Farewell II, Part 2

Musings about the death of Shane MacGowan, as spoken into my phone whilst driving around the region today. 

65. I can’t believe he made it to 65. News of people's passing, especially the famous kind, can be sort of wistful. Shane McGowan, dying at 65... all that popped into my head was Damn, it’s a miracle he made it to 65. 

This was a guy who was booted out of his band in 1991 because he was drinking so much that he was on a downward spiral to hell. Not only did he resuscitate and rejoin the band 15 years later in a Comeback Player of the Year sort of performance, but he lived 17 years beyond that. He outlived his bandmate Phil Chevron, amazingly. He outlived Dave Flynn, sadly. 

When I think of my appreciation of the Pogues and Shane McGowan, it begins in college. A Pi Lam pit dance floor, as "Fiesta" blared. And "Fairytale of New York," a Christmas song unlike any other, in small part because I could enjoy it midsummer as much as anytime. Our buddy Paci did and does still look just like Shane McGowan. If either of them ever aged at all, it’s hard to tell. You could say neither has aged all that well, but did you see what they looked like at the starting gate?  Sorry, Paci. 

What can you say about Shane McGowan's singing voice? It is equal parts fantastic and puzzling. It’s the opposite of lilting, as so many of his duet companions were. It’s semi-spoken, with a gravelly grit the waves of whiskey helped create. Make no mistake, it’s beautiful, but it’s Picasso beautiful. 

The Pogues piqued my interest in what can be called Celtic rock, I guess. I dug into The Waterboys and Big Country. Later the Dropkick Murphys and Flogging Molly.  Joe Strummer got involved with the Pogues and Shane McGowan. Amazingly, and not in the blessed kind of amazing, Joe died 21 years ago. Shane McGowan fucking outlived Joe Strummer, and all bets were against that. Whiskey drinking more than... well just a bit more than any other good Irishman, I suppose. Shane was a mess; there’s a documentary on him from a long time ago (2001, ghooghle says!) where you can hear him talk but you can’t really understand what he says because he’s down to a few teeth. He seemed on death's door then! I can’t believe he lived to the age of retirement. 

Maybe he just wanted to stick that middle finger up at all his doubters, reach the end zone age, and punch out. He outlived Kirsty McCall, tragically. He outlived Sinéad O’Connor. Outlived Dolores O’Riordan. All his duetters. 

The comeback show of 2006 was a story unto its own. Shane had been touring for a number of years with his band the Popes. They put out a couple of albums, Not terrible, not in the canon of the Pogues. Word got to us in DC that the 930 Club would be the venue where the Pogues would land for the first stop on American soil on their Reunited with Shane and It Feels So Good tour. Subtitled "Shane... Come back!" It was a big deal, and not just for those of us of Irish descent, or those of us who enjoyed good blarney rock ‘n’ roll, or those of us who had been following the Pogues. It was a big fucking deal. 

I haven’t known many Americans of Irish descent who so embodied the spirit of Erin as my large-and-in-charge friend Dave Flynn. Drinking with Dave was one of my very favorite pastimes of the late 1990s and early 2000s, and something I miss many Saturdays a year. And many Tuesdays a year. We got tickets for the March 9 show, that inaugural evening. Flynn's wife Marguerite was pregnant with their second daughter, and that Pogues show, momentous and unmissable as it was, was a little bit dicey in its timing. Until my mind goes for good, I will never forget the phone call I received from Dave about a week prior. 

Hey, when’s that Pogues show again?
March 9.
Perfect!! Marguerite gets induced on the 10th!! 

That's perfect?? I will still never get it, but I laughed heartily. We pregamed like ungated banshees, and we boozed whiskey the whole show while singing along with that long lost friend I’d never had, Shane McGowan. Old college mate Cap came up to us out of nowhere with two slugs of Jameson for us, then whisked away into the shadows of IRA whispers. The Pogues played every song on the desired docket. (Set list here.) Four songs in, however, Shane made a beeline off stage, and Flynn and I shrugged and looked at each other as if to say, it was a good run, and four songs was enough. What we didn’t know was that he would only remain off stage for two songs and then come back with a vengeance. And a bottle. 

As he sang "Fairytale of New York" with so-and-so (ye olde internet says Ella Finer, the daughter of Pogue Jem Finer), fake snow fell from the rafters of the 930 Club. It was fucking lovely. 

For "Fiesta," the night's closer, I charged up front to the moshpit. At 35, I still thought I had it. I did not. That muddy floor meant I hit hard. Some heavenly messenger in black denim scooped me up and set me upright so as not to be trampled by the masses. Maybe I’ve got a little luck o' the Shane in me as well. 

Dave Flynn died nine months later of a weekend heart. (I meant weakened but the dictation robot is clever as hell.) Shane McGowan outlived Flynn by 17 years. The world is weird and sometimes sad. 

So turn on the Pogues and tune into Shane McGowan today. I'll be heading to Grace O'Malley's (it's an Irish pub, for obtuse readers) in just a few moments and will raise a glass to Shane and Dave and a dozen more besides. Join me in spirit, if not in body.

65 years old. 

May we each defy the epitaph that others have constructed for us. And may we live on the sunnyside of the street forever.

A Farewell of a Different Sort

RIP to the amazing, debauched, brilliant, tortured Shane MacGowan. There are a ton of tunes that come to mind, but this one jumped into my head first. Come all you rambling boys of pleasure, indeed.

Farewell

This is a lovely eulogy by Jason Carter for his grandmother, former First Lady Rosalynn Carter. May we all live lives with such purpose and impact.

