Dishonor

There was a time when I had a bemused (elitist? possibly), but generally sober perspective on the reasons Donald Trump appealed to disaffected voters. I didn't endorse their worldview, but I understood it, at least academically. After eight years of That Fucking Guy's assault on our body politic, that bemusement has long since been replaced with seething anger.

Like many, I've wondered what he and his minions could do to finally jolt our institutions out of their stumbling, slumbering acceptance of one indignity after another. What, at long last, would bury these retrograde simps, these incellectual dorks aggrieved by a steadily slipping place in a world that's moving on from their backwards-looking misogyny and racism, these hateful losers who've found an avatar in one of the smallest, least worthy losers of all time?

A piece written today in The Bulwark by former intelligence officer Will Selber (hat tip to the zman for the recommendation) offers the kind of anguished and moving argument from a proto-Republican that may signal, even if faintly, a collective cobweb-clearing return to sanity. 

Selber takes aim at the recent news that the Trump campaign violated one of the nation's most sacred shared spaces, trampling both the law and common decency by using Arlington National Cemetery as a venue for campaign activity. As reported by numerous outlets, Trump joined a Gold Star family in visiting the grave of a soldier killed in a suicide bombing at Abbey Gate during the clusterfuck that was our withdrawal from Afghanistan.

There is no prohibition against inviting someone to visit Arlington, and the family (members of which spoke on Trump's behalf at the Republican National Convention) was within its rights on that front. However, it is illegal to use pictures or video from the memorial site for political purposes. And as Selber notes, it's extremely poor etiquette to film the particular area of ANC in question, given its purpose as the final resting ground of our most recently killed service members. 

When an Arlington staffer repeatedly tried to enforce the regulations, Trump's buffoons first hectored, then physically assaulted her (knowing their predilections, one wonders if they would've had the courage to do the same to a male). Campaign spokesman and known belligerent dickhead Steven Cheung later offered the Trump side of the story, saying, "The fact is that a private photographer was permitted on the premises and for whatever reason an unnamed individual, clearly suffering from a mental health episode, decided to physically block members of President Trump's team during a very solemn ceremony."

Classy all the way down. The U.S. Army itself felt compelled to respond, saying in a statement, “Participants in the August 26th ceremony and the subsequent Section 60 visit were made aware of federal laws, Army regulations and DoD policies, which clearly prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds. An ANC employee who attempted to ensure adherence to these rules was abruptly pushed aside. This incident was unfortunate, and it is also unfortunate that the ANC employee and her professionalism has been unfairly attacked. ANC is a national shrine to the honored dead of the Armed Forces, and its dedicated staff will continue to ensure public ceremonies are conducted with the dignity and respect the nation’s fallen deserve."

Do you know how badly a former Commander in Chief has to fuck up to get The Fucking Army to release a statement like that? To confirm that a Federal employee was pushed out of the way by a bunch of servile chucklefucks in cheap suits. To imply that Trump's visit was conducted with the opposite of dignity and respect (as if the photos of that overgrown Oompa Loompa grinning and flashing a thumbs-up sign as he loomed over the graves of fallen Americans, and not just the one that was the proximate cause of his invitation didn't already make a mockery of the notion of his "respect", not to mention his recent and ongoing denigration of the sacrifice of dead and wounded service members, am I rambling I think I'm rambling this jackass causes me some rambling from time to time I'm gonna stop now). 

In any case, Selber makes the point far more cogently than I ever could, closing his essay by saying, "But I think most of all it’s this: The rules against using images or video of Section 60 in political campaigns are there for a reason. The people who gave their lives didn’t swear an oath and give all to a party or a candidate. They swore to protect the Constitution and they sacrificed to protect this country. Their sacrifice is one of the last reminders we have that there exists an American project that is bigger than parties and tribes and campaigns, and that it’s worth fighting, dying, and even killing for. All that’s asked in return is that we don’t subject them to our politics, that we keep them in an elevated, venerated place where they belong. If we can’t do that—if we let Section 60 become just another political weapon to use against each other—then what was all that sacrifice for?"

To add insult and insult to injury, JD Vance offered his own Dipshit Elegy as the controversy expanded, telling Vice President Kamala Harris to "go to hell" for questioning Trump's intentions in Arlington. For the record, she offered no public statement on the incident. And then, after arguing that the setting was private and not campaign-related, the Trump team released an ad featuring footage taken during the event, absolutely flouting the law and shitting on that sacred ground. 

I don't know if this is the straw that breaks the elephant's back, or if, like so many jawdropping assaults to norms we thought inviolable, Trump will wriggle free of consequence. I do know what I'd like to see happen. 

Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery is immediately adjacent to Section 64, the final resting place of US Army COL Jeffrey W. Russell. My Dad's gravesite is probably 200 meters from the place besmirched by the Orange Circus. If I know my Dad, and given the fact that we share a lot of personality traits in common, to my wife's chagrin, I think I do, he would despise Trump and everything his cult stands for. If I'm permitted a flight of fancy, I'm pretty sure Dad would be righteously pissed about all of the noise that interrupted his rest. And unless I miss my guess, Dad would feel compelled to do something sarcastic and amusing about it.

