Must Be On The North Facade

We are nothing if not celebrators of unfinished murals. Case in point, this amazing work in progress in Terre Haute, Indiana I clocked on one of my cross-country trips with my kidlet:

We dive back into muralology today with news from the heartland. Why embellish when the headline itself is perfect: "Downtown Milwaukee is getting a 100-foot-tall Bob Uecker mural".

Local artist Mauricio Ramirez (and seriously, check out his work - he's terrific) is adding the Uecker mural to a portfolio that includes a sweet 55' tall Giannis Antetokoumpo in downtown.

If you look closely, you can see that the Uecker mural is, in fact, in the front row. Of the parking lot.

Football Is Life

When we first met Cristo Fernández, he came bounding from the Richmond AFC locker room like a golden retriever in the guise of Dani Rojas, a new signing from Mexico for Ted Lasso's side:

As is the case in many (most?) sports movies, the actors portraying players in Ted Lasso generally have middling footballing skill. Couple of them seem to be able to play a little bit - Phil Dunster (Jamie Tartt) is useful, as is Toheeb Jimoh (Sam Obisanya). Moe Hashim (Moe Bumbercatch) played low-level professional ball in England. 

Cristo Fernández, though, he's a real-live footballer. Before taking up acting, the Guadalajara native played for several years in the second and third divisions of Mexican soccer. And as of yesterday, he's once again drawing a paycheck to play the beautiful game.

Fernández signed a contract with El Paso Locomotive of the USL Championship, the second division of U.S. soccer. The deal came after the striker completed a two-month trial with Locomotive, who currently sit in fourth place in the Western Conference.

In the clip below, he picks up a couple of goals (and a deserved yellow card) in a friendly with Chicago Fire II. Dude knows what he's doing.

Locomotive play my home side, Loudoun United, in August. Alas, the match is down in the West Texas town of El Paso, so I don't think I'll see it in person. But rest assured we'll be following this story to keep you in the know. 

Anti-Bullshit Missile

We missed this on Friday, but it's big to gentlemen of a certain age. Social Distortion released their first studio album in 15 years, entitled "Born to Kill". And the boys sound pretty, pretty good.

Make It Run on Bullshit

Among the seemingly endless and relentless litany of fuckery our bodily politic is infected with in the current time, one of the most egregious is the constant and blatant lying emanating from Administration officials. One case (of dozens, just this week) in point comes to us from Secretary of Transportation and perpetual reality show performer Sean Duffy.

While being interviewed by FOX News, Duffy claimed that "we're in a good place" with respect to fuel prices, and that Americans should take road trips this summer.

With gas at $4.55 a gallon, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says "we're in a good place" for fuel prices, and urges Americans to drive this summer, saying "we encourage all Americans to take a road trip"

[image or embed]

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) May 7, 2026 at 10:49 AM

For the record, USAA reports that the current average price per gallon for regular unleaded is $4.558. A year ago, the average was $3.154. That's an increase of 44.5%. If you have a 20-gallon gas tank, you're paying $28.08 more per trip to the gas station. I paid $65 to fill up the 13-gallon tank in my goddamn MINI last week.

Duffy's obvious nonsense reminded me of a song by one of William & Mary's own. Scott Miller and the Commonwealth released "8 Miles a Gallon" in 2006 as part of the terrific "Citation" album. Among the lyrics: Invent a big engine/Make it run on bullshit/Put it on the highway/Buddy, it'll never quit.

There's certainly no shortage of that bullshit flowing freely in the Nation's Capital these days.

Further We Meander, Musically

Harry Styles and I have a history, as readers of this blog know. And every time the dude does something, it hits. I'm a fan of that young fella. 

Check out this terrific cover of Tears for Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule the World":

And then watch these two professional musicians react to it:

@twerkethicshow This cover with the Horns is something else! @HSHQ join us on Patreon for more reactions! Link in bio! #twerkethic #reaction #harrystyles #bbcradio1 #tearsforfears @CooleyOnDrums ♬ original sound - The Twerk Ethic Show

A Meandering Post that Almost Comes Together at the End

I started reading Tim Lawrence's book Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970–1979 despite my general apathy towards non-fiction, because The Atlantic included it in their list of "Five Books About Going Out That Are Worth Staying In For."  They said:

Versions of this story have been told before, but what distinguishes Love Saves the Day are the more than 300 interviews Lawrence conducted with promoters, partiers, and legendary DJs such as Frankie Knuckles. It’s full of wisdom from the elders of American club culture: how to stagger straight and gay crowds on a Friday night, how to find the next great floor-filling single, how to build a DJ set like a furnace that can burn all night. Lawrence also folds in a number of select club “discographies” so you can reproduce Jimmy Stuard’s set from 12 West, circa 1976, at home (on nice speakers, perhaps, or an iPhone placed in a cereal bowl). 

so I said "Why not?"  I'm about halfway through and I'm not sure that I'll finish, I'm so bored by non-fiction that I haven't taken a history class since high school.  And my main motivation to finish the book--compiling a playlist of all the mentioned songs--was obviated when I learned that someone already did it.

