OBX Dave has obviously elbowed me out of the Tribe men's hoops gig, so I had to find a new angle. And I only had to go a few doors down in the bowels of Kaplan Arena to discover a story that's been years in the making.
If it's possible, W&M's women's hoops program is worse than the mens'. Since the CAA was founded in 1983, the Lady Wrens have never finished better than third in league play. They've made one CAA tournament final, and a mere five semis. The team is 13-37 all-time in the CAA tourney, and has four winning seasons in conference play. No coach in program history that's been on the bench for more than 40 games has a career winning record. It ain't been pretty.
Sunday afternoon, the W&M women went on the road and handily beat North Carolina A&T, 79-64. The win allowed the Wrens to leapfrog the Aggies to take over second place in the conference standings. After starting the conference slate 0-2, W&M has gone 9-2, winning four in a row and eight of their last nine.
Long-time head coach Ed Swanson was let go after going 10-20, 5-13 last season. Athletic Director Brian Mann took a gamble on Erin Dickerson Davis, giving the Wake Forest assistant and Northwestern grad her first head coaching gig. Worked so well on the men's side, how could it go wrong?
I snark, I snark.
And to date, after a bit of a slow start, it's going really well. The Lady Wrens got smoked at Towson, 75-43, on January 13 and faced a game against Drexel, the league's top team. The won that by 16 and haven't looked back.
Riley Casey
Senior guards Riley Casey and Sidney Wagner (from Phoenixville, PA, home of Mike Piazza and the far more celebrated Evan Lloyd) pace the squad with 17.8 and 15.8 points per game, respectively - the pair both shoot better than 87% from the line. Senior forward Bre Bellamy grabs 6.0 boards to lead the team, along with 7.2 points. Aussie Junior Rebekah Frisby-Smith chips in with 7.2 points and 5.5 rebounds. 5'8" freshman guard Alexa Mikeska leads the team with 76 assists.
The Tribe has a challenging run in to the CAA Tournament, facing rematches with Drexel (in Philly) and Towson before closing with winnable games against Elon, Hofstra, and Monmouth. I'd say we should start booking our tickets to Towson to see the Wrens play in the conference tournament, but Whitney and I will be in Edinburgh. So the rest of you should go and cheer on the best hoops team at William & Mary.
A straightforward garage rock song about a guy who escaped from an Australian prison in 1861.
2. "Gorilla" by Little Simz
British hiphop with a 1990's vibe.
3. "Denim & Diamonds" by Nikki Lane
The video is like watching Meg White cover Sheryl Crowe.
4. "Black Skinned Blue-Eyed Boy" by The Equals
A very funky protest song.
5. "Love is the Way" by Thee Sacred Souls
Old school soul that sounds like it should be on Daptone. This one has been played quite a lot over the past few months so it might be in your zShazams too.
6. "Oh Yeah, Oh No" by Add N to (X)
I don't know how to describe this. Maybe Neutral Milk Hotel doing electronica?
7. "Two Ways" by Weeping Icon
Sounds like something from A Place to Bury Strangers.
I've been down a rabbit hole for several weeks thanks to Jacinda Ardern.
The former Prime Minister of New Zealand announced her resignation on January 19 after five and a half years in office. In normal eras, the affairs of the Kiwi government wouldn't register much in these parts, but Ardern was noteworthy because of her age (when she took office at 37, she was the youngest head of state in the world) and her acclaimed handling of a number of major crises, including the Christchurch shooting and the COVID-19 pandemic.
While Ardern is certainly worthy of acclaim, I didn't get sucked in by the political moment. Rather, the occasion meant that I heard a lot of Kiwi accents on various newscasts. And so the rabbit hole in question had a soundtrack of liltingly transformed vowels.
[This bit with Stephen Colbert and Ardern has a lot of Colbert's American non-accent, too, but it's quite amusing.]
As I was digging in on New Zealand's accents, I stumbled across a really interesting series of videos curated by Erik Singer, an American dialect coach. In them, he and several other experts travel across the country virtually, slipping effortlessly in and out of regional accents while explaining the linguistic and historical intricacies of our American (and a bit of Canadian) tapestry of speech. It's fascinating, and if you dig diphthongs, glottal stops, and vowel shifts, these videos are for you. (Singer also bears more than a passing resemblance to Carbon Leaf lead singer and noteworthy FOGTB Barry Privett.)
The most fascinating bit of the first video is historian, linguist, artist, and teacher (polymath, really) Sunn m'Cheaux's exposition on the Geechie language of the Gullah people, which remains largely intact in parts of the lowcountry South. I think it strikes me so much because it's such a distinctly different version of English than the ones I encounter on a regular basis. As a Virginian descended from New Englanders who grew up in Alabama for a spell and who's spent a lot of time in Minnesota over the past decade, I've heard a lot of American English. I have not, however, heard many native Gullah speak. Or in the case of m'Cheaux's video below, sing.
