July: All Quiet On The Western Front

You will jog for the master race

And always wear the happy face

Dateline:  Flint Lake, IN

It's a surprisingly short walk from pirates -- the prior blog's starting point -- to Nazi's. 

At least in the Corrigan household. 

Although perhaps not such a long walk in the U.S. these days (potato, potahto)... 

But courtesy of one M. Ungashick, Esq., Jerrence recently went down a WWII rabbit hole, watching Hitler and the Nazi's: Evil On Trial, followed by (as one does) Judgment At Nuremberg.   The latter being especially compelling insofar as it involves addressing the question the Nazi judicial system's culpability, carrying out Hitler's laws, compounded by using actual trial transcripts while seeing:

• The Wizard of Oz's Dorothy discovering not only is she not in Kansas anymore -- but that wicked witches and flying monkeys would actually be a quality of life improvement.
• Field of Dreams' Moonlight Graham accused of some truly awful things -- although on the bright side, if a reformed Hitler youth chokes on a currywurst in the courtroom, he'd be your go-to guy.
• Hogan's Heroes' Colonel Klink turning out to be quite the opposite of the bumbling idiot he portrayed in the POW camp.

Net, I strongly recommend both.  And because variety is, in fact, the spice of life...  we also detoured to the other side of the globe, watching The Pacific mini-series where fighting in those island jungles made a battle in the Ardennes look like a Civil War weekend reenactment in Lincoln Park.   

One might be thinking to oneself, "Gee, Jerrence, that cocktail of gnarly wartime experiences doesn't seem like a particularly healthy way to get into an optimistic, "we're going to the playoffs!" ND pre-season frame of mind..."

A fair observation.  

And yet, that is where we're at: recognizing that often you have to go through arduous times, ones that may even try men's souls (thank you, Thomas Paine), before you see ultimate success.

Could this be the year for the Irish?

Quote of the Week

"I like to have a martini...

Two, at the very most.

After three, I'm under the table.

After four, I'm under my host."

-- Dorothy Parker

Where were the girls like Dorothy earlier in my life?  And why did no one tell me about martini bars at that time?

More reasons to like gin.  (Note: I don't need any more reasons.)

Suffice to say, things you learn later in life.  Also, apparently, martini's are not a summertime cocktail.   

Word of the Week.

Used in a sentence paragraph: Young Jerrence wasn't sure what exactly drove this newfound sensation of... what exactly?

Euphoria didn't really describe it.  That feeling was most recently reserved for the brown butter bourbon experience.  (Talk about "better living through creative chemistry," Jerrence thought.)

No, this was closer to ataraxia and Jerrence thought it could be attributed to any of a number of factors:  

• 

  bucolic Flint Lake life where the NW Indiana world often resembles an Andy Griffith episode and one's primary concern is whether the pontoon is gassed up (and what's tonight's cocktail?)
• the Wadden - Marcel golf swing tips leading to (more) consistent ball striking
• going down a martini rabbit hole (how James Bond could do anything after drinking his Vesper martini was beyond belief for Jerrence)
• the granddaughter's visit and her consistent challenge of his worldviews and orthodoxies. 

But with the start of football season only a month away, the one thing Jerrence was sure of... perhaps the only thing... was that this feeling would be fleeting.  

Enjoy it while it lasts, he thought.

Summertime Thoughts  

Why does it seem to go

Always from my side

Seems we will never know

Always asking why...

Did you realize that the question "why" can be asked a near limitless amount of times in a single inquiry?  Like an eternal do loop that just goes on and on and on... 

"Keep going, Louise!"

I was reacquainted with this fact when Sloane, the 3 yr. old granddaughter blew through town recently, proving to make her a far more interesting hang than she was even three months ago.  

The point being particularly emphasized upon a visit to her 99 year great grandmother when, in between the two of them channeling their inner Thelma & Louise while terrorizing visitors in the Assisted Living parking lot, she inquired as to why she had to wear any clothes when she went outside...

Why?

The ensuing discussion covered a myriad of topics... starting with America's puritanical social and cultural mores dating back to before Victorian Era England, a brief digression involving Martin Luther and The Reformation (and no, Sloane, I don't know why he had 95 theses), was Guy Fawkes really such a bad guy and the fact that most humans aren't that attractive without any clothes on -- and that there are certain things in life you can't unsee -- and finally, that grandpa didn't wish to get arrested and be put on a list that wouldn't allow him to get within 100 yards of her future schools.

"So that's a 'no' to going outside with my pull up's on, grandpa?"

