The Twelve Days of Gheorgemas: Day Twelve

On the twelfth day of Gheorghemas, Big Gheorghe gave to me...

Twelve Lost Albums I Want to Hear

Eleven Months of Wisdom
Ten Things from Florence

Nine Games Worth Notice

A Moment of Rest

Seven Things for Reading

Six Old and New Musical Experiences
Five Roadsters You Can and Should Buy Right Now
FORE! An Overdue Update on LIV & the PGA Tour
Three Ways of Coping
Stories from Two...Three Strokes
And much needed hip mo-bili-ty

Day 12 is here!

Welcome one and all gheorghies to Day 12 of Gheorghemas. For the second year in a row, we’re finishing our Gmas run in January rather than, say, late March. I take that as progress.

As I posted earlier, I have moved past issuing 12 appreciations – but not the music that accompanied them. In these darker days, I appreciate even one simple word from my favorite bands that will ring the proverbial recess bell for fun and games. (Rob and Squeaker, that sentence was for you guys.) String a few words together with musical accompaniment, and I might even forget about the major morass created by one moronic ass leading this country.

So, let’s do a Whitney’s Dozen deep dive into a random subtopic in the world of music. Like really random. Please enjoy Day 12…

12 Lost, Unfinished, and Unreleased Albums of Rock History

It goes without typing that now more than ever, you can track down whatever album you want. Sure, on occasion it gets harder to do when someone goes all Neil Young on a particular platform, or when a band’s works suddenly and inexplicably vanish from a major outlet. Like, for example, the Housemartins recently getting removed from Spotify. Right when I wanted to sooth my anxieties by hearing “Anxious”! Oh, well – more room for Not-ify to do what it does.

If an album isn’t on Apple Music or Spotify or Google Play, it’s certainly on YouTube, right? Well, usually… but what if it never got released? Hmm. Then it’s a crapshoot. The game of the hunt, rare music-style, is something I engaged in for a decade and a half of tracking down the most obscure finds on compact dinosaur. And yet the game is still alive!

Over the last 60 years of rock and/or roll, there have been blue moon occasions when a highly anticipated record from a well-known act never saw the light of day. The reasons generally fell into one of these 10 categories:

1. The artists changed their minds and scrapped it
2. The label refused to release it
3. A creative control wrestling match turned it into something unrecognizable
4. Both of those
5. The tapes got damaged or destroyed
6. The tapes were stolen!
7. It never existed beyond rumor
8. It never got finished because the band imploded
9. It never got finished because the artist died
10. No one knows

Sometimes, after eons of dormancy, some musician or producer or relative or random janitor relocates and dusts off the material, and maybe just maybe that previously “lost” treasure gets the green light to reach the clamoring masses. Which is fun! Though often times that release then can’t clear the Dick Fosbury-height high jump bar of hype, and it’s a flop.

The number one such lost album in music history has to be the Beach Boys’ Smile. Riding the wave of Pet Sounds success back into the studio in 1967, Brian Wilson’s perfectionism and a host of distractions (in human and narcotic form) invaded the entire band, especially the one frustratingly labeled “genius.” Kablooey. After decades of universal lament, Brian and friends eventually cobbled together what may have been as close to a definitive version as can be created from old tapes and faded memories, and it was mass-released in 2004. Hype 1, Smile 0, though it’s a pleasant listen most of the way through.

Other famously “lost” albums that have been released over the past decade or two:

• The Beatles, Get Back (original version)
• Prince, The Black Album
• Marvin Gaye, You're The Man
• David Bowie, The Gouster
• David Bowie, Toy
• Buckingham Nicks, Buckingham Nicks
• The Stone Roses, Garage Flower
• The Velvet Underground, 1969
• Neil Young, Hitchhiker
• Neil Young, Chrome Dreams
• Neil Young, Homegrown

[Neil Young nearly warrants an entire post. It’s actually really cool the way he kept hours and hours (more like months and years) of old recordings for decades. You could argue that his issuing of these long-lost archival albums (some of which clearly overlap in content) is commercial and cash-grabby… and then you’d think about it for 5 seconds and realize who you’re talking about and how ridiculous that notion is.]

Oh! And one more!

• Guns N' Roses, Chinese Democracy

Not really quite the same, but worth a chuckle as I remember the GTB take on that debacle. 

There are too many classic lost, unfinished, and unreleased albums in rock history to compile an exhaustive list, but a few you might have heard of: 

• The Who, Lifehouse (insane concept album follow-up to Tommy)
• The Beatles, Carnival of Light
• Paul McCartney, Hot Hitz / Cold Cuts
• Joy Division, Warsaw (full release)
• Dr. Dre, Detox
• The Replacements’ reunion album
• A number of lost Beck albums
• Ryan Adams, 48 Hours
• Misfits, 12 Hits from Hell
• Nirvana, Sheep
• Zack De La Rocha’s solo debut
• Soundgarden’s final album
• Red Hot Chili Peppers’ shelved album after By the Way
• Mick Jagger and the Red Devils' blues albums
• Noel Gallagher with Amorphous Androgynous

And Beastie Boys, Hot Sauce Committee Part 1. Just kidding. And so were they. Part 2 was a joke, a la Surf II.

Bits and pieces may have come out here and there, but a proper issue from the artists has not. Tragic, in a few cases. Curious in others. Forgiving in some.

Okay, here we go now, on to the Big 12.

