It Recurred!

See if you can guess why I posted this one!

You Still Need More Sneakers

Actually recurring filler!  You know you need more sneakers.  Here are some more bargains.

Dennis Busenitz has an $80 skate shoe with Adidas with a good silhouette in a bunch of colorways.  I like the mac n cheese for winter, Mark prefers gray and yellow.  You can't go wrong either way.

Dressy leather sneakers are popular these days.  Cole Haan, Johnson & Murphy, Allen Edmonds all make pretty much the same thing for $100 or more.  K-Swiss makes a nearly identical shoe for $31.50.

Asics is widely overlooked despite having some clean designs and interesting colorways.  For example, these $60 Tiger Runners make a great summertime beater, especially for those of you with more conservative tastes.  The dirtier these get, the better they look.  They gray ones are only $50.

If you're more stylistically adventuresome, these Curreo IIs in green are also $50.  Mow the lawn while wearing these and the grass stains won't show.

One of my all-time favorite oddball Asics is the Gel-Lite III.  The tongue is split down the middle.  I don't think anyone else did that.  They come in a ton of different colorways but Asics oddly doesn't put them all on one page.  Here's a green and yellow version for you Tribe Pride guys, and an ivory and black version for the pianists out there, both for $110.  You can sear your retinas with this lime green version for $100.  I'm all in on the $80 gray and pink joints.

And if you're going to play tennis I can't say enough good things about the Asics Gel Resolution series.

If you want retro runners with a smorgasbord of color options and you don't want to break the bank, Diadora has a wide range of Camaros and Camaro Iconas (another Tribe Pride version!) starting at $40.  There's no wrong way to go with all these colors but my $40 is on these tan and orange beauties.

Too far out there for you?  Fine.  Put up $55 for these Jog Light Cs and thank me next time you see me.

Hopefully this helps you get straightened out, at least from the ankles down.

Fashion is Dumb: "Wine Me, Dine Me..." Edition

 [This post best viewed while listening to some Bryan Adams]

God bless TR for providing this tweet as fodder for GTB's greatest running filler segment.

Huh, odd...

Let's go in for a closer look...

"SOMEONE GET ME RICK OWENS ON LINE 1, STAT!"

More zShazams!

I wrote about my Shazams in January.  Here are a few more gems I've Shazammed since then. 

Public Enemy did a "Fight the Power 2020" remix?  With Nas and Black Thought?  How did I miss this?  "Fear of a Black Planet" still slaps in its entirety, and "Fight the Power" does so in particular.

Go vote!

"In Orbit" by Joy Lovejoy is just fun classic soul.

I feel like I should already know "Big White Cloud" by John Cale.  rootsy is shaking his head that I had to Shazam this.

I also feel like I should know "Revolution" by Heartless Bastards.  Whitney is shaking his head too.

Bill Landford And The Landfordaires don't look like I expected them to.  "Run On For A Long Time" has a very O Brother Where Art Thou vibe.

If they ever remade High Fidelity, "Light Yearly" by the Allah-Las would work its way onto the soundtrack.

I suspect rob is already familiar with Nikki Lane's "Jackpot."

rob should know about "Cat Squirrel" too.

I suspect Juan Carlos is already familiar with "Friendship (Is A Small Boat In A Storm)" by Chicano Batman.  

"The Grunt" by Eddie Kirk makes me want to dive into Fortune Records' entire catalog.

I was stunned to hear "Nightmares" by Dana Dane at 8:43 am on a Tuesday.  Word up doc, I'm the ultimate!

I encourage you to post your Shazams too.  Music!  Postcount!

Fashion is Dumb Two-Fer

Sent from TR, my #1 FID correspondent...worst job ever trying to put on a bow tie.

The Gore Vidal? Or is it the Paul Reubens?

And, honestly, I don't know what the hell is going on here. Is that first one a bud? Is that followed by a turd and then kale? Just terrifying awful shit.

High Fashion, y'all pic.twitter.com/k2fWrlRRA0

— Alisha 🧀✌🌊🤘🌊 (@Cptnrwrpnts) December 30, 2019

zBouillabaise Returns

I have a few random items floating around in my head that seem post-worthy but aren't substantial enough to warrant my typical overly-long treatment, so I'm doing another zbouillabaise post.