I made a list of the accents I find the most appealing, and then stumbled across this article from the New Zealand Herald celebrating the fact that the nation's accent had been deemed the sexiest in the world in a poll conducted by Big 7 Travel in April 2019. The poll's top three (Kiwi, South African, and Irish) were all among my top five, so I'm either totally conformist, or clearly able to tap into the zeitgeist. The latter, I think.
Without further ado, then, here's the definitive Gheorghe List of the top five English accents in the known world:
1. New Zealand/Kiwi
2. Irish
3. South African
4. Jamaican
5. Nigerian
Honorable Mention (and a nod to Mr. KQ's wise counsel) - here's Len Pennie reciting a poem she wrote to support Scottish sports.
I recently read Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, which is a novel about friendship, collaboration, and video game design (among other things).
This book sent me down a bit of a nostalgic/reflective rabbit hole.
I haven't played video games with any regularity since 1993-- when I completed every level of Road Rash on the Sega. Road Rash was a motorcycle racing game, but the twist was that as you raced, you also fought people with chains and clubs and nunchucks and crowbars. Very fun. Once I got through all the levels, I got to this weird bonus level that consisted only of cops-- and cops pull you over and end your ride. So you ride for a moment and then the game just ends. It gets all blocky and fizzles out.
I was kind of disappointed with this finale-- I wanted some kind of digital trophy or a screen with a secret address-- and if you send a postcard to the secret address, then the game designers mail you a special t-shirt that reveals you conquered the game.
Something for the effort.
Anyway, that was pretty much it for me. My wife and I certainly played some Dance Dance Revolution (but we had to give it up when our first child started crawling . . . you don't want to stomp an infant's head while playing DDR, which is certainly possible, because you're jumping around, looking at a screen and meanwhile there's a little kid with a soft skull crawling around your feet and if you kill your firstborn while playing DDR it's obviously tragic but people will still laugh) and I played some MarioKart and Wii with the kids . . . I even tried to play Zelda: Breath of the Wild with my son Alex, but it gave me motion sickness. Mainly, I retired from gaming.
But this novel Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow got me thinking about all the games I missed over the last thirty years. I also read Simon Parkin's Death by Video Game: Danger, Pleasure, and Obsession on the Virtual Frontline and "Dead Space Only Gets Better with Age" by Lewis Gordon. The non-fiction put a lot of what I missed in context.
In the end, though, Zevin's novel is less about video games than it is about creative collaboration . . . and just how rare that is. If you get to the end of the podcast-- and it's a long one-- I wax poetically about how lucky I have been with collaborators.
When my wife and I lived in Syria, I hit it off with our neighbor and colleague Matt McEwen. We played a bunch of music together, at various venues (including the Marine House) and we learned a shitload of songs together. We had a fabulous time.
When I got back from Syria, I was lucky enough to run into Cunningham and Powers at my place of work, and we made over 100 episodes of a podcast together and we collaborate all the time on lesson plans. We work really well together.
And, of course, I'm still collaborating with Whitney and we met over thirty years ago-- on our freshman hall. Thrown together by chance, with Rob as well (who enjoyed a brief stint as our drummer). Random idiots, one and all. We both had no business making music, but together we made something bigger (and more crass and disgusting) than we could have made separately.
Though the content of our songs has gotten grimmer-- a number of them are tributes to friends that have passed away . . . the last one was commemorating the life of our good buddy Johnny G-- the fact that we can still get together and make something is a testament to the power of creative partnership.
But what I did not mention in the podcast was this blog, which is something of a miracle of collaborative effort. This is the place where I get my internet news and gossip, catch up with friends, receive positive encouragement from Marls, and often read something thought-provoking, funny, or fascinating.
And it's been that way for a LONG time . . . nice work, Gheorghies!
How would you handle an accident or medical situation that suddenly and severely curtailed your life? Defiance? Bitterness? Depression? Grace? Acceptance? Perseverance? It’s an unknowable answer unless one has experienced it.
British novelist, playwright and screenwriter Hanif Kureishi provides an extraordinary window into that very circumstance almost daily. He suffered a serious fall Dec. 26 in Rome that left him without use of his limbs and where he has remained hospitalized. He responded with thoughts on himself and his condition, dictated to his wife and son, who then post them on Twitter and on the writer’s Substack page (subscription). His chronicle has grown to more than 10,000 words, and he shows no signs of slowing down.
