In the spirit of the holidays, I was thinking about the Grinch and came to a conclusion-- the Grinch is a hillbilly. Just a guy, living on the mountain, odd hair, strange mannerisms, a pot belly and good dog. Just wants to be left alone. And then the Whoville sprawl starts to inch in and, subdivision by subdivision, he's unwillingly pushed into civilized society with it's noise, decadence and expectations of a white-washed normalcy that doesn't include walking around pantsless on the mountainside. And with his back against the wall, he reacts poorly. So, in the Truckers tradition of writing songs from the point of view of a misunderstood victim of history, here is Decoration Day in the voice of the Grinch:
It's Decoration Day.
And I've got a mind to take a piss on his sleigh.
What would he say?
"Boy, your tinkle just won't keep my jingle away."
It's Decoration Day.
As those bastards below start to sing and to sway
It's driving me slowly insane.
But I'll take a big shit on their fine Christmas Day.
I never knew how it all got started
the size of my shoes or the way I was born
and I don't know the name of that reindeer I found
and beat till he just couldn't fly anymore.
But I know it's cold here on Mt. Crumpit's crest,
as those Whos drink and dance by their fires.
Their noise fills my cave as I try just to rest
with my dog and my still and my will to survive.
The kids all wait for Saint Nick to come by
as I sit with my shine and my gun.
I would shoot his fat ass right out of the sky
and mount Rudolph's rack when I'm done.
Instead I dress all in red just like Santa had wore
and head down to Whoville myself.
I'll clean out their homes from the roof to the floor
and I'll send all their stockings to Hell.
It's Decoration Day
And I've loaded their shit on the back of my sleigh
as the sun rises on Christmas Day.
The Who children will cry as I gallop away.
Cause I ate their Who-pudding and I smoked their Who-hash
and I stole all their presents and I burned all their trees.
When they tear open their shutters and throw up their sash
My green ass is all that they'll see.
It's Decoration Day.
I sit and look down on the damage I've made
And they celebrate in spite of my raid.
But I'll fight till the last Grinch's last Christmas Day.
I'll fight till the last Grinch's last Christmas Day.
So says Jevan Snead about the Golden Tips of Dexter McCluster taking a slip screen to the house while Snead was face down in the turf. Jevan found his talent, and Houston Nutt has rediscovered his magical play-calling silver platter buried under the stack of autographed Sports Illustrated preview issues on his desk. After cursing Houston for leaving it collecting dust for almost an entire year, the Silver Platter of the Sacred Grove screamed "GET THE BALL TO THAT LITTLE BASTARD WITH THE GOLDEN TIPS!"
Tyrone Nix called a masterful mix of blitz packages that kept the happy feet of the 8 Mile stepping and the balls sailing. And as if that weren't enough, Nix snuck into Greg Hardy's dorm room the night before, stole Hardy's Hannah Montana: Best of Both Worlds DVD and then blamed it on Mallett, because as has been pointed out, he looks like a guy who might do such a thing. It adds a whole other level of fear and confusion when the 275 lb future first round draft pick is screaming "GIVE ME BACK MILEY!" as he comes barreling after you (referencing Hardy's quote earlier this week about renting a Miley Cyrus movie...link to come, hopefully).
Next week, Auburn. And what Basil and the rest of the Arkansas fan base will say (when they finally regain their faculties from yesterday), is that this is the classic recipe for a Houston Nutt letdown game. Coming off a great win and thoughtful coaching, the Nutt teams lose focus against lesser opponents and have a hard time maintaining success. I don't know if I'm buying that. Last year, when Jevan's light finally come on, he kept it going for most of the rest of the season. There's no reason to believe our defense has shown any sign of let-up and could actually get better if our offense can start to put up early leads and force opposing teams into more obvious passing situations. Not saying I'm not a little worried about a dropped game next week, Auburn's still an SEC team playing at home. I still have some belief that Gus Malzahn is competent and perhaps genius offensive mind (though he's working with somebody else's parts at the moment). It could very well all come crashing down, but right now, all is right with the world and we're on our way to a mildly satisfying 10-win season. On that note, I give you a beautiful woman singing a badass song. There is probably more football from yesterday to discuss, but the radiance of the Golden Tips prevents me from acknowledging any of it at the moment.