1. Bruce Springsteen, Electric Nebraska (1982)
Leading off with a bang. Yes, I do indeed love the stripped-down, four-track, just-Bruce-and-some-pretty-frickin’-dark-thoughts version with which he began and finished the Nebraska album creation cycle. I never did really love it until one night a few years back when I was down at the Martha Wood Cottage all alone. I popped it on after a handful of cold chilly-pops when the ocean could be heard but not seen. Stared out into the sandy darkness and soaked it in. Ran that sucker back a few times. It’s something.

But man, I’d still love to hear what the E Streeters did with it. Bruce made the call to go with the demo tapes as Nebraska, and he’s made the continuous call to keep those sessions under wraps since. Not saying it’d be better. But after 40 years, I just want to hear it. Max says the band did all the tracks and “it was killing.” Let’s find out.

Closest You Can Get: “Atlantic City” from Live in New York City is an amped up version. Still not quite there.

2. John Fogerty, Hoodoo (1976)
Springsteen stubbornly keeping that one album on the shelf goes against type for him. On the other end of the spectrum is John Fogerty. That dude is irascible. He recorded his third solo album (following an ugly CCR breakup) and released a couple of singles… then decided to have the label destroy all the tapes. Cue the odd duck at the bar in Erin Brockovich.

Erin Brockovich (YouTube): You were told to destroy those?
Charles Embry (Asylum Records employee): That's right… Of course, as it turns out, I wasn't a very good employee.

So we have some bootlegs out there, many in old-school bootleg quality. But those singles are worth a listen. I’m an easy mark; Fogerty’s voice is truly singular to my ears and I can never get enough. I’d love a clean shot at the rest of Hoodoo.

Closest You Can Get: The actually released singles, one of which is below.

3. Prince, Dream Factory (1986)
Speaking of stubborn… Back in the late 70’s, Steely Dan was known for three things, and one of those was studio perfectionism. In the mid-80’s, the Purple One was precisely the same way. Prince was also known as the most prolific of two pastimes, writing tremendous funky tunes and getting delirious with the era’s sexist M.F.’s. He’s shelved more killer tracks than many Top 40 hitmakers could possibly create.

To wit, Dream Factory. Prince’s time with and tolerance for the Revolution were fading in 1986. They put this album on tape but not on wax yet (industry jargon). The label said, “We’re set to pop here, honey.” Prince said, “Uhhhh... hang on, sloopy.” Back into the studio, a little of this, a little of that, rework, rewrite, re-record, scrap this, toss that, dash of pepper, all new album of different songs with different people, mostly himself, call it Sign O’ the Times. Here ya go. Platinum seller. That all happened in a preposterously short period of time. Dayummmn. And that was the end of the Dream… Factory.

Closest You Can Get: a “fan-edit” (what does that mean, beyond the self-evident???) bootleg release gets close, if you accept that their selected track listing and order plus (minus) diminished sound quality are part of it. Check it out here.

4. Marvin Gaye, Love Man (1979)
Marvin Gaye, also a wealth of talent not afraid to shelve an album. See You’re the Man, referenced above, or the sweet slow jam long-play called Vulnerable, a 1977 recording that made its way to us long after he had left us.

So the late 1970’s were a tough time for The Prince of Soul, thanks to his big D (divorce, you lout), his love for Charlie, and the fiscal fallout that we know comes with both of those. His move further from his pure Motown beginnings into early 70’s soul, then funk, and ultimately disco tracks led him to record a full album of such material called Love Man. And then ultimately ditch it. He redid a few of the tracks for In Our Lifetime?, which hit the streets in 1981. He got his life together by ’82 for Sexual Healing, and then it all got taken away from him. Really shitty.

Closest You Can Get: Dig it. The super disco breakin' lead single from Love Man, "Ego Tripping Out." Its flopitude made him abandon the rest of the record. Missing from this version below is the spoken lines at the start, an early (to my ears) musical inclusion of the term “homeboy.”

5. Green Day, Cigarettes And Valentines (2003)
Sometimes the problem isn’t the artist or label’s whimsy – it’s the damn security guard! In 2003, Green Day was putting the finishing touches on their 7th album (4th major label), a record called Cigarettes and Valentines. 

And then… just like Keyser Soze… just like that… it’s gone. Swiped from the studio.

According to Billie Joe:

“I’ve never heard that ever happening to anybody. It was a bummer, for sure. We put a lot of work into it, but at the same time, it was a blessing. We were like, ‘Let’s just start from scratch. Let’s try this over again.’ Maybe it’s just a sign that maybe we made a crappy record and we should make a better one.”

And they did. American Idiot. Super strong record.

Closest You Can Get: Some demos are out there, and the song “Homecoming” was the lone carryover to American Idiot.

6. Jimi Hendrix, Black Gold (1970)
Let’s take a step into the weird, shall we? As gifted as they came, Jimi had already hit it big thrice over in the studio and worldwide on the stage by 1970. He was having fun. His creative contributions to come were tragically cut short when he died in September. You can listen to “Night Bird Flying” to get a sense of it, but what you’d miss is his stuff that transcended the blues and rock. Like a bunch of tunes he wrote and demoed for something he called Black Gold.

“It's mostly cartoon material. I make up this one cat who's funny. He goes through all these strange scenes. You could put it to music, I guess." --Jimi Hendrix

Cartoon material? Intriguing. Well, the tapes were lost, naturally, and found, supposedly, 20 years later by Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell. But never released. If the one released song that purportedly came from this work is any indication, it’s far less weird and interesting than Jimi described. As teasers go… this was not one. Hoping the real thing was too bizarre for commercial success. And that we hear it anyway.

Closest You Can Get: That one released song... Suddenly November Morning. No cartoons. Not funny.