Jason Carter reached out to Jason Isbell last week and said this:

Hey ⁦@JasonIsbell⁩ you may not have known it, but you wrote this about my grandparents. Jimmy and Rosalynn. From a small town in Georgia. They were the flagship of the fleet for sure. https://t.co/4VPuG0QqcJ

— Jason Carter (@SenatorCarter) November 22, 2023

High praise, that. 

It's News to Me [***NEW RECURRING BIT ALERT!***]

I know a lot of things. Mostly inconsequential and esoteric things, but a lot of things nonetheless. But as Bill James tells us, the world is a billion times more complicated than our minds, and so there's a universe of stuff out there that someone knows, but that I don't.

Case in point, the origin story of Old Bay Seasoning.

Gustav Brunn was a successful spicemonger (we should use 'monger' for more things: zman is a lawmonger, for example) in Wertheim, Germany in the late 1930s. On Kristallnacht, he was one of 30,000 Jewish men who were captured by the Nazis and taken to the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp. At this point in history, the Nazis had yet to initiate their ghastly final solution, and men of means were often able to purchase their freedom. Brunn's family paid a lawyer 10,000 Deutschmarks to secure his release.

Brunn and his family left immediately for the United States and settled in Baltimore. He emigrated with very little, but he was adamant that he take his hand-crank spice grinder on the trans-Atlantic journey.

Unable to secure funding from banks to start a new business because he was Jewish (and after getting fired from McCormick for the same reason), Brunn got an assist from Katz American, a Jewish-owned competitor in the spice game. Katz loaned him the seed capital necessary to start Baltimore Spice Company, which in 1940 developed a seafood spice to pair with the crabs coming into town at the Wholesale Fish Market, which was immediately across the street from Brunn's business.

The rest, as they say, is history, save for one ironic coda. Brunn's business and McCormick feuded for years as the latter marketed a seafood seasoning in a suspiciously yellow tin. In 1990, five years after Brunn passed, the company sold the recipe for Old Bay to McCormick. Those dicks. 

Some of you may know this story, but it was news to me. 

Weird-Ass Filler/Audience Participation

My wife headed to Pittsburgh today to visit her folks. Her father had a bit of a medical scare and didn't get to travel to us for Thanksgiving (all is well, thankfully), and he's getting on in years, so she felt it important to get to see them. Took my youngest to the airport this morning, so my oldest and I got to hang for most of the day. 

If you know my oldest, you'll be clued into the fact that they're wildly creative, a bit provocative, and a perpetual motion machine. They're recovering from a stress fracture to a big toe, so the usual physical outlets aren't available. Which has manifest itself in a manic artistic spree: short stories, poems, drawings, vocalizations that may or may not make one think they're in the presence of a lunatic.

Because I wanted to extend my time with my kid, I agreed to play along when they suggested we make art together. We drew for five minutes and then switched pages and drew for five more, and so on. Friends, I give you...shit, I don't know. But I enjoyed it.

The pencil work is mine. The ink, my kid's. Please don't try to psychoanalyze us.

Might or might not be a Muppet sex party

Jesus doing a kick-flip

In addition to our illustration, we dug up a poetry prompt website and did some speed poetry. In the interest of expanding your parameters, this is a call to y'all. Using the random prompt generator at robertpeake.com, I got the following:

Include as many of the following words (or variations on these words) as you like:

pore-wise, derived, neighbor's, petrified, deaf, bright, norden, orphant, lemmate, goddesses, kools, rain-beaten

Also:

Mention an aspect of agriculture or farming

Make up an unusual name for a person and include it in the poem

And I turned it into:

Pore-wise Lemmate Orphant

Rain-beaten by the norden windspray

Deaf to his neighbor’s petrified plea

Skin alive buoyed by goddesses

Kools from his pocket, bright

With sparks derived from fakeflint

Hoping reaping pleasure

Sown from hopeful flirtation

Now it's your turn, Gheorghies. Use the poetry prompt generator at the link above, write as fast as you can, and share your work in the comments. Flex those right brains, my friends. Embrace your inner lunatic. I'm glad I got to do that with my kid.

Tim Ballard and the Story That Was Too Good to Be True (Allegedly)

I've had a few interesting brushes with fame and newsworthy items over the years. There was the LeBron thing, obviously. And I once told Katie Couric to stop asking questions of my high school classmates during a time one of my friends' fathers was held hostage and later murdered in Lebanon. There's a new entry to this category of my biography, and it's way weird.

Several years ago, i was a speaker at the Conference of Western Attorneys General (CWAG). The event itself seemed to be a bit of a boondoggle for the generals - held at the Biltmore in Scottsdale, which is a really nice resort, copious amounts of food and drink, and a handful of mildly interesting sessions. 

As a part of my company's sponsorship of the event and the organization, I got to interview a couple of attorneys general to get content for our marketing team to use in various communications. I met with Arizona AG Mark Brnovich, who I found very smart and dedicated, even though his politics are way different than mine. In that meeting I was accompanied by a colleague and several of General Brnovich's staff.

Tim Ballard

I also met with Utah AG Sean Reyes. The two of us were the only people in the room. It was a fascinating conversation that lasted more than two hours. That dude can tell stories, and he seems to like to do so. In particular, he told me a story of an operation he participated in where he posed as a customer interested in procuring underaged girls for sex as part of a sting organized by a former Department of Homeland Security agent. I remember telling him someone should make a movie of that sequence of events.

