young man's game. Thank God my kid is strong like bull. Here's a gratuitous shot of her and her Mom.

Closed out my three-week gallivant with one of the highlights of my year. Much fun, many beers, lots of fresh fish, late nights, cool ocean water, one very ill-advised attempt to paddleboard while drunk (which cost me a pair of sunglasses), and camaraderie that's an absolute blessing. Couple shots of the lads to wrap things up.

2,270 miles of travel, 25 of paddling, nearly three up a mountain over 25 days. 27.5 if you count the time it took to recover. I'd happily do it all again.

Gheorghasbord: The Slimmining

Been an active three weeks or so for your boy, and I'm working on the comprehensive travelogue. I'm not saying it's on a Gheorghemas Day 12 schedule, but I'm not not saying that. I jumped on the scale this morning after a strict three-day regimen of PBR, Red Stripe, and gobs of tuna and was nonplussed, to say the very least. Gonna be doubling down on fiber and vegetables the next few days ahead of my annual physical on Wednesday.

All that's to say that the brain is a day or two away from firing on even one cylinder, so you'll get what you get.

I promise I'll stop hyping Michael Brennan at some point, but I find it very cool to see kids that are friends with mine doing big stuff in the world. Here's the moment after his win at the Wyndham Championship where his mom told him he's headed to Augusta. 

Easiest way to earn a trip to Augusta National? Win. pic.twitter.com/WON4Q2TIYh

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) August 9, 2026

Here's a picture I took last year from the dune protecting the venerable Martha Wood Cottage from the ravages of the Atlantic Ocean. Possibly the best photo I've ever taken. Looks better the larger you make it. Feel free to use it for your own ends.

That's all I got, y'all. Gimme a few days.

The 'Failure' of Progress in Women's Athletics

The busy beavers at the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank whose vision of “a more perfect union” differs from that of a sizeable portion of the citizenry, recently demonstrated that its noxious ideas aren’t limited to government overhaul. The Foundation released a paper on transforming women’s sports to become, shall we say, more feminine and less male, all with a heavy dose of Title IX diminution. 

Lest you wonder about mis-interpretation or hyperbole, it’s right there in the title – Title IX’s Failed Experiment: Why Accommodating Sex Differences Beats Engineered Parity. The paper’s summary begins: “Title IX has evolved from a seemingly modest anti-discrimination statute into a powerful engine of feminist social engineering, complete with proportionality mandates. The result has been two systemic distortions that rest on a false premise — that differences in competitiveness and interest between the sexes are stereotypes to be engineered away through state action and cultural revolution.” 

It's giving smarmy prick

The paper’s author, Scott Yenor, is a Boise State political science professor and chair of something called the American Citizenship Initiative at the Heritage Foundation. He’s open about his thoughts on the roles of men and women in society, once delivering a speech at a conservative conference several years ago in which he said that career-seeking women are “more medicated, meddlesome and quarrelsome than women need to be, without connections to eternity delivered through their family.” 

The promotion of women’s sports in the past several decades, Yenor argues, is part of a project to remake female character and to create women who are more aggressive and assertive and “less deferential, less graceful, and less oriented toward motherhood and traditional feminine graces.” He cites the writings of French mid-20th century feminist Simone de Beauvoir and her successors as proponents of social engineering that attempt to strip away the natural, biological differences between men and women. Imposing a male-oriented competitive model of athletics, he says, actually deprives women of sporting pursuits that are more suited to their desires and makeup and has depleted opportunities for male athletes. 

Quite the take in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty-Six, but it speaks to where we are politically and socially. The Heritage Foundation, you might recall, was the clearinghouse for Project 2025, Russell Vought’s wet dream to shrink Federal government about which the President knew nothing until he installed Vought as budget director and began implementing its measures the minute his keister again landed in the Oval Office. Since then, various government agencies have been stripped and re-made to reflect the Oaf-in-Chief’s and his lackeys’ ideas of governance. He hasn’t been bashful about threatening colleges and universities with funding cuts, so it’s not surprising that Title IX would become a target. 