Folks, I want my Dad to haunt the rest of That Fucking Guy's campaign for President. Every time you see Trump stumble, or stammer, or make a fool of himself, I'd like you to smile, knowing that Jeff Russell is buzzing in his ear calling him an asshole, distracting him, befuddling him, enraging him. 

And when the Harris/Walz team wins in November, we can all thank my Dad, as well as the millions of people who are fed the fuck up with all of the affronts to decency and the common good. 

Haunt their asses, Dad. 

Don't let his mild-mannered appearance fool you.
That dude was a glorious pain in the ass. 

MLC x GTB: Vol. 1 Episode 2b

The Week in Mets

Record: 69-63
9 GB NL East, 3 GB Last Wild Card

After we checked in on the Metropolitans last week, they went 4-4. Not awful. Not great. Two winnable losses from a leaky ‘pen. Two losable wins thanks to walk-off dramatics. And four games that were never much in question. 

A little bit of drama in my life
A little bit of ho-hum by my side
A little bit of vict’ry is what I saw
A little bit of lead blow’n stuck’n my craw
It’s Metbo Number 5!

Yep. Lotsa rust on the old MLC engine. Give us some time. 

To celebrate: Jesse “Be Odd” Winker! (You gotta say it out loud. Likely more than once. And even then...)

Jesse Winker used to ruffle feathers among the Township turkeys with his on-field antics and fan-gibing. Some bad blood, though you’d see a few barbs hurled his way that were tempered with the “although, if he were a Met…”

One deadline trade later, and one walk-off tater later, he’s the flavor of the week in Queens. Keep it up, Jesse. We need ya. 

I just spent four days in Maine (Portland and Boothbay Harbor) eating lobster (6 meals of 8) and drinking (every meal) and memorializing my stepdad. I’d say we did our guy some justice. It also meant that I watched Red Sox games on NESN and talked a ton about the Mets with my family. 

Consensus: nobody’s giving up yet. Even to squeak into the postseason would be a little bit of a coup for a team clearly rebuilding. (Rich owner rebuilding has upside some clubs aren’t blessed with, obviously.) We can do this, even with a flawed roster. 

Also agreed upon: lots to like, starting with Francisco Lindor’s season. There have been times over the past few seasons with a wee bit of meh, but he’s now fully Met. After a slow start to 2024, he’s got an OPS+ of 134 with 27 bombs while flashing some serious leather at short. We don’t take this output for granted from any player. 

Polar Pete still has my family… well. polarized. A thought was dangled that we could move Mark Vientos to 1B if/when Pete signs elsewhere. But I say 3B has been a black hole since His Holiness of the Hot Corner David Wright hung ‘em up. Maybe I’m just hoping against hope that Pete Alonso doesn’t wind up in Atlanta or Philly or anywhere else. 

After splitting with the Padres (who hold one of the 3 wild card spots), the Mets are in the desert for 3 against the D-backs. .500 ball won’t get it done. Caulk the bullpen and finish the job, night in night out. 

* * * * *

I got back home in time to watch all of the opening game of the series. Mets 8, Diamondbacks 3. Alrighty then. Sean Manaea was lights out for 6 frames. His surrendering a pair of gopher balls in the 7th gave me the "here we go again" indigestion, but the bullpen locked it down. The Polar Bear homered and everyone contributed. Especially the Arizona D. Just awful. They misplayed, booted, and threw away enough balls to extend every rally. We will take it. A trio of AZ's best everyday players are on the IL right now... this is a must-win series, maybe must-sweep. LFGM. 

Gheorghasbord: Palate Cleanser

Need to clear that last post out, as it seems to have had deleterious effects on the Olde Towne Team's fortunes. As always, a bit of brain sorbet to keep us moving from one thing to the next.

We'll start with a topic close to home, or at least close to the heart. Been a tumultuous few months in Boulder, at least for the University of Colorado football team. Coach Prime's proven to be a very good marketer, a master of garnering attention for the program, the school, and the community. As yet, he hasn't demonstrated the same acumen come game time, and he's spent a good part of the summer in a war of words with local media amidst a handful of unflattering stories about the program's culture and its apparent haves and have-nots hierarchy. Come Thursday, put up or shut up time commences in earnest as the Buffs host North Dakota State at 8:00 EST on ESPN. Tune in to watch my kid cheer, stay for the game. 

I've said since Coach Prime got to Boulder that he wouldn't stay for more than three seasons, regardless of how his teams performed on the field. I stand by that, with an update that suggests another 4-8 season might find him looking for a way out. The good news is that the Buffs' 2024 schedule is markedly easier than last year's, which saw the the Black and Gold face seven top 25 opponents in the brutally competitive Pac-12. In fact, there's a decent chance Colorado heads into its October 12 Parents' Weekend showdown with current #18 Kansas State undefeated at 5-0.

