happy birthday jim reilly

today Jim Reilly would've been 30 instead of stuck at 25. Here's an article about him from the William & Mary magazine - "Remembering a Generous Heart."

Here's a picture of Mike, Jim & Jon from the late 90's-


Here's the Circus of the Animals that Jim, Beth & i made in 10th grade.


Clarence the Party Pup was Jim's -


there's Clarence in the clouds of my ghetto fingerpainting


there's Clarence at night


one in a million, i miss him every day

April 2, 1976 - September 11, 2001

(stream xavier rudd's song "12th of September")

happy not birthday jim reilly

today jim reilly should have turned 31. here's a picture i found yesterday in my old desk from when he & his friend rob (i think) came down to UNC from william & mary for a night to see his brother and i'm not sure why else. i remember i didn't go out with them because i had an english exam the next day. stupid.

here's a link to what i posted last year with some drawings he worked on. let's all work on peace this year, whaddya say?

Behind the T-shirt: Coke Adds Life to Super Tennis Week

(via Indianapolis Recorder) - Tucson Arizona, July 1, 1978 -

This balmy, scenic, southwestern city went Hollywood when luminaries of the film and sportsworlds converged on the desert for the fourth annual Celebrity Invitational Tennis Classic sponsored by American Airlines and Jet Newsweekly magazine last month. 

The two-day event at the Racquet Club Ranch was part of the “Super Tennis Week" here, for the benefit of the United Negro College Fund. The results were thousands of dollars for UNCF’s 41 member schools. 

 

 
A glimpse at celebrities from fans filled the excitement shared by participants of the event. Former Cleveland Brown “romper" and now star actor/producer Jim Brown bested Earl (the Pearl) Monroe of the New York Knicks, to capture the men’s single title. Brown tasted defeat, however, when he challenged any “woman tennis player in the audience.” Amateur Andrea Whitmore*, a 23-year-old Los Angeles resident, accepted, and downed Brown 5-3. 

 

The women’s singles trophy was won by actress Myra Waters, who defeated Jeanie Bell. Defending champion Gail Fisher, picked up an award for winning the most games in the “women’s celebrity division." Gladys Knight of the Pips, and Floyd Caldwell, a marketing executive with Kodak-one of the tournament sponsors--took the mixed doubles championships. Gladys’ husband, Barry Hankerson, and her brother. Bubba Knight, claimed the men’s doubles event.

 

 

*True crime aficionados may recognize the name Andrea Whitmore (Buchanan), the volunteer who trounced Jim Brown. She was murdered 3 years after Super Tennis Week. Per wikipedia:

Born in Los Angeles, Andrea Buchanan went to Dorsey High School and turned professional in 1978. She was one of only several African American players competing on tour. Her best grand slam performances came at the 1981 Wimbledon Championships, where she beat Barbara Hallquist before falling in the third round to second-seed Hana Mandlíková. In what would be her last grand slam appearance she won a first round match against Eva Pfaff at 1981 US Open.

On the morning of January 28, 1982, Buchanan was found mortally wounded on the floor of a Los Angeles fish market, where she was working part time as a cashier. She was rushed to Brotman Memorial Hospital in Culver City with multiple bullet wounds to her upper body, but never regained consciousness. Her boss, 57-year old Nathanial Brown, was pronounced dead at the scene. The case remains unsolved. Police ruled out robbery as a motive and believe that, unknown to Buchanan, Brown had been involved with dealing illicit substances.

 

 RIP Andrea Whitmore Buchanan.

Check out the 70s Coke Adds Life to Super Tennis Week t-shirt at Skippy Haha Vintage Etsy!  

WTF Wednesday - Jim Boeheim Picks Nose and Licks Finger on TV

When I make a video that gets 3,500 views in a day, I guess I should post it here, too -

 

 

 

Here we see Syracuse men's Basketball coach Jim Boeheim picking his nose and immediately licking his finger. 

 

His use of a mask in a pandemic leaves much to be desired as well. Terrible example for the 20 young men he leads.  

 

All I can say, as I said in the video, is WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

jim reilly is in national geographic

this month's national geographic has a picture of a picture of jim reilly on p. 20





where you at clarence?

all we are saying is give peace a chance

orange peel redux

last time i wrote about the orange peel it was after feeling unfairly violated by security at an ozomatli show two years ago.

i went back last night for the lucinda williams show and am THRILLED to report that entry was smooth and easy and my civil rights remained intact. everybody was friendly and there were no harsh searches or pat downs or anything. it was amazingly refreshing.

lucinda williams. her voice is one in a million. she makes me believe she's had a grizzled life and lived to sing about it. she was on.

she did a 3 song encore. and after that came BACK OUT for one more - cover of buffalo springfield's 'for what it's worth.' she left the stage triumphant yelling 'peace love and revolution.'

the vintage empress in me thinks it was too bad she and her lead guitarist were wearing basically matching blue bandanna style western shirts.

dylan leblanc opened for her. this kid is GOING PLACES. mark my words. 21 years old from shreveport louisiana. looks like townes van zandt. great stage presence. haunting emotional raw voice a la jim james, proficient moving finger style guitar, he'll be back at the orange peel in june opening for the drive-by truckers. don't miss it. his cover of bruce springsteens 'i'm on fire' was imminently memorable and smoldering.

Behind the T-shirt: Erasmus Hall High School

i found this soft, thin 80's t-shirt last week from the Erasmus Hall High School Bicentennial celebration.