Kureishi’s thoughts understandably are all over the map. Early dispatches were full of despair and fears that he would be consigned to live as “a vegetable.” As he gradually became accustomed to his condition, he seemed to embrace the creative thoughts that came to him amid motionlessness. Not that he’s exactly happy about it, but lemons and lemonade, and all that.
In a recent tweet thread: “But what still makes me despair is the idea that I can’t walk up the front path of my house, open the door, and step back into my old life – lie down on my sofa, with a glass of wine and the Premier League. It seems unbelievably cruel that I cannot do such a simple thing.” …
“It’s as if I have been plucked off the street by four anonymous policemen and been taken to a strange school, an irrational persecutory alternate universe. I have to find a way to survive, like we all did when we were children.”
Details about the incident are a bit muddy. Kureishi tweeted that he recalled sipping a beer while watching the Liverpool-Aston Villa soccer match at a piazza and then returned to the apartment where he and his wife were staying. He began to feel dizzy and leaned forward and put his head between his knees. He awoke several minutes later, he wrote, in a pool of blood with his neck in a “grotesquely twisted” position and his wife alongside him. He was disoriented and believed he was going to die. He credited his wife with saving his life and keeping him calm.
He wrote that he has some sensation in his limbs, but cannot move them and has no control of his arms and legs. He underwent a spinal surgery.
A tweet: “A strange thing happened to me, I went to Rome with my wife for a few days at Christmas and now I will never go home again. I have no home now, no centre. I am stranger to myself. I don’t know who I am anymore. Someone new is emerging.”
Kureishi has written (dictated) about sex from the vantage of someone whose body can no longer perform sexually. He has high praise for the doctors and therapists who work with him and others. He wants to be a good patient and engage with hospital staff, to learn about their lives. He admits envy of fellow patients who can do simple things such as wave and scratch their heads. He reminisces about his father teaching him cricket (his father is Pakistani, his mother British, and he was born in suburban London), though he confessed that he wasn’t a good prospect and was a bit afraid of cricket balls hurled his way at 100 mph. He delivers reflections about writing and other writers.
Kureishi, 68, has an ample body of work. Among his notable pieces are the Oscar-nominated screenplay for “My Beautiful Laundrette,” a well-regarded Stephen Frears film about a gay Pakistani-British boy growing up in London in the 1980s; the novel “The Buddha of Suburbia,” which won a British award for best first novel; the novel “Intimacy,” which was adapted into an award-winning film; the screenplay for the film “Venus,” which earned Peter O’Toole best actor nominations by the Oscars, Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globes. He has written nine novels and 15 plays and screenplays, as well as several story collections and four books of non-fiction.
A couple of thoughts came to mind as I scrolled Kureishi’s threads. One, hope that through time and therapy and medical advances that he regains at least some movement of his arms and legs. Second, gratitude. Not that I wasn’t grateful previously. I’m increasingly appreciative of my good fortune as I grow older. I try to thank those who bring me a decent meal (or prepare it, if I have access to them) or bag my groceries or open a door for me or write something I enjoy. I’m grateful for each day with my wife, for meet-ups with friends, for walks with the dog, for trips to the beach, for the simple act of typing. The ability to do and go as I please. Kureishi’s situation reminds me that we are guaranteed nothing. Nothing.
Checking in on a few of the things I've done while sucking on the teat of the state, or something.
I mentioned in a previous comment thread that I played a mediocre round at the Old Course. Which is sorta true, 'cept that I did it from Leesburg. A joint called Tap In just opened in my town, and I went with a buddy yesterday evening to try it out.
The concept is simple, and neat. They've got seven bays where patrons use golf simulators to play a round from any number of courses around the world. Players hit a ball against a screen, and a couple of cameras in the bay calculate the speed and spin of the ball and generate a result that's shown on the screen.
One could quibble a little bit about the accuracy of the calculations, but only a little - the tech is amazing. If you're in the rough, your distance and control is compromised, which is particularly challenging in the gorse that's all over the Old Course. Chipping takes some getting used to, and once you reach the green, you get the algorithmic average of a tour pro's results from your location - if you're 15 feet below the hole and a tour pro would make that putt 39 percent of the time, so would you. My friend got a much better tour putter than I did yesterday - he made a couple of 18-footers while I "missed" from six, nine, and 10 feet. In fairness, he's a much better player than I (one over on the back for an 83 - stout), so he deserved the benefit of the doubt.
Before the round, I was required to complete a liability waiver, which struck me as odd. Right up until it didn't. Somewhere around the turn I pulled a three-wood and teed it up. Got under the ball quite a bit, and smashed it towards and over the screen (see the black area above the image in the photo below). It hit the wall behind the screen and rocketed directly back at me, missing my head by inches - I felt it before my brain processed that I'd seen it. My friend, who's an attorney, told me he thought he could beat the waiver in court if necessary, and that he'd see to it that my family was taken care of, so we kept playing.