Seems I have an eye for that sort of thing, because they did. It's called Sound of Freedom, and it was released earlier this year to great fanfare from the political right. Reyes has a producer credit on the film, which purports to tell the true story of a guy named Tim Ballard, who founded an organization called Operation Underground Railroad (OUR) dedicated to freeing victims of sexual exploitation around the globe.

Ballard has been something of a darling of the right for quite a while. From its founding in 2013, OUR has been a useful tool for the QAnon crowd, with its ready-made mix of sex trafficking and border insecurity. And nearly from its founding, the organization and Ballard have been accused of overstating its impact and potentially traumatizing trafficked youth.

Now, Ballard faces multiple lawsuits from women alleging that he sexually abused them under the auspices of training them to participate in OUR operations. Here's an excerpt from a Slate article about the allegations:

On OUR missions, men posed as sex tourists or those supplying customers with underage victims to entrap the traffickers. But the men were not supposed to actually touch the victims themselves. (This was the principle, at least: The criminal investigation into OUR found that one operative, who was also an executive producer of Sound of Freedom, touched the naked breasts of an apparently underage trafficking victim during a 2016 undercover operation.) The “couples ruse” was OUR’s tactic of having a “jealous girlfriend” present with the man posing as a sex tourist to object to his inquiries in order to deflect suspicion from the undercover men.

But, according to the lawsuit, Ballard demanded that his female partners in this ruse show full commitment. He seemed to believe—or at least said he believed—that to be convincing, the two would have to act as a very “kinky” and highly sexual couple, unable to keep their hands off one another. And so to prove they would be right for the roles, the women would have to convince him that they would have “chemistry.”

To do so, they would “act out” that chemistry, privately. Ballard had two rules for the ruse: no kissing on the lips, and no touching or exposing genitals. But everything else was fair game. Ballard would grope the women. He would order them to strip and give him lap dances and prove they could “turn him on.” One woman recalled that in his first test of whether she would be a fit for the ruse, he pushed her up against the office door, grinding on her. The incident ended as someone walked in while he was trying to undo her jeans.

Ballard denies the allegations against him, but it's worth noting that The Church of Latter Day Saints (of which Ballard is a member) denounced his behavior as "morally unacceptable", and that he left OUR in July of this year under a cloud of suspicion related to the sexual improprieties as well as financial misdealings.

Tim Ballard is certainly innocent until proven guilty. It is undeniable, though, that multiple accusers have independently come forward with very similar stories. Ballard's alleged behavior and public persona are of a piece with the kind of macho MAGA preening all too common in modern America. If he's proven to be guilty, I hope he pays a stiff penalty. 

And Sean Reyes, well, better call your office.

Baby, if you've ever wondered, wondered whether it was gonna post...

🎵I'm posting on the morn for you this Thanksgiving
This Thanksgiving...that clip from WKRP...🎵

Back on my bullshit bonus holiday content:

Props Given

Imagine for a moment Shane Battier winning the 2001 NCAA Tournament title in his senior season, being named national college player of the year to boot, and instead of moving on after graduation, replacing his legendary head coach as the leader of the program. The stakes and details aren't exactly the same, but a reasonable facsimile of that scenario just played out in NCAA field hockey.

Erin Matson is regarded as one of the greatest field hockey players in American history. She was ACC Player of the Year five times at North Carolina (COVID year and everything) and national Player of the Year thrice. Her Tar Heels won four NCAA titles during her time in Chapel Hill. She's a member of the U.S. national team. And now, after UNC defeated Northwestern in a penalty shootout on Sunday to win their fifth title in six years, she's a national champion coach.

Legendary Tar Heel coach Karen Shelton resigned in December 2022 after 42 years at the helm of the nation's all-time winningest program. While still a student at UNC (but after her final season) Matson approached UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham and expressed her interest in succeeding her mentor. To his credit, Cunningham took her seriously, though he admitted in an interview, it was "...an idea that you probably do have to sit with for a while to say, ‘OK, am I really going to consider this?’ After an interview process, Matson was named the head coach of the UNC program in January 2023.

Her teammates (and in one case, roommate) went from friends hanging out on Franklin Street with her to players dealing with her demanding standards. Romea Riccardo (who happens to be nine months older than her coach), said “Right away she did a great job of kind of separating herself from us. We respected her right away. We always respected her as a player. But now obviously it’s a little bit different when she’s our coach and our person that we kind of look up to as a mom figure.”

Kinda mean to do this to your mom, though:

Had to know that was coming 💦 pic.twitter.com/X9CMU1hEWO

— UNC Field Hockey (@UNCFieldHockey) November 20, 2023

Gheorghasbord

Your usual collection of flotsam and jetsam painstakingly fished from the eddies and tributaries of my mind.

The team at Meadowlark Media has been incredibly prolific in the company's first two years. Recently, Dan Le Batard's folks launched a podcast featuring former ESPN personality Pablo Torre called Pablo Torre Finds Out. The Harvard-educated Torre is incredibly bright, and voraciously curious. The show has proven to be equally adept at handling serious topics and delving into extreme goofiness with entertaining results regardless. I commend to your attention as an example of the former the episode entitled The Teenage Athlete at the Heart of America's Culture War... Isn't Very Good at Sports, which is a well-reported and good-natured discussion of a trans female's high school softball career. Torre's recent interview episodes with Action Bronson and Desus Nice fall nicely into the latter category. Once you're caught up on We Defy Augury, I highly recommend PTFO.

In other self-entertainment news (that's fit for a family blog like this one), I've changed my social media habits a bit. I left Twitter a few months ago after Elon Musk's cringy anti-semitism and the site's increasingly bitter tone got too much for me. It's a bummer, honestly, because I once got real value from my interactions there. I've been hanging out on Bluesky, instead. To date, I find it eccentric, good-natured, and a bit wonky. It's still invite-only, so if you'd like your micro-blogging on the weird side, hit me up - I've got a handful to distribute.

