Saturday, December 15, 2018

Giving Thanks

I'm not sure why but I always feel like its more appropriate to give thanks near Christmas (or Gheorghemas) than Thanskgiving. Maybe its the extra time off I usually have or the boozy celebrations or just the whole vibe of lights and gifts and friends and family. Whatever the reason(s), this is where my head is currently at so here's some of what I'm thankful for:

1. Vince Staples- Known on Twitter as Crippy Teigen, the Long Beach based MC is a breath of fresh air in the current era of rap. I'm not one of those old guys who hates all the current rap. Shit changes and that's ultimately good for the genre. Am I listening to a lot of Lil Pump and Ski Mask the Slump God? No. But I loved Young Thug's "Jeffrey" and can get down with a good bit of Kodak Black's catalog. All that said, Staples is a throwback. He's a shit talking west coast MC who has a great personality and an old school style. I've been a fan for a while. His latest album "FM!" is probably his most complete and has been on regular rotation for me over the past month. Check it out. His old shit isn't bad either.




2. New Orleans- I'm preaching to the choir here but, god damn, that city is great. My wife and I ditched the kids and had a long, boozy weekend there just before Thanksgiving. It was fucking glorious. It's one of the few places that I'd consider leaving my current beachside locale for. We love it so much that we each got Fleur De Lis tattoos whilst in the Crescent City. She's been asking for matching tattoos for years and I've shut that shit down at every turn. New Orleans is kind of our spot though, so I finally demurred. A couple new recommendations for those of you planning return trips to The Big Easy: Turkey and the Wolf for lunch, Peche for a fantastic array of seafood and Seaworthy for more oysters than you'll ever need.

3. SNKRS- It's no secret that I have shoe problem. No matter how hard I try I can't stop buying them. They're just so fucking pretty. SNKRS has only made this issue worse. Not only does this Nike app make it incredibly easy to buy shoes with the tap (or fingerprint) of a button, but its also constantly alerting you to new, exclusive offers. Just last week I grabbed a pair of Jordan Concord 11s whilst watching my daughter at the local rec basketball league tryouts. If I had to guess, I'd say I've bought about a dozen pairs of shoes off the SNKRS app in the past year. I REGRET NOTHING.



4. Old Ghost Tattoo- Its also no secret that I love tattoos. I got my first one in Hampton, VA when I was 18 and fresh out of my parents house. It's been a love affair ever since. Eventually I found a local artist whose tastes meshed with my own and we've been working together ever since. We're going on 20 years now. I'm pretty well covered at this point. Gainful employment is the only thing that's slowed me down over the last few years. If you ever see me with a huge neck tattoo you'll know I hit it big in the market. Anywho, through all the years of money spent, body art discussed and painful needling, I saved one spot...my back. Late last year I finally took that body part on. It was my 40th birthday present to myself. Last night it was finished. I couldn't be happier with it, or to be done with it.



5. Reggie- Last summer we had two Pit Bulls. Tinsley and Mayfield. Tinsley was approaching 16 and had been with me since college. Mayfield was 8 and a dog we'd had since my wife and I first moved in together. Within a few short months Tinsley died of old age and Mayfield died suddenly of cancer. It was tough on all of us. Especially my youngest who'd never known a house without the tip tap of a dog's feet and the slobbery kisses of a dog's love. Fast forward to February and a friend of mine posted a video of one of his new litter of bulldogs on his Instagram. I fell in love. I showed the video to my wife and she too fell in love. Within hours we had wired him money and purchased the pooch. One problem: the dog is a bulldog and I am a Gator. I told my wife that the only way this could work was if I had full naming rights. This bulldog had to be a Gator. That's why we have a female bulldog named Reggie. It's odd but it works.



Happy Gheorghemas, y'all.

27 comments:

  1. these things are all most excellent. my daughter saw vince staples at the 930 club earlier in the year. she's cooler than i am. and that tattoo is ridiculous, in a good way. that's art.

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  2. I’m very jealous of your daughter. Vince hasn’t yet come to Florida.

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  3. the valdosta state/ferris state division ii national championship is noteworthy for two gheorghie-centric reasons:

    - former gator qb kerwin bell coaches valdosta
    - my niece, grace, is a freshman cheerleader at valdosta, and the only reason i'm watching this game

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  4. I enjoy your complete disregard for the proper Gheorghemas post structure

    It's very Gheorghey of you

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  5. And it’s very TJ of you to be annoyed by a lack of internet decorum.

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  6. Kudos on that ink. That is a serious piece of work and it all ties together amazingly well. Pretty sweet. I want a third piece. Only issue is that the artist I’m really digging these days works out of Paris.

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  7. The real decorum is the friends we made along the way

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  8. Darnold is playing well and the Jets are trying hard to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. QB development amid unintentional tanking is a win-win.