Of course, given all of the turmoil of the offseason, this particular observer wouldn't be shocked if North Dakota State jumped up and won outright on Thursday night. And wouldn't that be a newsmaker?

Different home, still close, as Whit's toddler playgroup pal Barry Privett and Carbon Leaf have a new record coming out in late September. The band's 17th studio album is entitled Time Is The Playground, and if the opening single, "Backmask 1983", is any indicator, it may be a more pop-forward offering than previous collections. Which could make a few Leafheads a mite nervous.

New travel destination for your boy just dropped. My wife's cousin and her husband are moving to Madagascar next month. He's a newly-minted State Department foreign service specialist after a decade-plus as an IT guy at the Department of Justice. The two of them are about ten years younger than I am, and don't have kids, so they decided they'd give it a go. He'll be in charge of information services for the embassy in Antananarivo for the next two years. And why wouldn't we go to Madagascar? For what it's worth, I had no idea how big that place is - the world's 4th-largest island, as it turns out. We'll send pictures. Of all the lemurs.

And finally, while folks have rightfully paid a lot of attention to Caitlin Clark's outstanding play, there's another rookie setting assist records in her first year as a pro. Washington Spirit midfielder Croix Bethune (who earned a gold medal as an alternate on the U.S. Women's Olympic soccer team) tallied her 10th assist of the season yesterday, tying the great Tobin Heath for the all-time NWSL record. Bethune and the Spirit have nine matches left in the season, so she's an odds-on favorite to obliterate the record. Here's to diminutive attacking midfielders.

CROIX ➡️ SARR

pic.twitter.com/onR65SUjjA

— Washington Spirit (@WashSpirit) August 25, 2024

MLC x GTB: Vol. 1 Episode 2

The MLC Derby takes center stage this week, but not on a diamond. Whit's Leicester City travel to London to take on Fulham in the second match of the Premier League season. The newly-promoted Foxes dug out an impressive draw against Tottenham on Monday, while Fulham gave up an 87th-minute goal to fall at Old Trafford to a decidedly mediocre Manchester United. The Whites kinda need a result this morning.

Closer to home, the Sox and Mets tangle in Queens a week from Monday. All derbies, all the time in this corner of the interwebz.

The Week in Red Sox

Record: 67-59

7 GB AL East, 3.5 GB Last Wild Card 

Though the Sox dropped a game in the Wild Card chase, it wasn't a bad week. Boston closed out a difficult road trip by winning a series in Houston after a four-game split in Baltimore. Meanwhile, Minnesota came back to the pack a bit, so the Sox are chasing both the Twins and the Royals for a spot in the postseason.

With their next 7 at home against Arizona and Toronto in advance of a three-game set in Detroit, the Sox would certainly hope to make some hay. Since I wrote that out loud, and we're talking about baseball, no actual hay may be manufactured.

I enjoyed the baseball stylings of second-year Japanese outfielder Masataka Yoshida this week. According to my notes, "Yoshida battles the orange robots!" was a thing I said after his two-run homer gave the Sox a 4-2 lead in the first game in Houston. Sadly, their old bugaboo came back to haunt them for the second consecutive day, as a fielding mishap by catcher Danny Jansen led to two runs. In a one-run loss, that'll leave a mark.

Sox color man Kevin Millar, who will never, ever buy his own beer in Boston, is enamored of Yoshida's running style, waxing rhapsodic about his perfect form. Yoshida, it should be pointed out, is not particularly fast. He has, in fact, one stolen base this season. Which he got on Wednesday, just as Millar was talking about that running form, which led to a predictably and hysterically gleeful reaction from the booth. Millar's reliably entertaining, and I still miss Jerry Remy. I can hold two different thoughts in my brain at the same time.

Young multi-position player Ceddanne Rafaela also caught my attention this week. He's slender and quick, and while he's not particularly good at the plate (.707 OPS, though his 61 RBI rank him third on the team out of the 9th spot in the order), he's equally adept with the glove at shortstop and in center field, with excellent range in both positions. He's a fun watch. 

Let's hope this week matches him.

The Week in Mets

Our man from Citi Field is traveling, so the Metropolitan portion of your programming will follow shortly.

Never Had To

We return this morning to a theme we initially explored in 2018. Not a coward, but I've never been tested. Like to think that if I was I would pass. That, obviously, is a lyric from the Mighty Mighty Bosstones' hit, 'The Impression That I Get'. Setting aside for a moment former Bosstones' lead singer Dicky Barrett's Aaron Rodgers-esque "free thinking", that song slaps. And the message has always made me wonder about my own capacity, about what I might be capable of (or not) in a decisive moment.

Olha Bihar, like tens of thousands of her countrymen and women, has been tested. And tested. And tested. The former lawyer, PhD candidate, and mother of a seven year-old son would be an impressive person if she was practicing in Seattle. As is stands, she's leading a mortar battalion, a veteran of 15 months of combat, including the Battle of Bakhmut.