Why, indeed.  Like why do we care so much, invest so much... in the whole travails of college football recruiting?  In the very best of times, it's an odious endeavor -- sucking up to the teen age self-absorbed (and their parents) who, by the time the kids are aware of the their own existence, talk in terms of what's good for 'my brand.'  Sheesh.

And now with NIL and the transfer portal, what's even the point?  "Fluid" doesn't begin to describe the situation.  More like gaseous -- when a kid can sign a commitment letter one day and enter the portal the next.

When you point your finger 'cause your plan through

There's three more fingers pointing back at you...

More like 3M fingers.

So I found it almost funny when the ND message boards began to melt down a couple weeks ago when WR recruiting took a bad turn and a couple hopefuls opted to go elsewhere.  But overreaction is the Currency of the Realm these days and one would've thought ND turned into Vanderbilt (no disrespect)... despite ND still having a Top 10 (near Top 5) class.

And 75% of those kids are gonna be available in another year anyway.

Me, as much as still find myself sucked into following the Crystal Balls and cheering for the commitments, I just don't care as much anymore.  ND will be all right.

Buddy's Buddy

As I've tried to make abundantly clear over the years, there's a lot of things in life that baffle me - I'll go my grave perplexed by the continued lack of alignment on hot dogs / bun quantity configurations.

I'm also confused by grown men and the propensity to continue wearing one's baseball cap backwards beyond their college years.  It strikes me there are precious few occupations that credibly give you license to pull that look off... professional athlete, drummer, handyman and, of course, sniper... come to mind.  

Or if you're playing golf in gale force winds in Scotland / Ireland.  Otherwise, no.  

But I digress.

Which brings me to this week's buddy, the now retired ND Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick.  At least on the ND websites / message boards that I lurk (and God knows there's plenty of know-it-all cretins on them), Savvy Jack has been a popular whipping boy - responsible for any (every?) perceived university-related misstep.  Some probably blame Covid on him.

I just don't get it.

I'd encourage anyone to read Ivan Maisel's piece on Swarbrick here.  It's fairly long and while not a puff piece, it pretty factually lays out all the good this guy's done in his tenure as AD, his Drew Pyne interactions with Cincotta notwithstanding. 

   

RE-PETE (A shameless, illegal lift of Pete Sampson's weekly mail-bag)

Perhaps beating the dead horse here (re recruiting)...  

What I'd really like to flog is a certain septuagenarian named Mikey - no, not my brother - but a sad, pathetic Floridian on an ND message board who apparently is stuck in the Ara Parseghian 1960's and whose idea of Christmas Day is when anything bad happens to the ND program so he spin his "it's all going to hell" rhetoric.

And yes, he's an alum.  Hey, every school has their misshapen progeny they'd like to keep locked in the attic like something out of Jane Eyre.

I can understand whiffing on Derek Meadows, a five-star receiver that ended up in the SEC. But why is it so hard for Notre Dame to find a couple of solid four-star wideouts? The passing attack isn’t that archaic for crying out loud. — Gerrard L.

It’s a fair question. It’s also healthy to put Meadows in a separate category. Losing a five-star receiver to a school like LSU that regularly puts out first-round receivers and counts Ja’Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson as former players? No shame in that. Notre Dame’s NFL production at receiver is non-existent (20 catches for 171 yards among four receivers last year). You’re selling Meadows on being the guy who can change that. LSU can sell Meadows on being the next big thing at a place that does big things really well.

As for the second part of the question: Notre Dame’s receiver class last year is a decent counter-argument. Cam Williams and Micah Gilbert were national-level prospects. Logan Saldate was a good regional one. If Notre Dame can stack classes like Williams-Gilbert-Saldate annually, the program would be good long-term. On top of that, receiver is the most transfer portal friendly position, meaning finding one or two versions of Beaux Collins, Jayden Harrison and Kris Mitchell should be/can be a regular thing. Notre Dame wants to “major in high school recruiting,” per Freeman, but adding annually at receiver feels sustainable.

If you look at the national trends in recruiting receivers, Notre Dame’s issue has been more talent identification than getting numbers, although the ’25 haul has issues on both fronts.

Just to make the point, here are four blind high school recruiting hauls at wide receiver during the past four cycles (2022-25):

• Team A: Six four-stars, three three-stars
• Team B: Seven four-stars, three three-stars
• Team C: Six four-stars, one three-star
• Team D: One five-star, five four-stars, two three-stars

Those teams are Georgia (A), Notre Dame (B), Texas (C) and USC (D).

Yes, Notre Dame is way off the pace of LSU, Alabama and Ohio State. Basically everybody is. This year’s receiver haul has been a disaster to date. But the group of Rico Flores Jr., Jaden Greathouse and Braylon James also looks like a mess. Three years ago, the Irish went all in on Tobias Merriweather, CJ Williams and Amorion Walker. Also a disaster.