We managed to get through 18 holes in just under two hours while drinking beers from a well-appointed bar. It was a fun experience, though I'll probably bring a helmet next time.
The view from the tee box at The Road Hole. I hit it into the hotel. Waaaay into the hotel.
Those of you that subscribe to SiriusXM radio know that the company frequently stands up specialty channels. Sometimes they're devoted to a single band or artist. Other times they celebrate a certain type of music. This month, those beautiful radio nerds dropped one that's right in my wheelhouse. Entitled Y'allternative and located at channel 55, it's dedicated to alt-country tunes.
My experience thus far has been a little bit mixed. It seems to me to lean more to the y'all and less to the ternative. And there have been bands like Black Pumas, Pinegrove, and Bright Eyes that seem to stretch the definition, even as I dig 'em. But they've programmed a bunch of Drive-By Truckers, Jason Isbell, and Wilco, and I've been exposed to artists I didn't know before, so two paws up from this kid. Just hope they decide to make it permanent.
Since I have free time, I've tried to do at least a little bit of self-improvement. (I know what you're thinking - hard to improve on me, but I feel like I should at least make an effort.) I've read several interesting business books, as well as some recreational reading. I'm currently working through Roman Mars' and Kurt Kohlstedt's The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design, which is a really interesting compilation of vignettes about the things we may not notice in the built world around us and how/why they came to be. I'm also reading Cormac McCarthy's newest, The Passenger, which is predictably impenetrable, spare, and riveting.
Given that it's Black History Month, I've decided that I'm long overdue for learning more about that history. And Open Culture has a really interesting course from Yale entitled African American History: Emancipation to the Present, taught ten years ago by Jonathan Holloway, who's now the President of Rutgers University.
It's been really relaxing now that I've outsourced Wrenball to an actual professional. Herewith, a look at the CAA from our man at the beach:
We interrupt your pursuits, large and small, for a glance at Where Dreams Run into Bridge Abutments, otherwise known as William and Mary hoops, and the Colonial Athletic Association. The conference season just passed the halfway point, and while plenty of games remain, conclusion jumping is never out of style.
The Tribe sits in the muddied middle of a league in the middle of the Division I landscape – 18th out of 32 conferences, ahead of the Mid-American, Southern and Patriot leagues, behind the Ivy, Sun Belt and Missouri Valley. Preseason expectations have mostly played out, though it’s worth noting that league records are unequal in a 13-team conference playing an 18-game schedule.
Some schedules are pricklier than others, depending on time, travel and the scheduling algorithm’s sadism level.
College of Charleston has had the best season so far and sits atop the league, though just a game ahead of Towson and Hofstra, and two games up on UNC Wilmington in what appears to be a three-tiered setup. The Tribe is among a pigpile that includes Drexel, North Carolina A&T, Delaware, Northeastern and Stony Brook. Elon and newbies Hampton and Monmouth are at the bottom.
The Wrens (9-14, 4-6) already matched last season’s conference win total and nearly doubled their total wins, so progress? That said, they have played mostly to type. They’ve beaten only two teams currently with winning records (Army and UNCW) and have been bounced regularly by teams higher up the food chain, as well as folks at their own trough. They shoot reasonably well (third in the league in FG percentage, first in 3-point percentage), though curiously not from the foul line (11th of 13 teams). They defend poorly (11th in FG percentage defense) and commit more turnovers than they generate.
Some of it may be due to roster churn, as the program incorporated nine new players. The one-year lease of guard Anders Nelson has been a positive experiment. The former D3 All-American from St. Thomas in Minnesota is the leading scorer (11.9 ppg) and leads the conference in assists (104). He’s a 48.5-percent shooter and would lead the league in 3-point shooting (.465) if he had enough attempts. He's totaled 49 on 15-for-16 shooting in the past two games. Forward Gabe Dorsey, a 6-6 soph who began his career at Vanderbilt, is the No. 2 scorer and a capable shooter himself (45 percent overall and from 3). Junior forward Noah Collier (Pittsburgh) is the league’s No. 2 rebounder. In fact, the transfer portal appears to have been a benefit, as four of the top five scorers are imports.
The remaining schedule sets up favorably, as they face only two teams above .500 in the league, Towson and the Dubs - both at home. Eight or nine wins are not an unreasonable goal. However, that doesn’t sniff the top of the conference.