She and her then 18-year old brother joined the Ukrainian military in February 2023, as missiles rained down on Kiev. They both had other options. They were tested. They passed. I can't even imagine. 

People Are (Sometimes) Cool, Especially When They're Tony Hawk

From the Internet is Occasional Awesome files comes an excellent story about history, persistence, skateboarding, and a dream deferred.

Dan Rodo is an internet sleuth/content creator/artist who's built an Instagram following of over 360,000 with creative and interesting videos focused on finding the stories behind photographs from events past. 

Tony Hawk is, well, Tony Hawk.

The latter has been trying to find the identity of a skateboarder featured in a 1965 Life Magazine photo shoot for a long time. 

In April, Hawk posted a picture of the mystery skater on Facebook, asking once again if anyone could help him identify the man in the image. Rodo's followers alerted him to the request, and then Hawk reached out to Rodo via DM asking if he'd be interested in helping find the laconically dapper gentlemen casually shredding old-school in Central Park.

To which Rodo, a passionate skater himself said (once he'd picked his jaw up off the table), "heck yeah", or some variant.

Which launched one of the cooler Instagram series I've seen in a while. Rodo's first episode is embedded below. His eighth just dropped last week. I commend to you the entire arc, both because of its fascinating subject matter and Rodo's meticulously detailed process. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Dan James Rodo - The Danocracy (@danocracy)

This is the kind of shit the internet was made for. This, and rapping Muppets. 

MLC x GTB: Episode the First

As promised, the first of many (several? some?) semi-recurring posts chronicling the final quarter of the 2024 Major League Baseball season from the perspective of a pair of fans. 

MLB is wiiiiide open at the moment. As of this writing, eight teams are separated by 3.5 games for the best record in baseball. The Cleveland Guardians hold that top spot, for those of you scoring at home. And for those that are alone. Unfortunately, neither the Red Sox nor the Mets are in that mix. Fear not, though, as both have a fighting chance at making the postseason. ESPN's math wizards give Boston a 32.5% chance of making the playoffs, while the New York nine clock in at 18.7%. The season, she has some twists and turns left in her.

Without further ado, then.

The State of Play - Red Sox

Red Sox 5, Orioles 1
Record: 65-57
7 GB AL East, 2.5 GB Last AL Wild Card

Who are these guys? That question is more of an indictment of the slow, but fairly steady decline of my day to day interest in major league baseball than it is of the players on the Sox' roster. Life gets in the way, and all that. 

There was a time in early adulthood when I could rattle off the batting order, and pitching rotation, and give you a few nuggets about the kids waiting in Pawtucket. Now the Sox' AAA franchise is in Worcester (go WooSox!), and I couldn't make it halfway through the lineup. I still follow the team's fortunes - look at the box score most days and at least scan the scores and standings regularly. All of this is to say I'm looking forward to reconnecting over the next couple months.

I watched most of last night's game, where Brayan Bello took a no-hitter into the sixth inning, Jarren Duran broke a 1-1 tie in the seventh with a two-run single, and Rafael Devers smoked a chin-high fastball deep into the Baltimore night for the final margin. Duran and Devers have been the club's offensive engine for most of the season, the latter expected, the former more of a pleasant surprise as Duran has emerged in his first full campaign as a dynamic offensive weapon at the top of the order.

Less pleasant, Duran's recent homophobic outburst and somewhat petulant response. The All-Star game MVP has spoken openly about his struggles with mental health, which is admirable, but not an excuse for calling a fan such a slur. Everyone's said the right things about Duran's need to learn from his mistake, but the proof in these things is in the pudding. Color me a little bit skeptical.

Back on the field, the Sox have been a bit imbalanced. They're third in the AL in OPS and runs scored (and second in stolen bases - who are these guys, indeed!). They can rake. On the mound, a bit more of a mixed bag, ranking in the bottom half of the league in ERA, runs allowed, and WHIP. Tanner Houck's been really good, his 3.01 ERA tops on the staff, but he's seen his ERA rise from 1.91 in early June to his current mark. The rest of the rotation all carries ERAs over 4.21. Kinda mid, as the kids say.

We won't talk about fielding, except to say that it looks like the Sox don't talk about it (or practice it) much. Dead last in the league in fielding percentage, top of the list in errors made. Not great, Bob.

And with all that, we're in with a shout for a playoff berth. Lotta ball left. Stay on target.

The State of Play - Mets

Mets 4, Marlins 0
Record: 64-59
9 GB AL East, 1 GB Last NL Wild Card

Meanwhile, somewhere in Queens... since we last tuned in...

So this has been how the brain trust that has operated the Mets for the better part of the last 20 years has been doing things.

New eras, new squads, new mentalities, new management, and new campaigns have dawned and faltered. The lone exception was the 2015 season, one during which I frequently wished we'd kept the Misery Loves Company jalopy gassed up. World Series! I know, I know, the once beleaguered Red Sox Nation now considers such things de rigueur, but over here in Mets Township, such milestones are rare mountaintops 'twixt long stretches of barren valley. I went to a couple of NLCS games that year, one thanks to Marls, but I never made it to the Series. Which they lost rather handily to the (!) Kansas City Royals.

