Author: BullCityCoordinators

I run a monthly(ish) podcast covering topics from Classical Antiquity Sidequest. It covers topics from Classical Antiquity. Movie and TV reviews are included.

Interview – This Might Be A Podcast Crossover

Guys, if you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m a bit of nerd. Unashamed of nerdish ways, I made a guest appearance on one of my favorite podcasts, This Might Be A Podcast hosted by Greg Simpson, which is about one of my favorite bands – They Might Be Giants.

Live look at my wife’s reaction when I told her I was going to be on a TMBG podcast.

Older readers may recall the band’s big hit “Birdhouse In Your Soul” which got them on The Tonight Show back in the day. Over the course of their long career, TMBG did the themes for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Malcolm in the Middle and, for those of you with kids, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (both the opening and closing tunes). If you aren’t familiar with TMBG, they have been described as “alternative” (whatever the heck that means these days), indie rock, experimental rock, art rock, avant-pop (huh?), power pop, art punk and geek rock. And they’ve done a few children’s albums, too. Whatever label you want to put on the band, TMBG is nerd rock.

This Might Be A Podcast is a song-by-song podcast about TMBG. Each episode discusses a different TMBG song. The podcast is up to about 175 episodes so far with only another 700 plus songs to go. TMBG has been at it for 40 years and won’t stop making new music. Not even father time can keep TMBG down, nor does the fact that they’re older than they’ve ever been and now they’re even older. Greg’s efforts to chronicle each song makes him a modern-day Atlas.

Greg drops a new episode about once a week and this week I stopped by to talk about a great TMBG song, Yeh Yeh. (As a result of choosing to talk about the song, I learned the TMBG version is a cover of the Georgie Fame version, which is a cover of a cover of the original. Talk about spiraling shapes of confusion here.)

As you’ve noticed with my own podcast, I don’t let myself get constrained by the purported subject matter. Greg and I discuss a lot of things including the full story of my daughter’s appendectomy and bowel obstruction surgery (the episode was recorded the night before she came home). I appreciate everyone who reached out and helped our family during that time. A lot of you who have never met me were kind enough to pray for my daughter and that means a lot to us.

Greg and I also broke whatever record existed on his show for references to The Simpsons. We made a lot of them. A. Lot. We also talked about one of the greatest kids’ books in the history of ever – I Want My Hat Back. This. Book. Is. Perfect. And we do give away the ending. Consider yourself warned.

I hope you enjoy the episode. Listen here.

Interview – Eli Pancol

Listen here.

Eli Pancol took some time out of a Sunday to give us an update on what to expect from Duke heading into the upcoming football season. This was a great talk about the mood of the Blue Devils, how NIL helps student-athletes and Eli’s tattoos. That last topic took us down a discussion about his family’s history which is pretty interesting.

Eli celebrates a big play.

During the interview, Eli discusses his clothing line which you can find here. He’s got some cool stuff – check it out! If you do get some of his merch, post a video of you dancing in it and see how your moves compare to Eli’s moves.

Go Duke!

Interview – George Pearkes

Listen here.

George Pearkes, a walk-on tight end at Duke from 2008-11, stopped by for one heck of a talk. We discuss economics, market trends, the economic response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and we learn why gas prices have been so high. Oh, and we talk Blue Devils football, too. This was an informative discussion with a very knowledgeable guy.

George getting ready for a game.

If you want to learn more about the economic response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, read this article by George. We hope you enjoy the interview.

Go Duke!

Interview – Tre Hornbuckle

Listen here.

We all remember Tre Hornbuckle from his time destroying the opposing team’s offensive line. Tre took time out of his busy schedule to talk about playing football at Duke, how COVID-19 impacted the NFL Class of 2020, his time as a GA in Durham and his professional career which has him in the CFL.

Tre before he literally blows up the opposition.

Tre gave an excellent talk about leadership, staying positive and overcoming adversity. This was a fun talk with an all-time great.

Go Duke!

Interview – Perry Simmons

Listen here.

To say Perry Simmons was a rock during his time at Duke would be an understatement of epic proportions. Perry started fifty, count them FIFTY, straight games before an injury kept him out of the Peach Bowl in 2013. Perry was kind of enough to stop by for a great talk about what it takes to make a team relevant after years of irrelevance.

Perry on Senior Day (I think that’s Senior Day).

During our hour plus conversation, we covered a lot of interesting topics including the importance of redshirting, Coaches Luke and Latina, how injuries can derail an offensive line and the great seasons that were 2012 and 2013. This interview will bring back some good memories for all you Blue Devil fans. Until we get to Miami in 2015. Um, yeah. Ugh.

Go Duke!

Bonus Episode – A Basketball Duke v. Syracuse Jam Session

Listen here.

After watching Duke handle Syracuse in the Carrier Dome, we recorded a bonus jam session for all you Blue Devil fans. I’m on rhythm guitar and Tim is on mandolin. The tracks are:

North Carolina Breakdown or A Mark Williams Dunk Fest

Roscoe or Griffin and Roach from Deep

Big Scioty or Duke G.R.I.N.D. (we’ve recorded this before, but it’s one of our favorites)

Temperance Reel or Elko Reel

Go Duke!