There's been a new development in the war between the neighboring Catholic church and my dog-walking habits. Two days ago, I noticed that the church maintenance team had set up a barrier made of branches and a large stump blocking access to one of three pathways to the road that leads from the church to downtown Leesburg. It's clearly an intentional escalation of the simmering hostilities. So I took a page from the Bible (Matthew 28:2-4, in particular) and rolled the stump away from the path, just like an angel of the Lord did at Jesus' tomb. As Proverbs 12:10 says, “A righteous man cares for the life of his beast, but the compassion of the wicked is cruel.” I'm just doing right by my beast.

Michigan, Man

This is a post in the form of a question. Or maybe vice versa. Either way, it’s something I’ve mulled for a few days. In the drama concerning sign-stealing by University of Michigan football, the outing of an over-enthusiastic minion with an expense account, and head coach Jim Harbaugh’s suspension by the Big Ten Conference, why is this anything other than a high-profile case of workplace discipline? 

We’ve been subjected to varying degrees of outrage, calls for stricter or lesser punishment depending on rooting interest, and peeks behind the curtain related to sportsmanship and coaching practices. We’ve heard endless yammering about due process and legal challenges and NCAA overreach and temporary injunctions – a sampling of the elements that make sports a magical draw for so many. The fact that it’s major-college, high-dollar athletics adds layers of passion and gasbaggery beyond reasonable measure. 

Harbaugh sat out the first game of his three-game suspension last Saturday at Penn State when Michigan Big Hats were unable to arrange an immediate hearing in hopes of getting the punishment overturned or at least delayed. The Wolverines dedicated their performance to their absent leader and afterward some reacted as if Harbaugh had perished while rescuing nuns from a burning convent. 

Harbaugh remains with the program each week. He is barred from the stadium for four hours during the final three regular season games, the last of which is the annual blood feud versus Ohio State. He returns to the sideline if the Wolverines make the Big Ten championship game and the College Football Playoff. 

This has been characterized as “unfair” and “extreme” and as much as “irreparable harm” by the Maize and Blue crowd, while others think the punishment insufficient for the transgression revealed. A hearing is scheduled Friday, which figures to be at least a one-ring circus, particularly if Harbaugh testifies. But again, if I may, isn’t it within the Big Ten’s purview to impose discipline or punish people and institutions as it sees fit? 

It’s not as cut-and-dried as some perceived offense at Microsoft or McDonald’s and granted, Harbaugh isn’t an “employee” of the Big Ten. He’s employed by Michigan. Which agrees to certain guidelines and conditions as a member of the conference, one being ‘don’t play us and make us look like feebs.’  

Attorneys both credentialed and armchair have gone all pro bono and talked up the points of lack of due process and fair practices in the Big Ten’s suspension. But this isn’t a criminal case. Heck, it’s barely an NCAA case at this point, only the notice of an investigation and some preliminary findings. This situation strikes less as due process and more about the expectation that the Big Ten should cut the membership some slack. 

Part of Michigan’s defense is: everybody does it, an extension of the old NASCAR credo, “If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’.” It seems that many programs do indeed attempt to steal signs, but using electronics to relay signals to coaches and players is forbidden, and in-person scouting and attempted sign-stealing has been an NCAA violation since 1994. 

Another component is that Harbaugh himself supposedly was unaware of the assistant’s sign-stealing M.O., his visits to various stadia and upcoming opponents to videotape their sidelines. The Big Ten looked at the preponderance of examples of the assistant, Connor Stalions, purchasing tickets at different venues and cozying up to Wolverines’ coordinators and determined that the practice was ongoing and systemic. That other Big Ten schools called out Michigan for its sign stealing methods didn’t bolster its defense. 

The Big Ten stopped short of saying Harbaugh knew, though someone who famously micro-manages his program being completely unaware over an extended period stretches credibility. The conference was careful to say that it was punishing Michigan and not Harbaugh. Jumping ugly on an expendable second-tier assistant coach wasn’t sufficient, however, hence the call to suspend the CEO. 

Certainly, it may be ham-handed or poor timing or hastily considered, or all the above. It hardly needs pointing out that corporations and governing bodies are as entitled to questionable decisions as those they oversee, and they happen to wield the hammer (Here I should point out that I welcome the G:TB Legal Dept., or those in the audience who aren’t self-employed, weighing in to tell me if I’m missing something). 

Michigan’s athletic director was predictably huffy after the suspension, saying in effect: “You’re happy that they banged us? That just means they can come for you, too.” A mite short on the contrition scale, and unfortunately permits them to focus on the process and punishment, and not the violation. No telling what will come from Friday’s hearing. Regardless, the Big Ten offices will want to scrutinize incoming holiday packages. Food tasters may not be a bad idea, either.

Gheorghe Explains White People's Thanksgiving Food

For quite some time, I've harbored the belief that the best part of Thanksgiving is fellowship and daydrinking, and the worst part is the food. I come to this understanding with a set of priors based upon my upbringing and subsequent maturing among very white people. I've heard tell of bountiful harvests of mustard greens and mac and cheese and hamhocks, but I've never partaken in such glorious repast. I'm not qualified to offer an opinion on the full range of Thanksgiving gustatory blessings.

