Musical Palate Cleanser – A Song for Mom

This week’s Musical Palate Cleanser is a quick reminder – you can still order from Amazon and have something here or there by Sunday.

It’s Mother’s Day this Sunday, and in searching for something to post for this, to be honest, the choices were kind of limited to hip-hop or depressing, so I’ll go with one that’s close to me:

Yeah, the song is depressing enough. If you know much about Lennon, his dad left him when he was young and his mother, Julia, was killed in an auto accident with an off-duty police officer when he was 17. To make it more depressing, he had a relationship with his mother, but didn’t live with her most of his life.

Mother was a single released from his 1970’s venture with wife, Ono, known as the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. It was the A side, with the B side being something from Yoko, which might as well have been titled “Who Gives a Shit”. John had just come out of four months of primal therapy, attempting to repair trauma from his childhood, and this was the result.

I post it here not to depress anyone, which it certainly can, but I recall this song with fond childhood memories. My parents are both former history teachers, both UGA grads, and between summers in Athens and trips with them to cultural festivals around Atlanta (the Greek Festival was the best), they both did a great job opening up the world to me as best you could on a teacher’s budget.

Our split level, 1970’s home, had a downstairs where we would spend evenings listening to various albums, everything from my mom’s preference of The Beatles and ABBA to my dad’s of Meat Loaf and comedy albums. There wasn’t a lot of censorship, as they let me listen to Steve Martin, Richard Pryor, and Eddie Murphy. Needless to say, I had a young exposure to diverse language and material from an early age, which included letting me listen to some of the divergent music, like “Mother”, which I heard on Lennon’s compilation of the Plastic experiment album, Shaved Fish.

I often tell people I’m a blend of them both…my dad was a professional cusser, and my mom was a professional crier. You can only imagine what watching Georgia games was like when I was young. Actually, it’s still the same today. Etched in my brain is Georgia’s loss to Pitt and f*cking Dan Marino, hearing “We are the Champions” played at the end, and bawling my eyes out in the kitchen afterwards. Pretty sure a rich chorus of profanity was also in there somewhere, but I was too despondent to hear it.

As time went on, we had opportunity and finances to travel, where they both carefully ensured I had a worldview and context of life outside of myself and outside of Jonesboro, Georgia. They both have their talents, but mom was always the wordsmith, and helped me learn how to write, my dad helped me to do it with humor and flair. Dad was the story teller, mom was the copywriter.

To be clear, the Bulldawg passion comes from mom. Dad has a passion, as well, but mom is the persistent optimist and will watch the whole thing through. Dad will see the first opponent score and promptly lace a few profanities and go reload bullets. I knew Richt was cooked when mom informed me she had turned the 2015 Alabama game off and had quit watching. She never does that, and that was the apex of hopelessness in her game watching career.

She carried me back and forth from lessons on the saxophone and encouraged my musical talents. She was always involved in the boosters or support groups and she was likewise dedicated to her students, fellow teachers, and eventually the staff she supervised and lead until she retired years ago. She taught me how to lead with humility, and also when it was time to appropriately get massively pissed off and defend the things true to you, as evidenced by the time she gave me a good, crisp slap on the face when I came home drunk in my college days (I was driving, and I deserved that, to be sure).

Above all else, she helped to show me the experiences of a charmed and well-informed life, how to think, how to navigate my initial years in my own career in education, and how to get back up when life kicks you down. She was one-half of a dynamic duo that created me, and I’m forever grateful for my mom.

Here’s to moms everywhere…here or gone, I hope your memories are as fond as mine.

Love you, mom!

– JP

I Didn’t Come to Praise Richt

But I didn’t mean to bury him, either, with the stat blast in the last post. After all, there were some really good times, like this one:

Man, that was a team. Good memories (from what I can remember).

Go Dawgs!