Charleston (21-2, 9-1) is an interesting study. The Cougars were unbeaten in the league, ranked and sporting a 20-game win streak until a loss to Hofstra last weekend. Coach Pat Kelsey obviously knows what he’s doing, having averaged 20 wins over nine seasons at Winthrop before relocating to the Town That Sparked Sedition. He overhauled the roster with transfers and recruits, and has taken off in year two. They space the floor, launch a ton of 3-pointers, rebound enthusiastically, and still get to the free throw line. They’re top 25 in scoring nationally (80.1 ppg). Five guys average between 10 and 13 points per game. They lead the nation in 3-point attempts, are 10th in made 3-pointers per game, and 48 percent of their shots are from behind the arc. Seven guys have made at least 17 treys. Yet they also have made more free throws (344) than their opponents have attempted (313).
Hofstra didn’t so much provide a blueprint for how to beat the Cougars as demonstrate how such a game likely must play out. First, it didn’t hurt to have defending Player of the Year Aaron Estrada and his vitals. The Pride made half of its 3-point shots, which helped offset Charleston’s 31-8 advantage in free throw attempts, and the Cougars made just 5 of 31 shots from 3, half of their per game average. If they had shot poorly instead of miserably, they would have won.
Peculiar result aside, going undefeated in the conference wasn’t going to happen. No CAA team has done so, and only three teams have finished with one loss: two of David Robinson’s Navy teams and a late ‘80s Richmond squad under Dick Tarrant.
CofC also presents an intriguing possibility for the CAA getting two teams into the NCAA Tournament. The league last had multiple teams in the NCAAs in 2011, with Old Dominion, George Mason and VCU, and the Rams went to the Final Four.
Say the Cougars go 7-1 down the stretch, which would make them 16-2 in the league, 28-3 overall. If they lose in the CAA tournament semifinal or final, that would make them 29 or 30-4, with an NCAA NET ranking in the 40s or 50s (they’re currently 61) and an attractive at-large candidate. Could happen.
The Cougs are good, but hardly unbeatable, as Hofstra demonstrated. Towson carried them to overtime, and they edged UNCW by two.
Towson, the preseason favorite, is the league’s hottest team, winners of six in a row. The Tigers (16-7, 8-2) are seasoned, balanced and physical, led by the trio of all-conference wing Nicolas Timberlake, Cam Holden and 6-7, 245-pound Charles Thompson, who combine for 42 points and 18 rebounds per game. Like Towson teams from way back, they'll bounce you around like a cement mixer.
Hofstra (15-8, 8-2) has won three in a row and eight of 10 and is the league’s best shooting team. They’re fueled by the 6-3 Estrada, who leads the league in scoring (21.3 ppg), fellow senior guard Tyler Thomas and mellifluously named 6-8 forward Darlinstone Dubar. UNCW (17-6, 7-3) has an abundance of guards and wings, led by 6-6 soph Trazarien White (13.4 ppg, 5.7 rpg). Seven Seahawks average between five and 14 points per game, and they’re the league’s most statistically effective defense.
Quality players capable of heating up for a game or two are sprinkled throughout the league, but if at least three of the current top four teams don’t make the conference tournament semifinals, the train has jumped the track. Wager accordingly.
[So you're saying the Tribe doesn't have a chance. Tough but fair.]
Well, hello, everyone, and welcome
to another tardy installment of Day 12 of Gheorghemas. Recently I wondered quietly
to myself, “Why does it take so long to compose/post (combined as 'compost')
Day Twelves??”
I mean, come on!
2008
12/31/2008
2009
12/31/2009
2010
12/31/2010
2011
12/30/2011
2012
12/31/2012
2013
3/25/2014
2014
1/27/2015
2015
?
2016
??
2017
???
2018
12/31/2018
2019
1/6/2020
2020
12/31/2020
2021
2/22/2022
2022
1/31/2023
Wait a minute… there’s no way I missed
3 years running! Is there? There's not. Get the G:TB interns on this.
Anyway, it’s really simple. 12
things of anything is a whole lot! I can barely name 12 songs I like by Cat Power
(I can, though), much less wax philosophically grateful for 12 new things each
and every Gheorghemas. It’s exhausting. Day 2 and Day 3 writers, you can buzz off.
Okay, enough whining. It’s the end
of January, so here’s the end of Gmas. Hope you’ve all been gheorghey for
gheorgheness’ sake.
12 (new and different) Appreciations
Music Writing and Those Who Kick
Ass At It
I’m far from the most avid reader among
the gheorgherati. In fact, I’d wager a library card that when it comes to... those bound things… ah yes, books, you folks call them… I’m the least well-read of
any of us. Like my father, I’m drawn to more compact entries, i.e., periodicals.
Newspapers, magazines, and new formats like “blogs,” as the kids say. ADD
a-blazin’, this works best.
And music writing – ah, yes, this
soothes my soul. Historically, this means names like Dave Marsh, Rob Sheffield,
Jon Landau, Robert Christgau, Ann Powers, Will Hermes, and yes, of course,
Lester Bangs. Chuck Klosterman when he swerves into the lane. Oh, and William Miller.