The shine is off and now we find ourselves back where we're most comfortable-- lost in the middle of the SEC pack somewhere behind more established powers, playing the early morning lo-fi undercard and our off-field eccentricities getting the bulk of the media play. Nobody really knows where we fit into the fray, but it's clear we're neither leading the back or bringing up the rear.
It's been said by more than a few of my fellow Ole Miss fans that this game is where we'll find out what we are. The same was said for South Carolina. And Alabama. A win, and we're back on track to a 10 or 9 win campaign, another step forward from last January's high and respectable postseason bid. Lose, and we're back in Shreveport playing $5 blackjack with stretch-marked cocktail waitresses wondering if this is all there is for us and cursing our foolish delusions of grandeur.
The biggest problem anybody has is when you start to believe the things other people say about you, good or bad. An outside voice that lends validity to your own wild fantasy/paranoia can be more an incredibly dangerous thing. We've had both. In a vacuum, all Ole Miss fans always harbor wild hopes of a return to glory and prominence, shedding the weight of the past and rising back to national relevance. In the same soaked corner of your brain is the idea that we're the fuck-up sons in a prominent family, and we should be grateful that our more accomplished relations allow us to sit at their table and share their affiliation. What gets expressed will generally trend toward whatever side of the thought process the outside world lends the most credence to. I feel like that's where the Ole Miss and Arkansas fanbases come together, and it's what makes our shotgun rivalry of Houston Nutt-dom so interesting.
What we both need to realize is that, in the end, we'll be judged on our results and any success we have will be on our own backs. It needs to be a trench warfare mentality. Nobody's got our backs. Nobody really believes in us. Somebody's got to be built up so that they can be torn down, and we're useful for that purpose on occasion. But we're nobody's darlings, and what success we have is our own. Fuck everything else.
Everybody wants to see you fall. That's why they always love to get you high.
The Arkansas defense seems to have taken steps forward and the Ole Miss offense seems to have taken steps back. But what has Arkansas done? They've been steamrolled by Alabama like everybody else. They put up a decent fight against an Auburn offense that has since been shown to be lacking and kicked the bones of the elephant graveyard in the Big 12 against Texas A&M. Even the Florida offense has looked uninspired thus far (though it needs to be noted that the same could be said about Florida at this time last year). Their safeties still suck. Their linebackers are athletic and aggressive but don't possess a great deal of sense or discipline. They live off of blind pressure and a prayer of deep inaccuracy.
Florida lived off the screens for what success they had on offense. Georgia lived off of blindly heaving the ball down the field in hopes that the safeties were out of position. Nobody has combined both approaches, but we've got the tools to do it. Let Grandy, Pat Patterson, Lionel Breaux loose down the damn field and tell Opie to chuck the fucking ball. When you run, run hard, quick and between the tackles. When you throw, throw deep. When Jerry Franklin has a boner through his football pants, screen.
Our defense is nothing short of greasy, swaggering violence second only to Alabama in the SEC. Mallett does not handle pressure, and as Kentrell Lockett has astutely pointed out, he'll generally be right where you think he is. "When you get there, he'll be there." Arkansas has put up numbers against crappy defenses and folded spectacularly when somebody has gotten in their face.
The only outside voice I believe is the blind voice of money. People in Vegas know things. I've learned this the hard way during darker times. And the business community, who has no interest in our hype or deflation outside of cold calculus, still believe we're a decent team playing another decent team on our home field and have apportioned a healthy 6.5 point margin in our favor. This gives me more hope than anything else. Vegas cares not for storylines or student section chants or Heisman fluffer missions. It's a weigh and measure in the true sense of the word.
There was a guy I went to college with who was affectionately known as The Custodian, because he would pick up what others left behind. There was no reason for it. He could stand on his own and hold his weight on the normal market when he was so inclined, but always slipped back into the slop. After a while, he almost preferred it in a weird way.
