WTF Wednesday: Unicorn Cat, College Basketball Petition

Hello Wednesday! Hello WTF!

Hello mystical magical unicorn and cat combo!

Last but not least, hello petition I started this morning to ban alumni from announcing their own team's college basketball games! Enough with the major network-sponsored Duke propaganda!

Check out the details here, and please sign if you are so inclined: 
Stop assigning alumni as commentators for their own school's College Basketball games


As with all wtf wednesdays, there are no answers, only questions leading to more questions.
 
For more vintage wtf wonders (for sale), click here: vintage wtf

New WTF this week:

• Vintage 80s Ducks Goose Sweater Vest
• Vintage 80s Jameson Irish Whiskey Vest
• Vintage 80s Slenderizers Fitness T-shirt 

hootie & the rebel flag

In a UNC dorm room in 1994, I listened to the the South Carolina band Hootie & the Blowfish CD "Cracked Rear View" many, many times. 

One song, "Drowning" was about racism, but I never understood the first verse clearly, Darius Rucker kind of mumbles through it. 

But 21 years later, it's timely. Very timely. 

Trouble with the world is we're too busy to think about it, all right
Why is there a rebel flag hanging from the state house walls?
Tired of hearin' this shit about heritage not hate
Time to make the world a better place

Why must we hate one another?
Well no matter what we gotta live together
Just that you don't look like me, tell me what do you see
When we pass on the street what do you wanna see

P.E.'s coming is all I gotta say
Wanna turn and run away
They're just telling you how they see it
Right or wrong they don't care, you wish that they would quit

chorus:
Drowning in a sea of tears
Hatred trying to hide your fears
Living only for yourself
Hating everybody else
Cause they don't look like you

Nanci singing it's a hard life wherever you go
About some fat racist living in Chicago
Trying to teach his kids to hate everyone
Well tell me why is that something you wanna teach your son?

Why must we hate one another?
When the people in the church, they tell me you're my brother
You don't walk like me, ... you don't talk like me, saying
Go back to Africa, I just don't understand

(chorus)

I'm trying to be someone that he could look up to, but
When I walk down the street, tell me what do you see
I'm a man, I'm a man, I'm a man
No I'm not like you
Why do you hate me so
I don't know, I don't know, I don't know
Hating everybody else cause they don't look like you  

This week I found an authentic vintage 90s Hootie & the Blowfish tour t-shirt with that lyric on back "Cause they don't look like you."  

I am glad there is no longer a rebel flag hanging from the statehouse walls. It's a start.

my old clothes: tarheels edition: part 2

when last we left, i'd shown 5 of my favorite vintage unc t-shirts.

here are 5 more favorites - all basketball-related. 

soft, thin, and true. carolina basketball is a perennial power. 



looks pretty basic here - carolina basketball school - vintage t-shirt from the summer camp:

but it's a champion blue bar tag, dating it to the mid 70s. sweet!



here's another of the softest silkiest t-shirts i own. love the repeated graphics and the hair on the player. michael jordan era - ncaa champions 1982. 



this must be one of the most obscure carolina basketball t-shirts ever made. gastonia, NC - city of the all-americans - russell athletic from the late 70's. honoring james worthy (UNC) and sleepy floyd (georgetown) - who both grew up in gastonia. 



last but not least, coach k drinks winecoolers. this is not as old as the others, probably only 15 years or so, but it makes me laugh every time. 

you know he does! 

although the tarheels did not advance past the sweet sixteen this year, it was a great season, and we can all still find pleasure in the remaining games by rooting against duke. 

my old clothes: tarheels edition part I

a few months ago i admitted my vintage t-shirt addiction and promised to share a few of my personal favorites here. 

then nacho died, sugarhoney arrived, and the second busiest month of the vintage year (october) steamrolled along, but here i am today with the first real glimpse into my own closetful of vintage treasures.

i spent 9 of my most formative years in chapel hill, nc. i love love love love UNC basketball. (i don't care about football. get rid of the team, fine by me). my tarheel ardor is diminished not one iota by the recent academic scandal - i truly believe athletes at every college in this country get special treatment. every single college. we have all heard of 'rocks for jocks.' not that 3 million wrongs make a right, but i am just not shocked or appalled by the news. the issue is complicated, and i am not judging. 