I am, however, fully qualified to rank white people's Thanksgiving food. As our families descend upon us, or we travel to be with them, this seems the perfect time to share. And so, into the kitchen breach, my friends, with Gheorghe's Definitive Ranking of Thanksgiving Food:

Dead Fucking Last: Yams, Sweet Potato Pie, and any other derivatives. 

Fucking disgusting. Too sweet, too squishy, too orange, and why would you ruin perfectly good marshmallows like that? Dislike.

12. Pumpkin Pie

Awful consistency, tastes like feet.

11. Turkey

Boring, bland, way too much effort to cook, carve, and serve. Unfortunately, this is always our main dish. White people hate change.

10. Pecan Pie

Too sweet. Makes my teeth hurt. 

9. Cranberry sauce (from the can)

Shouldn't be as good as it is. My move is always to eat my first plate without it, then slice a little bit for my second round. Kinda like a dessert appetizer.

8. Creamed corn

Okay. Don't love the consistency, but corn tastes good. And the original Pilgrims had it with their meal, so it's historically accurate.

7. Roasted carrots

Gotta cook 'em so there's some carmelization but still some crunch. Little butter and parsley. That's an orange foodstuff I can get behind.

6. Green Beans/Green Bean Casserole

As long as they're cooked with ham, and have enough butter (and cream in the case of the casserole), these are top notch. Now we're getting somewhere.

5. Stuffing

The Stove Toppier the better. Mix it with some mashed potatoes and green beans? Oh hell yes.

4. Apple Pie

The GOAT holiday dessert. Serve it warm with a dollop of cinnamon ice cream, finish it and drift off to fat sleep.

3. Mashed potatoes

My wife got her recipe from her father, and it's fantastic. Lots and lots of butter and cream. Silky texture, and you can feel it coating your arteries. One of the few things for which I'm willing to go back for seconds.

2. Creamed onions

Little pearls of perfection. You don't like 'em? Fine, I'll eat yours. 

1. Booze

Red wine, beers, whiskey, whatever your tipple of choice. Alcohol is the only Thanksgiving menu item that's non-negotiable. This year, I'm making something called a Cranberry Mule, which is basically a whiskey-based Dark & Stormy with cranberry sauce. I'll let you know how it turns out.

I'm aware that there are other popular Thanksgiving foods, like scalloped potatoes (meh), roasted Brussels sprouts (dig 'em, but we usually don't have them with our meal), dinner rolls (excellent vehicles for more butter), and such, but I can only rank what I know.

Return of zbouillabaisse

zbouillabaisse, aka zman bouillabaisse (not to be confused with B-Boy Bouillabaisse), is back!  

1. The QAnon Shaman is running for Congress.  Of course he is, because our politics doubles in stupidity every 2 years.  It's zman's law.  Jacob Chansley is running for Arizona's 8th district as a Libertarian.  The current representative, Debbie Lesko, isn't running again and the Shaman is a natural fit to represent Maricopa County.  And he already knows his away around the Capitol.  

2. Nooner, Shocker.  The coach of the Wichita State Shockers' women's basketball team is named Terry Nooner.  We love nooners around here.  Here's Nooner the Shocker giving the shocker.  

A big happy birthday to the one and only Coach @terrynooner! 🎉 pic.twitter.com/BHUkvpZv7T

— Wichita State Women’s Basketball (@GoShockersWBB) November 12, 2023

Can't make this stuff up.  H/t to the DLC. 

3.  I got a heat pump!  That isn't a euphemism, it's a device split between my attic and my back yard that can heat or cool my second floor without burning any fossil fuels, thus solving the problem of my undersized HVAC system that doesn't push air hard enough to reach the bedrooms, allowing me to turn the furnace way down at night but still sleep warmly without burning natural gas, and most importantly, offsetting my carbon footprint so I can drive for pleasure without invoking as much ire from Dave (although I bet the two little cars I drive the most have better fuel economy than Dave's behemoth vehicles).  And I will get a tax credit.

4. "You can't end sex on even numbers."  I'm sure you've seen Terrell Owens and Chad Ochocinqo reminiscing about their 12-hour, 17-woman orgy.  When TO suggests it was only 12 women, Ocho retorts "You can't end sex on even numbers!"  I suppose that's right given my experience--one is an odd number.  It would be nice if these guys did a PSA for PrEP though.  I'm no expert, but if you plan to attend an orgy you should get your shots first.

Lovely Little Lid-Lifter

If you have kids of a certain age, it's a mathematical certainty that a decent part of their early childhood was spent doing the monkey, riding in a big red car, eating fruit salad (yummy, yummy) and otherwise wiggling. The Wiggles are arguably the most successful children's entertainers of all time - and inarguably Australia's highest-grossing musical act. 

Hot Potato: The Story of the Wiggles, now available on Amazon Prime, is a full-length documentary about the band's rise. And while it's as sweet-natured as the band itself, it isn't all featherswords and green dinosaurs. The four original Wiggles recount the band's origin story, their bafflement as their rocketship lifted off, and even some of the more challenging times any group encounters. 

The present-day concert scenes in the film demonstrate the band's lasting appeal. Audience members from toddlers to twenty-somethings enthusiastically sing and dance along with the band, unironically and joyfully. 

As a Wiggle Dad from the jump, I always enjoyed the band. Took my kids to see them in concert and everything. Hot Potato was a welcome journey back in time for me, and a sweet way to start a week.

In Defense of the Dukes

In what will come as a shock to nearly all observers, the NCAA has decided to take a principled stand. Are they forcing PAC-12 institutions to honor their commitments to Washington State and Oregon State as they detonate the legacy conference? Wait, maybe they're prepared to acknowledge the fact that "student-athletes" are core to enormous business of major collegiate sports and have chosen to cut the kids in on the cash! Or, perhaps, they're going to throw the book at Michigan's football program in a timely fashion and bar the Wolverines from extending their splendid season into the playoffs?