In terms of those who came along with
the ascension of online music journalism, Stephen Thomas Erlewine reviewed a
thousand albums I enjoy on AllMusic.com, and I probably check in with his recs
on a more-than-weekly basis. Seriously… more than I check in with my mom. What
a creep son I am.
Steven Hyden is my current go-to.
Discovered him on Grantland, followed him when it disintegrated. He’s at Uproxx
now and runs a segment called “indie mixtape.” Way worthy. He also writes them “book”
things, and I just bought his Long Road: Pearl Jam and the Soundtrack of a
Generation for the missus. His Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me. What Pop
Music Rivalries Reveal About the Meaning of Life from 2016 is an assemblage of well-crafted morsels on bands I love… and
don’t. Humble, clever, relatable.
Which brings us to my newest discovery. Elizabeth Nelson. Oh, my. I
found her in a New Yorker article about… well, her. She’s spent some time in the
area that became known as the DMV after I left. She fronts a punk/garage rock
band called The Paranoid Style with her husband. And she writes. Writes… is not
a strong enough word, to profane John Candy’s lovely sentiment in PT&A. She
captures perfectly. She’s virtuosic.
She does so in 140 characters, as above, which is pretty much my sole reason
for staying on Twitter now. (Oh, and for you, Teej. And Mike Mills, Isbell, Cleese, Flea, Danny Rosin, and
the Muppets.) When she stretches her music-writing muscles into into
longer-form work, like this Warren Zevon piece or this Lowell Gheorghe piece in the Oxford American, Ms. Nelson is even more
remarkable. Her sonic loves seem to mirror my own, which helps, but that also means
when she focuses on stuff I don’t know, I’m cannonballing into the deep end on
whoever that is.
I’ll confess to reading some music
writers with a big byline and sometimes feeling what I guess I'd characterize as sour grapes envy. Not the case with Elizabeth Nelson. All I feel is a
sense that I can't do that like she does, and I'm just glad to have come across her. I look forward to what comes next, since I’ll learn and love more music.
Anyway, check her stuff out, both written and sung.
The artwork behind her is utterly congruent
Standup and Be Counted
Let’s follow up an extended
blather with a ‘nuff said. With every passing year, I love standup comedy more.
I’ll dig into this in a future post with more examples, but I’ve recently seen
some great acts in person. I’ve attended WandM’s own Patton Oswalt live a few times now. Always
brilliant. We saw Jim Gaffigan two weeks ago. Yeah, not edgy, but really funny.
We have tickets to Nate Bargatze in a few months here. This bit (better in full) tickles me.
I’ve always been tempted to give
it a try at an open mic. We shall see. One of our favorite local bartenders is
all over the regional standup scene. Someday…
Two Great Tastes That Go Great
Together
You folks know I love Wilco. (New
album out last year was aces.) I also love standup comedy. You know that
because you can read and don’t have what HM had. I really enjoy Nikki Glaser's work. Her bit on a "hastily packed suitcase" is exquisite. Getting peanut butter onto the chocolate...
Check it out.Love it.
Cool Stories ‘Twixt Parents and
Children
This is so good. My kids… they need
to up their game.
A teen found his dad’s unreleased
song from the '70s and put it on TikTok. And now it’s going viral.
My not-quite-prolific recording
efforts took a hiatus when Les Coole Studios moved this summer (along with everything
else I own). In addition to Random Idiots’ ode to Johnny G, I did release this
number, which began as a guitar track that Doug, a fraternity brother and art professor who lives outside Detroit, sent me unsolicited. That kind of interaction makes me super happy.
Do any among you do short videos?
That’s the next phase of Les Coole & The Cukes. Either that or retirement.
Home Technology: Podcasts
I listen to exactly one (1)
podcast with any regularity. We Defy Augury. I’m the last guy (besides Marls)
to feed Dave’s ego, but it’s truly great. To me, the best aspect of what might
otherwise be a simple review of literary works is the segueing Dave employs to
(a) other works, (b) his recent life activities, in a humorous way, and (c) life
and how to live it, to borrow from R.E.M. There are perspectives that Dave offers that
expand well beyond the limitations of the bodies of work he’s discussing, and
frankly, a demonstration of depth that I didn’t know Dave had. I have comments that strike me during each episode, and sometimes I register them at SoD, but it’d be
better if we congregated around the water cooler at EB High’s teacher’s lounge.