Defense Wins Championships

One of these things is not like the other:

Georgia Bulldog Top 5 Total Yards, by Season:

  • 2022 – 7,517 – 15-0, SEC East Champs, SEC Champs, National Champs
  • 2023 – 6,951 – 13-1, SEC East Champs
  • 2021 – 6,637 – 14-1, SEC East Champs, National Champs
  • 2012 – 6,547 – 12-2, SEC East Champs
  • 2017 – 6,529 – 13-2, SEC East Champs, SEC Champs

Georgia Bulldogs, Defense by Season:

  • 2022 – 309 YPG
  • 2023 – 291 YPG
  • 2021 – 279 YPG
  • 2012 – 360 YPG
  • 2017 – 293 YPG

Each of the seasons that didn’t end with a National Championship were stopped by Alabama. In 2012, by comparison, the Alabama D yielded 256 YPG, and the 2011 version of the Tide yielded an insane 170 YPG. Talk about your generational defenses.

When reflecting on the the results above, three of those had unfortunate results. I’d qualify them with the following emotions:

  • 2023 – Sad, but proud of the run the team had been on for so long, and a little frustrated at some bad breaks, unfortunate timing, and a rash of injuries.
  • 2017 – Heartbroken by the way it ended, especially for the guys who came back and gave it their all…but massively optimistic for things to come.
  • 2012 – Shocked we were even competitive, crestfallen when the quick snap play call went bad. Given the talent we had on defense and how little it showed that year, I expected a bloodletting and not for the good guys.

One things for sure…iron sharpens iron. I don’t like Alabama, but you’ve got to say the end result that has been exhibited from 2021 forward, having a high bar and having a coach who knows the blueprint to the “process”, has yielded the only Saban disciple to duplicate (with repeated success – while near yearly competing against Saban!) success at another school.

We are breathing in rarified air, and I don’t take it for granted. Consistency in talent development and a focus on defense, along with a financial commitment Richt never had, yields more happy Bulldawgs, but equally painful defeats as a result. I’ll take it.

Interested in y’all’s take…what’s the biggest heartbreaker from the seasons listed above?

Hartley Worth the Money

RBU, DBU, and, of late…TEU.

I’m not sure what his specific coaching strengths are, but the guy can clearly recruit some top talent.

Word out there is that transfer Benjamin Yurosek is making waves and will be a plug and play compliment to Delp and Luckie…and apparently there are more coming:

Williams is 6’7” and 235…as a junior. By comparison, Darnell Washington entered Georgia at 6’7” and 260.

Anyone else need a cold shower?

Jimmy the Greek, Where Art Thou?

If I’m reading this right, Georgia would be favored in every game this season.

Here’s another view:

I’m sure the lines will move once teams take the field and show what they’re made of. Question is this – if Georgia curb-stomps the Palmetto Pussycats in Atlanta in the opener, what will the lines look like after? What does DeBoer have to do to be at least even odds with Georgia and a favorite against LSU?

Also, which of these is your mortal lock?

Playpen 5.8.24

This week’s Playpen is a thought experiment intended to be analyzed independent of any historical controversies or current events in order to try an avoid unhelpful ideological divisions that ultimately obscure matters.  In order to illustrate the issue I will set out two fictional historical scenarios with one minor distinction.  In one, the actor under scrutiny is a current executive office holder and in the other the person under scrutiny is seeking to become an executive office holder through a popular election. 

Fact scenario 1:  

Winston Churchill has been promoted to Prime Minister at the same point in history as occurred historically.  Assume though that Hitler does not subsequently turn East towards the USSR, but instead seeks to aggressively neutralize Britain’s war-making capacities making the calculation that the USA will never join the fight in Europe if Britain falls.  It is assumed that once all of Western Europe is either secured, neutralized or led by friendly governments, then the issue of a normalization of relations with the Americas can be undertaken.  A blockade and a no fly zone of Great Britain are established.  

Britain is not only under siege from without, as parliamentary elections approach, an opposition candidate comes forward promising that he can both bring peace with Germany AND maintain national autonomy. 

Intelligence is gathered suggesting that the opponent’s campaign apparatus is in contact with extremely high ranking members of the German Reich.  Assume for our purposes, that the nature of the contact is mutually nefarious and meant to assist the personal ambitions of the candidate and the military ambitions of the German government.  In essence, the candidate is running to become the titular head of a puppet government run directly from Berlin.  In exchange for agreeing to participate in the plan, the candidate has negotiated for himself a substantial amount of money to squirrel away in various banks around the world and the appearance of great power.  This assessment is not a matter of debate, context, conjecture or interpretation.  