Nah, mate. They're gonna make JMU hold to a standard established because the NCAA was apprehensive that colleges moving up a football division would be unprepared.

JMU was prepared.

Since they stepped up a level in competition, the Dukes are 17-3. Only Tulane has a better record among Group of Five teams. JMU are undefeated this year with road wins against UVA and Marshall. The school has also excelled across other athletic programs. In addition to football winning the Sun Belt Conference's East Division in 2022, JMU Volleyball and Women's Basketball won conference titles, and the lacrosse program made the NCAA tournament quarterfinals. Our friends in Harrisonburg have been the very model of an athletic program that planned and prepared exceptionally well for a move up in class.

This season's Dukes are 9-0, ranked 21st in the nation, with home games to play against Connecticut and Appalachian State before their season finale at Coastal Carolina. They'll be favored in all of those games. Should they win out, they'll win the Sun Belt East again, and by rights secure a berth in the conference championship game. Were they to be allowed to play in that game and win it, they'd likely earn a spot in a New Year's Day bowl. Says here that if they earn it on the field, they should be given the chance to keep going.

Let us stipulate that JMU knew the rules when they made the choice to move up the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) level. And we agree that those rules exist for a reason - moving to FBS from the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) level requires a serious commitment and can be a daunting thing. Schools that choose to do so should be required to demonstrate that they understand and are serious about the undertaking, and a two-year moratorium on postseason football is a reasonable way to communicate that message to programs considering the leap.

It's also reasonable for an entity charged with oversight and compliance to review a new set of facts and conclude that an institution has clearly met the obligations implicit in its standard and allow common sense to play a role in its decision-making process. A waiver in this case is warranted, it says here. And a waiver is just that - a deviation from a standard based upon evidence and facts. A waiver is not (and we shouldn't need to say this) a change to the standard.

All of this will be moot for the next JMU, because the NCAA will cease to exist as a governing body before too long. But in the words of the denizens of the Houston Astrodome many years ago, let them play.

Tiger Redux

Our favorite NPB team, the Hanshin Tigers, won the Japan Series this weekend.  My friends in Osaka are overjoyed and they sent me some cool (to me at least) photos after the win.  Postcount, too.

One guy sent me a photo of his TV screen shortly after the win.

You can see he has all his good luck charms spread out above the TV.

Another guy sent me a few photos of the train he takes to work along with translations.

This one says "Number 1 in Japan.  Thank you for your support!"

This one is from the gate of the massive Hanshin-Umeda station and it says "Number 1 in Japan. The fans were full of support and encouraged the team. We are truly grateful for your support."

I've been invited back to Koshien to watch the defending champs.  It's a long way to go for a ballgame but I'm down if anyone else wants to join me.  

End of Eras

Christine Sinclair is arguably the greatest female soccer player in history. Americans will reasonably counter with Mia Hamm or Abby Wambach or Michelle Akers. Brazilians will submit Marta for consideration. China says Sun Wen, Japan gives us Homare Sawa, Spain will ask us to wait a few years on Alexia Putellas and Aitana Bonmati, and none of them would be wrong. It's an argument, after all, not a definitive statement. 

The Canadian forward announced her retirement from the game a few weeks ago, and her Portland Thorns squad's loss last night to NY/NJ Gotham FC marked her final top-flight competitive club match. She'll play a couple of games with her national team before the end of the year, which will serve as a celebratory sendoff for a player who really doesn't love the limelight. 

Returning the argument, because sports, consider her bona fides. Over her international career, Sinclair scored 190 goals in 329 matches, by far the most of any player ever. The all-time leader among men, Cristiano Ronaldo, has scored 127 goals. After tallying 110 goals in 94 collegiate matches for Portland, Sinclair scored another 113 club goals in 266 matches for five clubs across three leagues.

Sinclair has an Olympic gold medal and two bronzes. She's one of a very few players to have participated in six World Cups, and one of only three to have scored in five (Marta and Cristiano Ronaldo are the others). She, more than any other player, is responsible for Canada's ascendance into the world's elite women's soccer countries.

Because she's Canadian, and notoriously shy, we haven't heard as much about Sinclair as perhaps her on-field exploits would warrant. And I'm guessing that's the way she'd want it.

As Sinclair exits the world stage, so too do a pair of Americans, both of whom have lived in the spotlight in ways far different from their Canadian contemporary. 

Sinclair's Portland Thorns team's loss to Gotham FC means that Ali Krieger gets one more game before hanging up her boots. In a bit of the kind of poetry that sports seems to give us when we need it, Krieger and Gotham will kick off against OL Reign in the NWSL Championship on Saturday evening in San Diego. Megan Rapinoe will be playing for OL Reign in her final competitive match alongside her long-time USWNT teammate and friend.

Krieger has received less press attention than the magnetic Rapinoe, but she's been a pioneer starting from when she became one of the first American women to play in Europe, competing for FC Frankfurt in Germany from 2007-2012. The Penn State graduate (who played for the same youth club that I did - which is nice) went on to earn 108 caps for the United States, winning World Cups in 2015 and 2019. 

In addition to her on-field trailblazing, Krieger was one of the first female athletes to openly celebrate her same-sex marriage. She and USWNT teammate Ashlyn Harris married in 2019 to much celebration. The two recently announced their divorce, which has led to a very public taking of sides by the women's sports community, nearly all of whom are lining up behind Krieger.