1. "Station Wagon" by Hector's Pets has been stuck in my head since I heard it on WFMU this weekend. I bought their lone album, "Pet-O-Feelia"--they're essentially a Ramones tribute band with a great fondness for doo-wop. The result is a lot of lo-fi garage rock with heavy guitar riffs and pulsating background vocals. It's fun.



2. Speaking of station wagons, there's some weird arbitrage going on at various Jaguar dealers. The XF Sportbrake is a 380 horsepower rocket sled masquerading as a station wagon. The MSRP starts at $71,000 and can balloon over $80,000 depending on how you option it up. There are a number of XF Sportbrakes available for at or under $60,000, including one for $53,000 in Houston and one for $58,000 in White Plains. I contacted the White Plains dealer about this one and two other Sportbrakes they had back in July. They still have two of the three on the lot. I'm not saying you should buy a Jaguar, but if you're like me and you like longroofs (looking at you Squeaky) and you're in the market for a new one, you can get a supercharged V6 Jaguar for the price of a turbocharged I4 Volvo V90. If not less--there is only one Caesium Blue XF Sportbrake for sale new in America right now (it's in Atlanta) and when I emailed the dealer for a price quote they responded within 4 minutes, then followed up 15 minutes later to remind me that the keys are out waiting for me to take a test drive. Simply put, no one wants these cars so you can find yourself some extremely good values and you might be able to gouge the dealers down even further. What this really means is that in two years the market for CPO Sportbrakes will be soft as hell. And who wouldn't want to get a good deal on this?

If only they made them in British Racing Green ...

3. Unrelated to station wagons, and perhaps the polar opposite of Hector's Pets, I've also been listing to Jungle's new album "For Ever." Unlike Hector's Pets' DIY sound, "For Ever" appears to have been Zaratsu polished to impossible smoothness. If I were a cynic I would say that the whole album is prefabricated for commercials advertising luxury goods and the closing credits of prestige TV. But I'm not so instead I'll say it sounds like a cross between electronica and Yacht Rock with some Lovage thrown in for good measure.



Maybe some Gnarls Barkley too.



4. You know those "Little Trees" air fresheners that you hang from the rear view mirror so your car don't smell? The company that makes those trees sued Bob Ross's estate for trademark infringement because they sell "Happy Trees" and "Happy Little Trees" air fresheners that allegedly look confusingly similar to the "Little Trees" air fresheners. I love Bob Ross as much as the next guy (well maybe not as much as Teedge) and I want to take his side but this is pretty egregious.

5. My beloved Buffalo Bills are on pace to score 184 points and to give up 624 points. That's a -440 point differential. Only seven teams have scored less than 184 points in 16 games. Only two teams have ever allowed more than 500 points (the 2008 Lions with 517 and the 1981 Colts with 533). So the Bills might be historically bad on both sides of the ball, and they're currently on pace to be the worst defense ever by 91 points. Since the merger, no team has had a point differential worse than -287 (the 1976 Buccaneers). A -440 point differential would be unfathomably bad. But we might have to fathom it--here's the rest of Buffalo's schedule: @MIN, @GB, TEN, @HOU, @IND, NE, CHI, @NYJ, BYE, JAX, @MIA, NYJ, DET, @NE, MIA. Not a lot of gimmes on that slate.

6. What part of the Constitutiom says that the President can’t appoint a Supreme Court Justice during an election year, but he or she can make such an appointment while being an unindicted co-conspirator for a federal crime?

Stuff You Slept On, Alternatively Titled "layzman's post" -- rootsy Edition

It's back, rootsy style!

Back in my youth, like any red eyed American white kid who discovered a taste for the devil's lettuce, I heard Bob Marley's Legend. Soon enough I had my own copy, and decided to dig deeper into Marley's music. I went to local Record Exchange (remember record stores?) and purchased the four CD Songs of Freedom boxed set, all chronologically sequenced and nicely bound together in an attractive package.

