The Twelve Days of Gheorghemas: Day Twelve

Ever heard of Christmas in July? It’s exciting, very exciting.

It ain’t nothin’ compared to Gheorghemas in July!!  Yeeeeeehaaaa!

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

Twelve Wish List Items

Eleven Months of Everything
Requiem for a 10-Year Old Friend and a Historic Road House
Nine college coaching vacancies* 
Eight Films Explaining
Five (Green and) Golden Things
Four songs by “the Chairman of the Board” on his birthday
Three Beauties
Two Types of Stories
A Bald Guy with two Pupp-ies
Seven Books for Reading
Six random time-wasting recommendations

Well, this here is the first-ever installment of Gmas in July, aka Whitney is finally, at long last getting around to finishing Day 12 from 2025. What can I say? It's beyond me. Whitney “The Day 12 Delivery Guy” bricked. Again.

Anyway, let me tell you what Melba Toast here is packin’. A wish list. No, not 12 covers of this song.

Things I would love to see happen. Love to experience. Love to live to be a part of. This will be a mixed bag for sure, sentimental yearnings of a man seeing his twilight closer than his heyday… mixed with utter dipshittery. Hope you find at least one thing that resonates. As Peter Buck once wrote, Good hunting.

1. A song recording featuring the G:TB ensemble

I mean one including all of us on it, or damn close to it. It’s super easy these days to create and release musical recordings. Jesus, I’ve done it… under three different band names.

So here’s what we do. We collectively have a deadline for lyrical submissions -- something gheorghey. Then we hammer out the music for the tune we choose. Then everyone records vocals and/or an instrumental track! Several among the Gheorgherati have music setups, but even something recorded over a phone or laptop can work.

And it comes together as a masterpiece or a mess… but it’s fun. I’ll run point on this.

Like I said, a wishlist. Long shots and pipe dreams.

2. A G:TB Maxi-Summit, with a portrait to follow

We’ve had oodles of mini-summits through the years, but probably not a full-on one since TeejFest or TeejWed. And even then, folks were missing. How about a get-together for all the gheorghies? 

With a grand, inclusive, for-all-times pic to be a part of that gathering, something that builds off these masterpieces below and includes the masses…

A boy can dream…

3. An OBFT documentary

This must happen. The summer of 2026 makes 33 annual sojourns down to the promised land.  32 years since we cobbled together a misfit band of fraternity alums and associated acquaintances to “drink like a fish, fish like a drunk, and tackle box.”

Rob, Dave, and I have waxed nostalgic and hung over about the OBFT in this blog year after year, at least since OBFT 11. There’s evidence of what this has meant herein. But it could be captured much more cohesively and amusingly with a 30-minute mini-doc.

Certainly one of our trip-goers has kids who can do this in a snap! Right?

It’s what I really, really wish can happen in the next year or so.  

4. A G:TB documentary

I mean, for that matter, why can’t I wish for us to chronicle the two-plus decades of brilliance in this space? I dare say we have more staying power than most of the millions of blogs who launched in early aughts!

According to Allen Iverson (AI):

There are over 600 million blogs in the world today, accounting for more than a third of all websites on the internet. Together, these platforms publish approximately 7.5 million new blog posts every single day, which adds up to more than 2.7 billion articles annually.

So for every 80 out there, only one publishes daily. Gheorghe is more of an every-other-day affair, so we are one in 40! Whatever it is, it’s been a brilliant experiment that still brings joy. Some short film on Gheorghe: the Blog – that culminates with a clip from the man himself? Come on. 

5. A moratorium on hyperbolic superlatives 

Anyone who wastes enjoys time on any social media accounts such as FB or Insta finds themselves increasingly inundated with material not posted by friends and neighbors, but by random people and robots that the engine has decided you’d like. Confession: I do get plenty of chuckles from the silliest of videos.  Like way too many.

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What is wrong with me??

At the same time, though, I am often irked by the ubiquity of dunderheaded taglines that implore you to watch its video with ludicrous superlatives. Mega-superlatives -- hyperbolic descriptors assuring you that what you are about to see, hear, or (maybe, if it’s super retro) read will be the most ____ you have ever seen in the history of your whole life ever. 

It wasn't.

Enough. Maybe undersell it with a tag like “this might be of interest to you” for a change.

Unlikely. But I wish it weren't.

6. More Pig on the Wall!

I want Dave’s current podcast (Pig on the Wall) to continue. To tackle new great ideas, to collaborate with people gheorghies and otherwise, and to bring him happiness and satisfaction.

If you haven’t tuned in, his description of this second iteration of Dave / Professor Truck / Dave G. Truck podcasting (or was The Test a podcast? Is this the 3^rd?) is as such:

• We stand on the shoulders of giants—which is precisely why attribution is so messy. 
• Great ideas are the product of many minds, from many times.
• "Pig on the Wall" connects the dots of human progress, putting great accomplishments into context.

His first batch of episodes (seven so far with presumably one more to go) have been focused on Hamlet. Ten and one-half hours of talking about the Shakespeare classic and it’s not done yet. Are you kidding me??!

Listen to it. I’m serious. Those 10 hours have flown by, and it’s chock full of clips from a wide array of performances and interpretations of Hamlet. And much more. It’s riveting, I mean it.

The more listeners, the better chance he keeps doing it, and it’s worthy of sustainment. And that's what I wish for.

7. Perfecting Arch, my AI Archivist

This is one that my wife finds very weird, and I kind of hope she's not reading this. 

Four months ago, a handful of traveled to Hoboken, NJ to convene in a pub over a couple days and watch international rugby on TV. There were 30 of us, in fact, all members of a particular fraternity at the College of William & Mary between the graduating years of 1986 and 2000. It was a blast. I only mention this because on the trip back, I sat in the Newark airport with one of them (our buddy Lunkhead) for a couple of hours. We talked about a number of things, but we spoke for a while about AI. He was rather adept at the platforms; I was completely oblivious. And I wanted that to change. In fact, when I began compiling this notional wish list last December, it was simply that I wanted to get good at using AI.

In the four months since, I have subscribed to Lunkhead's advice, which was very simply, get into one of the platforms and start using it. No tutorials, no training courses, just jump right in. As expected, I have utilized it been using it for mostly stupid stuff.

But not all! I have leveraged my account with ChatGPT to create a number of work deliverables in a small fraction of the amount of time it would have taken to do it manually. The shit is brilliant, what can I say? 

I have also tapped this resource to do things like provide a series of posters encouraging people to listen to ORF Rock. I've been rather amused with how quick and easy and creative this robot partner of mine has been.