How did he get there? I'm sure at one point he had a crisis of confidence and resorted to what has now commonly come to be known as a slumpbuster. You justify the step down as a temporary fix in a hard stretch, and then you'll return to your normal standards once times get flush again. But it doesn't always work the same for everybody and every time you go back down the ladder, it gets harder to build up the will to crawl back up. Kind of how Hawaiians developed a taste for SPAM out of necessity, but then kept on eating it. Decades after the shortages of war have ended, they're still confusing it for a delicacy. Now they're standing in an Oahu supermarket with a ribeye in one hand and a tin can of processed meat in the other with a legitimate crisis of indecision. After a while, they quit even picking up the steak and head straight for the comfort and ease of the scrub.
In the case of the Custodian, mix in a natural tendency toward the thickness, and he was screwed with the first hit. So it is with Ole Miss and UAB. We came down a step and took care of business for business's sake. The important thing is not to get to the point where you start to confuse a stopgap for an actual solution. If you're not careful, your whole life can slip into one long slumpbusting session. What happened last night against UAB was fine. We slapped it to watch it roll, and that's all well and good. Just don't start to think it was an actual conquest, and let's jump back up the ladder next week. Speaking of next week:
Let's put one last stamp on the theme started on Friday of war songs for the Arkansas/Florida game...
"I hope you died quick, and I hope you died clean. Oh Basil Shabazz, was it slow and obscene?"
Oh sure, pick on the kicker with the funny name. Or the refs. Or The Divine Tebow. Here's the cold truth for the Hog Nation-- Your defense laid down a valiant performance to keep it close and then you were foiled by poor quarterback play in the clutch and bad special teams...sound familiar? And there wasn't a Dick or Nutt in sight. Last season, Houston took his underdog team into the Swamp under impossible odds, played them close...and came away with a win. Just saying.
Ryan 8 Mile Mallet is a good quarterback, but he got the happy feet once again under pressure and air mailed what should have been touchdowns on at least two occasions. But that's cool, let's pound on the kicker. Though an Arkansas fan did sum up their new quarterback pretty well when he said, "Ryan Mallet looks like a guy who would break into your house and steal your DVDs." Yep. It's going to be a good week on the blog.
Other thoughts:
Auburn/Kentucky- This is really inconvenient from a blogging standpoint. Last week, I developed this whole idea of Gus Malzahn as the wronged genius of Captain Nemo about to go on a tour of a unexpected revenge on the world that did him wrong...then they lose to Arkansas in a game where the offense was average at best (though it might be time to re-examine how we feel about a Hog defense that looks much improved since the Georgia game). Then, this week, they only put up 14 points at home in a loss to Kentucky. It was going to be a great running joke for the season and now, just ruined. The Nautilus had to turn back shortly after leaving port because of an overflowing toilet- it's always the small details that get you. Such a shame. There was so much good blogging that could've been done here, up to and including rewriting the Kirk Douglas "Whale of a Tale" song from the perspective of Houston Nutt.
OU/Texas- At Gameday, several proud Oklahomans displayed a sign saying "Keep Norman Normal." During one night in Austin, I almost broke my leg after falling out of a homemade bunk while making out with a girl dressed (or half dressed) as Maverick from Top Gun. This was in April. This pretty much sums up why I have to support the Horns in this game. In my mind, the state of Oklahoma represents all that is wrong with the disturbing American glorification of mediocrity that seems to have only gained momentum in the past decade. In Austin, you might stumble into weird gender-bending role playing with a classic 80s cinema character before ejecting from a hastily-crafted temporary sleeping surface. And yeah, shit might get weird and you might get hurt, but at least you won't be in Norman hoping the biscuits are fresh at the Shoney's breakfast buffet.
It's a molasses and coffee kind of morning. I don't mean to turn this into a weekly breakfast-drink themed dispatch, but I feel like it's at least worth mentioning. This morning, there's no ceremony and no plan. Last night went longer than it should. It's cold. It's raining, and I got nowhere to be. Today is Basil and the Arkansans' turn to beat the war drums and head into the breach.
"Oh the drop point was dusty and the drill sergeant was loud. And he could not see the corpses for the raging dust cloud. Grab your duffle bags, head to the checkpoint. Welcome to Vietnam, boys. You're in for a hell of a fight. Take it from the ones who know."