7. Weezer, Songs from the Black Hole (1996)
This one’s been talked about quite a bit, if only because Weezer gets talked about quite a bit, even on SNL. Case in point, Weezerpedia! (Whitneypedia was around first... I think.) Here is Weezerpedia's entry on Songs from the Black Hole, the original slate of songs to follow up their 1994 debut (blue) album. It was conceived as a space rock opera. Yep. Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo:

"There's this crew - three guys and two girls and a mechanoid - that are on this mission in space to rescue somebody, or something. The whole thing was really an analogy for taking off, going out on the road and up the charts with a rock band, which is what was happening to me at the time I was writing this and feeling like I was lost in space."

So, Star Wars. Look, here's what we know: Rivers Cuomo is a brainy guy, and the overwhelming life that young success afforded/forced on him was way too much. He also had surgery in 1995 "to correct a congenital condition that caused his left leg to be 2 inches shorter than his right. The surgery involved breaking his femur and fitting it with a metal brace." Yipes. All that, and he was enrolled at Harvard.

So, as Crash Davis said, we're dealing with a lot of shit. So a 17-song demo about robots and rescues in space is about the mildest mental meltdown Cuomo could've had. Eventually, though, he bagged the idea and wrote new or reworked SftBH songs to create Pinkerton in 1996... which, Dave will tell you, is their masterpiece. The Deluxe version of which has some SftBH tunes. You can also find some of those demos on a latter-day solo release called Alone: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo.

Closest You Can Get: Of all the tunes that didn't cross over into Pinkerton, the one I enjoy most does not, oddly, feature Cuomo on lead vox. Rachel Haden, the singer from a band called That Dog, slides in perfectly on the very Weezer track "I Just Threw Out the Love of My Dreams."

 

8. Pink Floyd, Household Objects (1974)

You want something even weirder? You got it. Talk about going off the deep end after a big success. Pink Floyd has always worked to incorporate weird, unorthodox, non-instrument sounds into their music. Along the way, Roger Waters led the charge to make an entire album minus the instruments and exclusively featuring... yes, the title spoiled it... household objects. That would apparently consist of items such as appliances, hand mixers, rubber bands stretched between two tables, etc. They had toyed with it before, but after the sonic boom of Dark Side of the Moon in '73... it was a go.

Well, not really. Apparently there is only so much you can do without a guitar, or keys, or any musical instruments. Even for those creative guys. Household Objects was abandoned. 

Closest You Can Get: One track, "Wine Glasses," was finished (I guess?). Running fingers around the rims of wine glasses has always been fun. Who knew it could be prog-rock? Floyd fans will recognize it as having been later adapted into the intro for "Shine On You Crazy Diamond." How fitting that that looney song was a tip of the cap to madcap Syd Barrett.

9. Madness, Unreleased Madness album (1987)

We haven't had a reason #8 yet! (It never got finished because the band imploded.) Well, here we go. In 1986, Madness were coming off a long world tour and an album (Mad Not Mad, 1985) that both reviewed and sold poorly. They were just three years from the international megahit "Our House" and a slew of tunes that did great abroad. Doesn't matter. As another Brit once penned (Oscar Wilde, perhaps?), "Fame, fame, fatal fame. It can play hideous tricks on the brain." So... exhausted and bereft of winning ideas, the nutty boys nonetheless trudged back into the studio, sketched out 11 tracks, and laid down a pair of cuts.

What happened next? Just as they were set to announce the album and its track listing in the fanzine, they busted up! Called it quits. Ska-daddled. Skattered. Skatastrophically. (Ska bands love the wordplay.) Madness went out UB40-style. No, not brother against brother like the Campbells. Instead, four of the seven went one way (forming the very different-sounding band The Madness) and the other three went a different way. Like in UB40's divide, those bands didn't go very far. 

A re-released old Madness song hitting the charts in '91 was enough of an emotional reminder of what was important in life to these crazy kids from Camden Town: money. (I'm sure there was the spirit of camaraderie in there, too.) The umpteen (like way too many) Madness compilation albums weren't enough, and I for one am glad that they didn't rest on those royalty laurels. They reunited in 1992 for a festival and have never looked back. To wit, and squeak, we saw them last May in Boston! (They're super fun.)

Closest You Can Get: Remember I said they laid down two cuts? (I sure hope so, it was all the way back two paragraphs ago.) Well, the lead single was this: "(Waiting for the) Ghost Train."

10. The Clash, Rat Patrol from Fort Bragg (1982)

Speaking of bands on the brink of break-up... The Only Band That Matters was about to become dark matter. Let's review:

1. The Clash forms in London from the ashes of the 101ers and other acts, taking cues from the Pistols... and then running right by them.
2. They release The Clash and Give 'Em Enough Rope in '77 and '78. Well received. Great stuff.
3. London Calling in 1979. Not much will ever beat that. Big fame.
4. Sandinista! in 1980. Whoa, dogie. Sprawling. Colossal. Experimental. Chancy. Not well received. But great stuff.

Although I will vehemently defend the crazy 3-LP "something for everyone" party train that is Sandinista!, I will also acknowledge that it's a massive aural undertaking. As such, I have trimmed the rougher edges and provided a salve for those seeking more taut rock. It's part of my Spotify "as a Single LP" series. Give it a spin:

So... that's where Joe, Mick, Paul, and Topper were in 1981. A crossroads. Mick Jones, the mastermind behind much of The Clash's best music, wanted to go further. Take the meanderings of Sandinista! and go deeper into studio wizardry with fringy instruments and a mélange of musical styles. World music in a blender. Meanwhile, Joe, the heart and soul of the band, wanted to get back to basics. He brought back Bernard Rhodes, #3 band manager/damager behind The Colonel and Malcom McLaren, to steer the ship back into safe harbors (i.e., pop charts). It was like mixing Jack Daniel's with Jose Cuervo. Don't try this.

