The Media's Double Fault and Harlow/Tiller Play Doubles
Reacting to Rex Ecarma reactions, "Thru the Night", and local links...
“We love this city. Pretty much being in this area my entire life, I feel like I’m 502 to the core. I think that’s one of the best things you can be. We love to write. I think Gabe would agree with me when I say it’s our preferred medium. For me, in a lot of ways, it’s an intoxicating experience. Whether it’s about going to a rodeo at the Nelson County Fair or writing about Tom Jurich being axed, the experience remains the same. The podcast is a labor of love and will continue to be. This is a place where we can give you something else. Something more. Ideally none of these will ever look the same. Meaning what you see in the first Newsletter won’t be what you see in the next and so on and so forth. We hope to expand conversations and horizons, including our own. I’m excited. Be excited. But first, Pearl Jam.” - Chris
“These days when I think about Louisville, I think about what it means to live here. When my parents moved to Louisville a little over two decades ago, they told me it was a good place to grow up. As I’ve gotten older I‘ve come to think of it as much more. People who live here adopt a unique sense of identity. We’re not gritty like some cities love to say, but we sure aren’t pushovers either. We love a good drink about as much as anyone else, but when it’s time to show reverence or mourn we’ll drop everything. It’s a feeling that you can’t quite fully describe until you find yourself somewhere else, longing for a Louisville golden hour. Chris and I started our podcast and now this newsletter as an attempt to capture what Louisville means and where it might be going. We hope you’ll join us on that trip.” -Gabe
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What the hell is going on here?
Chris Hatfield
I never envisioned writing about a University of Louisville tennis coach. I certainly never envisioned opening my first-ever newsletter with a conversation about one. Yet here we are. At this point, this story has pretty much died and that’s fine. Yet I can’t fight the pull to write about some of the fan reaction to Rex Ecarma’s firing. As a great philosopher once said, “this aggression will not stand, man.”
Whatever your opinion on Drew Deener is, the response to his show seems to elicit the accurate tone of the Louisville fan base (most of the time, anyway). Maybe it didn’t this time, I hope not anyway. Nevertheless, from the very moment that Deener opened his Tuesday show, it was obvious that the narrative of the Ecarma firing was going to set pretty clearly. It wasn’t a positive one either. It was one that questioned the very decision by Vince Tyra.
“I think it’s ridiculous he got fired but in today’s society, I understand because everyone is so afraid of getting sued,” Deener noted.
Essentially this opened the floodgates for a show that amounted to a benefit rally for Ecarma. Calls were taken that voiced support and we got to hear Billy Reed give his opinion on today’s society that included reinstating the draft. That’s always a fun thing. I, on the other hand, spent most of the morning feeling like I was in an alternate reality. The little-to-no blow back from what was being said on the air made me feel like I was missing a key part of the story. Alas, I wasn’t.
A refresher shall we?
Nevermind, reportedly, making players play through injuries. Nevermind not providing them with access to sufficient equipment. Here are just a few quotes that came from Ecarma over the last few years according to multiple player interviews.
“His family might be here,” Ecarma reportedly told players about another teammate after passing a Mexican restaurant.
“Whites are better than black people.”
“How many Indians are going to walk in this building?”
That’s not close to all. But it’s enough. I’m more shocked that this had to even be discussed again but boomers will boomer. Despite what anyone on the Deener show says about a “snowflake society”, these things are wrong. This about a society of progression, where things like this should never be tolerated. It has nothing to do with being a snowflake or “soft”. Should be relying on racist statements to make a generation tougher?
Would you like to know what soft looks like? Deleting your Twitter account multiple times because of blow back from bad tweets. That’s exactly what soft looks like.