I'm going to build off Basil's post from last night, because I think there's some value to the idea of heading into an inevitable fight that you know has a high probability of leaving you mentally and physically damaged. If you gotta go, you might as well hit the ground with a head full of bad intentions, and I feel like that's where the Hogs are at. That being said, in the back of your mind there's always the lingering wish for a death that's just quick and clean. It's an instinct that is almost universal and universally repressed, but it's there-- I just wish they'd kick our ass early and let me get on with my weekend. Then you end up with something that's drawn-out and dirty, but in the end, still defeat.
So is it worth it? If all roads end at the same cliff, why wouldn't you take the easiest, fastest, most direct path?
Even in the darkest days of the Coach O era when disarray and despair reigned, on those game weekends where you strongly consider putting your ticket back in your pocket, pouring another bourbon and watching the game from the Grove...there's a moment. For me, it almost always comes about halfway into the pregame "From Dixie With Love," where you start to believe. No matter the opponent, the circumstances, the odds...we've got a chance. So you take up your ticket, stash some whiskey on your date (there's a term as a student...the three-airline bottle bust line. Most people wouldn't think there'd be any way to place more value on breasts. Most people also haven't seen the glory of Jack Daniels mini-bottles magically appearing from the top of a red dress, either. Praise be.) and join the migration of the faithful into the stadium, and you carry that mustard seed with you. And then there's something, a long pass, a trick play, a turnover...and the mustard seed bursts. You don't just believe, you know, "We're going to beat these bastards."
The Hogs are going to have these moments today. I have no doubt. And no matter what happens, the brilliance of those sparks of faith trumps whatever darkness follows...when you round the last turn before the cliff and think, "Fuck it. This car's going to fly."
The best part about having friends working halfway across the world? Phonecalls at 8:30 AM that start with, “I feel like Elvis.” “Like A Virgin” is blaring in the background. “No, no, I feel like Tom Cruise at the end of Tropic Thunder. I don’t blame him.” Blame him for what? [silence] “God he is a sexy man.” Who? Tom Cruise? “Howard Jones.”
It starts now.
ATTICUS: 9:08 am EST: Is reviving a college tradition from the dark days of Jefferson Pilot 11:30 kickoffs called Dixie and Daquiris. For $3.50 and an extra stamp on his Subway Preferred Customer Card, Pete Boone would have scheduled our games at 6:45 am in Topeka, because he's a soulless used car salesman who hates freedom. You wake up at the ass crack of dawn to the soft, sweet sounds of From Dixie With Love and the cracking of ice in a blender. By the time the drums kick up, you've got a tasty, nutritious liquid breakfast from an old Memphis family daquiri recipe. I know the phrase Memphis Daquiri brings to mind Grip-In-Sip on ice, but it's actually quite tasty and perfected during the dark mornings of my misspent youth. Oh yeah, and for all you turning your nose up at the daquiri-- first of all, fuck you and I hope you get scurvy. Secondly, choking down whiskey before 10 am isn't kosher. Thirdly, this is a pre-emptive attempt at the technique of throwing junk. It's going to be a long day. Make no mistake, I'm not going to make it.
ATTICUS: 10:50 am EST: A few thoughts on Gameday: Herbstreit says Alabama's got more of a finesse offensive line. Nothing up to this point has given me more hope for victory than this. Jerrell Powe's idea of finesse is taking the head off the catfish before eating it whole. A few thoughts on the games today, before I head off into breach:
Arkansas vs. Auburn: Gus Malzahn is the Captain Nemo of Southern college football. There are few things more dangerous than genius betrayed, and Malzahn is about to bring the phosphorescent light of doom to SEC stadiums near you and cares nothing for the collateral damage. Ryan Mallet IS VERY EXCITED TO BE HERE. This is going to look a lot like the UGA/Arkansas shootout earlier in the year and will be the continuation of a Groundhog Day kind of season for the Hogs. Just remember Basil, don't drive angry.
UGA vs. Tennessee: Make no mistake, Lane Kiffin is a bad coach and Tennessee is a bad team. Patrick Willis needs to start a suicide hotline for a superior defensive freaks playing on shitty teams under over-caffeinated regimes. Eric Berry thinks $2.94 a minute is an arbitrary number, but well worth it. Don't worry, Eric. Things will get better. They have to.