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  9. That tatt is awwwwwsome. Other than going through a couple of stages when I thought of getting one, or two, I know jack diddly other than that being awesome.

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  10. big fish theory is a good one. i am also thankful for our new dog, who is really coming along (and finally winning my wife over). and i'm thankful for tr reminding about hip hop evolution. watched a few more last night. so good. i am thankful for my wife of course, but not thankful that at a holiday party last weekend, after she had one too many ciders, she volunteered our house for the neighborhood new year's party.

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  11. miley cyrus and mark ronson were great on snl last night.

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  12. I’m thankful I only have one youth basketball game to deal with today. Not thankful I have to coach and mask alcohol oozing out of my pores.

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  13. One of many great aspects of being friends with TR is his drunken texts, like “I have had 4 scotches and 8 deviled eggs at a party. This may end very very badly.” This made the party I was attending that much more entertaining.

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  14. less great, the olfactory offenses taking place under tr's blankets this morning. hope his wife took appropriate precautions.

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  15. I’ve been incredibly productive this afternoon. Picking red onions and cucumbers. Putting ina huge catering order with my father in law for an orthopedic surgeon I work with and doing laundry. All whilst monitoring my two semifinal fantasy teams.

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  16. i spent a metric fuckton on christmas gifts. also productive, if painful.

    tribe is up 9 at the half over something called william peace. that seems poor.

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  17. The non touchback special teams play in Pats-Steelers was dope.

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  18. I haven’t had a moment’s rest all day and I still have to bring my grandmother her laundry but the highlight of the day was Cookies and Cocoa with Santa, particularly when zson called bullshit on Santa not really being Santa because it was a different guy from last year and he saw a third Santa at the mall. The woman who coordinated the event laughed and walked off so I had to explain to zson (in front of zdaughter) that Santa has helpers who look like him to attend these types of events and zson proceeded to depose me on the mechanics of this process and it was not fun. Ultimately I told him that I only know what his Grammy told me, which means zmom has an uncomfortable cross examination in her near future. The upside of having a stroke is no one faults you when you say you can’t remember stuff so she’ll probably Ronald Reagan her way through it.

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  19. Joe Haden had never been a defensive back in his life before college. He was a high school QB recruited to be a slot receiver. Within a week of being on campus in Gainesville he was switched to corner. It’s a pretty amazing career that dude has carved out for himself.

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  20. Zman has a way with words, and I need to meet young Kemba at some point.

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  21. Good catching up with the gang here today. It’s been an aggressive stint for the kid.

    Thursday I spent a couple of hours in the early evening at the Governor’s mansion in Richmond (well la-di-frickin-da), then hightailed it to Adams Morgan where we hit Madams Organ and partied with the band during their set and then all night long. Sick day Friday. Friday night black tie event back in the neighborhood. Didn’t take a date because I’m stone single for the first time since 1992 and I couldn’t find one. Well, one that I liked a lot. So I went at it hard and made a handful of the wives and girlfriends simultaneously wondersome why their guy can’t tickle their funny bone to such a degree and also super psyched they are with him instead of some manic like yours truly. Ended up partying all night long again. Then hopped the AM flight(s) to Florida where I hung with the fam for my stepdad’s birthday where he is no longer 69. Much Jamo/red wine/bubbly stuff/Irish coffee/dessert drinks and making some septuagenarian women swoon. I swear, I got no game quite like the game I have with old ladies. Gonna have some stories for you people someday soon. Flew back from Sarasota today in time to replay the end of the Skins win (sorry D) and then start revving up for my good friend’s band playing tonight. I won’t go too hard tonight but the Tito’s/soda/splash of grapefruits are going down as easy as a fine wine-soaked older lady with a glint in her eye and a slow gait needing my charm and attention to lay her into her Tempur-Pedic and ease her gently into this good night.

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  22. I didn’t see that final metaphor coming.

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  23. Whitney for the win!!

    And bless him for that energy level. I couldn’t have done half of his extended weekend.

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  24. i'm exhausted just reading about it

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  25. That was an exceptionally witty and vulgar metaphor. Tremendous prose overall. Whit was channeling Kerouac, who would just puke out a stream of consciousness on his typewriter while high on speed.

    I too am a big hit with older women. Ladies in their 50’s find me fetching. Makes me bummed out a bit b/c they think I am close to 50. But as a guy who carried a torch for that Blanche Devereaux, I will take it.

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  26. Thanks, peeps. I just went to an event that involved the singing of Christmas carols at a brewery. Pleasant enough. No edge.

    I just learned the hard way that autocorrect doesn’t know that the contraction of “Who are” needs, like all contractions, an apostrophe. Whoops a daisy.

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