Thankful Thursday
LaBrava, East Coast Eats, Foreigner, Kalel Mullings, Basketball Brain Trust
Welcome to my weekly newsletter. This issue includes my favorite male singer/songwriters, an Elmore Leonard novel, meals I had in Maryland, a British-American rock band, the running back who saved the day for Michigan but ruined the day for Day, and a coaching prodigy in the making. I hope you like the picks and pics.
After my conference in DC ended, Barb and I remained in the DMV and took up residence in a Home2 Suites hotel in Silver Spring, Maryland. We enjoyed Thanksgiving with Roger, Cristi, Sommer, Kieran, and Cristi’s parents—Gina and Jim Farrell—who drove down from Philadelphia for the day.
It was great to spend over a week with Sommer and Kieran. They kept us on our toes most of the time and brought us a lot of joy. We are very thankful to have had this extended time with them before we head to California for the winter.
Dawn Brushammar and Rebecka Isaksson, both of Sweden, interviewed me at KMWorld 2024 for their Knowledge Fika podcast. It was released on Monday.
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Fave Five 113: Thankful Thursday
Seamy Side of South Beach (LaBrava), East Coast Eats (Wong Gee, Ruan Thai, Nick’s), Icy Inductees (Foreigner), Buckeye Basher (Kalel Mullings), and a Basketball Brain Trust.
Fave Five List: Favorite Male Singer/Songwriters
I previously featured my five favorite female singer/songwriters. Here are three lists of my favorite male counterparts.
Pop/Rock
Bob Dylan
Cat Stevens
Dan Fogelberg
Marshall Crenshaw
Honorable Mention: Elvis Costello and Neil Young
Folk: ABCDE
Folk: FGHIJ
Honorable Mention: Stan Rogers and Loudon Wainwright III
Book Best Bet
I have read several books by Detroit’s own Elmore Leonard. This one is lively and fun. Barb and I have also enjoyed watching Justified on Hulu, based on his Fire in the Hole.
From Amazon: New York Times bestselling author Elmore Leonard delivers his trademark blend of action, sex, violence, humor, and hard-boiled suspense in this thrilling crime classic, LaBrava.
Joe La Brava is an ex–Secret Service agent who gets mixed up in a South Miami Beach scam involving a redneck former cop, a Cuban hit man who moonlights as a go-go dancer, and a one-time movie queen whose world is part make-believe, part deadly dangerous.
Fast-moving, pitch-perfect, and utterly irresistible, LaBrava is, “vintage Leonard: a blend of the true-to-life and the totally make-believe, the cinematic and the suspenseful, the world we know and a whole lot of worlds we’re glad we don’t. Only Leonard can concoct such a potent cocktail.” (USA Today).
Elmore Leonard
From Wikipedia: Elmore John Leonard Jr. (born October 11, 1925 in New Orleans; died August 20, 2013 in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan) was an American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. His earliest novels, published in the 1950s, were Westerns, but he went on to specialize in crime fiction and suspense thrillers, many of which have been adapted into motion pictures. Among his best-known works are Hombre, Swag, City Primeval, LaBrava, Glitz, Freaky Deaky, Get Shorty, Rum Punch, Out of Sight and Tishomingo Blues.
His writings were the basis for the FX television series Justified and Justified: City Primeval. Among other honors, he won the 2009 Pen Lifetime Award and the 2012 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
Anthony Lane of The New Yorker wrote that Leonard
was hailed as one of the best crime writers in the land. High praise, but not quite high enough, and some way off the mark. He was one of the best writers, and he happened to write about crime. Even that is not entirely accurate. It's true that his novels (more than forty of them, with another left unfinished at his death) enjoyed the company of criminals and of those who tried to stop them in their tracks. This was seldom hard, since, as Leonard delighted in showing us, crime—more than anything, even politics—allows men of all ages to disport themselves across the full range of human ineptitude. Boy, do they screw up.