LSU vs. Florida: I hate The Miles. He represents the idiocy of today, as Mark Richt has discovered. But walking out of the tunnel into a night game at Tiger Stadium is the equivalent of mainlining a cocktail of Jack Daniels, HGH and The Incredible Hulk's semen and LSU will be ready to gnaw the turnbuckles, George the Animal Steele style, by the time the sun sets tonight.
I'm heading out to the wilderness. God speed and good luck.
BASIL: 11:39 am EST: No one gives us a chance today. I do. I by-damn do. All this lover scorned horseshit, my ass. Malzahn still loves the Arkansas. Would he put a whuppin' on us if he had a chance? Oh, absolutely, but I guarandamntee you that he would much rather beat the fire out of Ole Miss and their two-bit charlatan of a head coach. God I'm nervous. Time to call my Grandad.
BASIL: 11:57 am EST: Adams is out. Not good. Not good at all. Cobi Hamilton, your time is now. On a side note, Visa commercial, folks dancing to Superfreak, Morgan Freeman's velvet cigarette of a voice intones, "Who isn't a little freaky?" Well said, and it has that ring of authenticity coming from someone married to his step-granddaughter.
BASIL: 12:15 am EST: This is who we are. Great offensively and as long as the defense holds, pretty damn salty. Key clause in that sentence: the second one. And absolutely awful on special teams. Houston Nutt is no longer there, gypsy lady who James Shibest spat on! You can lift the curse! For the love of God, lift the curse! Long, long way to go. Wouldn't it be great if Broderick Green came to play today?
BASIL: 12:30 am EST: Friend of the Blog McBride writes in, "What kind of bizarro world is this? Who is playing defense for us now?" Elton Ford is. That was a perfect little half bump on Trott on that third down play. Play of a veteran. A veteran sophomore.
ATTICUS: 12:30 am EST: The Arkansas safeties play like the token girl right fielder in coed beer league softball.
BASIL: 12:45 am EST: Good quarter. Lofty quarter. The beer is going down a lot easier than I thought it would. Of course its the Thumper. Going to be an expensive good luck charm should we win today. I mention to the wife, "I'm not trying to get drunk today." She quickly fires back, "yeah, but it doesn't look like you're not trying to not get drunk today either."
BASIL: 12:58 am EST: I love having Lucas Miller back. He catches absolutely everything.
BASIL: 1:02 pm EST: MICHAEL MOTHERFUCKING SMITH. Nice to see you again, sir. I'm so pumped up I may headbutt my dog. She's lookin' at me like she's up for it.
ATTICUS: 1:02 pm EST: The Pizza Hut wings, "bone in, bone out" commercials are only going to get funnier as the day goes on.
BASIL: 1:06 pm EST: Who is this and what have they done with my Arkansas Razorbacks?
LEFTY: 1:07 pm EST: Auburn is playing like the West Cannon Coyettes after a Jonathan Moxon all night drinking party.
BASIL: 1:13 pm EST: Knock me over with a feather: "Vincent 'Bo' Jackson: Philanthropist/CEO".
ATTICUS: 1:20 pm EST: Done and done. Thou shalt not fuck with Bo.
BASIL: 1:21 pm EST: Michael Smith is honoring Bo right now.
ATTICUS: 1:26 pm EST: Michael Smith. Best running back in the SEC. Discuss.
BASIL: 1:35 pm EST: One of the best halves I've ever seen us play. When we really get rolling, and I'm well aware of the magnitude of this comparison, the feeling is a lot like Rollin' with Nolan. Great offense lining up opposite us and long way to go, but that was a great half of football.
ATTICUS: 1:37 pm EST: If you're not watching the MSU-Houston game, you should. As the sorority girls know, you're going to get fun before you get good. MSU is just starting to get fun.
LEFTY: 1:40 pm EST: The crawl just said the ESPN crawl that if Tebow "passes" a medical test he plays today. The fact the word passes is in quotes makes me think they are going to check and see if he has two arms and two legs and send him onto the field.