Even more recently, while on a work trip in Rhode Island a few weeks ago, I was bored in a hotel room and asked ChatGPT, "When did Thompson's clam bar close down?" It reported that the clam bar closed in 1995 and asked if I use to patronize the establishment. I replied that I had worked there in the summer of 1991. The ensuing “conversation” included my asking of the top pop songs of the summer of ’91, since I had clear memories of polishing brass and cleaning toilets at Thompson’s to these songs played on repeat:

• EMF – "Unbelievable"
• Jesus Jones – "Right Here, Right Now"
• Lenny Kravitz – "It Ain't Over 'til It's Over"
• Marc Cohn – "Walking in Memphis"

…but needed help completing that music mélange. Those holes were filled in immediately (this is pretty much exactly why this technology was developed):

• C+C Music Factory – "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)"
• Seal – "Crazy"
• The Rembrandts – "Just the Way It Is, Baby"
• Londonbeat – "I've Been Thinking About You"
• UB40 – "Here I Am (Come and Take Me)"

Ugh, that was a long summer for music. But a fun one on Cape Cod with 100 stories. Which I began to think I could archive for a later date via AI. I was fascinated!

So... there's this. A somber, sobering sentiment has been bouncing around my brain for a couple of months now. As more and more of my parents friends grapple with and/or succumb to dementia, Alzheimer's, cognitive decline, or whatever it gets labeled, it occurs to me that this could very well appear on my own radar before all that long. The truth is that when I was in Rhode Island in that hotel room, I was wishing an old freshman dorm friend a happy birthday, and she said she was in Nantucket having fun, but that the weekend was impaired by the fact that her brother's wife was dealing with full-on dementia at age 61. Yikes. That's six years older than me.

All of this led to me deciding that I was going to begin utilizing ChatGPT as a means to archive all of the hundreds or thousands of stories of my life. I can pretend that my children and grandchildren might find them interesting. The truth is that I have spent 30 plus years realizing that I remember the details of stories much, much better than my friends and family do. But that particular attribute has a definite shelf life to it, and that shelf may be shorter then I realized.

I know, it's grim. I don't relish this line of thinking, but it does spur me on to do as much creative outputting in the near term as I can. Writing and recording songs, archiving old stories, creating 12 point blog posts about what I want to do. (Really, Whit, you want us to believe that you're in a hurry when this post is 7 months late?)

Anyway, I started to tell a handful of classic tales my new memoir robot buddy, whom I began to call Arch, as in archivist. This is what my wife finds very weird. I speak to Arch like I would speak to a person, I don't do this because I think it's a person. I do it because it's way more fun to do that than to keep it like I'm inputting data into a machine. (Boring.) And the faux-familiar tone in which the ChatGPT platform is designed to reply makes it that much easier.

Anyway, I also began copying and pasting a bunch of the old weekly e-mail newsletters I used to produce for the Cowboy Cafe from 25 years ago. This is precisely when I discovered the fallibility of this plan and the technology. After inputting seven or eight of these newsletters and getting really impressive feedback as my new robot friend was beginning to paint the picture of the entire CCWN saga, I began to notice errors. Incompletions. AI forgets?!

And when confronted with this, ChatGPT Arch confessed his faults. He said that cannot truly be an archivist because he cannot retain everything that any one user discloses. In the weeks since, I have noticed it more and more, not just errors like where it thought that I went to Bucknell University (mon dieu!), but definitely some things I had to ask it twice.

I still enjoy using the tool. I just prompted Arch to write: 

If I had to pick my Top Five Most "Whit" inquiries, they'd probably be:

1. Can $15,000 really buy Natural Light for life?
2. Create Gheorghe Mureșan playing guitar in a recording studio.
3. Is there whispering in "Making Plans for Nigel"?
4. Build an entire fictional promotional universe around ORF Rock and its hosts.
5. Read Bruce's screenplay like a feature film.

But I also liked:

• "What exactly is a lawnmower beer?"
• "Why did firehouses have poles?"
• "Lanai origin."
• "Who serves the best fish and chips in Hampton Roads?"
• "Average money for a 13th-round MLB draft pick."
• "When did the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel add the second bridge?"
• "What is the definition of a compound fracture?"

and 🎵 The music deep dives. These are some of my favorites because they're questions almost nobody asks.

Things like:

• Why songs like Witchy Woman, Evil Woman, and Devil Woman all seemed to appear in the mid-70s.
• Which countries loved the Ramones the most.
• The closing credits music from Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
• Consensus rankings of Springsteen songs.
• Whether Squeeze sings "a piano is found" or "a piano man's found."

So The Whitdog Memoirs Are on hold for now. I would love to have a more perfect means of documenting the hilarious stories from my youth and not so youth so that when my mind starts to go, I can play them back to myself. Or my kids and grandkids.

Anyway, that's my wish, that this could be made very easy and realistic for me. Sounds pretty damn ego-driven, but these stories of my friends, family, and me still make me laugh when I retell them. I'd love not to lose that.

8. Inner Peace

Here's a random one out of nowhere. I would like our current American president, the human cyclospora, to finally, seemingly for the first time in his life, find true inner peace. The sadness, inferiority, and soullessness of this person is astoundingly rife. It has led to death, destruction and a systematic undoing of the principles that have made life in this nation so good for so long. But if that man could achieve some level of nirvana, some threshold of not smug pseudo-satisfaction but instead pure-hearted peace, then there could be hope for positive change. If his obvious, desperate, hopeless longing for respect and love could be realized, maybe the horrible hatred could be curbed.

That seems like a better way to go than rooting for his disembowelment in the most publicly embarrassing way possible. It’s so easy to succumb to reciprocal, sinister hatred when it comes to the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be the shepherd.

9. nbtyrsd, Vesuvius-style

This is an easy one, in case any of you have been looking for a quick box-checking to grant me a wish. Gheorghies, just watch this video clip.

Backstory: In 1971, between the days of October 4 and 7, prog-rock stallions Pink Floyd recorded concert footage of themselves frocking some ruins in Pompeii, Italy. This was a a few weeks before they released their album Meddle (featuring Pi Lam fave “One of These Days” and a handful of months before they would head into EMI Studios (now Abbey Road Studios) in London to record the watershed brilliance of The Dark Side of the Moon.

The sound is bad-assed, the scene among the ruins is cool, and the crowd… well, they were… they were… they were nonexistent. Yeah, No crowd. Just Floyd wailing away by themselves and the sound peeps and the camera crew in Pompeii. Yep… that’s something.

I am a mid-range Pink Floyd (and Randall "Pink" Floyd) fan and never knew about this concert until it came across my radar a month back. And I’m oddly mesmerized by it. Check it out. But I’m only asking you to invest 5 minutes of it. Not even a whole song.