Point being, the fix here is not “sign more four-star receivers!” It’s do a better job identifying talent in high school that matches Notre Dame, then do a better job developing that in South Bend. This isn’t an issue tied to a single assistant coach or even a single head coach. It’s a program problem that Notre Dame needs to fix. Mike Denbrock and Riley Leonard can help.

Source: The Athletic

July 26, 2024

Cocktail of the Month

A true story:  November of 2007, living in London, I had a client meeting in Barcelona on a Friday and a company meeting in the same city starting on Monday... so a few of us, along with our US-based boss, decided to spend the weekend there and brought our wives.

Hijinx ensued. Now those of you who know Defarge, she is not an especially big drinker*. (And for 40+ years I've been the grateful beneficiary of her designated driver volunteer responsibilities.)

But not that weekend.  

"Defarge Discovers Caipirinha's.  And Likes Them.  A lot."

Barcelona (11.07)

One particular evening - it might've been the first evening, the group had retired to the hotel bar for a nightcap.  Probably more than one.  The boys were playing golf the next day so we took our leave and let the others close the place.

I woke up the next day to see the aforementioned cocktail on my wife's side of the bed, half-finished.  

Apparently, 'waste not, want not' because that glass was dry by the time we got back.

That was a great weekend.

*unless she in the company of Messrs. Feifar & Brunett.

Elizabeth Bishop's Caipirinha

1911-1979

We drank cachaça and smoked

the greens cheroots. The room

filled with gray-green smoke

and my head couldn't have been dizzier.

                                                                             -- "The Riverman" (1960)

Bishop would've enjoyed Brazil's national drink when she lived in Rio de Janeiro.  Made from cachaça -- which, like rum, is a liquor derived from sugarcane, and unlike rum, can be produced only from freshly pressed sugarcane juice as opposed to molasses -- the caipirinha retains a tell-tale grassy funkiness.

Cachaça must be aged in barrels made from Brazilian wood; like Bishop's poetry from her time in South America, it celebrates a definitive spirit of place.

Bishop's favorite cachaça was called Tatu, its bottle emblazoned with the image of an armadillo -- the same animal that would be the subject and title of her famous poem for Robert Lowell.

*  2 oz.  cachaça

*  2 tspn. sugar

*  1 lime

*  Lime wedge for garnishing

Cut lime into quarters.  In a rocks glass, combine lime quarters and sugar and muddle.  Add ice to glass and pour in the cachaça.  Stir to combine and garnish with the lime wedge. 

Source:  How To Drink Like A Writer

Writing by Margaret Kaplan

 Schedule 2024

Never too soon to start looking to next year...

August

31                @Texas A&M               

September 

7                  Northern Illinois                                                       

14                @Purdue                                 

21                Miami (OH)                    Alumni Hall gang reunion               

28                Louisville

October  

                                                                                                     

12                Stanford                          The Brothers Corrigan game

19                @Georgia Tech                 

26                Navy

November 

 9                Florida State                               Night game - accepting couch viewing bookings

16               Virginia     

23               @Army  (Yankee Stadium)       McSorley's anyone?                        

30              @USC                                     

December

20             1st round playoff game at ND Stadium -- see you there.

Wager 2024

As alluded above, we spend a lot of time discussing recruiting and the athletes involved.  Less so, the coaching staff.  But it begs stating that ND may have it's best collective coaching staff since the Holtz years (and seemingly with the principle leadership secured for several years).

Which lead one to consider what would be an appropriate analogy to that insight for this year's wager construct?

How about Jerrence's view on film directors, the head coach equivalent in the film world?

(Bonus points for knowing the films shown.)

Wins	Director - ND Equivalence	Domer
12 Christopher Nolan	The Nick Saban of the film world - Nolan is Mr. Swing For The Fences Big Idea Guy, even if every effort isn't always a home run. But they are undeniably ... epic. Just like a 12-0 season.	Kevin C,  Matt L
11 Martin McDonagh	Hello, he's Irish!   Solidly predictable for always being really, really good.  And as  his reputation has been burnished, the star talent in his cast has followed. Sound familiar?	Jerrence, Daryl
10 David Fincher	Pretty much a stud in both film and TV formats. Always interesting, albeit with palpably dark undertones... one is never sure how the story is going to end up.  Much like a 10 win season will feel like.	Pat B,
9 Yorgos Lanthimos	Do I always understand what's going on his films?  Nope. But the ride is pretty enjoyable even when you don't know where you're going or even how you got there. Ultimately, you might end up appreciating it more than you thought at the time.
8 Richard Linklater	Perhaps the product of recency bias - I quite liked 'Hit Man' - Linklater's films fall for this blogger  into the "nice-fun-I see an interesting insight" category.  They just don't feel especially memorable. Like we'd view an 8 win season.
7 Wes Anderson	When does quirky/idiosyncratic become tiresome? When you feel like you're watching - again - an inside joke that you're not included in. Anderson attracts an an all-star cast that no longer seems to add up to the sum of their parts. In a word, disappointing.
6 Lars Von Trier	Uncomfortable. Unpleasant.  Disturbing. Often off the rails, his films might be 'art' but it's tough to call it many people's definition of entertainment.