i've been collecting UNC t-shirts for 20 years now. i have about 15 of them. i've sold many over the years that did not fit me, and i don't keep every UNC shirt i see. the ones i do keep are extremely soft and comfortable. they may be the best collection of North Carolina vintage t-shirts in size Medium in the entire world.

they are not for sale.

first up is this paper thin, soft Carolina Tarheels t-shirt with grumpy Rameses on the front.

made in the early 80's with a Signal tag.

this fits like a dream and is silky soft. perfect summer t-shirt.

next up is this North Carolina Tarheels Coca-Cola reminiscent design on a poly-cotton-rayon blend heathered gray t-shirt. 

made by velva sheen in the early 80s. again, soft and thin and broken into perfection. versatile.

number 3 is this Carolina blue gem with a rainbow chest print from the 1982 NCAA National Champion Men's Basketball team. (hello Michael Jordan). 

i love how the basketball is swishing. it's so soft. so festive.

number 4 is similar, but in a baseball raglan ringer form: 

 the word National is the net. it is so comfortable and thin.

last, and definitely not least is this gem of a UNC Chapel Hill t-shirt from the freakin 1960's. 

extremely broken in heathered gray. classic. 

ooooold velva sheen tag:

there you have it. 5 of my most prized t-shirts of the UNC variety. 

thanks for following along and stay tuned for more of my favorite t-shirts in months to come. 

good night march madness

the only action PJ Hairston saw at the Dean Dome this season

well, the unc basketball season came to an unceremonious close on sunday night. 

it was very sad and confusing at the conclusion, and i had tears coming down my face, but the tears were not of sadness, they were leftover tears of joy and pride from when james michael mcadoo hit both of this free throws! after a season-long horrific charity stripe struggle, what may have been the first time ever, he HIT THEM BOTH. to tie the game, in the last 10 seconds, when it really mattered, he hit them both. way to go j'michael!

too bad it didn't matter and the end was terrible, turble, terrible, but i am looking forward to seeing these guys play again next year. i believe marcus paige is an outstanding human being. and at least they made it further than dook. success!

happy first day of spring and march madness!

it's like christmas around here!

run for the river!

we have moved. it is wonderful. 

moving trucks coming this week, we camped out all weekend on an air mattress at the new place. 

happy happy river dogs. 

the tar heels lost. it was a great season.

best chant ever

don't even worry! 

we gonna make it! 

[repeat] 

2005 carolina basketball national champions, led by david noel in this fantastic chant. 

 what a way to start your day! 

don't even worry!  

we gonna make it!

Why do they play basketball nekkid at nc state?

february in chapel hill

red bud trees are already blooming. it was in the 60's and sunny

pasty legs were bared at the beautiful new baseball stadium.

we went to chapel hill for the unc vs. clemson basketball game. my brother gave us tickets for christmas. he said the seats were right behind the bench, and i knew they would be good, but i really had no idea how good.

turns out row b really does mean row b. as in row 2. as in there's the players' bench, a row of chairs for the  jv team, row a and then row b. we were SO CLOSE.

close enough to hear the ref bark at leslie mcdonald 'find your seat' when he was dancing at tip-off.

close enough to hear roy williams scream at the bench after a turnover  "THAT WAS CARELESS AND CASUAL!" i plan to use this phrase in anger for the rest of my life.

the black falcon made this shot, the heels won, played well, i didn't get any good pictures, other than the ones in my head, and those i will treasure always.

we followed the crowd out and somehow ended up in a room with balloons and punch bowls overflowing with brownies. score!

after the game we met up with old friends and new friends for too many drinks and dinner on franklin street.  not much has changed at all in 10 years. it was glorious.

this is a damn shame and some more alcoholic readers may want to avert their eyes - but in classic bob-fashion, he ordered another round of drinks when nobody had finished their first ones, and then promptly left to avoid babysitter-fury when they realized the time. the extra drinks spell "bob."