A such, in 1981 Mick took the band to Electric Ladyland Studios in the Village (presumably where Jimi would have recorded the rest of Black Gold), where he served as producer and mixer and swami and got down with his bad self. They recorded a goodly number of tunes, many of which were Gheorghian in length (the man, not the blog, though this post emulates Mr. Mureșan.) It would be a double album called Rat Patrol from Fort Bragg. 

Oh, but then Joe's man Bernie hired Glyn Johns, he of Desperado and Slowhand and a bunch of Who records and much more. The safe bet. And that side of the gulley went in and tweaked, smoothed, cut, finessed, and neutered Mick's work. Voilà! Combat Rock. Both versions had the most popular songs, albeit in either very slightly or rather noticeably different forms. But the soul of the record was a different offering entirely. 

So Joe Strummer won. Combat Rock came out in 1982 and did exceedingly well. And not for nothin', he sacked Topper and Mick to boot. Bernie hired a few randos to replace them, but it was like having Buckethead instead of Slash. Billy Burnette instead of Lindsey Buckingham. Kenney Jones instead of Keith Moon. Anyone instead of Dave in Random Idiots. That's not the band I know. Or want. They released a since-disowned album of mostly crud and said cheerio.

Closest You Can Get: A few of the Rat Patrol tracks have popped up on box sets and other compilations here and there. But a couple of years ago, the full boat got posted on YouTube. Hallelujah. Give it a listen. Like I said, it's a sprawling, swirling, messy assortment of goodies and grime from The Only Band That Mattered.

11. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Human Highway (1974)

You might have assumed that The Clash and their Rat Patrol debacle would be the genesis for this post, but instead, it was this one. I went down a 3-month rabbit hole on this stuff, and I cannot remember exactly how. 

If there was ever a band suited to break up before they got the good stuff down, it was CSNY. How lightning rods like Croz and Neil ever co-existed in a studio, much less in a band, is a minor miracle. And don't give too much of a free pass to Nash and Stills. Sleeping with and/or dating exes, forming mini-factions (hard to do when the band is just four dudes, but boy these guys are pros at it), and generally being disagreeable about what songs go where and how they're supposed to sound. Add in success, money, fame, with the ego and expectations therein. Oh, plus piles of cocaine that resembled the salt hills in Egypt. What could go wrong?

Unlike Madness, they had a title for the record right away. Human Highway. Graham Nash still thinks that title was aces. And with the Neil title track in tow, they were on their way. In 1973, they met in Hawaii, and then at Neil's Broken Arrow Ranch in ("I've been to") Redwood. Tunes were penned and many parts were laid down. But it fell apart for reasons the quartet can't even agree on. Throughout '73 and '74 they played CSNY shows to keep the groove alive and the bank accounts full. They even played at Foreman Field in Norfolk, three blocks from where I was living!

In 1974, CSNY regrouped at multiple studios in multiple cities to record multiple songs in hope of a single album to generate from their work. Ultimately, three things happened:

1. Some really, really great music got recorded. The harmonies are exquisite, to put it in a way that my punk rock self snarls at.
2. Nobody could agree on much of anything, and they got sick of it. And each other.
3. Shit went down like people stripping certain others' vocals off a track and releasing it as a faction fragment. See The Stills-Young Band, Crosby & Nash, and of course, CSN.
4. Songs featuring all four -- truly where the magic is with these guys -- did pop up on solo records and compilations over time.

And that was that. It fell by the wayside, and everyone moved on. There never was a Human Highway album. Later in life, each member said something to the effect of "What a shame."

Closest You Can Get: Because of that item #4 there, it is possible to do what these four singer-songwriter-sourpusses could not. Assemble something cohesive featuring tracks with the full foursome and call it Human Highway. 

Alas, friggin' Not-ify. A couple of tracks are not on the platform. So I have cobbled together 7 songs from these sessions that feature the whole team and added 3 YouTubes to make it a whole 10. Best I can do in these crazy times. No matter who it says the artist is, these tracks have the full complement in tow.

A perfect one to end on. I have been playing this stuff ad inifinitum. Pretty great sounds.

12. Random Idiots, the original session (1989)

Four young men come together topwrite and record stirring music that recounts the sagas of their lives in gritty terms with a D.I.Y. punk sensibility. No, not in London. Williamsburg, VA. The lottery that brought this quartet of friends to reside for 9 months in small rooms whose doors were 10 feet from each other was random. They were idiots. Random Idiots was born. 

One night in '89, one bottle of bottom-shelf vodka down, the band began to ink some lyrics. Seems they messed up the order of that. They regrouped. Mo Lester and Death teamed up for a handful of compositions formally attributed to Lester-Pellicane. This was the backbone of what would be their debut album: Bloodfinger. Highcheese came back to the regroup with nothing, Not one word. Doug E. Fish came back with a song. The band came to wish he'd come back with nothing.

The seeds that were sown that night (nothing weird, fellas) were the stuff of legend, nearly incomprehensible and yet clearly higher plane material. A cassette tape captured it all. And then... people along the hall borrowed the tape to play, and to laugh at these Random Idiots. As Idiots, there were no copies of the cassette made. Nobody took the five minutes to do the fast-record thingy everyone used to do with cassettes. 