However, any public release of the details of the repeated contacts would tip off the identity of the source of the information with obvious effects.  Two people in Germany know the essential details of the contacts and the future plans, and one of them is named Adolph.  

As such, no prosecution is possible.  No public release of information is possible.  No private release of information to the candidate as a means of persuading him to drop out is possible.  

Churchill is faced with winning the election or the nation he is charged with the obligation to protect is doomed.  No two ways about it.  Out of an abundance of caution, Churchill orders MI6 to neutralize the threat with extreme prejudice. 

Fact scenario 2:

Candidate Smith is running against an incumbent US President.  The incumbent has been faced with a military crisis on the Korean Peninsula.  The North, with substantial Chinese aid, has crossed the 38th parallel looking once again to unify the peninsula.  Losses have been substantial on both sides.  The American people have lost patience and want the matter to end and/or for the South Koreans to take the lead.  

Because of this reality, the South Koreans have doubts about the current administration’s sincere commitment to its future security.  It perceives the administration as seeking to achieve a quick resolution for domestic consumption in an election year.  They fear that the US will not insist upon the security guarantees it feels are essential to resolving the conflict now and in the decades to come.  

While the administration and the North Koreans have an agreement in principle, and are waiting for the South’s decision, a backchannel contact is made by an associate of the Smith Campaign assuring the South a better deal under the Smith administration suggesting that it is in its long-term interests to decline to sign on.  The candidate is fully aware of the enticement and the need to deprive the administration of a political victory.

And, in reality, Smith wants to scrap the entire peace framework and once having taken power will seek regime change in North Korea.  While the South would welcome that end, it is not committed to the costs associated with that goal and would, given the choice, prefer the current administration’s offer over seeking total victory.  

The South declines the offer.  The peace deal collapses.  Smith wins the election, and having promised to end the war if elected, escalates the war arguing that escalation is required to get the North back to the negotiating table, all the while knowing it he is not interested in a negotiated settlement, but in regime change only. 

I assume that everyone agrees that the Smith campaign, the candidate involved and every actor who convinced the South not to sign onto the deal, are terrible, horrible people.  However, between the two, only Churchill has committed a clear provable criminal offense with a classified paper trail.  

Even if Smith and his campaign were later subject to an investigation denials, numerous loyalist buffers and difficulty in proving intent would stymie any attempt to hold those most responsible accountable.  

Meanwhile, a subsequent administration would presumably have access to information proving with a certainty that Churchill committed a murder of a political opponent.  

Since Nixon there has been a great deal of debate and discussion about the issue of presidential immunity and of drawing lines between private and public acts.  While an interesting debate, and one I personally think makes little sense to engage in, the issue I am interested and what influenced this post is whether the line drawing is the important matter.   

The truth is that the cunning and the clever, no matter their line of work, can engage in exceptionally unethical and morally repugnant acts and never face repercussion.  Meanwhile, people of good will may on occasion be placed in a position to choose that which would clearly break the letter of the law. 

Given the fact that we cannot rely on rules, laws, statutes, or judicial decisions to protect ourselves from really bad actors or really bad circumstances, isn’t the real question:

What is the most essential quality we should look for in those people we are considering entrusting with great power?  

Discuss?

The Continued Subject of Helmets – Refugees Picks

The Refugees have spoken…it looks like there were a few candidates yesterday that really seemed to stand out from the rest when it comes to the subject matter of a bad helmet.

The Persistence of Memory, Salvador Dali, 1932

Congrats, Terps. It looks like a tattoo artist attempted a Dali painting on a helmet, which would serve as a better cap for a crotch rocket captain than for a football player. This is the same program that fired Ralph Friedgen in his 2010 ACC Coach of the Year season to replace him with Randy Edsall and then DJ Durkin…so the trashy and psychedelic Panama City-vacation-airbrushed-t-shirt-meets-state-flag look really seems to fit.

Great. A helmet that reminds Tech fans their geometry homework is due.

Paul Johnson unveiled these for the night game against FSU in 2015. The only talented athlete on Tech’s team at the time was Harrison Butker, who kicked a thousand field goals and Tech ended the game with a blocked field goal for a TD and snapped FSU’s four year ACC win streak (not a big deal in 2015). Geeks everywhere shit their pants and a legend in Tech apparel was born. The win put Tech at 3-5 in the year and they wouldn’t win again, closing out the season with yet another home loss to Georgia, 13-7. (Turns out it would be Richt’s final victory of his Georgia career, with Sony Michel running for about 150 yards and Grayson Lambert just doing Grayson Lambert things). Bryan McClendon coached the TaxSlayer Bowl while Richt was headed to Miami, and Kirby Smart was on the sideline.