 

this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and i am so grateful to have a brother who made it possible!

carolina vs. nc state: starting 5: smile ratio

all of unc basketball starting 5 headshots are smiling, some broadly.

none of nc state's are.

i wonder if it correlates to player happiness.

i wonder if it correlates to campus happiness.

i wonder if it correlates to player talent.

i wonder if it correlates to photographer's attractiveness.

biscuits

i have heard rumors for years that if the unc tar heels basketball team scores 100 points or more, bojangle's gives out free biscuits the next day.

last night the heels scored 100 against elon.

i googled 'free biscuits bojangles unc' etc. and couldn't find anything official or specific, but we headed down there anyway this morning.

the deal is: carolina scores 100 or more, you get 2 sausage biscuits for $1. not too shabby!

we didn't end up getting the sausage biscuit deal, but we did enjoy scarfing down a country ham and egg biscuit from the comfort of a lovely solarium with a downtown view for less than $3. 

score! 

primary

last week kevin & i celebrated the 3rd anniversary of our first date.

december 10, 2008. wednesday night. i was living in asheville, he was living in charlotte. we met at a bar that neither of us had ever been to in hickory, about halfway between.

we hadn't seen each other for more than 10 years. we were friends in college in chapel hill in the late '90s. 'friends' might be pushing it - the truth is he was friends with my boyfriend, and i was living with his girlfriend. the 4 of us hung out together throughout that year, and i always liked him.

we reconnected through the magic of facebook in november and then decided to meet up for a drink. we ordered hawaiian pizza and didn't touch it. we had beer and eye contact and laughs and sparks and made plans to see each other asap. i drove to charlotte two days later with holden and nacho and stayed for 3 days at his fantastic house on a lake and the rest is history.

i can't say it's luck or destiny or hard work or familiarity or timing or what. we like to do a lot of the same things. our energy levels are about even. he is smart and funny and kind and honest and responsible.  he is curious and adventurous and makes his own health and mental health a relative priority.  i love his hair. i love his smile. i love making him smile. his family is funny and generous and eerily similar to my own, and he has excellent taste in friends.

i don't write about him or love or relationships too much here, maybe thinking sharing will dilute it, or maybe jinx it, or maybe because i know the anonymity of the web has evaporated in the past year or two and i am not comfortable with who is reading. i don't want it to seem like bragging, or sillyfluffy, or gag-inducing. i'm not very social and i'm not very open to the public, and i am glad for this blog to be a creative outlet, but if you're looking for deeply personal stuff, and you're not one of the 2-3 close friends i am able to maintain at any given time, you should probably watch some reality tv instead!

i put the picture of the tee box markers on top since there have been 3 years, which is by far the longest relationship i've been in.

there's been a lot of golden moments, and some blue, and some red. but mainly when i look back, they have been gold.

escape to florida

we went to tallahassee last week to escape the roofing that is going on here.

we hung out with fambly, ate tons of great food, went to shell oyster bar, a florida state vs unc baseball game, leon sinks (not spinks) where kevin got a tick bite and chigger bites and nacho and eli swam in sinkholes.

while we were at the baseball game, nacho and eli got up on the counter and ate 7 of rose's arthritis pills and a half bag of dog treats.

it was great to go down there and chill while the banging was going on here at home. it's going worse than i expected, and i expected hell.

the 4 roofers arrive at 730 am, and leave between 5 and 630 pm, taking an hour for lunch. the rest of the day is drilling and banging, with enough force that pictures fall off the wall.

they are about halfway done, and it has been 2 weeks.

go heels!

classic college jeopardy. blind girl from dartmouth tells the truth about coach k:

celebration!

today may or may not be the birthday of somebody special that you know.

if it is, celebrate! get a faith lift!

light at the beginning

today isn't the end. it's friday. tomorrow isn't the beginning. it's saturday.

but in the spirit of new years, i will say i had a busy 2010.

i moved from charlotte back to asheville with my love.

holden killed himself. i didn't kill myself. it wasn't as hard as i anticipated. it never is.

my business was dissolved, and i started a new one.

i went to new york a couple times, and to florida a couple times, and to charleston, and to colorado. i hiked a lot. i swam in a mountain waterfall.

i became an aunt. to the cutest happiest little monkey in the world.

i didn't see as much live music as i would like, though i did see neil young and bob dylan and that might be enough right there.

i made my goal and posted more times here than i did in 2009.

i watched a lot of dog whisperer. keep moving forward is the secret. be calm and assertive. and move forward.

whatever you are doing tonight and tomorrow and the rest of your life, i hope you find peace and warmth and good people to share your time with. here's to positive momentum - cheers!

labs wearing goggles in a sidecar

i have found a new dream. i would like to travel around with a sidecar full of labs wearing goggles. this man is my hero.