And two seasons after that, it was back to the doldrums. Feels like home.

Like my Sox-loving buddy, I've let my once avid fandom and following of my favorite team wane through the years. There have been moments that sucked me back in like a tractor beam:

I was jazzed at the "potential" and "opportunity" we thought we had the past two seasons. Stupid words that always seem to curse this club. Owner Steve Cohen's Damn the Tax Torpedoes approach was tons of fun when we inked Verlander to join Scherzer and Lindor to tee up Polar Pete. Then... as if on cue... the Mets do me like that and leave me living like a refugee. And I shrug it all off and arm's-length it for a while. 

Cue the 3rd Bass:
But now in '04, we got new life, a new wife, looking like the same old strife
Same old teams with big dreams so we got to make sure
That MLC has got to endure

Something like that. So what of this club? Good question.

The 2004 Mets are as middle of the pack as they could be. They wallowed a bit below .500 in the early months, they surged and plateaued a bit above .500 for the past month or two. They hit for some pop but lead no offensive categories, including nose hair. They pitch decently well, walking more than any other NL team, but they maintain well enough. In the field, well, they're not the Punt, Pass, & Kick show that the Sox are, but they're... they're not good. And with elder OF Starling "Dead Man's" Marte coming back from the IL, that won't get better. But all in all, they're fine.

That's the summary of the Mets: fine. They're not so fine, like art. They're just fine. 

But they're in the race. They've had injury setbacks, mainly on their pitching staff, that could have felled them. But they're right there, one game back of the vaunted Braves. Severino / Manaea / Quintana / Peterson / Blackburn scares nobody. But let's keep on chugging. 

Pete Alonso is still on the team. I rooted for that. I root for him to be a Met for life, just because I like rooting for him. But he's been mediocre all season, and he's trending downward dog, as a nod to Rob. He's fallen out of the cleanup spot, and took it well enough, but come on. Lindor / Vientos / Nimmo / Martinez / Alonso scares nobody. And yet... here we go.

Longtime Mets fans and MLC readers will remember the Fred Wilpon quip of 20 years ago that this team needs to play "meaningful games in September." (After which there would be pointless games in June.) Well, here we are on August 18, and these are high-stakes games for the New York Mets (and Boston Red Sox.) 

Good enough for now. 

LFGM.

Run It Back: Misery Loves Company

From April 1, 2003 to December 31, 2010, Whitney and I (and late in the game a few other blogsmen with good intentions and shark-jump impact) wrote about baseball on a nearly daily basis during the season. Our blog was entitled Misery Loves Company, and for a good 18+ months that moniker was as accurate as it was stolen. October 2004 changed the dynamic a bit, though it didn't really dampen our enthusiasm, at least not right away.

All told, we wrote 1,638 posts about baseball. We mocked David Wheeler (a lot), lauded Pedro Martinez, excoriated Grady Little, pondered Terry Collins, felt for Tim Wakefield (RIP), and worshipped David Wright. Among many, many others. We actually had readers, real, live readers from points all over the globe - one of our regulars was a Mets fan from Japan. The first comment on our valedictory post read, "sayonara!"

It was a blast, even as it got to wear on a fella after damn near seven years of trying to keep up. I loved doing it because it made me feel like a better fan, but also because it made me feel like a better friend - getting to share that experience with Whit was every bit as rewarding as watching the Sox win a World Series. Two, actually. Sorry, man.

So imagine the unexpected glee I felt earlier this afternoon when I got this text from my man. "Red Sox and Mets find themselves 2 games out of the last wild card spot as of right now. We could do sprint to the finish MLC coverage."

Lo there was rejoicing. 

Starting this weekend, G:TB will also be an MLC pop-up, at least once a week. Your proprietors are notoriously inconsistent and shirk most work, so a daily dose is probably out of the question. We can promise snark, overreaction, and the occasionally excellent turn of phrase. Very occasionally. 

Setting the table, the Red Sox are currently 63-56, with 43 games remaining. They trail the division-leading Yankees by 7.5 games, having scuffled to a 10-14 record since the All-Star break. The Royals are a more catchable 2 games ahead of the Sox in the Wild Card race. 

The Mets trail the Phillies by 8 games in the NL East, clocking in at 62-59. New York's other team have also been mediocre of late, their 13-13 post-break record courtesy of a five-game winning streak in late July. As of this writing, they're in the process of blowing a 5-0 lead to the A's that would leave them 2 games behind the hated Braves in the race for the final NL Wild Card. "Winnable Loss", texted Whit, a callback to one of our too-oft-used catchphrases.

Strap in, friends. You'll either get to experience the thrill of the chase vicariously, or you'll have the chance to experience the increasingly bitter mutterings of a pair of aging baseball fans. Fun for all ages, regardless.

As a sage scribe once said, lotta ball left. Stay on target.