Instead, the young manager who'd applied for and been awarded the role of Band Manager... we'll call him Obray... took the tape and played it for a friend late one night in a drunken haze. Here's the only truly (truly) amazing part: he ended up recording his dimwitted conversation over the music... BUT you could hear BOTH the music AND the conversation AND some high-pitched shrill noise over it all.  Bizarre, but that was the high tech world of 90-minute Maxells back then.

As Idiots, they recorded a "studio" version of the songs (i.e., sober) minus Highcheese and Doug E. Fish and plus Obray on backup vox: seems he got a promotion for his idiocy, fittingly enough.

We will never get back the recording of the original magic. I mean, Mo and Death have been playing together off and on for 36 years now, so it must really have been something. But we can imagine it...

Closest You Can Get: A few of Random Idiots' songs' masters were transferred to mp3 sometime in the late 1990's/early 2000's. The re-record of Bloodfinger is digitally available. And the compilation album The Best of Random Idiots / The Worst of Random Idiots 1989-1999 contained one tune salvaged from Obray's trashing and the dumb-assed re-record over the originals. It's below, and uh... it's rough. You can't say you weren't forewarned. It's the lone Doug E. Fish contribution. 

Les Coole & The Cukes · Random Idiots - I'm a Glom

In 2025, the original cassette was rediscovered by yours truly. I can only listen to it on a Walkman I still happen to have, pack rat that I am. Right now I am listening to the conversation between Obray and a lunchbox about my girlfriends. It's worse than the music playing beside it on the recording. I'm still fascinated at how this could have happened, technologically speaking. Stay tuned for digitizing. 

*  *  *  *  *

May what is lost be found someday, and may what is found live up to the longing hype that came before it. Happy listening, and happy trails on the human highway.

Well there you have it -- the end of the list, and the end of Gheorghemas. Enjoy the rest of this holiday season (Gheorghemas lasts until midnight of the day Day 12 goes up). As always, I thank the gheorghies for allowing me to close out the season every year, and for their patience to wait for it, even when it's overlong and yet underwhelming in its arrival. 

Cheers!

The Twelve Days of Gheorghemas, Day Eleven

On the eleventh day of Gheorghemas, Big Gheorghe gave to me...

11 Months of Wisdom*

Ten Things from Florence

Nine Games Worth Notice

A Moment of Rest

Seven Things for Reading

Six old and new musical experiences
Five roadsters you can and should buy right now
FORE! An overdue update on LIV & the PGA Tour
Three Ways of Coping
Stories from two three strokes
And much needed hip mo-bili-ty

* Not guaranteed to contain wisdom

And away we go, friends, for a whirlwind tour of last year's content, and what's always my favorite post to write. In 2024, we started fast, finished with a flourish, and were reasonably consistent in the middle (except for July. We're gonna have a talk with July). We wrote a lot about our usual suspects, but we added a pop-up baseball blog for several weeks in September and October, and 2024 MVP OBX Dave reliably chimed in with high-quality musings on a broad range of subjects, including sports and media, and media about sports.

To illustrate the months this year, we chose to feature Minneapolis Public Radio The Current's top 11 songs of 2024 in reverse order, so you get some formatting break and some cool tunes. You're welcome.

As the Muppets say, on with the show this is it.

January

You'll be shocked to learn that we started the year with filler and whimsy. Our first "real" post extolled the virtues of posting on G:TB. Sorta.

WCSAGD returned, now with regional curation!

Whitney came home, follicularly speaking.

OBX Dave dropped the first of many deep thinks on college sports.

Z's original car post triggered a run on automative efforts. Like this one. And this. This, too.

Posted about stuff I'd take with me if I had to. Which touched off a mini-run. Here's z's version. In light of the current conflagration in L.A., it all seems a bit melancholic.

The Twelfth Day of Gheorghemas 2023 started on January, 31, 2024. And it was an accurately-labeled extravaganza, taking up a full 12 posts. One of the best uses of postcount in recent memory.

February

The increasing ubiquity of gambling is problematic.

We became Robbie Avia stans. Because of course we did.

We lost Mojo Nixon.

But we found Caitlin Clark.

History came to Colonial Williamsburg.

We lost the Lefthander, too. And Richard Lewis. Tough month for legends.

March

Cole Brauer, pint-sized badass.

We felt the first tremblings of what was to come, politically. It is a goddamn burden to be this right this often.

Far too late to the Joey Votto party, G:TB was.

Some words suck.

OBX Dave dissed March Madness.

The Curse of G:TB, vanquished.

NJ Dave cross-promoted.

Gheorghe's Six-Pack made its 2024 debut with a bit of misdirection.

Closed the month with a bit of inside baseball, journalism category.

April

(In case you were wondering, this was my favorite song of the year.)

My kid is a problem (complimentary).

I published a book!

Notify featured de La, Toad, and Garth.

I was interviewed for a podcast! By Augury Dave! Cross-cross-promotion.

A freewheeling journey to...COOKY PUSS!

May

College sports and money. Money and college sports.

Weird and whimsical. Trainspotting edition.

Dance, Marucci!

The Z nattered. A nation didn't listen.

Witnessed a real, live high-speed pursuit in Ohio.

Pokey LaFarge!

Whit got married. Zed met a new friend.

June

The best Sports Illustrated covers, up to 1979.

Go consumerism! 

The 12 cars of Whitney.

OBX Dave went looking for a bar fight.

Time. Is Marching On.

In retrospect, we were a bit too naively optimistic.

July

For a month with the fewest posts (13) since April 2023, we managed some heft. Multiple robust explorations of various topics. And a Muppet post. Well played, lads. 

