Locally Notable

Bullish on the Bulls

Five or six years ago I bought a Durham Bulls cap in the team store and it’s still my favorite hat. My wife, daughter, mother and I went to a game a couple of weeks ago and I had to go see what I could see in the team store again. I wanted to walk out of there with everything, and I don’t even really like baseball that much. I managed to hold myself to just a hat for my daughter, but there’s no denying the Bulls are doing something right with their product:

MiLB started keeping sales stats of its 160 teams back in 1993. Since then, the Bulls have ranked in the top 25 in merchandise sales each of those 22 seasons, while the Mudcats ranked 17 times.

Same thing goes for the Carolina Mudcats down the road in Zebulon (albeit on a smaller scale).

There may not be a big market here for an MLB franchise, but I love what we have with the Bulls and the product seems to get better every year. If you haven’t been to a Bulls game yet this year, make sure you check ’em out. They play 21 home games in August, so you’ll have plenty of chances to catch them.

P.S. And if you like a frosty beverage every now and then, make sure you check out the beer that’s brewed in house and served using the bottoms up filling system. You’ll even get a souvenir magnet as a reward for drinking it up.

Audible

Let the Music Surprise You

We can certainly dive into a debate about the financial and artistic merits of streaming music, but I am absolutely, unequivocally sold on its merits for how I listen to music. There’s an ephemeral quality to anything, anytime that, in some ways, promotes a shallow knowledge of a particular artist or genre. But I certainly dive much deeper into an artist’s body of work now that I can in an economical way and I love it.

This morning, a friend of mine sent me this screenshot along with the text, “This is good in a Shovels and Rope kind of way”. I stopped what I was doing and pulled it up. I never would have guessed (and nor does it matter), that I was listening to Rob Schneider’s daughter. Though I didn’t recognize Elle King as someone I’d heard of before, she’s more of a household name than my podcast and playlist habits allow me to recognize. I listened to Love Stuff on repeat for the rest of the work day. After a day of listening, my favorite tracks are “Ex’s & Oh’s”, “Under the Influence”, “Kocaine Karolina”, and “American’s Sweetheart”. I have a feeling, though, that this is one of those albums that will have a revolving door of favorite tracks when it’s all said and done with me.

Later this evening, NPR Music caught my attention with this tweet, simultaneously catering to the music of my youth (R&B) and of my present (folk-country, americana). Another artist I’ve never heard of but probably should have, Night Beds has a new album, Ivywild coming out in August. I listened to the two tracks available in Apple Music and I was hooked, so I dug a little deeper. I’m three or four rotations in on Country Sleep, so I think I found another keeper.

Short Cuts

Go Write a Classic

Although he’s certainly not alone in questioning the provenance of Harper Lee’s sequel written before the prequel, Go Set a Watchman, I like Adam Gopnik’s take the most out of all I’ve read so far. It’s tough, but if I had to pick a favorite passage from his piece in The New Yorker, it’s this (emphasis mine):

It is, I suppose, possible that Lee wrote it as we have it, and that her ingenious editor, setting an all-time record for editorial ingenuity, saw in a few paragraphs referring to the trial of a young black man the material for a masterpiece. But it would not be surprising if this novel turns out to be a revised version of an early draft, returned to later, with an eye to writing the “race novel” that elsewhere Harper Lee has mentioned as an ambition.

To Kill a Mockingbird is one of my all time favorite books (I know, very original), so the paint on the pre-order button barely had time to dry before I was one-clicking Go Set a Watchman into my future life. That future is now here and I don’t care how it might change my opinion of Atticus, I’m excited about checking in on the characters that Harper Lee so masterfully crafted.

Quoted

Distraction

“At painful times, when composition is impossible and reading is not enough, grammars and dictionaries are excellent for distraction.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning
TIDNTKIL

TIDNTKIL: Iced Coffee Lemonade

As if I needed another reason and way to enjoy coffee, Sprudge goes out and discovers this incredible sounding iced coffee lemonade. Thankfully, staff writer Anna Brones, did our dirty work for us by working out a recipe for the heir to the iced tea lemonade throne.

Since consuming this drink, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. So I did what any rational person would do: I made my own version. While the original wasn’t fizzy, I do like the extra kick of tonic water, but you can also make it without. And for some extra lemon action, I made the simple syrup infused with lemon zest. You can also get extra fancy and use coffee ice cubes. Because, coffee ice cubes. Enough said.

New summer standard, no question.

Brief

Beericana: Craft Beers, Food Trucks, Music and More

Last year, I attended a beer festival for the first time, eschewing the perennial downtown festivals for an upstart festival held on farmland recently converted into an open-field park. My selectiveness paid off big time. Now it’s time, once again, to order tickets for this year’s Beericana. I can’t recommend this festival highly enough. If you enjoy live music, beer, food trucks and yard games – or just any one of those things – you’re going to love Beericana. Get your tickets starting tomorrow at 10am.

Quoted

Quit

“It’s pretty tough to quit something no one knows you do.”

— Nate Bargatze
Short Cuts

N&O: Ashley Christensen to open pizza joint in downtown Raleigh ↬

No target opening date yet, but it has a name: PooleSide Pie, apropos to its location next to Christensen’s flagship restaurant, Poole’s Diner.

“I’m super excited about it,” Christensen wrote in an email. “Much like coffee, I think there’s lots of room for great pizza of varying styles in downtown. I predict that you’ll see a number of unique spots to pop up in the next couple of years. The idea of that makes me very happy.”

I can’t wait.

O&F
Locally Notable

Sprudge: Gray Squirrel Coffee In Carrboro, NC ↬

Sprudge, as part of their Build-Outs of Summer series, profiles Gray Squirrel Coffee in Carrboro, NC:

At just 250 square feet, this space is small, but like the squirrel species, it contains multitudes. Top-of-the-line gear? This place boasts kit you’d be impressed by in a shop 5 times its size. An interesting hook? This coffee bar exists inside a hip local brewery. The team at Gray Squirrel have created something that punches above its weight class, something capable of showing unexpected grace and dexterity, smaller than the larger mammals surrounding it but wholly its own, a being perfectly adapted to its environs…not unlike the humble squirrel from which it takes its name.

O&F