Some background might be helpful. Title IX is the landmark civil rights legislation passed in 1972 that forbids sex-based discrimination in schools or any education program that receives Federal funds. Athletics weren’t a part of the original equation but became so in 1979 and later through a series of amendments and court rulings. With government backing, scholarships, budgets and opportunities for women increased in the decades to come, fueling the ascent of U.S. women’s athletics on the national and international stage. 

The Office of Civil Rights came up with a three-prong test for compliance: 

 Are sports opportunities at a school for men and women substantially proportionate to enrollment? 

 Is the school working to expand sports opportunities for women? 

 Has the school fully accommodated interest for girls and women? 

Proportionality has been the primary benchmark for compliance, a so-called “safe harbor” for schools. That’s become tricky as many colleges have greater female enrollment than male but a larger proportion of male athletes. Football and its disproportionate roster sizes and budget outlays skew the numbers, and athletic departments have basically deemed football untouchable. Fearful of potential lawsuits, however, many schools cut men’s non-revenue programs – wrestling, swimming, cross country, tennis – rather than increase the number of women’s teams and opportunities because they couldn’t bear the accompanying costs. 

Hence, Yenor’s argument that the current model for women has in turn limited opportunities for men. Yenor doesn’t want to do away with high-level women’s athletics, recognizing that a subset of women want and thrive in that environment. But he recommends substantial reforms, chief among them essentially de-fanging Title IX. He would eliminate the proportionality requirement. He would permit less competitive pursuits such as exercise classes or intramurals to count toward compliance. He says that Congress should exempt major men’s revenue-producing programs from counting toward overall participation numbers. And while they’re at it, deregulate all but strictly academic portions of educational systems from Title IX oversight. 

One might dismiss the Foundation paper as another right-wing rant that yearns for the supposed good old days, if it weren’t for the present administration’s embrace of Vought and other Heritage positions and its actions over the past eighteen months. The current regime has gutted the Department of Education and all but abandoned oversight in civil rights enforcement and environmental protections. It attacks academia over the scourge of DEI and what it defines as “woke” culture. It downgrades women and minorities in the military amid macho posturing about a warrior mentality and appearance and soldier testosterone levels. 

It doesn't take a political savant to imagine that Yenor and his allies will take a cue from recent Supreme Court rulings about the 1965 Voting Rights Act in their fight against Title IX. For instance, in Shelby County v. Holder in 2013, the court struck down a section of the VRA as unconstitutional, in part, because it relied on old data and practices. The conservative majority ruled, in effect, that because Black people had made so much progress in the areas of voting and representation through the years that Federal oversight was no longer necessary. 

Tee up Title IX arguments and we might hear: Women’s athletics have made so much progress in recent decades that Federal oversight is no longer necessary. Add a side of the idea of “protecting women’s sports” from an inflated fear of a transgender overrun, which is actually Yenor’s launch point in the paper – an inaccurate description of a Tunisian “man” pummeling a Chinese woman in the 2024 Olympics women’s boxing competition for the gold medal and the ensuing shock and outrage it caused. 

Problem is, it didn’t exactly occur that way. An Algerian and a Taiwanese boxer in the women’s competition came under immense scrutiny because some thought that they “appeared” to be transgender or men, but both are women and were cleared to compete by the IOC. Algerian Imane Khelif did indeed win gold in the women’s welterweight division, in a unanimous decision over a Chinese boxer, and much of the controversy was a product of misinformation and internet trolling. 

That a college professor did not, or chose not to, convey facts accurately about something so easily verifiable as Olympic boxing in what’s supposed to be a persuasive paper kind of gives away the game, don’t you think? Any number of right-wing chew toys are about control in the guise of protection. Book bans "protect" impressionable children. Abortion bans “protect” unborn babies. Stripping the Voting Rights Act “protects” the Constitution. Banning gun restrictions “protects” individual rights and the Second Amendment. Rolling back environmental regulations “protects” jobs and “protects” against government overreach. Transgender bans "protect" women's sports. Title IX repeal would “protect” against radical feminism. Too often, the only thing it protects against is progress.

zShazams Are Back!