(photo taken at the montreat 4th of july parade by sweetashvegas, author of the super informative asheville site ashvegas.)

the story of holden: a slideshow

here are some of the highlights of holden's 12 years with me.

he was born a poor black child at a fancy kennel in raleigh, nc. there were two left from his litter, and another litter of 7 week old pups available, so he was massively discounted, considered 'old' at 3 months.

i named him skippy. his first dad named him holden, and since he paid for him, i let it go. it wasn't after holden caulfield, or holden oversoul, it was for the redneck place on the nc coast - holden beach.

holden's first dad lived in a fraternity house, so holden lived with me from day 1, and i always knew he was my dog.

when he was a year old his first dad broke into my email and read that i thought a guy at school was cute so he threw my computer in the road and ran it over with his car and moved out of the house we were living in and stole holden. i was in law school, a couple weeks away from my first exams. after some wrangling, and a couple days, i got holden back, and then he was all mine for good.

he ate an indigo girls cd and a 50 yd spool of mint dental floss, and those made it through on their own.

he had his first intestinal surgery at age 2 when he ate a pair of my roomate jill's tights and an underwire bra, and they got tangled up and made him very sick.

he ate 30 lbs. from a 40 lb. bin of kibbles and had to be physically pulled away trying to scarf the rest. he assploded for a week.

he loved doing taste tests when jill would put a cheese ball on one side of the room, and a munch em on the other.

i made him a vest from an old navy doggy raincoat, stenciled on it 'guiding eyes for the blind - dog in training' and he wore that to go to UNC baseball games with me and sat in the grass.

jill and i put him in the vest and went to harris teeter one night wearing sunglasses and holding the white stick from horizontal blinds and let holden off the leash hoping he would go run through the aisles to the meat counter, but he just sat down at the automatic doors and looked at us like we were crazy.

on vacation in charleston, he ate an entire cheese cake off the counter.

he had lots of dog friends, he never humped any of them.

when i was studying for the bar exam i listened to the lectures on a walkman walking around chapel hill for 3 hours at a time, it was so hot in the summer i often went late at night and always felt safe walking with him.

at night, he slept right next to me using me as a bolster.

he moved cross country in a 42-hour non-stop drive, the car was so packed he had to sit the whole time on the passenger's lap.

he was an excellent vintage t-shirt model, especially liked wearing track jackets.

he couldn't believe it when we got nacho. what had he done to deserve such an indignity?

he and nacho crossed garnet st. in pacific beach san diego - a very busy 4 lane highway at rush hour and made it to the safety of a shell station.

they pulled a pyrex dish off the counter, and it shattered and they ate the casserole-crusted shards. the vet suggested feeding them a loaf of white bread soaked in milk to help pass the glass. it worked great. he loved it.

he jumped off a terrace in the backyard and impaled his chest on a metal stake and needed dozens of stitches.

he an nacho got into a case of pop rocks candy and couldn't stop eating them even though the explosions on their whiskers scared them.

he ate socks, socks, and more socks - the little ones made it through, a couple of the bigger ones required surgery, some of the lucky ones required a shot of amorphine to make him throw them up before they got to his intestines.

he ate an entire cow rib bone and needed surgery to get that out.

he ate a giant bowl of trail mix and needed an amorphine shot to throw that up.

he had a few lipoma fat balls removed, one the size of an orange.

he had one myxosarcoma that they didn't remove all the way and was going to grow back.

he loved to go swimming, but wouldn't go in a pool because he was scared he couldn't get out.

he didn't like going up or down wooden stairs because his paws would slip.

he loved running around the yard looking for dead things to eat.

he loved riding in the car with his head out the window.

he loved sitting next people on a couch, curled up in a ball.



here are pictures from his first day on the ride home from the kennel, to 4 days before he died on a hike near the blue ridge parkway.


warning: after kevin watched this he said he wanted to hang himself.

tar heels

went to the unc-wake forest game this week at the dean dome in chapel hill.
after a competitive first half, the good guys lost, by a lot. the heels looked smaller and less aggressive than the deacs, and have lost their last 3 games. everybody is injured, and if they're not injured, they're an undeveloped freshman.

they're still national champions for a few months but it's not looking good for a repeat performance. count this a building year.