If 27 episodes seem overwhelming, get
your feet wet on these (my favorite faves starred):
Geoff Dyer… Beginnings, Endings, and
Indecision
Colson Whitehead… Location,
Location, Location
Ghettoside vs. Murderbot
City on Fire… with Mob Tropes
Revising Our Notions About Pirates*
Playing the Tomorrow Game
Apocalypse New*
Southbound with S.A. Cosby
Adrift in the Digital Doldrums*
Charismatic Megafauna
Stars, Caves, and Everything In
Between
Some are gross (Dr. Moreau, All
the Not So Pretty Horses), some are on subjects lost to me (the sci-fi stuff),
but it’s all shockingly compelling.
The Air Force has confirmed that a KC-135 aerial tanker flying over the Middle East on Friday broadcast an “inappropriate” call sign, Lt. Col. Michael Hertzog, a spokesman for U.S. Air Forces Central Command, told Task & Purpose on Sunday.
Hertzog did not say what this call sign was, but the KC-135 had been identified as “Titties” on Flight Radar 24, a flight tracking service.
Dreams I’ll Never See
Dave hates when people talk about
dreams. He mentions this in the podcast. And I get it, but sometimes I have dreams
with people who aren’t here any more, in either cameos or starring roles. And
it’s equal parts awesome and depressing, in that order. But I prefer to look at
it as a visit. Just makes me happier. I sent this to a few of our late, great buddy Flynn’s friends recently.
So Flynn made a cameo in a dream of mine last night. Always makes me happy, hasn’t happened in quite a while.
We were in a station wagon, presumably headed to play softball or something. Tins was driving, I was in the middle seats, Flynn was lounging in the way back where the seats were down -- we big guys like to keep spaced apart, you know. Flynn somehow found a handle of Fireball back there, and we passed it around, taking slugs of it and cracking jokes, cruising down the road.
Just wanted to let you guys know, seems like he’s doing just fine.
Six Nations… Part Two (Three)
Yep… we’re heading to Edinburgh to
watch some rugby. A la Dublin 2019. And my trip to Cardiff in 2000.
What could go wrong?
Finding What Was Lost
Did you ever have/make something pretty
cool, and be careless about where you kept it, and then lose it? (Danny Boy?) What if
you could get it back?
Over 20 years ago, Dave and I set
out to write a screenplay. We wrote three. We even finished one while Dave was
in Syria! One got reviewed by a Hollywood Studio.! (Our first try… and they
passed.) We even made it through a couple of rounds of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s
Project Greenlight contest! (Dave can tell you what happened. Maybe in a
blogpost. It’s tragic and emotional.)
And then… uh, I don’t know. But
along the way, we lost all our work. We moved a lot, and we are sloppy and disorganized
and we weren’t any further along the road to stardom than the Random Idiots
vehicle had shot us. And one of us got divorced twice and lost most of his
shit. In every sense of it. It was all gone.
I don’t know how. I really don’t.
But twice in the past year and a half our movie scripts have made their way
back to us. One came from our buddy Kites Weaver, who had a copy of our rugby-themed one (Ruck
and Maul) from our initial foray and had hung onto it. He made copies and sent
them back. Very cool. Then I opened up a bin in my move last summer and there
was our third screenplay sitting there. Let your stuff go. If it never comes
back, it was never yours. If it does, hell yes.
Three Decades of What Could
Have Lasted Four Days
The 30th Annual Outer
Banks Fishing Trip is this year. 30. That’s a lot of fishing. Very, very
nearly.
I’m also grateful for being given
a 10% stake of the cottage. And our old girl is getting fixed up soon, so I’m
hopeful to be able to keep on keepin’ on down there for the duration. Worth the
expen$e. Love the Martha Wood Cottage like no other.
Gheorghe: The Blog
This blog is just so damn much fun
to me. And we have some milestones in 2023 (Good Lord willing and the price to
blog don’t rise). We are 50ish posts from hitting 5,000. Dang. And this year’s G:TBDay is our 20 year mark. Dang
again.
Keep it up, people. Makes us (me) happy.
Cue the Norman Dale. I love you
guys.
Baker's Dozen Edition: Music Playlists!
Here's my 20 from 2022 retrospective of new music.
When we last looked in on Duncan Ferguson, the Scottish footballing legend turned coach was straightening out the academic application of a young Evertonian. With upheaval at his long-time club has come opportunity for Big Dunc in the form of his very first opportunity to manage an EFL side.
Ferguson was announced last week as the manager of Forest Green Rovers, currently scuffling in last place in League One, the third level in the English professional pyramid. Rovers have been around since 1889, but only entered the top four divisions in 2017. The more interesting part of their story has little to do with football and much more with their ecological bonafides. Green energy entrepreneur Dale Vince bought the club in 2010 and set about transforming it. In 2018 Forest Green became the first club in the world to be recognized by the United Nations as a carbon-neutral enterprise. Prior to that, in 2015, Vince decreed that the club would go vegan - all players and staff would eat vegan meals in training, and all concessions at the club's New Lawn ground would be vegan, as well.