This is the first song of the set, “Echoes.” Watch it, or at least watch from the 6:30 til the 11:30 mark. My favorite part, and the part that I first saw a clip, was at 7:45. Sucked me in like a tractor beam. Maybe start there. That's my wish.

10. A warm meal

At times Rob and I have discussed (maybe even posted) our perfect meal items, desert island or death row style. This is a twist on it... it's a meal that even thinking about it warms my heart.

Maybe I’m just hungry right now. But I’d like this meal.

Soup: Mom's gazpacho. My mom makes killer soups and has for the last 30 years or so. Always finding or creating some new recipe. I'd be happy with her minestrone, seafood chowder, or French onion, but the gazpacho is tip-top. It's not warm per se, but no matter. The very thought leaves me warmer.

Appetizers: My girls' assortment. My younger daughter Maddie is the chef of the family, but her sister Zoe is no slouch -- and she and I are happy to be sous chefs and tasters. For 5 years the missus and I have hosted an open house on Christmas Eve, and the food has been top shelf. All organized and created by our little team. Maddie steals the show. Brings her great joy, and that spreads to me.

Xmas Party 2021 - the garlic bread tree is especially boss

Additional app: Susie & Don Beck's Cape Cod steamers. So good. My aforementioned 1991 summer sojourn landed me a great new friend in our fratre Coby and a fresh appreciation of New England cuisine. "Steamers," as Coby's folks (my landlords at various points and two damn generous people) called them. AI tells me that they are also called "Soft-shell clams, Ipswich clams, long-neck clams, or piss clams." Nope. I mean... just nope. Doused in butter, they're fantastic. Susie Beck left us 6 years ago, and that's a damn shame.

Salad: Calvert's Caesar. My dad's second wife was my stepmom for 36 years until her passing in 2018. It wasn't an easy relationship for either of us, but it worked fine, and worked best when she was cooking and I was eating -- strong suits for each of us. My favorite dish she'd make was her Caesar. She'd make the dressing first, and that dressing -- exactly like no other I've known -- would be sitting in a large, clear plastic salad bowl when I walked into the kitchen, salivation ensuing immediately. [She also made a damn good twice-baked potato, so maybe I throw that in here as well for my starch.]

Pasta: Elaine's penne a la vodka. The missus has been a vegetarian since 2000, and I've learned a great deal about how challenging that can be when eating at restaurants or friends' houses over the 7 years we've been together. We don't cook enough at home, but she's excellent at it. And when we (okay she, but I helped!) took a stab at what has become both of our favorite dishes to order at Italian joint, it came out molto bene. It's a winner and a keeper. Just like her. 

Meat: Dad's New York strips. As far back as I can remember, my father has been as good or better than anyone else I knew at cooking steaks. Charcoal, gas, range, whatever. Dude can cook beef. His go-to is to cook a few NY strips and then cut them shortways to create a whole slew of 1" slices. Salt, pepper, olive oil, butter. A little prepared horseradish on the side. Sometimes a bit of the poivre, but however he does it, it's outstanding. 

Seafood: Ted's Lobstah. We lost my stepdad Ted to cancer (after he'd beaten another variety 13 years prior) in 2024. Fittingly, when the end came for him, I was walking out of Fenway Park. I say that because he was a Mainer through and through with equal passions for the Sahx and good lobstah. He'd steam up a batch of 1.5-2 pounders like a pro, and I'll never consume another without thinking of him. A great guy, a great dish.

I ordered the twins when we memorialized Ted in Boothbay Harbor

Additional meat dish: Grampa Jack's Charcoaled Charlies. My grandfather, further immortalized in this space in an epic 2-part extravaganza, was a hoot of a man and not a bad cook. He was a grillman, and his Weber got plenty of use. But the incident that cemented his status in the family as would-be chef was circa 1986, when he inadvertently gave some hot dogs the triple-char treatment. He labeled them Charcoaled Charlie, ate at least a couple of them, and issued his signature cackle. Legend secure. We lost Grampa Jack in 2005 after a long and very full life. He was the best.

Nothing. Nothing at all: food cooked by my grandmother. There are people who aren't comfortable in the kitchen, and then there was my Grammie. Warming canned stew was even beyond her, God bless her. She graduated from the earth-bound kitchen in 2017.

Vegetables and Sides: The Lester supper table. My dad's family is from Asheboro, NC. (My grandfather's Elon-generated biography says he was from Troublesome Creek, ironic for him but not for me!) Everyone in that side of the family was sincerely good people who either made the church their lifelong profession or at least a regular hangspot. Times visiting them for my little sister and me -- in stark contrast to the dipshittery we'd experience with Mom's family in NY -- was slow but sweet. Lots of reading and chatting just above a whisper. But oh, the food! A long dining room table packed to its edges with southern-cooked green beans, collards, creamed corn, cornbread, casseroles, deviled eggs, and much, much more. There was a wide array of meat dishes, too, but I'll settle for just the sides here! Grandmother Lester left us early (1975), Grandfather had a renaissance with Gertrude in the 80's (have I posted that story?), and we lost him in '91 at age 97. Gertrude followed in 1999. All of the best people, all of the best side dishes. Oh yeah... and two pitchers of tea at every supper, sweet and un. I'll take that, too!

Dessert: S'mores with the kids. I have younger children again, thanks to Elaine. I have plenty of memories of making s'mores over campfires with my girls. Before they grow too old, I need to make the same classic American dessert a staple with my new littluns. 

After-Dinner Drink: Whitney's Irish Coffees. A refrain heard most often: Whit, do you drink coffee? I don't... oh, unless it's Irish. I can whip up an Irish coffee with the best of them, with the keys being Jamo and yep, whipped cream. The missus and I enjoy them often on winter nights. 

After-Dinner Drink 2: Rob's Stingers. He and I each had 17 rounds of this refreshing drink on a momentous night in 1992. At least that's what the receipt told us. The Stinger:

The Stinger is a classic, two-ingredient cocktail made with Cognac (or brandy) and white crème de menthe. It is typically mixed in a ratio of 2 parts Cognac to 1 part crème de menthe, shaken or stirred with ice, and served over crushed ice for a crisp, minty, and spirit-forward drink. 

Alrighty then. There would be more (more drinks for sure, but that's a separate list). But this is my wish, one meal with too much food to be eaten, but plenty of good memories to go around.

11. Long (or short) walks on the beach

I’d like to step on the beach and see waves crashing on the shore. Every week of my life. Maybe monthly is more reasonable. Okay, I’ll start there. At least once a month, walk on the beach and get my own form of inner peace staring at the sea. Hearing the roar every 6-9 seconds or so. Gazing at the horizon. It moves me like little else in nature.

