Archive

Author Archives: spumantecarlo

Let It Bleed

By
November 13, 2013
Music, Pop Culture
1 Comment

Blood Orange

In 2011, producer and multi-instrumentalist Devonté Hynes released Coastal Grooves under the moniker of Blood Orange. The album was hit-or-miss, with more tracks that were outlines rather than fully-fleshed out ideas. It was an unrestrained attempt at injecting post-punk moodiness into late-70s stylized R&B. With clunky melodies and equally awkward song structure to match, Coastal Grooves seemed like Hynes picked his new project out of a basket without any full realization of its potential. After a year of working with artists like Sky Ferriera and Solange, as well as releasing cuts like “Dinner” and “Bad Girls,” the blanks in Blood Orange’s sound were starting to be filled in with denser production and immense improvement in song craft.

On Cupid Deluxe, the project’s sophomore effort, Hynes has taken his market fresh idea and squeezed as much crimson juice as he could out of it.

Read More

Still Love My Tigers, Y’all: Lessons from Week 8

By
October 23, 2013
College Football, Sports
1 Comment

The world watched as Jameis Winston and the Florida State Seminoles crushed Clemson into a miserable solid orange pulp. The Seminole defense would not stand for any magnificent Tajh Boyd to Sammy Watkins or Martavius Bryant connections. There would certainly be no running game either. The Tigers were relegated to punt after punt after punt which turned into a lesson in why you never want Winston, or the Florida State offense in general, to have possession.

Winston zinged, lobbed and floated passes to Kelvin Benjamin, Rashad Greene, and Nick O’Leary that forced one of the loudest atmospheres into hushed tones. There were plenty of shots provided by ESPN cameras of Tiger fans whose disbelief was on display for all of America. After all, this wasn’t supposed to happen to Clemson. This team was returning more play makers than Florida State had lost to the NFL. If anything, this game was supposed to be a shoot out; not a day of reckoning for The Wonderful Monster.

In the end, the score was 51-14 and the best summation of this beat down is the universal Clemson fan base coping mechanism: “I still love my Tigers, y’all”.

The ACC “game of the century” with the grand introduction of the Tigers and the subtle insert of Jaboo’s pre-game pep talk gave the nation goosebumps. I felt the electricity from my seat on the virtual bus ride over from the home locker room in Death Valley to Howard’s Rock. All those warm, fuzzy feelings of competitive football washed away after the 1st half. At this point, LSU-Ole Miss was waaaay more intriguing than a game where Lamarcus Joyner was single handily shutting down both Martavius Bryant and Sammy Watkins.

That’s not to say that Florida State’s demolishing act was like watching Alabama. Quite the opposite, actually.

Alabama, in their 52-0 victory over Arkansas, is moving through the SEC West as if the path to a national championship is paved in gold. The Tide is like Prairie Home Companion: successful, inoffensive (on-the-field, of course), and mired in the mundane. That’s why it’s the least interesting team that stands atop the first BCS rankings of the season while the teams below are a gaggle of personalities and chutzpah.

Florida State may have been methodical in their approach but Winston certainly offers a panache that other quarterbacks certainly lack to keep things interesting.

Aside from learning that Clemson has become one of the most GIF-able environs in college football, what other nuggets of information did we learn?

Read More

Drop Picks On ‘Em: Week 8

By
October 17, 2013
College Football, Sports
Leave a comment

Welcome to a better late than never edition of Drop Picks On ‘Em where Jacory Harris Stephen Morris almost lost this week’s picks by way of a helmet deflected interception. Hey, that ACC is a spunky little league, man. If you’re not careful, you can find yourself playing a team wearing alternate jerseys named after a play on words of a successful Navy Seals operation. Zero Dark Thursday? More like Bay of Pigs, AMIRITE?!

In honor of the conference that stretches itself from South Beach to the shores of Plymouth Rock, this intro will be designed to highlight all things ACC not named Clemson or Florida State. Yeah, I get it – it’s the biggest game the conference has going for it so far this year. That’s great! Good for them. #goacc and all that jazz but this conference still has Paul Johnson and the slow, R.Kelly grind of the triple option. This is a place where the adjective spunky applies to three teams and the rest have varying self-confidence and identity issues. Let’s break it down, shall we?