I am not, however, bored by podcasts about non-fiction and I recently stumbled across the One Song Podcast, a show where DJs Diallo Riddle and Luxxury break down the backstory to a song or album.  This isn't just stories about the first time they heard the song or why it's one of their top ten songs, there's some serious music theory.  Here's Luxxury explaining why the bass line to Nas's N.Y. State of Mind sounds so menacing:

The whole episode is great but many of you aren't into Nas and probably don't care who DJ Premier sampled and how he looped it.  Here's an episode I suspect most of you will enjoy.

But the real reason I'm posting all this drivel is their interview with Fab 5 Freddy.  It's two parts and only the first one is out yet, but they talk about some of the clubs and records from Love Saves the Day, so if you don't want to read 400-plus pages of non-fiction just listen to Fab 5 Freddy talk about the good old days of the NYC disco scene, how DJing was invented, the making of Wildstyle, and lots of other interesting stuff.

Deceased Nag and Cudgel Alert: NCAA Edition

Demonstrating once again that nothing will be left alone if privileged people think they benefit from change, the NCAA is in the process of finalizing one of the worst ideas in sports: expansion of the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. 

According to reports, the field in both events will increase to 76 teams next season, up from the current 68. Details must be worked out and rubber stamps inked and thumped, but the meat of it is that there will be eight play-in games rather than four, and the winners will advance to the regular Goldilocks field of 64 for the tournaments’ opening weekend. 

Understand that this isn’t about increased opportunities or more of a good thing, it’s power conferences exerting control over as many areas as they see fit, and a mostly neutered NCAA attempting to remain relevant, or at least not be further kneecapped by said conferences. Longtime ESPN snoop Pete Thamel wrote that tournament expansion is driven by the power conferences wanting more at-large bids for their teams. Because clearly, eight or ten or twelve teams from a league aren’t enough. Certainly, an extra low- or mid-major team with an exceptional record will make the expanded field, but it’s a safe bet for anyone but Brendan Sorsby (too soon? [ED: Never!]) that six or seven of the new eight at-larges will be from the Bigfoot conferences. 

Thamel also wrote that expanded tournaments aren’t expected to provide a financial windfall for the NCAA and member schools, but sources said there would be profits. No, he wasn’t talking about Fan Duel and Draft Kings. Decide for yourself if it’s mere coincidence that NCAA officials and media partners are negotiating a new deal, whose current terms pre-dated the present bloat and conference demands for even more elbow room at the trough. 

I’ve written previously about tournament expansion and the notion that it’s football, not basketball, that moved the needle. The Big Ten and SEC became 18- and 16-team mega-conferences, respectively, and capitalized on massive financial deals for football, forcing the ACC and Big 12 to follow suit or get left behind (raise a glass for the late, lamented Pac-12). In turn, that meant five or six teams from a league getting into the basketball tournament went from reasonable representation, percentage-wise, to underserved in their estimation. 

Advocates for tournament expansion cite examples such as Texas advancing from the play-in rounds to the regional semifinal this past March as proof that power conference schools deserve greater representation. I’d argue the opposite. Where was that Longhorns’ team the previous three months? They finished tenth in the SEC. I maintain that no team that doesn’t finish in the top half of its league merits an invitation to play for a natty. Alas, that’s not the way it flies today, when P4 leagues, particularly the Big Ten and SEC, understandably equate resources with clout. 

No small number of power conference coaches favor expansion, as well, reasoning that NCAA berths help with job security. I might argue that an expanded, diluted NCAA field may not provide the shield they think (see: Davis, Hubert, turfed by North Carolina despite four NCAA appearances in his five seasons; and Barnes, Rick, canned at Texas in 2015 despite 16 NCAA trips in 17 seasons). In the present landscape, administrators and Big Checkbooks may not be satisfied with mere invitations to the party; they will want results in the form of deep runs and hardware. But those will be campus taffy pulls. In the grand scheme, we will get a format that few people want with several more undeserving entrants packaged as an upgrade, all because those with their hands on the levers will never let a potential advantage go to waste. Way of the world.