2022 Season – Five Things I’m Looking Forward To

With the 2021 season in the past, I’m cautiously optimistic about the 2022 season. I’ve said it on the podcast already, and I’ll say it again here, I’m going to be patient this season and look for signs of improvement. Given the massive hit Duke took in the transfer portal, including at quarterback, we have a lot of unknowns coming into this season. And while Coach Elko is doing all the right things to get the Elkra – Elkera – Era? Forget it, I’ve got nothing good for a combo of Elko and Era. Anyway, Coach Elko is doing all the right things as far as putting his stamp on the Blue Devils and getting things off on the right foot. That said, preseason and regular season are two different things. With that in mind, here’s what I’m looking forward to this season:

  1. A new offense. Readers of the site will know that I complained a lot about how predictable the offense got over the last several years. I’m excited to see what Coach Elko and the OC, Kevin Johns, can bring to the table. Johns has a good track record having worked at both Texas Tech and Memphis. He was also on the coaching staff for an Indiana team that put up a lot of points against Duke in the Pinstripe Bowl in 2015.
  2. Moving the student section. It’ll be interesting to see the student section behind the opposing team’s bench this year. Given that the cameras are generally pointed towards the opposing team’s sideline, we always see the opposing team’s fans and colors during home games. It’s a little annoying, and I’m glad Coach Elko is taking steps to try and fix this. Hopefully the students will show up and we’ll see a lot more blue on camera this season. But, again, that depends on students showing up. Let’s hope that happens.
  3. Getting down to Durham. I checked with my dad who thinks that the following is correct, but I’m pretty certain I’ve been able to get to a home game for every coach since Spurrier. We can’t recall if we went to games for both Franks and Roof, but feel like we were there for at least one of them. I can’t wait to get to Durham this season for the first of what will hopefully be many successful seasons under Coach Elko.
  4. Players from the new coaching era on the podcast. Since Duke FB Talk has been getting guys on who are current players, I’ve taken a different approach and, with a few exceptions, tried to get former players on. That way we aren’t overlapping and doing the same thing. Blue Devil football fandom is a bit of a niche market and we don’t need to water things down by doing the same thing. That said, I’m hopeful I can get a player or two to come on who is currently on the team. I’ve had players from every coaching era since Coach Sloan with the exception of Ted Roof (I’m efforting to solve that problem, believe me) and I want to keep that streak going.
  5. Becoming relevant again. As I detailed previously, Cutcliffe did a lot for the Duke program. Perhaps most important, he made the Blue Devils relevant for an extended period of time. Unfortunately, we fell from that standard and that is why we got a new head coach. I’m really, really hopeful that this new era will get us relevant again.

What are you excited about for the 2022 season? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter.

Go Duke!

2021 Season – Additional information

This is an interesting article from The 9th Street Journal about how a series of meetings went poorly during Duke’s 2021 bye week. In brief, local law enforcement met with the team to discuss traffic stops. The meeting didn’t sit well with some of the players as there didn’t seem to be much concern for the rights of those who are stopped by law enforcement. Cutcliffe’s response to the players’ collective disinterest in the meeting wasn’t helpful. He called another meeting the following day and got on the team for being, according to Cutcliffe, disrespectful. That message, like the one before it, was also poorly received.

While there are many components to the issues that cropped up in these meetings which all merit discussion, one thing that I paid attention to was the timing of them. This is a football blog and that is the reason I am looking at the timing. The larger topics raised in the meeting with law enforcement can’t be fully and intelligently discussed on this blog. To begin with, I’m not an expert on use of force by law enforcement. Second, we would need a panel discussion and a series of interviews to be able to cover those. I’m just not set up to do that here. But I will say that use of force, and misuse of the same, by law enforcement is a very, very important issue that we all need to pay attention to.

You’ll see from the team’s Twitter account screenshot included in the article that the meeting with local law enforcement occurred on or about October 18, two days after a blowout loss to Virginia. After this meeting, the team certainly didn’t improve. In fact, the Blue Devils went winless after this and generally only showed life against Pitt (then Gunnar got hurt and, well, we know what happened).

Following the meetings discussed in the Journal, Duke lost a series of games in an ugly fashion. While we may never know with certainty, it’s more than plausible that the meeting with law enforcement and Cutcliffe’s reaction played a factor in the way the Blue Devils continued to struggle last season. That said, we’d already seen bad losses to UVA and UNC.

Again, we may never fully know the story here, but it’s an interesting piece of information.

Go Duke!

Interview – Clarkston Hines (A true GOAT)

Listen to the interview here.

While it is hard to compare wide receivers from different eras of football, no one can dispute that Clarkston Hines is one of the greatest wide receivers to ever play at Duke. He has an unbelievable list of records and accomplishments as a Blue Devil that includes an ACC Championship in 1989. If you haven’t seen him play, pull up some old games on YouTube and you’ll see that he was a true playmaker.

Hines Added To College Football Hall Of Fame Ballot - Duke University
Clarkston celebrates after one of many big plays.

Clarkston is a member of the Duke Athletics Hall of Fame, the College Football Hall of Fame and was a member of the ACC 50th Anniversary Team. And his teams went 4-1 against Carolina. Not too shabby!

And here is one of his most memorable catches to help turn the tide against Clemson and spark the Blue Devils to a conference title.

We covered a lot of topics including the current real estate market, the 1990 Bills team, Clarkston’s former OC Tommy Bowden, Coaches Sloan and Spurrier, the 1989 ACC Championship season and two scoreboard pictures taken that year – one against Maryland and one against UNC.

Enjoy!