Syracuse and Georgia Tech play each other which means you get to see two of the most horrifying color schemes and uniforms (we see you, Russell Athletic) face off against each other in Atlanta. Virginia still plays football and they do so against Bear Bryant protege, David Cutcliffe, in a battle of the privileged East Coast fan bases. Wine and cheese, indeed! If you want something a little bit more blue collar, Pittsburgh is right up your alley. They play Old Dominion this week and I’m sure there will be a lot of Schlitz and Primanti Bros. sandwiches consumed as a topper to a great win and a fatality free day at the steel mill.

Also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t comment on Maryland and Wake Forest. This is going to be a tough road test for the Terps as they take on a feisty Wake Forest team, who in recent years has played heart breaker to multiple teams. Wait, that’s not right. Sounds like a basketball preview. How about this? Have fun trying to stop anything, Demon Deacs!

And there you have it – the ACC Week 8 preview you’ve been clamoring for. No fancy pants Jameis Winston or Tajh Boyd here. Just some good ole fashioned Mid-Atlantic to barely into the southern most tip of America football. Now that that is out of the way – let us discuss the ranked teams playing, shall we?

Read More

The “Hammer and Nail” Relationship: Lessons from Week 7

By
October 15, 2013
College Football, Sports
Leave a comment

In sports, metaphors are used to playfully describe the action witnessed at a sporting venue. The use of metaphors keeps the reader entertained and provides the reader a laugh every now and again. Sometimes they turn sportswriting into an exercise in which people like Rick Reilly are allowed to flourish and continue a career despite making pop culture references to things that have long lost their cultural currency. And there are also moments when metaphors are met with confusion and, in the case of Les Miles, anger.

After a reporter attempted to ask the Mad Hatter a question that involved a “hammer and nail” comparison with the LSU – Florida relationship in the last year, this happened:

Miles has a point. There are no hammers and nails on the field. There is a football, 22 players on the field and an officiating crew. No signs of anything you could pick up at a TrueValue. But could you argue in the figurative that there were hammers and nails? Yes, you could, though you would be arguing against a man whose brain seems as if it is wired like a Roomba designed to spin in circles.

Nevertheless, I enjoy the virtue of what Miles was getting at here. There were plenty of “hammer and nail” relationships that happened this weekend that I think we can safely talk about without the head man down in Baton Rouge unleashing Mike the Tiger on my apartment (I think).

Read More

Drop Picks On ‘Em: Week 7

By
October 10, 2013
College Football, Sports
1 Comment

20131010-130437.jpg

This week’s College Gameday is heading to the University of Washington for the first time ever since the show’s first broadcast in 1987. This is huge news for the Huskies, who find themselves in the middle of a period of resurgence as of late. But if you’re an individual on the East Coast (such as myself), you probably know very little about Seattle, the city that houses UDub. In fact, the only thing you probably know is that Seattle is the home of Starbucks, rain and grunge. And that’s fine. Be prepared to face the unknown. Seattle is strange to you, but don’t fret, it’s not Portland weird.

Also – I am not really sure what the Washington fan base is like. I’ve seen them pop on random message boards from time to time recalling the Don James era, but I am really unfamiliar with how these people operate or how they tail- WAIT, WHAT? THEY TAILGATE ON BOATS? CAN WE GO TO THE GAME NOW? PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASEEEEEEEEEEE.

Enough of this wishful thinking about boatgating – LET’S GET IT.

Read More

PAUL RHOADS IS STILL PROUD: Lessons from Week 6

By
October 8, 2013
College Football, Sports
Leave a comment

If Paul Rhoads is one thing, he’s proud. He’s in a perpetual state of pride. He is your dad whenever you make honor roll or change your own oil. The Iowa State Cyclones put up a damn good effort in running their own small business; it’s not their fault that big corpo is pulling the strings and has all that lobbying money to monopolize the market. Rhoads is still proud, dammit.

In the game of life, you win some, and you lose some. And sometimes you are screwed over by the officials at the one-yard line. You lose some because you are not Texas, but hey, I’m just making excuses. These are hard truths learned by all. Especially by a Cyclones team that, no matter if it’s their first 1-3 start since 2007, you should be proud of. Why? Because Mack Brown is on thin ice, regardless.