By the way, yellowjackets do have hexagon shaped tubes inside their nests, so the shape on the helmet is accurate. Fun fact – Yellowjackets are wasps that can sting multiple times without dying. In calling the helmet the “Honeycomb” design suggests that Tech, in fact, are bees, which die after one sting. Maybe it should be their permanent helmet.

While we are on the subject of Richt, there were two other mentions of horrible headgear, which squarely falls on our shoulders. Exhibit the first:

Black is always a smart pick for a funeral.

Personally, I didn’t hate it. I can’t tell you what combination of colors would make it work, but on a white jersey with black pants, meh. Honestly, I’ll take our traditional unis and our recent history of whooping ass over cutesy wardrobe changes.

To make it worse, it was another gimmicky thing to try to make an underwhelming Joe Cox team somehow beat the #1 team in the nation with a Halloween outfit. We got our ass handed to us in the WLOCP and Tebow broke Herschel’s rushing TD record, too. In retrospect, we should’ve dressed as ghosts or wore some form of Predator-level transparent cloaking outfit, or just disappeared all together.

Still, it wasn’t as bad as this:

Ground control to Major Tom…take your protein pills and put your helmet on…

What in the actual fuck was this? 2011 featured a handful of teams getting a unique Nike Pro Combat uniform, from Army and Navy to LSU. These select teams had a unique and decent look to them (except Ohio State’s, it was about on par with ours), and when they got down to designing Georgia’s, it was like they passed it off to an intern and said “eh, we’re tired, just color something and we will go with it”. Turns out the intern was either a toddler or a comedian, because the resulting Power Ranger outfit was neither splashy, unique, or imposing. No, it’s just really, really sucked giant donkey balls. As did Isaiah Crowell and company on our way to a 35-21 loss to Boise State in the 2011 Kickoff Classic.

I actually met my wife at that game on September 3rd, 2011, and we would subsequently go to every home game that season as we started dating. Even went to the SECCG and watched LSU hand it to us, but it was our second date in the Dome that year and, lots of football later, we were engaged and got married about a year after. We have three kids together, the youngest named Georgia, which was decided late in the evening as Sony Michel ran a wildcat sweep into the end zone to beat Baker Mayfield at the Rose Bowl. Lots of memories in the thirteen years since and I still can’t forget how remarkably awful the 2011 Georgia uniforms were. The coaches wore bright red shoes and my wife remarked “they look like clowns”. They were operating like them, too. Sigh.

I’ll leave you all with another repeated mention, which is this:

Those helmets for the mentally disabled have really come a long way.

Not hard to hate these. FTMFs, and that’s all I’ve got to say about that.

The Curious Case of Lewis Cine

While finding material for yesterday’s brief post on Guardian Caps for helmets, I came across some news around former safety Lewis Cine. Since leaving the program for the Draft in 2022, turns out things haven’t been going well for the former Bulldog.

Initially slowed in training camp of his 2022 season by a lingering leg injury, Cine saw action mostly on punt returns, up until his gruesome leg injury while playing in England against the Saints.

He recovered, and initial reports indicated that he looked to be back to normal and ready to be a contributor to the Vikings defense, but he again saw mostly special teams action and only recorded a single tackle during the 2023 campaign.

In scanning the internet for video of his famed collision with Kyle Pitts, I saw more and more articles indicating that Cine may be cut from the Vikings and traded to another team.

Then I came across this:

Color me shocked. In all the reading I do about Dawgs in the NFL, I hear nothing but great things about their professional readiness and depth of knowledge of the sport. I don’t know how Cine could’ve survived Smart’s defense without a level of dedication and study that we’ve come to know from the Georgia program, so I wonder what’s going on with Cine since joining the league.

Here’s hoping it’s situational and not a sign of things to come for him. Maybe a new team and different staff will revive his career and get him up to speed as the former defensive wrecking ball we came to know and love in Athens.