We invented the dumbest quiz game. So far.

OBX Dave examined himself.

We played against some people way better than us.

Party like it's 1994.

Back to the future?

Gheorghe explained Project 2025, and now, well...fuck.

The greatest sports photo ever taken.

August

Bill, Ted, Vladimir, Estragon.

OBX Dave endorses. Nuking the electoral college.

There is another Z-man.

Caw!

Whitney had a great idea. It didn't end great. At least for one half of Misery Loves Company.

And here was the first pop-up MLC post.

Tony Hawk and The Mystery of the Suited Skater.

In which I coin the phrase "incellectual dorks" and exhort my father to haunt the MAGA movement.

September

In praise of TOOTBLAN.

Our man at the beach hates chain gangs.

My brain is dumb.

San Marinnnnooooooo!!!

Ed Sheeran seems a top lad.

Distinguished Teej Filler!

Our elder statesman weighed in on NIL.

October

Mets win! Mets in!

Magic, Bird. Angel, Caitlin?

We celebrate pop and lock. Very on brand.

We enjoy it when OBX Dave brings the shade.

A deep sigh the size of Grimace.

We lost Fernando.

Fuck remains the fucking best.

November

New Big Whistle in the Burg get it going.

Gheorghe Predicted the Election. Gheorghe is an idiot.

G:TB can legally drink!

Give you one guess which Gheorghie wrote a post about dildos.

Chronicles of an Aging Gheorghie.

One of us has a wee crush on Mike Schur. And Ween.

Our guy Joel Dahmen kept his card. By the skin of his teeth.

As God is my witness, a late Thanksgiving meant the last post of the first 11 months was a classic.

And that's all we wrote, friends. A rollicking good year full of joy, whimsy, baseball, tunes, and laughter, with a soupçon of agitated ranting and melancholy. I am, as always, biased, but I do believe we packed more quality into our 200 posts this year than usual. Maybe we're getting the hang of this blogging thing. In any case, love y'all. Here's to 200 more in 2025.

The Twelve Days of Gheorghemas: Day Ten

On the tenth day of Gheorghemas, Big Gheorghe gave to me...

Ten Things from Florence

Nine Games Worth Notice

A Moment of Rest

Seven Things for Reading

Six old and new musical experiences
Five roadsters you can and should buy right now
FORE! An overdue update on LIV & the PGA Tour
Three Ways of Coping
Stories from two three strokes
And much needed hip mo-bili-ty

The pages of the Gheorghian calendar turn slowly this year, but they turn nonetheless. We move closer to closing our blogyear as I exercise some editorial prerogative to offer some show and tell from my recent vacation. 

Our trip from Virginia to Florence was uneventful, as these things go. IAD to Charles de Gaulle in Paris, a brief layover, and a 90-minute flight to Italy. Little did we know at the time that the return would prove far more vexing. What follows is a rough chronological review of the highlights of a wonderful week.

We stayed at a hotel called La Scaletta in the Oltrarno district, a mixed residential/restaurant/retail area near the Medici family's Palazzo Pitti. The hotel itself is housed in a 15th century townhome, its warren of rooms and hallways a testament to the challenges of retrofitting centuries-old infrastructure for modern purposes. But the staff was exceptional, the rooftop bar a wonderful vantage point (as we'll later see), and the location close enough to the action to suit us but far enough away to allow for some breathing room.

That great staff recommended a spot for our first Florentine meal at Trattoria 4 Leoni, about 100m from the hotel. I had something called Fiocchetti di pera in salsa di taleggio e asparagi, which is ghost-shaped (think a stuffed round "head" with a flowing cape) pasta stuffed with pear in a cheese sauce. Outrageously good, and a strong foreshadowing for the remainder of a week spent eating and drinking well.

Our hotel was a mere 400m or so from the fabled Ponte Vecchio, the only bridge in Florence spared from destruction by retreating Nazis in WWII. Legend has it that Adolf Hitler himself made the decision not to destroy the historic span, though recent research suggests it may have been the work of a brave shop assistant who disabled bombs intending harm. 

The bridge is built up on both sides with shops selling all manner of leather, gold, art, and trinkets. It's often so crowded that it's hard to know that one is crossing the Arno River. There's a covered, windowed hallway above the bridge that the Medicis used to travel above the hoi polloi from their castle in the Oltrarno to their place of business in the old town.

In the light, it's worth crossing the Ponte Vecchio once, but unless you enjoy a good throng, better to use one of the parallel bridges on either side. 

At night, though, at least during this festive season, the bridge was lit in all manner of splendid projections by light coming from the Uffizi. On New Year's Eve, as we waited for friends to get to town, my wife and I sat outside on the deck of Signorvino (that's Mr. Wine, to you Yanks) and watched the show.

The city of Florence, given its history and its amazing collection of artistic and architectural wonders, leans to the touristy in some places. Even so, there are a handful of things that must be done. 

On our first full day in town, we had a splendid lunch of pizza and wine in the shadow of the Duomo, which we chased with a few hours at the Galleria della Academia, where we saw this fella:

Pictures really don't tell the whole story. That is one impressive work of art. Its scale is immense, and it looks great from a distance as well as up close. It's a classic for a well-deserved reason.

We also saw a bunch of Renaissance religious art, as well. In general, a lot of that sort of reliquary is a bit thematically redundant - there's only so many ways one can depict Christ's agony and resurrection - but I did find myself drawn to a couple of pieces that stood out for their color and character.

