Huckleberry, Daisy, Genius

I learned this morning from the Dooger Val Kilmer had passed. And on Liberation Day of all days. 

Those that know me well are fully aware that Kilmer's Doc Holliday is my favorite cinematic portrayal, bar none. Just an absolute tour de force of charisma and confidence masking infirmity and belying the deepest of loyalties. I could go on. 

Kilmer's Chris Knight, on the other end of the thespian spectrum, is a brilliantly madcap performance, all big gestures and broad comedic glee. That role is well within my top 10 comedy performances. 

That one dude could give us both, in addition to so many other great on-screen efforts (with range from Top Gun's seething Iceman to Top Secret's giddy Nick Rivers to the brooding criminal Chris Shihirlis in Heat to melting into Jim Morrison's character in The Doors) was remarkable. In very meager tribute, here are a few of my favorite things:

Gheorghasbord

Been thinking a lot about what it'll take for us to climb out from the morass we slide deeper into with each passing day. It seem painfully obvious that so-called political elites are essentially useless, either because they stand to gain from others' pain or they lack the imagination to see how bad things might get. No, if we're getting out of this shit, it's gonna be normies hand in hand with privileged folks who take stands, sacrifice, and build movements in ways large and small. 

And, like it's often been, women are gonna sigh, roll up their sleeves, and start digging. So today we celebrate a couple of badass ladies who've made public points recently.

The first is former Skadden Arps associate Brenna Frey, who very publicly resigned from the prestigious firm after the partnership agreed to a settlement with the President* to avoid the consequences of a highly dubious Executive Order targeting it. Following in the footsteps of her colleague Rachel Cohen, Frey posted her resignation and reasons on LinkedIn, saying, 

Today the executive partner of my former firm sent us all an "update" that attempted to convince some of the best minds in the legal profession that he did us a solid by capitulating to the Trump administration's demands for fealty and protection money.  Fellow Skadden attorneys: If you agree with Jeremy London's position that the firm should not engage in "illegal DEI discrimination," should devote prestigious Skadden Fellows to the Trump administration's pet projects, and should help "politically disenfranchised groups who have not historically received legal representation from major national law firms," (taking into account the robust pro bono work that major national law firms already do), then by all means continue working there. But if that email struck you as a craven attempt to sacrifice the rule of law for self-preservation, I hope you do some soul-searching over the weekend and join me in sending a message that this is unacceptable (in whatever way you can). As one of my more eloquent former colleagues put it: "Do not pretend that what is happening is normal or excusable. It isn't."

There is only one acceptable response from attorneys to the Trump administration's demands: The rule of law matters. 

The rule of law matters. As an attorney, if my employer cannot stand up for the rule of law, then I cannot ethically continue to work for them.

A more prominent woman took a different sort of stand recently, quietly standing up to discrimination through the simple, decent act of making breakfast.

UCONN women's hoops redshirt freshman Jana El Alfy is a practicing Muslim, and observed Ramadan for the past month (it ended this weekend). During Ramadan, the devout cannot consume food or drink of any kind between dawn and sunset, making it particularly challenging for elite athletes. 

El Alfy's roommate is superstar senior Paige Bueckers. Each day during Ramadan, Bueckers woke up before dawn to make breakfast for her teammate. She told People Magazine, "So just anytime you can support somebody, especially when they're going through something. It's a lot better when you’re going through something with somebody."

Ain't that a novel concept. 

Finding somebodies to go through stuff with sounds like a recipe for positive outcomes. Let's get after it.

Earworm Filler

Rafael Devers set a major league record by whiffing 10 times in the Red Sox' first three games. To reverse that mojo, I come here to post a song that's been in my head for a minute. It's got a G:TB connection. Bonus!

Opening Day 2025

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends. 

We’re so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside.

That’s right sports fans, it’s opening day in Major League Baseball. At least stateside, as we will ignore the fact that the Dodgers are already on pace to go 162-0 after sweeping a two game set from the Cubs in Japan. 

While Rob kicked us off with some anime hype yesterday, I wanted to make sure that we had some content for our more senior demographic - looking at you Whit. 

We will start with this banger of a jam for anybody that loved Saturday morning TV in the 1980s. 

Then we have this little ditty, which should appeal to all the fans of the ongoing Rob Lasso program. 

Teaching kids the right way to play the game long before Tom Emanski’s teams won back to back to back AAU championships with the kid who threw the ball into a garbage can from centerfield. Plus, the San Diego Chicken and an Italian-American “dugout wizard” that lived in a blackboard. Interestingly, Zman will tell you he was a dugout wizard his senior year in college. Who are we to argue?

You will also note from the video that Pete Rose was guest on the show. Clearly, they missed an opportunity by not having Pete teach Michelle and Louie the intricacies of a three team parlay, or having the chicken break Pete’s legs for not paying up. 