So, what else did we learn in a weekend full of near whiffs, alternate uniforms and late night football?

Read More

Drop Picks On ‘Em: Week 6

By
October 4, 2013
College Football, Sports
Leave a comment

You’ve been furloughed Ha Ha. Sorry – *you’ve been furloughed, Ha Ha.

It’s shutdown week and at TwH we are all about keeping you informed about how this fiscal crisis will affect your Saturday afternoon:

  • Army, Navy, and Air Force games are were at the risk of not occurring 
  • If you’re a member of our nation’s armed forces overseas, you may not be able to see a game
  • You will not be able to visit any national parks or monuments so you might as well be a shut-in for one weekend, you outdoorsy, patriotic weirdo
  • You will not be able to see Ha Ha Clinton-Dix play because he has been furloughed by the University of Alabama
  • The Department of Defense has been forced to cancel their experiment in Boulder against the Oregon Ducks where the real Colorado Buffaloes were replaced by Buffalo androids to see if they could stop the Oregon offense
  • Lil’ Red will not be in attendance at the Illinois – Nebraska game because of the halt in agricultural subsidies to pay for two Cornhuskers within Memorial Stadium
  • “THE GOVERNMENT SHUT DOWN MY OTHER SIGN” at College Gameday (YOU CAN DO BETTER, NORTHWESTERN)

Now that I’ve given you a small run-down on the reach of the federal government into your college football Saturdays, let’s get down to business (that’s non-profit business with little to no federal contracts, government. Please don’t shut down Saturday).

Read More

Fire(d) Lane (Kiffin): Lessons from Week 5

By
October 1, 2013
College Football, Sports
Leave a comment

If getting fired after being pulled off the team bus from LAX to campus isn’t the most Hollywood thing ever, please give me another example. This felt like a seedy termination. A scene, not unlike the one in Dog Day Afternoon, where the main character fails, and the repercussions involve a swift execution. Lane Kiffin didn’t even step foot on the USC’s campus before Haden uttered the words that put Kiffin out of job and Ed Orgeron in control of a faltering program. Now, the hunt begins anew for the Trojans, who have slowly started to slide into irrelevancy as the Pac-12 has started to gain notoriety as the second-best conference in America. Gone are the days of USC and everybody else. USC can’t compete with Arizona State, or even downtrodden Washington State. The whole country says “adieu” to Kiffykins, the man responsible for Tennessee fever dreams and the underdevelopment of all-around awesome Marqise Lee.

While your favorite team’s coach may not have been fired as soon as he exited the plane, his days as head man may be numbered. Look at UConn. Now Earl Campbell’s taking shots at Mack Brown? The coaching carousel may be fired up sooner than expected.

Aside from learning that, yes, the world of college football is on fiiiiiireeeeee, what else did we take away from this marvelous weekend?

Read More

A Tale of Two Quarterbacks

By
September 29, 2013
College Football, Sports
1 Comment

Aaron Murray jumped around excitedly with his teammates as Zach Mettenberger’s last-ditch attempt to convert on 4th and 10 ended in an incompletion. Mettenberger looked over across the field dejected. There was a little less than a minute left on the clock; the game was all but over. Murray put his head gear on and headed out onto the field to execute the victory formation. Meanwhile, Mettenberger sat on the bench, staring into an endless sea of red shirts, dresses, and poms poms. He wanted a chance to play in Sanford again. He wanted a chance to beat his old team. Instead, he’d have to settle for watching Murray flip the helmet off of his head, flash a winning smile and embrace his coach.

As the clock wound down to 0:00, the score stood at 44-41 Georgia. It was over. And it was one of the best football games I have ever watched.

Read More

The Volatility of a Nuclear Reactor

By
September 24, 2013
Music, Pop Culture
Leave a comment

20130925-124221.jpg
The cover art for all of the official releases from the Glasgow synth pop group CHVRCHES are similar to that of warning signs seen plastered around nuclear reactors. The ones that scream “RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL” to remind you of the world-ending power that the energy efficient machines contain and maintain, barely. The stylized name of the group on its debut album, The Bones of What You Believe, leaps off the cover as an all-caps instruction to be wary of what lies inside. Yet, just beneath the group’s name lies the album title in an almost minuscule font size which reads as a footnote about the volatile materials contained within.

Read More