Old Crow (Needs) Medicine Show

As our readers may know, I took up yoga a few years ago in an effort to stem the advancing tide of age-related bodyfuckery. I don't claim to be any kind of advanced yogi, but I can say with some degree of confidence that the practice (along with doing strength training for the first time in my life) has helped improve my balance and fitness. That's a good thing!

I started my yoga journey by following a YouTube account called Yoga with Adriene, hosted by a woman from Austin, TX with a mellow vibe and approachable way of practicing for beginners. Later, after we got a Peloton bike and the accompanying subscription, I started doing classes hosted by that group of instructors. I like Ross Rayburn and Aditi Shah best, in case you were wondering. (Though I learned via the research for this post that Ross is leaving. Ah, well, nevertheless.) 

Aditi Shah

According to my Peloton profile, I've done 79 yoga classes in the past 18 months, which comes out to about one a week. That tracks. I try to get my yog on in the morning on days when I know I'll play soccer or golf in the evening so I can operate with some sense of flexibility. I've never done yoga in the presence of others, with the exception of my kid, and I don't guess I ever will. I am decidedly the definition of fair to middling at my practice.

Which means I can do most of the poses that come up in the Peloton programs labeled 'Intermediate'. It's your standard downward dogs, planks, warriors (one, two, and three), chairs, pigeons, and various others. I don't have a problem with most of 'em, though my favorite is Savasana, which is the final pose of each session and finds me prone on my back with my eyes closed.

From the beginning of my practice, there's been one pose that's eluded me (and I'm quite sure if I ever tried to level up and take on an 'Advanced' class, I'd find more). The Crow pose, called Kakasana in Sanskrit, is really fucking hard. Here's what Yoga Journal says about it: "For many of us, our first attempt at an arm balance isn’t always successful (or pretty), which makes this type of yoga pose challenging to the body and the ego." 

Fuckin'-a right on that last part. Just look at this picture!

It doesn't come up in every class. In fact, before Monday, I'd probably tried it 20 times in those 79 Peloton classes. Each time I tried, I quickly toppled over, often on my head, sometimes sideways. But Monday, though, we had a breakthrough. Aditi led us through a series squats, and when we finished in a low crouch, she said, "you can create your own journey here - if you want to try to do Crow, feel free". 

Friends, I felt free. I leaned forward on my hands, tilted my upper body and brought my knees to the backs of my elbows. I teetered there and then stabilized for one...two...three seconds before I dropped forward on my head. It wasn't much, but it was something. I crowed to my kid. About my Crow.

We're in whole new world territory now. Couldn't tell you what's next. Splits? Handstands? Pretzels (not a thing, I think)? Can I do it again? Who knows? Doesn't matter. I'll always have Monday.

Z-Man!! . . . . . . (Not Zman!!)

We bring you, without prejudice...

For your viewing pleasure, or pain...

You're traveling to another dimension -- a dimension not only of sight and sound but of feeble mind. A journey into a strange land whose boundaries are that of weirdness and twirling around goofily with crazy eyes and slapping a conga. 

That's a signpost up ahead: your next stop: Gheorghe: The Blog, specifically, the music videos of our roster members' namesakes.

Without further messing around, enjoy:

The Z-Man* Experience!

*this has nothing to do with our Zman

Farewell to the GOAT

Trying to make definitive statements about the all-time greatest American collegiate coach is a fool's game. One can make legitimate arguments for people as diverse as Dean Smith, John Gagliardi, Pat Summitt, Nick Saban, and Bill Bowerman, to name just a few. This week, though, a name that's unquestionably in the discussion hung up his whistle and joined the pantheon of retired greats.

In terms of impact on a sport and in turn a society, it's not a stretch to say that Anson Dorrance was one of the prime movers that laid the foundation beginning in the 1970s for the explosive growth of women's athletics that continues apace. Dorrance led the University of North Carolina women's soccer program from 1979 until his retirement yesterday. During that span, his teams went 934-88-53 and won 22 national championships. No Division I coach in any sport has won as many titles.

Dorrance coached 19 national players of the year, from April Heinrichs to Cindy Parlow Cone to Mia Hamm, among others. Eight members of the fabled 99ers, winners of the 1999 Women's World Cup, were Tar Heels, as are Crystal Dunn and Emily Fox, who just earned gold medals as starters on the 2024 U.S. Olympic champions. From 1985 to 2010, UNC played more than 600 games in a row without losing by more than a single goal. And lest we think age had slowed down the 73 year-old Dorrance, his most recent team saw a league-record six athletes selected in the 2024 NWSL Draft, including the top two picks, Aly Sentnor and Savy King.

His influence and sustained excellence drove other programs to invest in the women's game, and the women he coached and worked with expanded his reach broadly. As far as Leesburg, VA, as it turns out. 

When I started coaching, I had very little experience leading teams of young women. My best friend and I coached a team of 15-18 year-old girls when we were seniors in high school, but most of them were either our sisters or our friends. That didn't really count. As I became more serious about it, I read a lot of what Dorrance had to say. Among the things that stand out was a revelation that occurred to him early in his career. 