It's a fair bet that I used the cover to roll out a spliff like the one Bob Marley is holding between his fingers in the cover photo prior to first listen, preparing to take the reggae sacrament. I heard the first track, "Judge Not" from 1961, and was not feeling it. Went on through the disc, but it wasn't the same, clean sounding recordings that I'd heard on Legend. Same with most of the second disc. I didn't hate it, but I definitely didn't love it. Discs 3 and 4 were a bit more in line with the Bob Marley sound I was expecting, and 1 and 2 sat for years in the now ragged package, played maybe twice each.

Fast forward to January 21, 2017 - I got called up on stage at the inaugural Roanoke Women's March, to play some percussion with one of my band mates and a female singer he gigs with locally. I grabbed a tambourine and some shakers and pretended to be a percussionist. We played Sam Cooke's "A Change is Gonna Come", another tune I can't recall, then one called "Small Axe", which I thought I might have heard before, but wasn't sure. When I got home I did a little research and discovered that it's a tune the Wailers wrote with Lee "Scratch" Perry, and it is on Disc 1 of Songs of Freedom. So I dug out the old box set and for maybe the third time ever, put in the first disc, skipped to track 22 and pressed play.



My forty-something self was a lot more open to the more primitive vibe of this track, and the others on the the first two discs of the set. And, since I didn't handle them much in my youth, they still play perfectly. Here is a story about the tune's origin as a diss track.

Oh, and the Jimi-Bob tattoo is on the leg of a buddy of mine from Roanoke, who is now out in LA working as DJ Petey Clicks. He came up with the idea, and his tattoo guy thought enough of the joke to adorn Peter's leg with it for free.

Petey Clicks sounds like the nickname Klam wished he had.

Stuff You Slept On, Alternatively Titled "layzman's post" -- Whitney Edition

The hits keep pouring in. Here's what Whitney had to say:

Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel (Melt)

Peter Gabriel is a curious fellow. He was the star of the art-house theater show that Genesis was in the early 70’s. Then he saw a Bruce Springsteen show and broke from that act to go solo, as diarized in “Solsbury Hill.” His first four solo albums were all called Peter Gabriel, which he explained as being like issues of the same magazine. Weird, confusing, and a mess to catalog. Thanks, Pete.

His first two albums were interesting but spotty, like G:TB. Experimental sounds and oddities, but drifting into pop/rock more than his Genesis stuff. And then, somewhat out of nowhere, he released his third eponymously titled record in 1980. It’s come to be known as “Melt,” because of the graphic on the cover which features half of his face melting. The picture is interesting; the album is a keeper.

It starts with a creepy song about B&E, with former bandmate Phil Collins drumming out something pretty spooky. There are songs about blacking out, an assassin’s POV, Stephen Biko’s murder, and “a commentary on war and international diplomacy being like children's games.” Titles such as “No Self-Control,” “And Through the Wire,” “Not One of Us,” and “Lead a Normal Life.” His record company thought he was having a mental breakdown and dumped him. PG is an odd bird.

Fortunately, up-and-comer David Geffen’s new company scooped him up. The album is listenable start to finish with nary a dud. He makes the weirdness work, and this is the genesis, if you will, of the sound that gave him the hit “Shock the Monkey” two years later and a big batch of successes on So in 1986. (See John Cusack and the boom box.) Of course, then he released two (lesser) albums in 22 years. Mr. Gabriel is a strange one.

Give this one a listen start to finish, and play it loud and/or on earphones. The studio work is worth some attention. The lyrics are worth catching. The songs are worth multiple listens. I discovered the album while attending a summer program at Bennington College in 1987 and played it on repeat all summer long. (The ratio was 6:1 girls:guys, so a lot of girls got really tired of “Games Without Frontiers as a backdrop.) Anyway, I was seven years late to the party back then. It’s been 38 years now, and still it’s not too late.

Check it out.

Gheorghe's Six-Pack: Hymnal

We hired Whitney to innovate, to bring new ideas to the editorial team. Good thing we didn't hire him for volume production.

I digress.

The Six-Pack Filler gambit is an excellent new addition to Gheorghewhorld, one that I'm pleased to embrace.

Chvrches release their newest album, Love is Dead, on May 25. They kick off a world tour on May 19 in Toronto. Eventually, in October, they're coming to Anthem, the new waterfront venue in Washington, DC. I hope to see you there.