Including Rapinoe, one of sports' most unapologetic lightning rods. The 38 year-old midfielder earned 203 caps and scored 63 goals for her country. As excellent as she's been on the pitch (and for a time she was probably the best in the world at taking free kicks and serving crosses from the wing - see below for one of the most amazing goals you'll ever want to watch), Rapinoe's arguably made a bigger impact on the world stage by refusing to be anyone other than Megan Rapinoe. Fearless, fucks-given-less, and outspoken, she's given a generation of women, queer people, and 'others' a voice, and she's freaked out a whole lot of normies in the process. Not always right, not always appropriate, but always authentic. 

The NWLS Championship will mark a turning of the page for the league and the sport. I have no doubt that Rapinoe (and her wife, Sue Bird) and Krieger will continue to be a large presence on the American sporting scene. And I expect Christine Sinclair to operate more quietly to continue to advance the game. All three walk off the stage as legends. Much respect.

This Day in History

Those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it.  My man Gheorghe Santayana said that, or something close to it. Precision ain't really our strong suit.

Twenty years ago today, Beyonce topped the pop charts with 'Baby Boy' (featuring Sean Paul, of course). She seems to have done fairly well over the intervening two decades.

On that same day, we were a week or so away from Lionel Messi's professional debut when he came on as a 16 year-old against Porto. Just last week, the same Messi, now 36, won his 8th Ballon d'Or as the best player in the world. Circle of life, or something.

The U.S. was mired in a clusterfuck in the Middle East in November 2003 while Israel was rattling sabers at Palestinians while building a wall in the West Bank. Same as it ever was, and I'm not sure we've learned much.

Going back a bit further into history, Magic Johnson announced that he was HIV-positive on this date in 1991. It appears he did, in fact, learn from his past. From that bleak and uncertain moment, Magic's built one of the great post-playing careers in history.

Arguably the most consequential thing to happen on this date was the contested election between Al Gore and George W. Bush. Could've been Richard Nixon's re-election in 1972. Or maybe FDR's fourth electoral win in 1944. Or possibly the first meeting of John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1966.

Upon reflection, the most consequential thing to happen on this day, at least for this group, was the very first G:TB post to grace the interwebs, exactly 20 years ago. 5100 posts, 140,000 comments, 3.86m pageviews later, we're almost legal. You've come a long way, Gheorghies! 

Herer and Nower

Been a good bit of hubbub about the new Beatles single, "Now and Then", which I think is a perfectly fine little tune. Perfectly fine little tunes aren't really good enough for the greatest band of all time, but we're not here to slag Sir Paul. 

No, we're here to celebrate another blast from the past, or in this case, the alt-past. Thirty years after their biggest hit, "Here and Now", Letters to Cleo are back with a new tune, entitled "Bad Man".

It's a bop, as most of Kay Hanley's stuff is. Just ask Adam Scott.

This Week in Wrenball: The Preview

We here at the digital tree fort are creatures of habit with a sporting bent that sometimes straddles the line between optimistic and quixotic. As the calendar flips to November, we cast an eye toward the annual exercise in ‘what if:’ William and Mary basketball. 

The Tribe kicks off Nov. 6 against Regent University, the late evangelist Pat Robertson’s tidy enclave in Virginia Beach. Unless the competition includes moot court versus Regent’s mostly well regarded law school, the Tribe should have little trouble. After that, however, the schedule mostly gets stickier. 

There are the usual non-conference matchups versus state and regional opponents and a couple of sweet road trips (hellooooo, Malibu!) before diving into the CAA schedule after the first of the year. That’s “Coastal” Athletic Association now, by the way, with the recent additions of schools such as Campbell and North Carolina A&T, located in the seaside towns of Buies Creek and Greensboro, N.C., respectively. 

William and Mary was picked to finish eighth in the league with a roster that’s overhauled from last season’s eighth-place finish. Odd result aside, the Tribe again appears well short of the top tier of Charleston and UNC Wilmington, and looking up at the second tier of Drexel, Hofstra, Delaware and Towson. 

W&M returns two starters in 6-8 Noah Collier, a solid inside presence whose season was cut short by injury last February, and 6-6 wing and 3-point marksman Gabe Dorsey, as well as seven other contributors, all of whom averaged less than five points per game. The Wrens return 46 percent of their scoring, 64 percent of their rebounding and 29 percent of their assists from a year ago. They added three transfers: 6-4 guard Sean Houpt, a 1,000-point scorer at D2 Florida Tech; Caleb Dorsey, a 6-8, 235-pound forward who bolted Penn State after former VCU coach Mike Rhoades arrived; and Trey Moss, a 6-3 sophomore from South Florida. 

W&M certainly could have used 6-8 forward and two-year starter Ben Wight and his 800 career points and 400 rebounds, as well as point guard Tyler Rice, who made the CAA’s All-Rookie Team two years ago but found himself buried on the bench and increasingly disenchanted last season in lieu of grad transfer Anders Nelson. Both elected to leave, Wight for the University of Toledo (he completed his undergrad degree at W&M and he’s an Ohio native) and Rice for East Tennessee State. 

Which brings us to the guy at the helm. Dane Fischer enters his fifth season with a 46-68 overall record (.404 winning percentage) and 28-36 in conference play (.437) – both marks enhanced by his first season when he inherited Tribe all-timer and future pro Nathan Knight. W&M is 18-47 overall (.276) and 11-25 (.305) in the CAA the past two seasons. Far be it from me to stump for a coach’s termination, but the suits and checkbooks who evaluate such things will have ample material to judge if the Tribe produces a third consecutive season of gruel. 