Schadenfreude of the Week.

'Tis the fallow season for schadenfreude.

Sporting-wise, nothing of great import happens this time of year: college lacrosse is over and my interest in professional basketball wanes (see below), baseball still has 100 games left to play and since the 1980's Edmonton Oilers, no one in hockey has really grabbed my attention. (A Florida team dominating that sport still strikes one as unnatural.)

1.  The Sackler Family.  Not all losses occur on the athletic playing field. The Supreme Court in late June blew up the massive bankruptcy reorganization of opioid maker Purdue Pharma, finding that the settlement inappropriately included legal protections for the Sackler family, meaning that billions of dollars secured for victims is now threatened.

The court on a 5-4 vote on non-ideological lines ruled that the bankruptcy court did not have the authority to release the Sackler family members from legal claims made by opioid victims.

Not that I have any faith that this family will ever feel any pain from this action... 

2.  SEC!  SEC!  Already putting in a future cast for celebrating these teams devouring each other...

"I see you're just as incredibly weird and awkward as the last time we met..." 

Terry's Tools.

Gentlemen, start your engines!  

An expression that, this time of year, could fit almost any section of the blog.

But here we are, roughly a month until football season kicks into high gear and with a new (and dare one say, fairly chaotic) organizational structure for every school's championship run.

Will it inspire bad behavior and mind numbing stipidity?  Hello, do fat babies fart?!

Of course it will!  

And I can't wait.  But until then, there's this:

1)  IOC.   While still processing the Opening ceremonies of the Paris Olympics - BTW, loved the headless Marie Antoinettes - I'm equally mystified by the explosion of nonsensical new competitions (not sure you can really call them 'sports').

And in 2028?  Flag football.  Really?  Because American football is so universally embraced?!  

What's next, frisbee golf?!  

Actually, I wish they would adopt that - then I could say I knew an Olympian (looking at you, Matt Lindon).  

Plus, it'd be the one sport where's they'd actually be testing for bong hit compliance.  

That would be awesome.

2)  Jim Schlossnagle.  What a difference, evidently, a day makes. 

Texas A&M head baseball coach takes the Aggies to the college World Series final, loses in a tight one and the next day announces he's leaving for Texas.

This after a reporter asked a very prescient question re his commitment to A&M after the loss - and gets berated by the coach.  

"I think it's pretty selfish of you to ask me that question, to be honest with you," Schlossnagle said. "But I left my family to be the coach at Texas A&M. I took the job at Texas A&M to never take another job again. And that hasn't changed in my mind. That's unfair to talk about something like that.

Somewhere Brian Kelly was surely thinking, "Now that's a boss move."

3)  Mike Gundy.  I suppose one should applaud the Oklahoma State football coach for his honesty, however craven its motivation.  

To wit, Gundy's star RB, the 2023 Big 12 offensive Player of the Year, gets charged with DUI after getting stop going 85 MPH earlier this summer.  That's cause for some discipline, right?  (Well maybe not at Georgia where reckless driving seems to be an entry requirement.)

And not at OSU either where the head coach told ESPN, "He's gonna play.  I'm gonna do what we think is best for Oklahoma St. football."

Alrighty then. 

4)  Colten Brewer.  Extra points for going Old School with your frustrations.  Moron. 

5)  Forrest Gump "Stupid Is As Stupid Does" Award.

Tickets to Heaven.  And we're not talking Iowa.

Name of the Month

Special ND Recruiting edition!

This month's candidate is one whom ND Nation has a reasonable chance of getting familiar with on a long term basis... 

An (apparently) high potential 4-star LB out of the talent-rich Cleveland, allow me to introduce you to:

Cincere Johnson

No doubt Notre Dame beat writers will be salivating over the headlines that'll almost write themselves if young Mr. Johnson signs on to a part of Freeman's Class of '26.

I know I will.  

Sincerely.

Final Thought

"Growing up is realizing that talking doesn't really scare the fish.

...and that grandpa just wanted you to shut up."