Here's 'My Enemy', one of two singles from the new record that have been released to date. You'll recognize the voice of The National's Matt Berninger in this one, which is a bit of a departure from Chvrches' normal sound.



'Get Out' is the other new tune that's in wide release. It's more in keeping with the band's traditional sound.



'The Mother We Share' is the tune that introduced me to the Scottish trio and their foul-mouthed, hypercute lead singer, Lauren Mayberry.



My wife and I took our kids to their very first club show at the House of Blues in Orlando in October 2015. Here's 'Bury It' from that packed venue.



Mayberry has a law degree, which is one more thing that might endear her to certain Gheorghies. I don't think that has much to do with 'We Sink', but I admit that I'm not a legal expert.



The band started covering Prince's 'I Would Die 4 You' early in its touring career, to much acclaim.

zman Bouillabaise

I've been meaning to post a couple of things but haven't had the time to do a fulsome job so you're getting more zbouillabaise.

1. adidas stands for "all day I dream about Sketchers"

adidas received a preliminary injunction against Sketchers because Sketchers ripped off their Stan Smiths. I was really excited about this collision of sneakers and IP law, and I was going to write a lengthy post about trademarks and trade dress and what they are and how they work but all you need to know to decide this case is this:

I think the rule the judge applied was "you can't rip people off like that."

2. A Porsche cartoon!

The Porsche 911 is a pretty goofy design. The engine is in the back with a significant amount of weight behind the rear wheels. This setup is great for straight-line acceleration and braking, but it's a nightmare if you want to make a turn. Just ask Rootsy!

Regardless, I will own a 911 before I die. But which one? And does it really matter? As you can see from the video below, the 911 hasn't really changed that much over the past 50+ years (aside from the shift to water-cooled engines in 1999 which made a lot of Porsche fans clutch their pearls, and I'm not a snob about cooling systems).



I'll take mine in Gulf Blue.

3. Macklemore made a song with DJ Premier and KRS-ONE?

Macklemore released a new song yesterday called Buckshot. I was more than a little surprised to see that it was produced by DJ Premier and features a verse by KRS-ONE. If you aren't familiar with Premier, KRS, or their collaborations, you should check out Return of the Boom Bap. You'll thank me. Just ask Rootsy!

Primo hasn't lost a step and the Blastmaster will always be the Blastmaster. I just never expected them to appear on a Macklemore record. Which isn't to say I have any problems with Macklemore, but I wouldn't think that KRS-ONE would offer up 64 bars of hot fiyah to a guy with songs like "White Privilege" and "White Privilege II." This makes me feel even better about paying $15 for KRS's last album on Bandcamp when he was only asking for $10--it's so hard out there he's taking money from Macklemore.



I gotta admit it's a pretty good song though. Once again, Big Daddy Kane is right.

Gheorghe Explains the Election with a Caption This!

Two recurring features colliding! Caption this while explaining the election!!

The Act of Making Love is a Car with 73,000 miles

People across the blogosphere have been crying out for another "What Would zman Drive" post. Today's your lucky day!

The BMW 8 series came out in 1989 and at the time it was remarkably stylish. Twenty-six years later it's remarkably dated.

The low beltline, small wheels, slab sides, and absence of chrome scream "1990s" and not in a great way. The absolute killer though are the pop-up headlights. Even GM gave up on the Corvette's pop-ups in 2004, a design feature on that model since 1963.

As a result, you can pick up a pristine 8 series with about 70,000 miles for around $11,000 according to kbb.com. And that's for the 850i, the one with the V-12 engine (as opposed to the 840i with a V-8) making 295 hp and 330 lb-ft of torque. It's certainly an affordable option if you're in the market for a 12 cylinder toy.

A guy in Indiana wants $14,000 for his 1991 850i with 73,000 miles. Seems like a pretty steep mark-up over book value until you read the ad. This car is, allegedly, the same 850i featured in LL Cool J's video for "Pink Cookies in a Plastic Bag Getting Crushed by Buildings"!



My favorite part of the ad is the last photo--the cover of "14 Shots to the Dome." If I were in the market for historic rides from "14 Shots" videos I'd go with the Pathfinder from "Back Seat (Of My Jeep)" especially if it still had that wood steering wheel and vanillaroma tree.