It wasn’t always this way (here’s where Rob’s left eye begins to twitch and his blood pressure spikes) [ET TU, DAVE?!?]. Fischer’s predecessor Tony Shaver made W&M hoops competitive and relevant. The Wrens finished in the top four of the CAA each of his last six seasons. His teams won 20 games four times, made four CAA Tournament title games, three semifinals and went to the NIT twice. But following a quarterfinal loss in the 2019 tournament, She Who Shall Not Be Named turfed him in a public display of ego over accomplishment. 

Which brings us to where we, and the program, are now. There’s no telling how Shaver would have navigated the transfer portal and NIL situations. Inarguable, though, is the fact that he had developed a system that attracted suitable talent and was heavy on development and continuity, essential components for a program without some of the advantages (cough cough, admissions, cough, cough, eligibility curricula) many competitors enjoy. 

Some may think it’s time to shelve the past and move on. Focus on the future and paths to improvement. Moving on completely from the irrational firing of Shaver, however, is a big ask. Have Armenians forgiven and moved past the Turkish Ottoman Empire genocide of the early 20th century? Have Ukrainians forgotten Stalin and the Holomodor of the 1930s? Have St. Louis Cardinals fans forgiven and moved on from Don Denkinger in the 1985 World Series? They have not. The ability to function in polite society and simultaneously hold a low-flame grudge for years if not decades is what separates us from the primates. 

Regardless of whether the Wrens are on your wradar, college basketball season is upon us, itself a reason for good cheer. An abundance of players and teams and games and stories. Decide for yourself if modest expectations are preferable to unrestrained optimism, if anything short of contending for titles is failure or if honest competition is satisfactory. We know which is better for the digestive system. On the other hand, sports-induced gastric discomfort is often temporary. Plan accordingly.

Travhelhogue: Louisville

As noted previously in these environs, my wife and I joined five other couples (and a single) for a long weekend along the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. There are details that remain hazy, but I captured a handful of numbers that tell the story with some reasonable accuracy.

433 is the number of feet from the back door of our AirBnB to the back door of Molly Malone's Irish Pub in Louisville's Highlands neighborhood. Convenient, that.

Most of us hit 4 distilleries on a tour that started at 9:30 in the morning and finished up just in time to watch Colorado lose to UCLA. Kicked things off at Woodford Reserve, which is a beautiful spot in the rolling hills of horse country near Lexington, where we learned that a full barrel of whiskey weighs 500 pounds before it's aged. 

From there, a stop at Castle & Key, which is the last distillery the legendary Colonel E. H. Taylor founded. It had fallen into disrepair in the early 2010s when a local lawyer in the throes of a mid-life crisis (my man!) purchased the property in 2012 for less than $1 million. The grounds are beautiful, the gin is excellent, and the bourbon is...getting there. Quick stop at Buffalo Trace for a tasting and gift shop run (more about which later) before closing the tour at Whiskey Thief, a young distillery where guests take samples directly from the barrels.

Because distilleries generally use water to "proof down" their product before bottling it, the 122 proof stuff we tried right from the barrel at Whiskey Thief was the highest-octane tipple we enjoyed. Smooth, it wasn't, but interesting nonetheless.

If you're a bourbon drinker, you likely know the tradition that someone who finishes a bottle of Blanton's at a bar is rewarded with the horse and jockey adorned bottle stopper, each of which is imprinted with one of the eight letters in the brand's name. It's a big deal to collect all of the letters. I've got two in my collection to date. But at Buffalo Trace, they were selling the stoppers for $19.99. Which is fucking cheating, y'all.

Got a bit more edification the next day, hitting the Frazier Museum to learn stuff about Kentucky and Louisville before touring Hillerich & Bradsby, where Louisville Slugger bats are made. The tour is very cool if you're into baseball, and pretty neat even if you're not - we got to watch bats being turned on a lathe, which takes about 30 seconds.

Me and Yaz. Kinda.

I was expecting the tour, but I was not anticipating the opportunity to actually hold history in my hands. There's an exhibit at the museum where visitors can take game-used bats from a murderer's row of big leaguers past and present and take a stance with them. I grabbed Carl Yastrzemski's lumber, which weighed in at 32 ounces. And then picked up one of Babe Ruth's clubs, which was a colossal 42.5 ounces, fully 3.5 more than any other bat in the collection. 

That evening, after we went to a place adjacent to the Louisville Slugger factory where we mixed our own bourbon (Russell Rare 23 in my bar, just waiting for guests), we went back to our place and then walked to one of the most unique bars I've ever set foot in. Neat is a bourbon bar, full stop. Yeah, they'll serve you a beer, and I suppose you can get water, but there's no food and 90% of the menu is whiskey. It's all plush armchairs and deep mahogany and dim light, and they stock a shitload of good stuff, some of which they purchase from customers looking to part with a good bottle. By law, they can only buy things that are unavailable in Kentucky, which is how I came to drink an ounce of Blanton's Gold Takara, which is only distributed in Japan. Set me back $20, but it was one of the two best bourbons I drank over the weekend (the other being the Woodford Double Oaked).

Got up yesterday morning, stepped on the scale, and saw that the weekend had plumped me up to the tune of 6 pounds, which represents a gain of 4% of bodyweight. I feel like that's pretty impressive. And a reason for me not to move to Louisville any time soon.

Those two red barrels at Woodford will be 
bottled for the 2024 Kentucky Derby. Expected retail
value: $2500 per bottle.

This is the mash at Woodford. That vat has been used
for nearly 30 years. It'll be replaced in December.