Dorrance started coaching men (and in fact won 172 games as the head coach of UNC's men's team from 1977-88, doing double duty for nearly a decade), and started as a women's coach using the same approach. He quickly realized that he needed to change. One of the lessons he learned early on was the importance of the social element of a team to female athletes - he spoke in a Sports Illustrated profile years ago of building time for socialization into each practice, something he learned from his players and was humble enough to employ and embrace. He also wrote, "Early on, I learned you don’t lead women effectively with intimidation. You lead by gaining their respect, being sensitive to their strengths and weaknesses, and showing that you value their contributions. You will not succeed if women feel their relationship with you is simply dependent on their soccer success." 

I've taken those lessons with me to every training session and game I've ever coached. And in truth, the building of relationships with the kids I coach turns out to mean a lot more to me than the results on the field. 

Anson Dorrance wasn't perfect. He admitted as much when apologizing in the late 90s for his role in what he said was teasing banter with players that led several athletes to file a complaint alleging that he created an uncomfortable environment. But a world that now celebrates the on-field accomplishments of women across a broad range of athletic pursuits has a great deal for which to thank him and the women that he led, inspired, and sent out to do greater things.

Opportunity Knocks

The weirdo right's penchant for bizarre and comedically questionable insults might be infuriating if it weren't so, well, laughably stupid. In cases like these, I find it best to fight fire with mockery. And in one specific instance, to fight dumbassery with an epic bit of comedy.

Team MAGA has taken to calling Minnesota Governor and Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz 'Tampon Tim' because he signed legislation requiring schools in the state to stock tampons in both girls' and boys' bathrooms. Didn't make anyone use them, mind you. Just made 'em available to young menstruating humans in need regardless of their gender identity. Probably not in particularly high demand in the boys' room, but maybe they served to let young fellas know that their sisters go through some shit on a regular basis.

Tampon Tim is of a piece with the unique comedic insult stylings of a party led by a guy who drops zingers like Little Marco, Crooked Joe, and Kamabla. The moniker deserves about as much note as those. 

But it does give us an opportunity to share one of the great bits of lunatic comedy from the legendary run of The Young Ones, which aired on the BBC from 1982-84. Do enjoy Rik's manic stylings here while you ponder how much coke Don Jr. would need to do to make this make sense.

 

Electoral Current

One benefit of modern life is the proliferation of outlets that irritate, provoke, mislead, goad, trigger, inflame and generally annoy the populace. A blessed number of those channels remain freely accessible. Without them to stoke grudges and outrage, people might devote more of their energies to improving their lives and communities, and where’s the fun in that? Constructive and noble as that may be, it doesn’t exactly feed the furnace. 

All of which gets to a recent outing in which I spun the car radio AM dial and landed on a right-wing talk show. The larynx in question trafficked in predictable talking points: Trump as national savior and antidote to Biden Administration incompetence and malfeasance, with a side of heroism for surviving an assassination attempt; Kamala Harris as unfit and possibly dangerous and emblematic of the Democrat Party’s threat to America. Between the ‘hyper’ and ‘bole’, however, the voice floated the notion that Electoral map arithmetic is and is likely to be incredibly tight, almost no matter what occurs between now and Election Day. 

After scraping around a bit, some numbers appear to bear that out. I’ll try to go light on the dipshit civics, since y’all come to this space for political yammering the way people go to concerts for the $15 beers. You could, and should, access a dozen other sites for more knowledgeable and nuanced political discussion, though it’s unlikely to be wedged among Muppets and music. 

The idea that a good deal of presidential election math is essentially predetermined doesn’t get nearly enough run in the political discussion, probably because it doesn’t conform to the national image we’ve constructed and of which we’ve convinced ourselves. It’s tough to hold yourself up as a model of democracy and representative government when you admit that a sizeable segment of results is aligned and racked before the first ballot is cast. That doesn’t even get to the number of state legislatures in the tank for one side or the other because of lockstep voters, district gerrymandering or both. Bless our tribal hearts and that delightful relic and Founding Fathers’ chew toy, the Electoral College. 

Consider the last presidential election. Biden won the popular vote by seven million and held a 306-232 edge in the Electoral College, which if not a mandate appears to be a comfortable margin. However, he won Georgia and its 16 electoral votes by fewer than 12,000 votes out of 4.9 million cast. He won Arizona (11) by fewer than 11,000 votes out of 3.3 million, and he won Wisconsin (10) by 20,000 votes from more than three million total. Flip just 42,000 votes out of more than 11 million in three states, and suddenly the Electoral count is tied at 269 (the magic number is 270). The tiebreaker would have been a vote by the incoming House of Representatives. With a slim Republican majority, the nation would be winding down the Orange Oaf’s second term, despite him twice losing the popular vote. 