I expect a stampede of our midwestern readers (DB?) is heading to Indiana right this moment to get their hands on this gem.

Caption This

It appears some fine Colorado State students wanted to recreate the surprising box office success of "Project X" (not the Broderick/monkeys movie) over the weekend, and indeed they did throw a "legendary" block party. Unfortunately, it turned into a fucking riot and shit got out of hand quickly. You can read about it here...and please, make sure to at least skim the article all the way to the bottom, as the subject of today's "Caption This" is the highlight of the entire piece:

See you all in the comments.

What Would zman Drive, Alternatively Titled zman Is Diesel

You probably read my last WWzD post and said, "Cool car, but I need something that gets better than 14 MPG ... jackass." I get that. Accordingly, I direct your attention the BMW 335d. You're proabaly familiar with the 335i, which has a twin-turbocharged version of BMW's brilliant straight-6 engine. The 335d is also a twin-turbocharged straight-6, but it's a diesel. Hear me out.



Modern diesels are much cleaner than the old Benzes you remember from the 1980's, kicking up roostertails of exhaust plumes like Pigpen's wake. Diesels are (and always have been) more fuel efficent and torquier than gasoline powered engines. The geniuses (genii?) at BMW applied all their engineering wisdom and came up with a car that gets 36 MPG on the highway but puts out 265 HP and 425 pound-feet of torque. That's more torque than the A6 from my last post, the one with the Lamborghini engine. It's even more torque than BMW's flagship M3. As a result, the 335d absolutely demolishes other people on the highway. I know this because I am so smitten with the 335d that I test-drove one on Saturday.

Taking off from a dead stop a stoplight is a brisk affair in the 335d, but going from, say 50-to-70 MPH on the highway is nearly instantaneous. I stepped out of the right lane to pass someone, goosed the gas, and nearly broke my neck. This driving style will not save fuel but I can see how it would become addictive. And I'm not the only one who feels this way--Warren Brown of the Washington Post wrote, perhaps a bit hyperbolically, that "I believe the 335d is the best midsize sedan ever. That's 'best' as in better than any midsize sedan I've driven in 42 years of driving and driving nearly everything there is to be driven."

BMW sold the 335d in the US from 2009 to 2012. Predictably, no one wanted this mix of power and fuel economy because it came in an unusual package. As a result these cars generally went unloved by the type of folks who want to lease a BMW, so there aren't a ton of them out there on the CPO market. Diesel fans likely won't ever part with them so good luck finding one. None are available with a manual transmission. All are rear wheel drive. So snow tires are a must if you live in places where you're expected to get to work on time despite slushy weather.

Despite the fact that I'm looking for a car and the 335d was a blast to drive, I probably will not buy the one I drove this weekend, even though it was a perfect black-and-tan color combo, and even though the car's built-in computer showed that it averaged a remarkable 29.7 MPG over the past 2300 miles. The reason, you ask? Because it has iDrive, a maddeningly complicated computer interface system that necessetates a PhD in electrical engineering to change the radio station or to switch from the radio to the CD player or iPod jack. Totally killed the car for me. I'd rather get a non-iDrive model and buy a TomTom for $100 for navigation.

So I guess this post should really be "What Would zman Almost Drive."

Fashion is Dumb: "Cotton Ball" Edition

I know, you all want to still check out my hotness from college, but this fashion faux pas is simply too ridiculous not to post immediately. For the woman who wants to look like a giant cotton ball, I present this monstrosity:

But wait...this gets better (worse?). Here's the back of this "outfit".

You're welcome.

[Via this tumblr]

The Twelve Days of Gheorghemas: Day Six

On the sixth day of Gheorghemas, Big Gheorghe gave to me:

Six Facts O'Ghoogling...
Five Lasting Images
Four Things to Think About
Three catastrophe staches
The Finest Holiday Duet in History
And One Hell of a bloggy Par-ty

The Ghoogles is one of my favorite recurring bits on this site that actually recur, so despite my procrastination in recent days I knew we needed to get a Gheorghemas Ghoogles Day up, and soon. So below, rather than just list all of the searches for a recent time period that led the nomads of the internet to G:TB, I thought I would attempt to break down our place in the SEO Universe a bit more, with the usual ghoogles ghoodness thrown in (and yes, the "h" is getting added to all g-words in this post). Stats, numbers and screengrabs all come from Google Analytics and the work of our unpaid intern, PIMPBOT 5000.