I was drawn to the crisp colors. And the fact that this
Jesus seems to be the inspiration for 'Dogma'.

This is St. Jerome. He seems fierce. And red.

My wife's best college friend Lori and her boyfriend Richy live in Madrid. They joined us on Tuesday evening. We celebrated New Year's Eve with dinner at the hotel and drinks on the hotel's rooftop bar. It was among the more unique celebrations I've experienced, with the sounds of cathedral bells pealing mixed with the explosive percussion of fireworks from across town.

I knew we'd see a ton of amazing art at galleries. I was not prepared for the amount of public sculpture on display, nor the beauty of Florentine architecture. Across the old city, you can't swing a cat without hitting a remarkable work of art. I'm not sure why you're swinging a cat, freak. 

Check these out, from just one location, the Piazza di Santa Croce:

And this, the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, the third-largest cathedral in the world and the home of The Duomo. Like The David, photos don't necessary capture the scale of the thing, nor the brilliant white, pink, and green marble. It's something.

After a couple of days in town, we took a bus into Tuscany. We hit a little fortress village called Monteriggioni, did a walking tour of Siena, visited a winery, and closed our day in a small town called San Gimignano. Far too many neat things to catalogue, but here are a few:

This and the next are from Siena's spectacular (and unfinished) cathedral

In San Gimignano, and unexpected superlative!

It's a *really* small village.

You kinda gotta do the Uffizi on your first visit to Florence. It's one of the world's legendary museums. I'm glad we did it. I kinda wish we had tasers. For the people that don't know how to fucking museum. Really tame tasers, mind you. Don't wanna injure anyone. But if you're stepping in front of a crowd to take a selfie with The Birth of Venus, you should be tased. I don't make the rules. I'm sure my man Botticelli would agree.

We took another trip out of town to visit the little historic village of Fiesole. It's about 5km north of Florence, up a steep hill. The views are amazing.

As was the pizza at Buca Delle Fate on the main square. 

And this story, which will amuse you as well as offer a bit of a glimpse into how distracting all of the things in a foreign place can be. Something that pleasantly surprised me about Florence was how many dogs one sees every day. Florentines love their hounds - you see them on the streets out for walks by the dozens every day. So after nearly a week missing my own pup and seeing all of these good doggos, I was in need off a pooch to pet.

We were walking in Fiesole and stopped to visit the ruins of a Longobard (pre-Roman) village. The ruins were tucked into an apartment complex, and the grounds doubled as a park for locals. A young (say mid-twenties) woman walking a little doodle of some sort came near us, and the puppy walked towards me. I asked if I could say hi to the dog, and the woman told me I could. Our group chatted with her while I played with the dog, and then we parted.

A few moments later, my wife said, "that's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen". To which I could legitimately answer, "I didn't even notice!" I don't know if my wife believed me, but it's true.

One of the most special events of our week came on our last full day. A friend and former next-door neighbor from home is a lover of Florence. She studied there during college, and has returned multiple times with her family. We bumped into her at the local farmer's market a month or so before we went and she recommended we book a cooking class at Accidental Tourist.

Malja and Marco are a couple who run the business from their family's 900 year-old villa atop a hill in Collina, 15 minutes or so outside of Florence. They open their home to small groups that they teach to make pasta and then feed. 

On the night we went, a couple from Australia and their three kids (12, 10, and 4) were staying in the villa's guest suite, and they joined us for the experience. American expat Steve Woodbury (he went to Italy 50 years ago to study music and never came back) was both our driver and our teacher, guiding us through making two different kinds of pasta and delivering this performance:

An epic meal, made better by the company, our group, the lovely Aussies (the father had a cup of coffee as an AFL professional), and the proprietors. The "bottomless" wine made by Marco's friend up the road served from a label-free bottle and as good as anything we drank all week didn't hurt.

Though it took us 66 hours to get home, my enthusiasm for Florence wasn't dampened in the least (Montreal is a different story altogether). A fella could get used to eating absurdly good pasta, drinking phenomenal wine, wandering centuries-old winding streets, sipping espresso, and probably most importantly, spending time with people he loves. Here's a selection of a few more images from a week well spent.

The Twelve Days of Gheorghemas: Day 5

On the first day of Gheorghemas

Big Gheorghe gave to me...

Five roadsters you can and should buy right now

FORE! An overdue update on LIV & the PGA Tour

Three Ways of Coping

Stories from two three strokes

And much needed hip mo-bili-ty

I'm the car guy here and I haven't written much about them this year, so for Gheorghemas I'm giving you five very cool, very unusual classic or near-classic roadsters that are available right now for less than $25,000.  For the uninitiated, roadsters are convertibles with two seats, ideally they are rear wheel drive so you can slide them around.  The most enjoyable are often underpowered but very light and nimble so you feel like you're going fast even when you aren't and you can't get yourself into too much trouble (with the law or with trees and houses).  I love roadsters and you should too.  Hopefully one will strike a chord and you'll buy one and let me drive it.  I know the only chord these will strike with Dave will be dissonant, and I eagerly await his screen against cars in a post about books, pickleball, sports injuries, and/or body hair.

1. 1992 Pitcrew Eunos Roadster 

There's a joke among car guys that Miata is an acronym for Miata Is Always The Answer, which should be your response to when people say "What car should I get?"  Mazda sells it as the Eunos Roadster in Japan which is a little too close to Eunuch Roadster for my taste, and probably why it's a Miata here.  There is a very special Eunos Roadster for sale at Japanese Classics in Richmond.  Some genius took a 1992 Eunos and made a few go-fast mods, grafted onto it what appears to be the front end of an AC Ace, then remodeled the interior with steampunk flair (including some Heuer stopwatches, looking at you Danimal) and slathered the whole thing in British Racing Green.  