As for presidential voting being predetermined, 2020 also offers a guide. Not to go all Steve Kornacki, but forty-two states and the District of Columbia had margins of at least five percentage points in favor of one of the two candidates. Thirty-eight states and D.C., had margins of 10 percent or greater. Odds are, you’re either a member of the solid majority or despairing minority. An especially attractive or poor candidate, or ghastly mis-step, might nibble away at the margins, but are unlikely to erase the dominant bloc in most states. 

Some back-of-the-envelope noodling suggests that Democrats can pretty much pencil in 223 electoral votes and Republicans 216 votes before ballot counting even gets underway. This leaves us with indicators that the race for the keys to the Lincoln Bedroom will likely be decided by seven states: Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. In the last go ‘round, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Nevada – in addition to Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin – also went to Biden by just a few percentage points or less, while North Carolina went to Trump by 75,000 votes out of 5.4 million total. For what it’s worth, Florida went to Trump by fewer than four percentage points, but given the population, that still amounted to 371,000 votes. Flipping DeSantistan blue is likely too tough an ask. 

This is the way

Elsewhere, Michigan appears to be more a blue lean, having given Biden a 155,000-vote margin out of 5.4 million. Pennsylvania is tighter, having gone for Biden by just 81,000 votes (1.2 percent) of 6.8 million total in 2020, and for Trump by 46,000 votes out of 5.9 million in 2016. Should seven states that are home to 15.3 percent of the population have the responsibility to choose the nation’s path for the next four years and beyond? Seems less than democratic. 

Now, one might argue that our one-person, one-vote experiment led to an unintended consequence, that the freedom to live and vote where we choose created the boundaries and expected results nationwide that give a small minority outsized influence. One might also argue that it’s time to turf the Electoral College as burdensome artifact and go straight popular vote. Good luck with that, given that Constitutional tinkering requires both a super-majority in a split Congress and ratification by three-quarters of the states, many of whom still embrace it as a potential path to power. Who would have thought that the Constitution and sites devoted to history and with “dot-gov” in their address could be as discouraging and annoying as anything else in the agitate-o-sphere? Progress.

Gheorghe Endorses

I intended to post a detailed assessment of Kamala Harris' accelerated search for a running mate today. Lots of words talking about the surprising (to me) depth of the field, with a nod to the idea that there's no terrible choice among the leading contenders, especially in comparison with JD Vance. I would've addressed some of the reporting in this New York Times piece about the influence of various donors (TL:DR version: Dems gonna Dem, and if Harris listens to the noise, we're gonna wind up with the most centrist and least-exciting choice possible.) And in the end, I would (and do) endorse Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, former high school teacher and football coach, and extremely impactful and consequential leader in his state.

But things got in the way of that post. Most of those things are 12 ounces, pale yellow in color, with a knack for chasing me and making me drink them at the beach.

So instead, enjoy this heartwarming video from Dan Povenmire, the co-creator of Phineas and Ferb.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Dan Povenmire (@dan.povenmire)

Harris/Walz/Phineas/Ferb 2024! Make America Brilliantly Silly Again!

Bill and Ted’s Existentialist Adventure

When I was in high school, I read Samuel Beckett's iconic Waiting for Godot. I found it at times funny, perplexing, impenetrable, deep, and rewarding. The latter is perhaps ironic, given the play's famed lack of payoff. I've read it a couple of times since, seeing different points of connection and understanding while not fully denting the play's inscrutability.

And at roughly the same time in my life, I watched the slacker classic, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, featuring Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter as the titular characters. I found it at times silly, fantastical, funny, and good-natured. The easy camaraderie between the two leads was no small part of the film's enduring appeal. That, and George Carlin. Natch.

Never in my time on this planet did the idea of those two very different works of entertainment crossing streams enter my mind. Until yesterday, when I saw an announcement that Reeves and Winter will be starring in a Broadway production of Godot beginning in the fall of 2025. [Wailing guitar riff noises]

Much has been made about the seeming nothingness inherent in Beckett's play. The author himself generally refused to explain very much about the meaning of the work. As is our wont as humans, we've attached broad meaning to the text, everything from religious to political to sporting (there was a French cyclist named Roger Godeau that Beckett was said to admire). It's possible, in the end, that Godot was the original Seinfeld: a play about nothing.

Meanwhile, Bill and Ted is jammed with literary allusion (Socrates!), political intrigue (Napoleon is a dick!), commentary on technology's impact on the world ("Everything is different, but the same... things are more moderner than before... bigger, and yet smaller... it's computers... San Dimas High School Football rules!"), and in the end, is a riff on the importance of being excellent to one another. It's chaos, be kind, in a manner of speaking.

Now we get to see Bill and Ted play Vladimir and Estragon (in reverse order). The play marks Reeves' Broadway debut, though he's acted in several Shakespeare plays on the boards. Winter hasn't been on Broadway since he was a teenager in the 70s. As for me, I've never seen a Broadway show. The last play of any sort I saw was Spamalot at the National Theater in D.C. Erudite, I am perhaps not. But I'm excited.

Well, shall we go. / Yes, let's go. / (They do not move). Excellent!