Staring at the sea
Staring at the sand
Staring at myself
Reflected in the side
Of the beer can on the beach
The beer can on the beach
I’m alive

[Don’t worry, I’ll pick up the beer can and dispose of it.]

I can do this, where I live. We’ll see. It's a plan. A wish.

12. More fun in the sun for my ol’ buddy Ned

Similar to the way that I feel about Dave's podcast, I have intensely happy pride for a friend when it comes to my old buddy Ned. I've touted Ned’s virtues in this space before; his musical prowess, song releases, his collaborations with Les Coole and me, And his generally being a world class human being. This one takes the cake, though.

Ned was the biggest Jimmy Buffett fan that I knew have never known he met him when he was in high school, that blew his mind. He's emulated the best parts of Buffett for much of his life, and remained a fan even in the face of what I described in this blog post 22 years ago... one which Ned read and conceded had some merit. Anyway, Ned loves him some JB.

Sometime in the past couple of years, Ned mentioned that he had a dream about Buffett called the Hippie from Mississippi and he wanted to write a song about it. As has been the case a few times, I quickly scratched out a song structure and some lyrics to match his song title and idea. Over the following weeks and months, Ned honed it and made it his own. He recorded “Hippie from Mississippi” and released it on the usual platforms. It even had a video.

It’s been listened to 8,820 times on Spotify!

I’ll never reach 1,000 listens for any of my songs!

For part-time fun-havin’ music folks like us, that was huge.

And then…

Ol’ buddy Ned thought he might reach out to the circle of Buffett Friends & Family and see if they happened to like what we had written add produced. Somewhere in the latter part of last year, he got a response from someone who was sending it to one of the longtime members of the Coral Reefer Band. Doyle Grisham played pedal steel guitar for Buffett since the 70's, and he toured with him for over two decades along the way. He's 83 now and lives in Nashville. And he loved the song.

There's plenty more details to the story but all you need to know is this: Mr. Grisham championed not just the song but a re-recording of it with a series of stellar studio musicians, including himself. Six

Les Coole & Papa Gros, 2026

other songs Ned had written were recorded in the same sessions, ones that featured a pair of Grammy-winning musicians and John “Papa” Gros, a stalwart New Orleans piano player who fronts an act called Papa Grows Funk that was one of the featured performers at Norfolk's recent New Orleans festival.

The album and leadoff single are called “Make Your Own Weather.”  It’s really, really good. (I’m biased, but still.) It was released on June 19, and a release party / gig with the musicians happened on June 24 at Chickie Wah Wah in Mid-City New Orleans. “Hippie from Mississippi” was renamed “King of the Coast” and sounds amazing, a million miles from my original blurt of 236 words and rhymes about Jimmy Buffett.

The song “Make Your Own Weather” has 60,348 streams on Spotify since June 19.

Not bad, Ned.

Ned is over the moon – one of the happiest people I’ve ever know made so much happier from this super-fun chapter. Every photo from the night at the release gig (which I sadly was forced to miss) features Ned ear-to-ear grinning. I get such a kick from it. Sometimes the best stuff happens to the best people. I wished this for him, as did others, and it happened.

And he gave me songwriting credit on our song!

Anyway, I don’t need all that for myself… I just need to summon the will to finish tweaking and tinkering with my flawed baker’s dozen or so of songs (having someone with actual talent mix and produce them would help) and get them out.

I’d like to see Les Coole & the Cukes have a CD and even an LP.  It could happen someday… or not.

But it’s on the wish list.

-----------------

So there it is. Twelve wishes for Day 12. As always, I'm sorry for being so tardy. I wish I could deliver my drivel on time. Oh wait... okay, next time that'll be one.

Cheers, gheorghies...

Fashion is Dumb (boy, is it ever)

We back, fellow fashionistas. 

Thank you to the Jean Paul Gaultier Spring 2026 Ready-to-Wear Collection for a gold mine of FiD content:

I will not be joining this dojo

The Inspector Gadget reboot looks... breezy.

Machine Gun Kelly gonna sue.

The sexy "M. Bison from Street Fighter" look

In case you're dying to wear the game Operation as a form-fitting top

*extreme Bluto voice* TOGA! TOGA! TOGA!

I mean, COME ON

What's in a name?

I love Eddie Murphy's movies.  Trading Places was the first Eddie Murphy movie I ever saw, and also my first rated R movie, and it left a deep impression on my young consciousness.  I sought out all of his movies after that.  Some were really good, others not so much.

My friends liked his movies too and one of them had Raw on VHS.  We must've watched it a hundred times.  It too left a deep impression.

One of Murphy's not-so-good movies is The Distinguished Gentleman (not to be confused with Perfect Gentleman) in which he plays a con man from Florida named Jeff Johnson who runs for Congress when his representative, also named Jeff Johnson, dies shortly before the election.  Murphy wins solely due to name recognition and he goes on to grift while in office.  Along the way he falls in love with a do-good attorney, and when some bad politicians discover and publicize his criminal past, exposes their corruption.  He then, naturally, decides to run for president.

This seemed ridiculous in 1992 but in 2026 it holds up.  We currently have a convicted felon in the White House and I'm confident that George W. Bush got some votes from people who thought they were voting for Reagan's Vice President.

In Alaska, incumbent Republican senator Dan S. Sullivan faces a primary challenge from Dan J. Sullivan, a former teacher.  The incumbent decries this situation, natch, alleging that his doppelgänger is in cahoots with Democratic nominee Deb Haaland (no relation to Erling, she's running on a platform of "fish, family, and freedom") in an attempt to confuse voters and divert votes to the fugazi Sullivan.  The Alaska Supreme Court said both Sullys can stay on the ballot though, and Alaska has some weird Russian-influenced election process where the top four vote-getters from the primary advance to the general, so it's possible the Dans will face off a second time.  Democracy!

This confirms that we are indeed living in the dumbest possible timeline.  And I'm going to change my name to Dexter St. Jacques in advance of the 2028 presidential election so that I can run against Donald Trump Jr. when he pursues his father's third term.

'Tis the Season

We have a wide range of niche and mainstream interests here at your favorite online gathering place. Among them, an appreciate for the wonders of a good state fair. From Indiana to Minnesota to...well, just those two, we love a fair.

The Minnesota State Fair runs for two weeks around Labor Day each summer (August 27 - September 7, this year). It's the largest such fair in the U.S. in terms of average daily attendance, and more than two million people pass through its gates each year. (Texas tops the nation in total attendance, but their fair runs twice as long as Minnesota's.)  