Your local Mazda dealer should be able to service it, my 1993 Miata got over 30 MPG as a daily driver and was a total hoot to drive, you won't see another one, the removable hardtop is a sweet perk, and they're asking $22,495 but I'm confident you can do better than that if you try.  Good luck finding more smiles per mile, practicality and uniqueness at that price point.  It's divine.

2. 1985 Morgan 4/4 1600

Much less practical than the Eunos but similarly green is this 1985 Morgan 4/4 1600 available at Duncan Imports' Christianburg VA location.  I've written about Duncan Imports before, and I've written about Morgans many times.  I'm not going to pretend that this is a purchase you make with your head--it's all heart--but it has a Ford engine so you can convince yourself that at least part of the car should be easy to service.  Just look at this thing though!

It has a hood strap!  And a Dog On Board sign!  With enough scuffs and dings that you won't worry about getting rock chips when you drive it.  Smiles per mile off the charts and you will rule your local Cars and Coffee.  They're asking $24,777 but the interior should be reupholstered so use that fact to chisel them down.  Seems like Mr. KQ, rob and Marls should go thirdsies on this given their love of fragile British sports cars and relative proximity to it and each other.

3. 1970 Siata Spring

I've never heard of this manufacturer before, let alone this model, and that doesn't happen often so you're practically guaranteed to never see another Siata Spring at your local car meet.  Like the preceding two cars on my list it's a green two-seat convertible, a formula that always piques my interest, and they're only asking $8,500 for it.  The car is located in Hillside, NJ which explains why they photographed it in front of a dumpster.  Bring in by my house after you pick it up and we'll go for a spin.

Unfortunately it combines the most awkward aesthetic features of an MG TD and a VW Thing, it has a Fiat engine, the engine is mounted behind the rear axle, and it has no seat belts.  But it takes 25 seconds to hit 60 MPH so maybe you won't need seatbelts?

It's in remarkably good shape and I doubt anyone wants it so complain about the rusty underside, offer $5k and see what happens.  This might be a great shuttle to and from the beach for our man in the OBX. 

4. 1984 Fiat Spyder

Another Italian car?  Powered by a Fiat engine?  Yes and yes!  One of the cleanest Fiat Spyders I've ever seen is currently available at Classic Auto Mall in Morgantown, PA.  The color combo is divine--Azzurra Blue over tan leather and cherry wood--and the rock guards on the headlights are fantastic.  

This car is so nice that as I'm writing this zdaughter came over and said "Ooh, that's a cool car!  I like the color.  Let me see the inside.  Ooh the steering wheel is so cool!"  So that's proof this thing is legit because she knows her stuff.  The Enkei wheels are too 1998 for my taste but the car is only $16,500 so budget another $1500 for more suitable rims.  Leverage that grievance while you're trying to get them down to around $13,000.  Most Fiat Spyders were mechanical and electrical basket cases so they wound up abandoned and unloved, you typically see them rotting away in a garage half covered by a tarp or under a tree behind a service station.  They are not valuable so no one spends the money to restore them, which means this one was doted on and loved for 40 years.

5. 1969 Datsun 1600 Convertible

You may recall that I learned to drive in a 1986 Nissan Sentra.  The family stable also included zstepfather's beige 1984 Datsun-Nissan Sentra, a rare and not-at-all-coveted car with dual badging from the crossover year where Datsun rebranded itself.  A much much better Datsun is the 1600 convertible.  Just look at this magnificent beast--you know I'm a sucker for pastel yellow convertibles, and this one could fit inside Whit's WCSAGD Impala.

Look at that hood scoop!  And the chrome scallops around the headlights!  And the dog dish hubcaps!  It's in Jefferson, GA which is about 30 minutes outside of Athens, so couple the purchase with a trip to a football game or a concert.  They're asking $12,000, the ad says "Runs very well" and they're throwing in a new top.  And it's a '69.  The whole thing drips charm.  One of us needs to buy it, probably whoever else drips too.

6. BONUS ROADSTER - 1991 Lotus Elan Turbo

I know Day 5 calls for five things but this is Gheorghemas and it was my understanding that there would be no math.  So there are six roadsters today.

There are two versions of the Lotus Elan.  The first was made from 1962 to 1975, is rob's WCSAGD, and is considered one of the all-time greatest roadsters, serving as the inspiration for the aforementioned Miata.  The second was manufactured from 1989 to 1995 and is also an awesome roadster but was considered heretical by Lotus's tweedy cultists because the powertrain was sourced from Isuzu and, even worse, it's front wheel drive.  To those cultists I say "Lighten up Francis."  

The 1991 Elan for sale in Springfield, MO is a beaut.  Just under 16,000 miles, red over black, it's a study in perfect proportions.  It appears to be shrinkwrapped over the wheels--there's practically no overhang.  As a result almost all the weight is between the axles, exactly where it ought to be, resulting in what was lauded at the time as the best handling front wheel drive car ever.

It just barely scrapes under our $25k limit at $24,900, but good luck finding another British roadster with modern electronics and a reliable engine in crisp condition at this price point, let alone one that won't fishtail in sloppy weather.  Less than 5,000 were made (and only 800 had the turbo engine like this one) and less than 600 were shipped to the US so you probably won't see another one at the Dairy Queen.  Parts may be scarce but I suspect the boys in Norwich will take care of you, and you should be able to get the Isuzu bits online.  

Now go get a roadster!