1. The Power of G:TB (is a curious thing - make a one man weak, make another man sing)
I'm pretty proud of this one. If you ghoogle that ghod awful song "Christmas Eve in Washington", G:TB is the 4th item listed. On all the interwebs, we are 4th. I also enjoy that the title of the post is "Death to 'It's Christmas Eve in Washington", and anyone looking for that schmaltzy crap for real will likely see that post title. The song sucks, people, y u no listen to me?

2. The G:TB Experts List, sponsored by Holiday Inn Express
Over the years, whether by accident or on purpose, internet searchers have found our little corner of the blogosphere (perhaps) helpful on these myriad topics:

• nasal polyps
• peeps diorama
• Eddie Money
• circus peanuts
• Matthew Clemmens
• Droopy Dog
• van der waals forces
• thoughts on mustaches
• Jack Urbont
• devo
• vajazzling
• 1980s baseball cards
• worst rock songs ever
• "andre agassi" meathead
• caa hoops

3. Posts of Popularity
I don't want anyone to get a big head (well, too late for Clarence), but just for the hell of it, I ran the numbers on our most popular posts. Unfortunately, it only tracks back to 2008, but here is that list. Almost all of the editorial staff is represented in this list, with zman I believe appearing the most in this list below. Also, how disappointed were people when they ghoogled "Hurrricane Igor" and simply ended up here.

4. Where the White Women At?
I don't want anyone to ever claim we are sexist, because based on the Ghoogles we talk about quite a few ladies, and often enough that we are driving traffic to our site, somehow, with their mentions. Some of these dames include:

• Zooey Deschanel (in particular, her legs)
• Brigitte Bardot (for the blue hairs)
• Janet Jones Gretzky (hot...and addicted to gambling)
• Gaetane Thinney
• Rachel Glandorf
• Bea Hamel
• Greg McElroy's sister
• Zoltan Mesko's girlfriend
• Judy Tenuta
• And last, but not least, Dennis' college girlfriend (name redacted, for the sake of the lass)

5. They're Digging in the Wrong Place
Internet ghoogler, if you ended up at G:TB for any of the searches below, we are very sorry we were unable to serve you. Also, seek help, immediately:

• Mike Magnante's pension
• lady spartan soccer waxes
• can white men jump ethnicity genes culture and success
• was kevin youkilis in summer catch
• how to draw quagmire
• cyclist boner
• mumford and sons tattoo
• 1979 camaro (cue Wheelhouse Jerry accent)
• russ francis gay

6. In the Beginning...there was Alfonso Ribeiro shirtless
I'm pretty sure there would be no Ghoogles recurring bit if it weren't for my reaction the first time I looked at searched for G:TB...and the aforementioned Mr. Ribeiro was mentioned, repeatedly, preferably without a top on. The funny thing is, I don't think there is a single picture of Carlton without a shirt on the blog***. Keep up the good work, Ghoogle algorithm. And thank you, Alfonso, for the gift of ghoogles.

***I stand corrected. This picture...it's...well, just check it out:

The Ghlorious Return of the Ghoogles

By now, you folks know the drill: Teej need filler, Teej go and look up what search terms have led folks to G:TB over the past few months/weeks/whatever. I'm at work way too early on this Wednesday, so I have culled through hundreds and hundreds of entries (no, seriously, I have) to provide you with the best of the best (non-Eric Roberts edition).

Before we get to the full list, would just like to point out we might be the internet's #1 destination for all things (homoerotic) Alfonso Ribeiro:

• alfonso ribeiro
• alfonso ribeiro bulge
• alfonso ribeiro dead
• alfonso ribeiro fat
• alfonso ribeiro no shirt
• alfonso ribeiro shirt off
• alfonso ribeiro strong
• alfonso ribiero shirtless

Now, without further freddy adu, your Ghoogles...