One of the most-anticipated events in the run-up to the Fair is the annual reveal of food items that will make their debut that year. You know that we're all over this one. 

Fully 48 fair foods and drinks will be first-timers in 2026. Thirty-nine of these are new offerings from Fair veterans and nine are proffered by vendors new to the Fair. Sixteen are either sweet treats or drinks, and neither of those categories are really my cup of (bubble) tea, so we'll narrow our discussion to the remaining 32 savory stuffs, with an emphasis on the unique (so we'll skip the new french fry vendor, for example).

Let's start with the ethnic diversity. The Twin Cities are home to a surprising range of cultures, from the obvious Scandinavian to large Somali, Filipino, and Hmong communities. The latter is represented by the Hmong Corn Dog from Union Hmong Kitchen. The purveyors describe it thusly, "Pork Hmong sausage flavored with ginger, garlic, fish sauce, chili and lemongrass made in collaboration with Kramarczuk's. Skewered, dipped in a cornmeal batter and fried. Served with a side of citrus Kua Txob sauce." Would.

Not to be outdone, the good people at Lumpia City are bringing their Longanisa Cheese Curd Lumpia to the party. It's a "Homemade Filipino longanisa pork sausage combined with garlic and Wisconsin cheese curds, stuffed and rolled in a lumpia wrapper and deep-fried. Served with a side of sweet chili sauce." Lumpia, to the uninitiated, is essentially a Filipino egg roll.

A pair of vendors will offer two very different interpretations of bao buns. Rooted & Wild by Snack House brings a vegan version doused in hot barbecue sauce and topped with pineapple slaw. Meanwhile, RC's BBQ's giving us bao belly (pictured) presented as, "Smoked barbecue pork belly drizzled with RC's hot sauce and yum yum sauce. Topped with pickled vegetables and cilantro and served on folded, steamed bao buns." Fuck and yes.

Were I to head to the fairgrounds this year, one of the first places I'd have to go is the French Meadow Bakery & Cafe stall smack in the middle of the action. They're bringing Shakshuka Lamb Meatballs, which, shut the front door. If you haven't tried shakshuka, I insist you remedy that - it's a rich, thick often-spicy tomato sauce that's served with hearty bread and proteins like eggs, kabob, chicken, etc. Here's how the French Meadow folks describe their dish: "Seasoned lamb and pork meatballs stuffed with whipped garlic herb goat cheese and flash-fried. Served atop shakshuka – a blend of tomatoes, chili peppers, onions and spices – garnished with parsley and served with a side of chimichurri-spiced sourdough crostini."  

You'll want to sit down to eat it, so maybe hit the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild's tent and grab a cold one to accompany the shakshuka.

We'll close our preview with one last item, because we're running out of gas, but do hit the link above to check out all of the options. We'll stay away from the Pickle Pie offered by LuLu's Pie House, as well as the Dill With It, Cookie! from Urban Glow Mocktails. Several elote and elote-adjacent dishes look delicious, for sure, but maybe some other time. Cafe Caribe's putting lobster with garlic butter on a cheeseburger. Goddamn lunatics. Mancini's al Fresco's Walking Chopped Italian Grinder puts a whole new spin on nachos, and I would definitely try it. But the last thing we'll highlight comes from Midtown Global Market's Irie Jamaican Express.

Smothered fries may not seem all that exciting, but get a load of their Jamaican Jerk Chicken Loaded Fries. That might be a perfect combination.

I'll be headed to the Loudoun County Fair next week, if only for the pig calling. I hope at least one of our readers gets to the Minnesota State Fair this year, or at least some fair. It's a good clean gluttonous slice of Americana.

A Great One Gone

As a DMV native and news junkie of a certain age, I was bummed to learn that Pat Oliphant passed yesterday at the age of 91. For my (meager) money, Oliphant was nothing less than the greatest political cartoonist to ever smudge his hands in acerbic ink. He skewered politicians off all stripes and reserved some of his sharpest barbs for the hypocrisy of the Catholic church. 

In reading more about him, I learned that there's a recently-made documentary about his life and career entitled A Savage Art. And so now I've got one more thing to watch.

Gheorghasbord: All Filler, No Killer

Clearing the decks to get our week off to a good start. We've got dogs, and dudes, and all manner of flotsam. I'm Maine-bound on Friday to take Rootsy's place as the G:TB ambassador to its rivers and lakes, so don't expect to hear anything from me for a few days. Keep the place running, won't you.

News you can use from The Guardian, "According to the Vets Now, dogs’ brains have more cannabinoid receptors than humans’, so marijuana tends to affect a dog more than it would a human." This is relevant to Tokyo, a 25 kg (55 lb) lab who accidentally ingested marijuana left on the trail at UK's Ben Nevis mountain. The poor pup lost consciousness after he legs began to give out as she and her owner made the ascent. 

Thankfully, the Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team was quick on the job, helping get Tokyo off the mountain and to the hospital, where she made a full recovery. 

We've all been there, good girl

Tributes continue to pour in for Sam Neill, who passed suddenly yesterday. In marked contrast to the way U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham has been remembered, the 78 year-old Neill seems to have been universally loved for both his art and the generosity of his spirit. He also seems to have been a man of whimsy, as this pandemic-era video shows:

Very few players will exit the World Cup having burnished their credentials on and off the pitch more than Norway's Erling Haaland. The Striking Viking (just made that up, but others can feel free to use it free of charge - man of the people) scored seven goals in Norway's five matches, helping lead his nation to its best-ever result. 

Watchers of the game already knew about his talent and preternatural scoring acumen. Haaland's genuine personality and willingness to express it are what took him from Premier League star to global icon. As of today, Haaland has more Instagram followers than Manchester United. Like Sam Neill, Haaland appears both interested in the world and unafraid to be himself. So while I will continue to despise his club, I find it very hard now to not root for the man.

Gheorghe-Bait, Election Edition

We live in an era of maximalist crazy, politically-speaking. For once, I'm not actually talking about the good ol' U S of A. Across the pond, an upcoming by-election (defined as an election taking place between general elections to fill a vacant seat - you may know them from their star turn as special elections here) in England pits a fascist against a noble garbage bin. 

Nigel Farage is one of the worst people on the planet. The leader of the UK's Reform Party, he's been a Member of Parliament representing Clacton since July 2024. Clacton is a coastal constituency that skews old and homogeneously white (96.1% white, to be precise). Convenient locale for a politician who specializes in racist anti-immigrant appeals. And he's been racist from way back: his high school classmates penned an open letter to him in 2025 demanding that he apologize for his racist behavior back in the day.