The wikipedia tells me it closed in 1994, but for 207 years was a high school in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY.

Some notable alumni/attendees include: Neil Diamond, Joseph Barbera (Hanna Barbera), Billy Cunningham, Al Davis, Clive Davis, Bobby Fischer, Jim Florio, Samuel LeFrak, Gabe Kaplan from Welcome Back Kotter, Barbra Streisand, and Mae West, among dozens.

Here's former EHHS Dutchman Neil Diamond modeling the shirt.

Behind the T-shirt: First of Denver Cup Jacket Skiing Sheik Hoax

Check out this "First of Denver Cup" ski jacket I found last week. 

 Little did I know it is connected with some "Fake News" from 1977. 

The First of Denver Cup was a Pro-Am ski race held at Winter Park Colorado from 1977 to 1982 to benefit the Winter Park Handicapped Program. 

It was also the site of controversy when Sheik Abdul Haddad raced the slalom wearing flowing Arabic robes in the wake of the OPEC oil crisis in 1977.  

Turns out, however, the Sheik was a shoe salesman named George from Minnesota, and all the major international newspapers had been snookered. According to Skiing History Magazine,

Sheik Abdul showed up unannounced to compete in the Pro-Am charity race held during the First of Denver Pro Race weekend. The fundraiser supported Hal O’Leary’s innovative Winter Park Handicapped Program. The sheik was placed on the team captained by pro racer Jake Hoeschler (who was also director of skiing at Winter Park), with Heisman Trophy-winning football player Doak Walker and Andy Love, son of former Colorado Governor John Arthur Love. As the sheik flapped and fluttered across the finish line, the press corps clustered around him.

The sheik was a sensation: in the aftermath of the OPEC crisis, the very idea of an oil sheik carried the aura of vast wealth and veiled threat. The press wanted pictures, and quotes. All the VIPs wanted to meet him. The sheik’s bodyguard and translator intervened, explaining that Haddad spoke no English.

It turned out he spoke no Arabic, either. When photos and stories about the skiing sheik went out over the AP and UPI wires people in Duluth, Minn., chuckled. Color photos of Sheik Abdul made the papers in Paris, Moscow and Tokyo. But the Duluth papers quickly identified him as George S. Haddad, 56, owner of the Haddad Family Shoe Store and of Lebanese descent. The shoe store was located a few doors up from the Continental Ski Shop, where George was a frequent customer. He was also a well-known figure at Lutsen and other local ski areas, where he often skied in his “Arab” robes, no doubt avoiding entanglement in rope tows. The robes had been sewn by his wife, Dorothy Marie Haddad. Haddad even owned a U.S. patent on a bit of ski equipment he had designed: a retractable crampon to help a skier climb.

When the Duluth papers had their say, the story unwound. Hoeschler had arranged for Gerald Ford, Ethel Kennedy and Clint Eastwood to ski in the Pro-Am, but when Winter Park shifted the dates, Ford and Kennedy cancelled in favor of previous obligations.

A few days of panic ensued, and then Hoeschler, passing through Continental Ski Shop, spotted a poster of Haddad skiing in Aspen, robes and all. If he couldn’t get an ex-president onto Eastwood’s team, Hoeschler figured he could get a sheik.
And so, with the complicity of Winter Park President Gerry Groswold, Sheik Haddad arrived at Winter Park in a limousine. He came with a bodyguard in the person of Jim Bach of the Continental Ski Shop, and with translator George Abdullah, who taught at Drake University in Iowa. Haddad later claimed he was scared to run the course: With oil prices so high, he was afraid “some fanatic” might take a shot at him.

When the Duluth papers broke the story of the hoax, officials at AP and UPI were furious. UPI, in particular, had been burned in 1976 when Vail sent them a photo of a blizzard that had been taken two years earlier. They felt that the reputation of the press was at stake. But no one from any of the papers or wire services had bothered to fact-check any of the “oil sheik” stories.

The fallout for Hal O’Leary’s program was spectacular. People around the world saw the story and felt inspired to send checks to the handicapped ski team. “We raised 20 times as much over the course of the year as we had ever done before,” O’Leary told Hoeschler.

Haddad went back to his shoe store, and to Lutsen, where he was now a local hero. Hoeschler ran out his contract with Winter Park and returned to his law practice in Minneapolis.

All's well that ends well. Now you can own a very special piece of ski history and fake news history: First of Denver Cup Pro-Am Obermeyer 70s Ski Jacket

trevor garrod in wall street journal

trevor dials, originally uploaded by skippy haha.

* ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
* NOVEMBER 18, 2008

"Older Singers Should Give the Young a Hand" by Jim Fusilli

...As for 21st-century writers whose songs are worth exploring, let's begin with Peter Bradley Adams, Eef Barzelay, A.A. Bondy, Rivers Cuomo of Weezer, John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats, Kathleen Edwards, Geoff Farina, Trevor Garrod of Tea Leaf Green,...

article here - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122696707696335397.html

trevor's site: trevorgarrod.com

lyrics: dgold.info/green

check out: "all of your cigarettes," "forgivin," "kali-yuga" and "chenoa" (every song can be heard mp3 with the blue arrow at the top)

bodybuilding & physics

bodybuilding & physics, originally uploaded by skippy haha.

here's a nice thing jim reilly made for me in physics class 15 years ago. i had just started throwing the shot put for the track team. today is his birthday.