Louisville’s Links
The goals of the project are to connect neighborhoods to the creek, improve the health of the waterway and the life it supports and develop destination spots for people to learn about and enjoy the stream. Read about what’s going on with Beargrass Creek trail that’s been sorely missed. CH
It has been quite a year for the Kentucky State Fair. The shooting incident, Matt Bevin’s Trump blazer, and arrests outside the country ham breakfast. in quieter news, WFPL found that contest entrants had worked around the Fair Board’s rules against racist memorabilia. GD
Mitch McConnell plays both sides on the senate filibuster. I kinda just think this is an article that everyone who plans to vote in the 2020 Senate race should read. CH
If you took a shot every time Coach Scott Satterfield mentioned “culture” you would have been drunk for the entire off-season. A lot of people in sports throw that word around, but this feature from Cameron Teague Robinson of the Courier (who’s done well stepping into the UofL FB beat imho) offers the best perspective yet for what exactly that means. GD
On ‘Thru the Night’, Harlow employs Tiller to reach new heights
Gabe Duverge
I don’t remember much Rae Sremmurd said or did at their Louisville Palace show in March 2016.
I recall that it was an all ages show, which meant I couldn’t spend too much on bourbon. I recall that I was among the oldest people there. But most of all, I remember Jack Harlow.
Harlow, then a name I had only heard whispers about, came to the stage as the second of three acts we saw that night. Once he appeared the throng of high school girls (and some boys) bolted to the stage to get up close and personal with Louisville’s own. At the end of the set I filed the curly-haired bespectacled kid into my mind. He was someone to watch.
Three and a half years later, Harlow has more than proven he’s on an upward trajectory. Since that performance he’s released two mixtapes and made his major label debut with Loose last November.
His latest, “Thru the Night”, is the start of a new era. No better way to do so than to add Bryson Tiller to the track. Recruiting Tiller makes it a defacto hometown homage, but the track isn’t quite his version of Kanye West’s “Homecoming.”
Both Harlow and Tiller open a window to their current livelihoods. Harlow searches for meaning through chasing love (or lust.) While Tiller gets raw about starting anew after the disappointment of True to Self his follow up to TRAPSOUL.
The accompanying video is certainly a love letter to Louisville. Filmed at Robben’s Roost, where all of us have taken a lap or two, there are more nods to the Derby City than we can count. None more impactful than skates embossed with “Static Major,” a tip to the 502-born producer whose life was cut far too short.
Harlow and company dropped the track & video on the same day as President Trump’s visit to the Derby City. While the area’s news outlets ran wall-to-wall coverage of the grifter’s day, Harlow was offering something much more real and meaningful to this city’s present and future. He should have been the real top story.
“Thru the Night” is yet another exciting checkpoint on Harlow’s ascent. If you haven’t been paying attention to him so far, then what have you been waiting for?
Outside the Snyder
“The problem isn’t a lack of demand; Montana is cursed with the highest suicide rate in the nation, and it’s higher in this predominantly rural part of the state than in any other region. During the rare times when the unit is up and running, the supply of incoming patients is predictably, and sometimes frantically, consistent. The problem here is staffing. Administrators can’t find anyone to run the place.” This is important. CH
David Remnick. That’s it…that’s the tweet. GD
Steve Politi is, in my opinion, one of the top five active columnists at this very moment. If you’re a fan of good writing or good journalism, you’ll be a fan of this. CH
Louisville fans keep asking “what about Nike” when thinking about the long term implications of the Adidas recruiting scandal. What we all believed to be true was confirmed last week, Adidas wasn’t bidding against themselves for high profile basketball recruits. So how has it responded? According to Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel, by ignoring it. GD
Bill Simmons and Stephen A Smith recorded a podcast together and it’s the best podcast ever made and nothing can ever top it. CH
As soon as it was clear Jay-Z’s deal with the NFL wasn’t quite what it had seemed, I knew that Jemele Hill was going to bring the heat. She delivered. GD
This is the future liberals want. CH
No list of recommendations this week is complete without the New York Times’ 1619 Project. You may have seen controversy surrounding it on Twitter, but it’s truly worth taking the time to actually read a few of the pieces before signing onto criticism. GD
Thanks for reading! Don’t forget to subscribe if you haven’t already. We’ll see ya next week!