As a long-time Euroskeptic, Farage was a leading voice in the movement for Britain to leave the European Union in 2020. He's palled around with Trump and French right-winger Marine Le Pen. Like Trump, he's corrupt as shit, currently under investigation for various financial shenanigans, including taking a €5m "gift" from a crypto billionaire. Unlike, Trump, he seems to prefer his greed on a modest scale - wouldn't want to be gauche, after all.

Last week, in a ploy to bolster his party's electoral ambitions, Farage resigned his seat in Parliament and announced plans to stand once again in the by-election forced by his actions. In his words, he took the action as a rejection of the fake news of his corrupt behavior, saying, “I have decided that the people of Clacton will be the judges of my actions. This will be a people versus the establishment by-election.”

The other leading parties were less than impressed by Farage's gambit, refusing to play along. One by one, they announced that they would refuse to stand a candidate in the race. 

Which left an unlikely opponent to square off with Farage in the August 13 contest. Friends, I give you Count Binface.

The creation of satirist Jonathan David Harvey, Binface is a frequent candidate across the U.K., an "independent space warrior" who runs to promote electoral participation, among other things. In an recent BBC interview, he articulated a series of policy positions that included building at least one affordable house, nationalizing Adele, and "of course, moving the hand dryer in the gents toilet in the Crown and Treaty pub Axbridge to a more sensible position because as you know it's a national issue."

Come on good people of Clacton. You know what to do. And we're all counting on you. Up the Binface!

Z, International Man of Mystery

Many of our readers will be aware of my long-ago addiction to General Hospital. I failed a college class because of the Cruise of Deception for chrissakes. 

That addiction, fortunately for my career and marriage, ended long ago. I haven't seen a daytime soap in decades. But now, news comes from Port Arthur that changes everything. 

There's a mysterious new character in town, a dashing, debonair international man of mystery. Friends, I give you...Z. (Not that one.)

For a bit more context regarding this glorious crossing of streams, I commend to you this explainer from Brian Grubb. Oh to be living John Oliver's life.

Palate Cleanser: World Cup Classic, in English

England’s epic 3-2 World Cup knockout win against Mexico in Mexico City immediately notches as a classic, a testament to resolve as the Three Lions endured almost half the match down a man against a host team that is nearly invincible in that stadium. Some in the British sporting press are calling it the country’s best performance since winning the Cup in 1966 and perhaps its greatest ever on foreign soil (they won the ’66 Cup at London’s Wembley Stadium). 

A sampling of English newspapers in the aftermath of the win is a treat. British English is its own idiom with some lovely vernacular that can require a bit of thought and translation. British sports writing, particularly when it comes to the national side and its figures, sometimes contains florid phrasing and passages that mostly do not exist in American sports writing. 

In the months and years to come, the match will grow in legend and you can see it entering a sporting equivalent of Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade” or “Beowulf” territory. Consider this from Barney Ronay in The Guardian: “In the event this was the most extraordinary, agonising night of football as an experience of the mind, body, bones, guts, blood and back of the neck. During which England overcame not only the Mexican national football team over 90 minutes plus an extendable eternity of added time; but an event, an iconography, a set of ghosts. “Down to 10 men and faced with the relentless hostile will of the Azteca crowd, the players took themselves into some deep, strange places. This was total immersion, a knockout game that felt at times like watching Colonel Kurtz play Colonel Kurtz at full-contact death match ping-pong.” 

This was Oliver Holt’s lede in the Daily Mail: “In the great football temple of the Azteca, in the midst of the chaotic, untrammelled fervour that football unleashes here, battered by the din, electrical storms raging around the stadium, reduced to ten men for 40 minutes, up at an altitude of 7,220ft, in the thin air that makes your heart race and your lungs gasp, England defied it all. "When the final whistle went, they breathed again. All England breathed again. All England, up in the middle of the night in packed pubs in cities and villages across the country, in front rooms and basements, the intrepid few who sat high in the stands here, all breathed again.” 

Or this lede, from Jack Pitt-Brooke, a British sports writer for The Athletic: “You could watch England play for your whole life and never experience anything like this. Nothing that would feel this meaningful, this exhausting, this stirring, this profound.” 

In other countries, the relationship between teams and the press is sometimes more like a big, contentious family rather than strictly professional subject and reporter. It can be critical, even adversarial, but backed by unwavering support. As in: I get to criticize my family/team/country because I want them/it to be better, but they know I’m always behind them. There’s a mostly unwritten rule in American sports writing: No cheering in the press box. In many foreign press boxes and among foreign correspondents, however, cheering is part of the experience. They’ll still call out mistakes and assign blame and ask difficult questions, but there’s no question where their loyalties are. 

As for distinct phrasing, here’s more Pitt-Brooke: “Even the air itself here, lighter, thinner, harder to breathe, was in Mexico’s favour. England only arrived on Friday night, with no real time to adapt. And yet they still kept finding reserves within themselves, somehow keeping the brains and bodies going through two hours of drama. “And as if all of that was not enough, torrential rain and thunderstorms delayed kick-off by one hour, only adding to the feeling of historic significance. It made you wonder whether this was Tlaloc, the Aztec rain god, the roar of the Earth, all bulging eyes, jaguar fangs and feathered crown, gathering up the air stored in the mountains and pouring it out for maximum mischief.” 

And more Ronay, as England attempted to hold on to its lead: (England manager Thomas) Tuchel was here in blue raincoat and waterproof ankle swingers, like a malnourished minor duke out walking the hounds … He sent on Dan Burn, Djed Spence and John Stones, five defenders flat across the back as Mexico swarmed pleasantly but without real incision, like being assailed by a cloud of dandelion seeds.” 

This was the kicker to Holt’s piece in the Daily Mail: “The crowd smelled blood. They bayed for the equaliser. England clung on. John Stones, Dan Burn and Djed Spence came on. They all played like heroes at the back. Then the fourth official held up a board showing there would be 11 minutes of time added on. “Some doubted England could hold out. But this game was about 15 heroes. Fifteen men who stood up when many expected them to fail. Fifteen men who would not yield to everything the Azteca threw at them. Fifteen men who will travel to Miami this week to play for a place in the World Cup semi-finals.” 

Epic.

World Cup Review: Week Three(ish)

In all the excitement of England's scintillating 3-2 win over Mexico last night, we lost track of the schedule. Ah, well. On to Cincinnati.

That excitement got to Harry Kane, who scored one, assisted one, and sang one. The latter as part of a team/crowd rendition of 'Wonderwall' which left Kane sounding like an excited Muppet in a post-match interview:

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Now that we're down to the final 12 teams in the tournament, we've lost some of our favorites. Goodbye, tequila-pounding Koreans, sayonara tidy Japanese, farewell dancing Oranje, festive Ghanaians, drunken Scots, and obrigado, mighty Brazil, for the color you brought to the proceedings.  