I've been slacking off with my zshazams effort.  Here are a few gems I discovered since my last post and I dedicate them to some Gheorghies.

"Theme for Moon Children" by Duane Eddy

This is a twangy western guitar song with a grand soaring string section, very cinematic.  It's very much of a time and place that heavily involve vinyl.  Accordingly, this one's for Mr. KQ (he probably has it on a 78).

"Florida Water Blues" by Twisted Teens

This is the title track of Twisted Teens' new album.  I hadn't heard of them before I heard this song and it motivated me to check out the whole album.  You should too because it's good.  They're a duo from New Orleans and they make straightforward rock n roll with a mildly swampy southern sensibility.  "Florida Water Blues" is perhaps the swampiest song on the album and it works for a number of Gheorghies.  rootsy, because of the line "You can drink that Florida water and go blind" which reminds me of Franklin County moonshine, and because it sounds like the sort of stuff he would've told me to check out back in 308.  I don't know if DJ Herb is a G:TB lurker but it works for him as the resident ORF Rock Floridian.  Whit will like it too--he likes almost everything and the album has a few songs that sound like what would happen if the Drive-By Truckers were born in the 1990s and decided to make punk rock.

"Get Away From Me (I Think I'll Love You Soon)" by Julia Jacklin

This song sounds like what would happen if you created a song to ensnare rob.  A cute Australian hipster songwriter/chanteuse singing an ambivalent love song over simple guitar chord melodies with almost no rhythm and a minimal eight bar breakdown?  This is an early single for her next album, arriving September 25.  If you listen closely you can hear rob adding a reminder to his Outlook calendar.  

"Bentley's Gonna Sort You Out" by Bentley Rhythm Ace

This song sounds like what would happen if you asked AI to generate a 90's electronica song.  And I like it!  I feel like I should have heard this song before, maybe on the soundtrack to a Guy Ritchie movie or a vodka commercial.  This one's for Jerzy Dave.

"Ca Plane Pour Moi" by Plastic Bertrand

This song sounds like what would happen if the Beach Boys were from Belgium and they made a pop punk record in French.  Clocking in at just under 3 minutes, the title roughly translates to "everything is going well for me."  It features a driving four-on-the-floor beat with speedy guitars and no discernible bass line but maybe that makes sense given that it was recorded in 1977 by a Belgian guy.  I think Whit will enjoy this one (and I won't be surprised if he's already familiar with it).

"Jungle Birds" by Lulu Lewis

This song sounds like a pair of Gen X art kids grew up but never stopped messing around with sound and recorded some of it.  And apparently that's the case.  Evan "Funk" Davies from WFMU said Dyscopia was the best album of 2022 and "Guest musicians on the project have included Sergio Rotman (Los Fabulosos Cadillacs), Brendan Canty (Fugazi), Jay Dee Daugherty (Patti Smith Group)."  This has Squeaky written all over it (and he will probably shake his head when he learns that I never heard of them before this).

"Don't Tell Your Mama (Where You've Been)" by Eddie Floyd

This song sounds like something Dexter St. Jacques's uncle from Alabama would write. "Let me show you how a woman acts/When a man gets to feelin' that he's got to have a love affair."  Bars.

"Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young" by Eddy Arnold

Lots of Eddys in this zshazams.  This is a legitimately old time rockabilly song with awesome lyrics.  "I wanna leave a lotta happy women/A-thinkin' pretty thoughts of me/I wanna live fast, love hard, die young/And leave a beautiful memory."  I'm not sure who recorded it first, Eddy Arnold or Faron Young, but I heard Eddy's version on the radio so that's what I'm going with.  It's old school, southern, tremendously witty.  Right up OBX Dave's alley.

And here are the songs as a playlist.  Enjoy!