Finally, for the Mets fans out there, hope springs eternal at least for a few minutes…

Happy opening day!

Play Ball!

Baseball returns to our loving arms tomorrow, with the Yankees' Carlos Rodon throwing out the first pitch of the season on American soil against the Brewers at 3:00. And while we won't follow it as closely as we once did (though the Mets' contingent here has significant reason for enthusiasm), we're still romantics at heart. Which is why we offer you this traditional season-opening sentiment:

Lotta ball left. Stay on target.

If you want a different sort of wholesome season-opening content, check out this video of Astros manager Joe Espada letting a rookie know he made it to the show.

Idol Worship

Let it never be said that we lack the fortitude to admit our mistakes. Today, I stand before you chastened and more than a little bit disappointed. 

It's a cliche that one should never meet their heroes. The little-known corollary is that one shouldn't elevate a politician to hero status. The shorter version: Fucking Fetterman.

We were one of the first major outlets to boost the Pennsylvanian's public profile, offering this puff piece about the aspiring Senator's rise. Later, we endorsed him to succeed Joe Biden as POTUS. We liked his everyman shtick, his independent streak, his muscular defense of traditional liberal values. 

As it turns out, we were conned.

Since the inauguration of the current POTUS and his minions' gleeful dismantling of the Federal government, many things about the Democrats' response have been wanting. You can count the number of senior leaders in the opposition party who are publicly resisting on two hands. The hand-sitters number in the scores. And the collaborators, well we've got some of them, too.

Led, sadly, by John Fetterman.

The big doofus was the first Democrat to travel to Mar-A-Lago, calling That Fucking Guy "kind" after their meeting. He's been a reliable vote for Cabinet nominees, one of only five Dems to support 10 of the clowns who now lead agencies. Not only did he vote in support of the budget agreement that handed the GOP a win, he lashed out at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes in the aftermath, telling her to "deal with it".

Finally, in a particularly grotesque bit of political theater, the outspoken supporter of Israel accepted a gift from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the form of a silver-plated pager, like the kind that the Israelis detonated en masse to injure and kill Hamas operatives. Regardless of your stance on the tragedy in Gaza, a sitting U.S. Senator jovially celebrating death and injury is fucking disgusting.

Other Democrats are starting to get uncomfortable with Fetterman, too. Cumberland County (PA) Democratic Party chair Matt Roan wrote an op-ed yesterday calling on the state's junior senator to resign, saying, "Fetterman no longer represents the interests of those who elected him, he seems disinterested in serving in his important position, and his actions in the Senate are actively harming Pennsylvanians."

Sadly, though not reluctantly, I agree. 

U.S. Reed and the 49-Foot Memory Maker

We recently passed the five-year anniversary of the moment the country shut down and the course of our nation's future and our lives changed irreversibly. We're better off from a health perspective, I suppose, but the number of ways in which we've gone backwards are hard to count, at least without causing inchoate rage.

Rather than marinating in anger (again), we'll use this moment to once again call back to a happier time. As I type from my couch in advance of not moving and watching 10+ hours of college basketball, we'll keep this post going, celebrating an unequivocally good thing.

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There's an ongoing political meme happening in the zeitgeist at the moment because That Fucking Guy mused aloud about whether people were better off today than four years ago. Over at The Bulwark, Jonathan V. Last has been making sport of the question, pointing out that four years ago we were locked in our houses afraid to touch anything while also being told that this little viral kerfuffle was going to go away in a few minutes.

As for the Gheorghieverse, we were more focused on important things like sports. The cancellation of the NCAA Tournament meant that all we had left were the memories. So as a reminder of that bygone and damned time and a celebration of what we have back that we took for granted, today we re-up a post from March 2020. Do enjoy.

Big Besiktas fan here. Go Black Eagles.

It's increasingly likely that we'll not see anything resembling the live sports to which we're accustomed for an extended period of time. The television/radio listings in this morning's Washington Post, which usually run to eight column inches of small type, offer us a meager two entries today: a Turkish Super Lig soccer match between Besiktas and Galatasaray at noon, and the World Series of Bowling Storm XI at 1:30.

If you think I'm not watching that soccer game from Turkey that features two of the country's big three, you don't know me all that well.

But if the games must not go on, we do have the benefit of the memories of the games that did to remind us why this time of year is often such a thrill. 

Thirty-nine years ago yesterday, and I remember it as if it were, like, 20 years ago. The shot Arkansas' U.S. Reed hit to beat Louisville is one of my earliest NCAA Tournament memories. The Razorbacks, seeded fifth in the West, fell behind fourth seed and defending National Champion Louisville with five seconds to play on a Derek Smith jumper in the the lane. The Cardinals' press had bothered Arkansas all game, so coach Eddie Sutton instructed his team to just get the ball as far up the court as they could.

And then this happened:

Sports was pretty cool.