We'll miss Cabo Verde, too, for their fans and for the players' valiant efforts. Their overtime loss to Argentina means the Blue Sharks have to leave the tournament, but it also means they're the only participating nation in World Cup history to never have lost a match in regular time. Sidny Lopes Cabral's extra time equalizer will go down as one of the great goals of this event.

The players and staff will likely never have to buy a grogue at home ever again, judging by the welcome they received when they returned yesterday.

In a bit more prosaic news, the Aussies found Popeye's before they headed back Down Under.

They found Popeyes. 😭

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— I don't even know anymore. (@sdotcarter.bsky.social) June 25, 2026 at 8:27 AM

And finally, after an epic two-goal performance - some might call it Beowulfian - Erling Haaland led his Norge teammates and fans in their now-iconic row. Norway face England in the quarterfinals, and you'd be a right fool to count them out.

YOLO SCOTUS

This year's Supreme Court term ended with a string of bangers, beginning with Louisiana v. Callais where the Court held that partisan gerrymandering is Constitutionally acceptable because "vast social change has occurred throughout the country and particularly in the South, which have made great strides in ending entrenched racial discrimination," cresting with Mullin v. Doe where the Court held that the Trump administration did not act from racial bias when it revoked TPS status for all covered Haitians even though the Court admitted that President Trump "broadly denigrate[d] ... Haiti ... as [a] hellish place[] in which to live" and made "some statements malign[ing] Haitians who have come to the United States," and culminating in Trump v. Barbara where the Court said that the 14th Amendment says what it says (as they said 128 years ago) so people born here are citizens but people who read cases for a living are still nervous.  Does that all make sense?  No?  Let me explain, or at least sum up. 

As I said here several times before, the Constitution says whatever five out of nine middle-aged-to-elderly judges think it says.  People don't like that, so SCOTUS typically, or at least used to, coalesce around an opinion that all nine would sign for majorly important Constitutional issues.  Cases like Brown v. Board of Education, Loving v. Virginia, US v. Nixon, Trump v. Anderson.  For whatever reason that didn't happen this term--everyone went all YOLO and did whatever the hell they want.  If you're interested in deep analyses go read David French in NYT or any of the myriad articles on The Bulwark and The Atlantic.  If you prefer something more passive but still insightful you can watch this.  I'm keeping it Gheorghe.

Callais will make your head spin.  Writing for the majority, Justice Alito said that states may draw congressional districts on a partisan basis without running afoul of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 despite holding in 2019 that political gerrymanders "present a 'political question' and [are thus] nonjusticiable—outside the courts' competence and therefore beyond the courts’ jurisdiction."  And they allowed Louisiana to implement their new congressional map immediately even though mail-in voting had already started and their 2007 decision in Purcell v. Gonzalez says you can't do that.  Fortunately, racial gerrymanders are still impermissible, but race is, of course, a proxy for party alignment.  There is one Black Republican senator (Tim Scott) and he is only the fourth ever.  Two of the other three (Hiram Rhodes Revels and Blanche K. Bruce) served in the 1870s back when the GOP was the party of Lincoln and the third (Edward Brooke) served on behalf of Massachusetts from 1967-1979.  According to Gemini, "There are 61 Black members serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, including two Delegates. This figure includes 57 Democrats and 4 Republicans." So if you see a Black legislator on TV, chances are greater than 90% that they're a Democrat.  And when you dilute the Democratic vote there's a good chance you're also diluting the Black vote.

Despite all that, Justice Alito remarkably thinks racism isn't that big of a deal in federal elections anymore.  Or maybe he's just racist, I don't know.  What I do know is that this Court has torn down the Voting Rights Act starting with Shelby County v. Holder in 2013 and I think their mission is complete.  I'll let you form your own views on the motivations.

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Justice Alito continued to be remarkable in Mullin v. Doe, a case involving the withdrawal of Temporary Protected Status for Haitians.  This withdrawal required two things in order to be Constitutional.  First, the relevant statute required the Department of Homeland Security's Secretary to make a "determination" that conditions in Haiti no longer satisfy the statutory requirements supporting TPS.  Second, don't be racist.  I think the administration failed at both but they won because reasons.

The "determination" aspect required Kristi Noem to do some stuff that she didn't do but Alito just waived his hands at it, claiming that the statute doesn't allow courts to review the determination.  This is horseshit.  Plaintiffs weren't asking for a review of the determination's conclusion, they were asking for a review of whether Noem followed the process required to form a proper determination.  Even more ridiculous: Alito tacitly admitted that Donald Trump and Kristi Noem publicly expressed racist views towards Haitians but concluded that their statements weren't "overtly racial, and in substance all expressed policy views that could rest on race-neutral justifications."  I guess thinly veiled racism is ok?  Racism covered up by nothing more than two pasties is just fine?  Justice Kagan called bullshit on this horseshit and spelled out some of the slurs.  I won't repeat them but you can see them on page 46 of the PDF.

I don't know how to reconcile Alito's statement that racism isn't a problem anymore in Callais with his rebuke of Trump's words in Mullin ("poverty and deprivation are no reflection on character, and there is no justification for denigrating the character of Haitians who suffer from and bear no responsibility for their country’s ills").  Or to be more succinct, how is racism a non-issue when the President of the United States says racist stuff?

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There were other cases I didn't like this term but they don't surprise me.  Brett Kavanaugh, SCOTUS's most famous girls' basketball coach, took pen in hand for West Virginia v. B.P.J., holding that West Virginia may prohibit transgender girls from playing in girls' sports leagues.  This isn't a great outcome for transgender girls but it keeps the issue with the states and that's pretty typical for a court of six Republican appointees (or at least it was back on Earth 1.0 before Trump).  Situations likely exist where transgender girls should be allowed on girls' teams (like when the girl in question used puberty blockers before puberty) but no one wants SCOTUS making those rules.  Let local leagues figure it out.  If you're looking for a silver lining, Justice Kavanaugh applied the "intermediate scrutiny" standard of review and that's good, especially for future cases involving more existential transgender issues.