BASIL: 1:55 pm EST: McBride weighs in: No comparisons to Nolan until we are playing for something of significance. Fair, fair point right there. Further reinforcing our technological bassackwardness, yes, I'm typing in comments that could go in the comments section. It's now graduated to blogging for inbreds. Second half here we go.
ATTICUS: 1:56 pm EST: Watching the Nebraska highlights, the SEC really needs to tap the Samoan talent pool.
I mean he got a weight problem. What's a lawya gonna do? He's Samoan.
BASIL: 2:09 pm EST: [Tate fumble inside the 5][not going to say anything not going to say anything not going to say anything no jinx no jinx no jinx]
BASIL: 2:22 pm EST: Atticus makes the point in a sidebar that it boggles the mind why Auburn isn't taking more shots deep. I agree. The problem for our defense has not been wars of attrition, which it appears Auburn wants to wage. The problem has been bombs down the field.
BASIL: 2:32 pm EST: There it is. Always a big play. Damn it. Wife chips in, "what do they get little things on the back of their helmet for?" My reply, "not sucking."
LEFTY: 2:39 pm EST: Rewatch the Jonathan Crompton pick 6. He injured a girl in the endzone after the touchdown. Crompton grabed a metal staircase and shook it with two women on it. Coach O must be rubbing off on him in football ability and Hulk like mood swings.
BASIL: 2:40 pm EST: There's our defense! So nice to see you guys again! FUCK
BASIL: 2:55 pm EST: Lefty thinks Auburn is not Moxon post-bender, just moody. True. I think that we just took the ball down the field and scored with a true freshman at RB. We're a different animal now. Way more depth than I can ever remember us having. Yes, I remember when McFadden, Jones, Hillis and Smith were there together. But for those that bring that up, remember that Michael Smith never really seemed ready to play. Lots of fumbles, general dislike from the fanbase. Everybody's ready to play, everybody can contribute. We may let Auburn continue to get right back in this, but that possession was the sign of a halfway decent football team.
BASIL: 3:14 pm EST: Up 21, 4 minutes to go, things look good. Should we close this out, interesting to see where we are in the national conversation given that Auburn was apparently the second coming 2004 before today. Georgia is doing us no favors in Knoxville.
LEFTY: 3:20 pm EST: There is a large number of Florida fans on the street car as I head downtown to watch the game. Let's just say that Southern hospitality is no in play in New Orleans today. More like drunken anger.
BASIL: 3:24 pm EST: Ballgame. And now a little food for thought for the afternoon. Hey Kevin Strickland, how the fuck that crow taste?
"When the guns stop blazing on Saturday, Auburn will holster its pistol, wipe its brow, and take a long swig from the 6-0 flask."
That is so cute. It's like, masculine, because it talks about drinking and shooting guns. You know, guy shit. Too bad you don't know one fucking thing about football. Knowing a little bit about football? Also guy shit.
BASIL: 3:39 pm EST: Kevin, buddy, the 6-0 flask, what exactly does it look like? For a guy like you, I bet it has a little embroidered "whiskey" on it, maybe with a cute little "xx", 'cause that stuff is potent! Pay attention to the chorus, bitch.
ATTICUS: 3:39 pm EST: In the interest of self-preservation and wanting to live to primetime, there is a self imposed brown liquor embargo till halftime...
BASIL: 3:43 pm EST: Jevan Snead does not approve and will do his damnedest to see you break that.
LEFTY: 4:08 pm EST: The only good thing I can say so far is the CBS jv broadcast team is much better than the old JP jv broadcast team when they would have a double header once every season.
BASIL: 4:09 pm EST: Easy. As an expert on such things, in the early going, it appears to me you might have the makings of a Houston Nutt game. Dodging a bullet on that 3rd and goal. Classic Nutt. If you all keep hanging around, watch out.
BASIL: 4:31 pm EST: The Ole Miss boys are a little quiet, as they're in a tense, tight affair. I see the beginnings of Houston Nutt game. Telltale signs?
ATTICUS: 4:31 pm EST: I don't know how to feel. Our defense is pissing excellence and our offense is passing a kidney stone.