This element of the club's story made for good, clean, awkward fun during the announcement of Big Dunc's appointment:
Can we *please* get cameras in to document every second? Working series title: Quorn or Nothing https://t.co/3WZsPUYepC
Big Dunc took to the sidelines for Rovers for the first time this afternoon at Shrewsbury Town. His side took a 1-0 lead in the 18th minute through Jamaican national Jordan Garrick. In a perfect script, Forest Green would've held on, and they did, until second-half extra time, when they conceded twice to ruin the fairytale.
On to Peterborough. Up the Green. Up Vegan Big Dunc!
On Christmas Eve, we went out to dinner as a family at a reasonably upscale local spot. There were men wearing blazers and slacks, women in evening dresses. To be sure, there were also those like me in jeans and a sweater - I said 'reasonably' upscale. And then there was my 21 year-old.
Like, what even is this?
They wore an outfit that's a bit hard to describe, but maybe thrift gothpunk gets close. Black skirt, chunky belt, white t-shirt torn in the style of Sid Vicious, black men's suit coat purchased at, well, a thrift store. Funky eyeshadow and nubby spikes in their hair completed the look.
My little one was marginally more conventional, going with a skater hobo get-up that featured very ripped jeans and a baggy sweater over her Doc Martens. Very on-brand for her.
As it turns out, my kids are just two of many in their generation who've decided that convention is for other people in the realm of fashion. According to a Washington Post story that conveniently published on December 27, Gen Z don't give a damn about your rules. (You gotta read the article, if only for the pictures of the fashion on display. It's a riot of color and style.)
From the piece, describing the scene at St. John's in Queens, "...the student body — sometimes even the individual student — looked like a loud pastiche of late-20th century styles. There were miniskirts. Slip dresses. Bra tops, especially paired with gigantic blazers. Towering, chunky lug-sole boots and loafers. Skirts on men, cargo pockets on women. Thrifted items of every color, shape and era. It’s like a costume for ‘Clueless’ meets a construction worker."
That is my kids to a (ripped) T.
And in recent weeks, the generation found a visible standard-bearer right here in the DMV. Wizards forward Kyle Kuzma showed up in the following fits at recent games:
I showed those to my kids, and they responded, "swag". Which I think is good.
Gen Z has been through it like few other cohorts during this period of their lives. And they were raised by Generation X, casual, authority-questioning grungelords. As Ashley Fetters Maloy writes in the Post piece linked above, "Is it any wonder, then, that Gen Z — the born-skeptical children of Gen X — has similarly made “weird” its whole aesthetic?"
Weird is good, I tell my kids. Just don't ask me to dress like them.
We know quite a bit around these parts about sports-fan futility. We've got Jets fans and Commanders fans and Jaguars fans and Knicks fans and, obviously, William & Mary hoops fans. But I don't think any of us are prepared to be fans of the U.S. Men's Team Handball squad.
Team Handball is the domain of European countries, by and large. South Korea is the only non-European nation to win an Olympic medal, a silver in Seoul in 1988. Qatar won silver in 2015 as the host of the International Handball Federation (IHF) men's world championships, marking the only time in the 27 editions of the competition that a non-European country medaled.
The sport's kinda like water polo without the water. Teams of seven (six field players and a goalie) attempt to throw a volleyball-sized ball into a net from outside a 6-meter semicircle. Players can hold the ball for up to three seconds before having to pass it or dribble it (a maximum of three times). It's fast-paced, physical, and high-scoring. Here's a handy primer:
Frankly, this is a sport Americans should dominate.
We do not.
In fact, before this week, the U.S. Men's Team Handball side had participated in six world championships (failing to qualify for 21), played 25 matches, and lost every single one. Our Olympic record is slightly better - we've won four, drawn one, and lost 30 in the six Games for which we qualified. We haven't made the Olympic field since 1996.
But we will be in the 2028 Summer Games, because we're the host nation, so it's time USA Handball started getting its shit together. And this week, we began to gather some of that shit. On Friday, Team USA opened its 2023 IHF World Championship play with a 28-27 win over Morocco in Jönköping, Sweden. The men followed that result up with losses against Bahrain and Egypt, good enough to advance from the Group Stage to the Main Draw.
Team USA fell to Bahrain and Croatia before Belgium, 24-22, in their final match, doubling the USA's all-time win total. Pal Merkovszky was named man of the match. Way to go, Pal!
We'll be keeping a close eye on our handballers in the run-up to the 2028 Olympics. Because if we love anything, it's lousy sports teams. Go America!
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