Restaurant Recommendations
East Coast Eats
Wong Gee Asian Restaurant 2417 University Blvd West, Silver Spring, MD 20902
Roger asked us to pick up dinner one night, so we chose this place for Chinese food. The Wheaton area near Roger’s home has many great Asian and Latino restaurants, all near to one another. Our order was on point and provided several additional meals. Sommer and Kieran thought that the last item listed below had a very funny name, which they liked repeating over and over, using the more typical “pu pu” pronunciation.
Ruan Thai Restaurant 11407 Amherst Ave, Wheaton, MD 20902
Barb and I met John and Nancy Tanner for dinner here, at John’s suggestion. He is my favorite restaurant blogger in the DMV, whom I met in person at the Cincinnati food crawl in May. The food and company were both great.
Pad Kha Tiem Prik Thai: Chicken sautéed with white pepper and garlic
Nick’s Fish House 2600 Insulator Drive, Baltimore, MD 21230
On Saturday we went to Baltimore to see Gonzaga College High School in a basketball scrimmage against three other teams. Roger is an assistant coach, and it appears that Sommer may follow in his footsteps (see this week’s Picture Pun below).
After the scrimmage, we went to Nick’s for seafood and to watch the second half of the Michigan-Ohio State game. More on that in the Sports Star section below.
Oyster Po’ Boy: freshly fried oysters with lettuce, tomato and mayo on a warm baguette, with Chesapeake fries
Marvelous Musicians
This is the fourth and final installment in a series of recent Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees. I heard the band’s hits in the 70s and 80s and especially liked "Cold as Ice."
From Wikipedia: Foreigner is a British-American rock band formed in New York City in 1976 by guitarist Mick Jones, vocalist Lou Gramm, drummer Dennis Elliott, keyboardist Al Greenwood, bassist Ed Gagliardi and multi-instrumentalist Ian McDonald, the last of whom was also a founding member of King Crimson. Foreigner is one of the world's best-selling bands of all time, with worldwide sales of more than 80 million records, including 37.5 million in the US.
Jones came up with the band's name as he, Elliott, and McDonald were British, while Gramm, Greenwood, and Gagliardi were American, meaning at least half of the band would be foreigners no matter what country they were in. On October 19, 2024, Foreigner was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Cold As Ice
I Want To Know What Love Is
Waiting For a Girl Like You
My Playlist
Sports Star
Michigan won the National Championship last season, but this year has been a bit of a grind. After a strong start this season, Kalel was not used as much, and I thought this was a mistake. He really came on strong in the last two games, leading the Wolverines to a huge upset win over their rivals, Ohio State. His 27-yard, 3rd-down run was the key play of the game. The win is the fourth in a row for Michigan over Ohio State, putting OSU coach Ryan Day on the hot seat. If he fails to win the National Championship this season, it may be Goodbye, Columbus for him.
All-time upset win over Ohio State
Michigan's only path to victory was dominating on the ground, and Mullings ensured it did just that. The graduate running back ran a career-high 32 times for 116 yards and U-M's only touchdown. While Mullings only had one carry go more than 8 yards, 30 of his 32 carries went for positive yardage. Mullings constantly fell forward, which helped the offense stay in manageable situations. And that lone run over 8 yards? Mullings changed the game with his 27-yard burst on third-and-5 with less than four minutes to play.
"The way they play, their D-line kind of just hangs on blocks, kind of just sits there, so it'll be a lot of arm tackles to run through," Mullings said. "So when I knew I had to bounce to frontside, felt an arm tackle, I knew if I could get up out of there, there'd be no one really left. So I just kept bouncing it and shoot, just playing ball."
Kalel Mullings is the latest Michigan Football RB to dominate Ohio State
Mullings led the way. Michigan gave him a career-high 32 carries for 116 yards (third-most of his career) and a score during the Wolverines' 13-10 win over Ohio State.
Kalel Mullings totals 116 yards to lead Michigan Wolverines to win
Picture Pun
The Gonzaga College High School coaching brain trust is multigenerational.
Thanks for the mention! It was a fun dinner!