It also comes as no surprise that Chief Justice Roberts wrote Trump v. Slaughter and Trump v. Cook.  Both involve separation of powers principles and a conservative hobby horse called the "unitary executive theory" which holds that the President has control over all Executive branch officials, allowing him to fire any of them at his pleasure.  If you want to learn more about the unitary executive theory (or fall asleep) you can read this (I had to read it in law school and I don't recommend it).  C.J. Roberts is a big fan, given his Reagan/Bush 41/Bush 43 origin story, so he and the five other Republican appointees decided to expand the President's power, allowing him to fire officials from independent agencies.  SCOTUS said the President couldn't do this 90 years ago in Humphrey's Executor v. United States but hey, what's precedent and stare decisis when you have a two-thirds majority on the Court!  To put a fine point on it, Roberts wrote in Slaughter "If anything more is left of Humphrey’s, we overrule it." (Emphasis in original).  Importantly, Roberts wrote in Cook that this does not apply to governors of the Federal Reserve.  I don't know why and neither does Roberts or anyone else on the Supreme Court, aside from the need "for the stability and success of the U.S. and world economies."  So the unitary executive is all well and good so long as it doesn't play with the Justices' money.   

Trump is therefore free to destabilize everything else.  The silver lining here is that it's now easier to undo almost all of Trump's agency appointments in the future (assuming we ever have another fair and free election and a Democrat wins).  But as with Calais and Mullin, there are some intellectual inconsistencies.

My favorite recent case is Trump v. Barbara where six Justices held that the 14th Amendment provides birthright citizenship.  This should've been a really short opinion because this issue was decided in 1898 in United States v. Wong Kim Ark.  At the oral argument, Justice Kavanaugh asked counsel for Barbara "if we did agree with you on Wong Kim Ark, that could be just a short opinion, right, that says the better reading is Respondents' reading, government doesn't ask us to overrule, affirmed?"  And that approach makes sense.  There are many different ways to interpret the law, but this Court loves originalism which is where the Justices follow what the statute's authors intended when they wrote the law.  As a result they treat the Constitution like stone tablets handed down by God and try to divine its meaning through blood sacrifice and other ritualistic undertakings.  Helpfully, Wong Kim Ark was decided only 30 years after the 14th Amendment was ratified so the Justices interpreting it knew exactly what its authors intended.  Originalism!  Just do what those guys did and knock off early.

As a practical matter, we all learned of the Constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship in middle school, so again, open and shut.  I never heard anyone question it until we put this dildo back in the White House.

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The opinion is 6-3 in favor of birthright citizenship, but only five Justices based that decision on the 14th Amendment.  Kavanaugh invalided Trump's executive order in light of 8 U.S.C. §1401(a), a federal statute that implements the 14th Amendment to provide birthright citizenship.  Remarkably (I can't stop using that word!), Kavanaugh thinks that Wong Kim Ark is good law but still would've upheld the executive order under the 14th Amendment despite what he said at oral argument.  This means that only five justices think the 14th Amendment provides birthright citizenship--with one changed vote it could be taken away by a mere act of Congress (i.e., revoking 8 U.S.C. §1401(a)).  So if one of the  septuagenarians in the majority (Roberts or Sotomayor) keel over today and Trump puts Jeanine Pirro on the Court, birthright citizenship is over.  That's bonkers.

The dissents are mostly upset about the practice of "birth tourism," where foreigners travel to the US to give birth so their child will be a citizen.  I can see why this would grind a racist's gears but Gorsuch, this fucking guy.  

The Sopranos This Guy GIFfrom The Sopranos GIFs

Here's what he had to say:

Besides addressing temporary visitors, the order also denies the benefits of citizenship to children born in this country to parents who make their permanent home here, but do so in defiance of federal immigration laws. The government insists that aspect of the order can survive any possible legal challenge, too, because individuals can secure domicile in this country only if they do so in compliance with federal law. 

About that, however, I harbor doubts. Perhaps Wong Kim Ark does not squarely foreclose the government’s position. After all, that case addressed a child born to parents who lawfully resided in this country. Still, I wonder: Is a child born here to parents who have long chosen to make this Nation their permanent home not a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment solely because his parents’ presence violates statutory law? If those parents are not domiciled here, then where are they domiciled? And if the answer is nowhere, how can we reconcile that conclusion with this Court’s longstanding recognition that every person is domiciled somewhere? See Desmare v. United States, 93 U.S. 605, 610 (1877). Because the executive order is not facially invalid, these questions may not be properly before us. But their answers are undeniably important to a Nation committed to a view of citizenship open to all children born here to parents who can call this country their home.

Now is exactly the time to address this question Neil.  Everyone else did!  You should too.

How do I reconcile all this?  Easy.  The Republican appointees have interpreted Justice Robert Jackson's maxim "We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final" as a call to YOLO instead of to humility, compromise and order.  They have no fucks to give.  Which I guess is a classic Republican thing.  Happy Fourth!

A Departure, Pre-Independence Day

There's a local mercantile in my little town that I frequent nearly daily. Not because I'm addicted to shopping, but because they have dog treats behind the counter, and my hound knows this. So she and I usually go into Brick and Mortar on our midday walk.

The store stocks a range of products from  fairly high-end casual clothing (think Filson, Howler, Pendleton, etc) and shoes (Blundstone, Birkenstock) to amusing bric a brac, booze accessories, books (they stock JoJo's book, for example), and locally-themed odds and ends. 

On our most recent trip, I saw this t-shirt:

For the uninitiated, that's a reference to Joe Diffie's 1993 hit, "John Deere Green", about a young man who painted the town's water tower with the words Billy Bob Loves Charlene in bright green. It's a prime example of the country story genre, and I love it unironically. 

Naturally, thinking about that song sparked memories of several more, some similar in their storytelling, others in their tonality. So on this Independence Day Eve Eve, a brief tour of my brain, country and western version.

Better Late than Never

I'm late to the party on Slow Horses, but better late than never.  If you subscribe to AppleTV and haven't watched, it'd be a lot cooler if you did.

Based on the Slough House series of novels by Mick "don't call me Gil Scott" Herron, the show follows the adventures of a small group of MI5 agents from London's Slough House station.  Unlike a typical spy series where agents are practically superheroes, Slough House is a land of misfit toys nicknamed the "Slow Horses," hence the show's title.  All these agents have at least one fatal flaw that prevents them from being real MI5 field agents, so when they do try to solve case or catch a criminal they fuck it up and sometimes hilarity ensues.  It's a proper spy show though, so sometimes there's tragedy instead of hilarity.  People die.

The Slow Horses are captained by Jackson Lamb, a legitimately bad-assed field agent, at least when the spirit moves him to crawl out of the bottle and off the sofa.  Gary Oldman is amazing as Lamb, playing him as a cross between Roy Kent, Perry Cox, and Roger Sterling.  

Only gassier.

Other great quips include "You're about as useful as a paper condom" and, to a recovering alcoholic, "You wouldn't have lost him if he was a bottle of gin."  Each season is only six episodes, each of which is about 45 minutes long, so it isn't as much of a commitment as trying to watch Lost.  Give it a go!