BASIL: 4:48 pm EST: As the commentary slows, and hey, nice stand by the Rebels down inside the 10 AGAIN, a little about what I'm doing as I watch the game. David Chang of Momofuku in NYC is probably my favorite chef in the US. I fucking love everything about his restaurants, his philosophy, all of it. He has a cookbook coming out and I'm cooking my first recipe of his. How awesome is David Chang?
LEFTY: 5:00 pm EST: I am convinced some girl mind fucked Jevan.
ATTICUS: 5:40pm EST: Brown liquor poured. God have mercy on my soul.
LEFTY: 5:45 pm EST: C'mon, Jevan. You beautiful man. Don't let those sorority girls mindfuck you.
ATTICUS: 5:53pm EST: It's in God's hands now.
LEFTY: 6:03 pm EST: We are cursed. We truly are.
LEFTY: 6:30 pm EST: When does baseball season start?
ATTICUS: 6:54 pm EST: Never have so many owed so much to so few. The only reason we have any hope or pride left is the defense.
ATTICUS: 7:24 pm EST: They are advertising the best of the Dean Martin show on tv... I'm buying... there is nothing else left to believe in.
BASIL: 7:45 pm EST: Darkness falls...
LEFTY: 7:55 pm EST: Went to go meet my New Orleans friends. They are sitting outside a bar with a sign that says "you honk, we drink". The LSU game should be fun.
ATTICUS: 8:27 pm EST: I've lost the ability of clever
BASIL: 9:28 pm EST: I'm basking. Good game on, but I'm just surfing Auburn blogs. Some jackleg on bleacher report actually wrote that it was a game Auburn should have won. So true. So many times, I've watched the Hogs lose a game by 21 points and think, "man, we just let that one go right through our fingers." Grow up, Teagles. You got your ass kicked.
Meanwhile, if you see Atticus out in DC, help a brother out. Actual text from a few minutes ago: "Lsu is a good team. They rise above their weaknessews and compete on a nstional level. Fuck me." My advice to him: "You grab the closest willing woman and you kiss her on the mouth! Buck up!"
There are two scenes that might depict how Mark Richt could have handled the results of the UGA/LSU game and both of them are found in the last three minutes of Burn After Reading (admittedly, a disappointingly mediocre film, but the final scene is brilliant).
Richt is a superior coaching mind who makes the most of his resources with well-designed gameplans, motivational tactics and by all accounts, is a genuinely decent human being in a profession that almost demands asshole bravado and OCD personality usually found in top-level chefs and cavalry officers. So, coming off a series of seasons ending up inches short of real glory, Richt has taken a comparatively weak talent pool and made them into a surprisingly competent force by putting what resources he has in the optimal position to produce. So it came to pass that Joe Cox lobbed a jump ball to AJ Green on what should have been the finishing touch on a masterfully planned and executed strategy against an athletically superior, highly ranked opponent. Then, a more than questionable celebration penalty gives LSU field position to set them up for an abbreviated comeback march.
Despite past talented teams built after taking over a proud program in a rut and said good nature and diligent planning, Richt has not managed to get over the hump for a national championship. Whereas Les Miles, the brash doofus with the high hat, falls balls first into a ready-made program at its peak and, despite calling plays like a whiskey-drunk frat boy playing a South Koren pre-teen on Xbox Live at 3 in the morning, manages a national championship in a season where he didn’t even win his own division.
The Hatchet Option Mark Richt: I know you. You're the guy from the gym. Les Miles: I'm not here representing HardBodies. Mark Richt: Oh, yes. I know very well what you represent. [pause] Mark Richt: You represent the idiocy of today. Les Miles: No, I don't represent that either. Mark Richt: Oh, yes. You see, you're one of the morons I've been fighting my whole life. My whole fucking life. But guess what... Today, I win.
No one could blame Richt, and in the Les Miles death pool, the odds of “Maniacal Hatchet Attack” are probably better than anybody since Custer. More likely, though, he’d opt for the defeatist sit down and search for meaning.
The Search For Meaning Option Richt: What did we learn, Mike? Bobo: I don't know, sir. Richt: I don't fuckin' know either. I guess we learned not to do it again. Bobo: Yes, sir. Richt: I'm fucked if I know what we did. Bobo: Yes, sir, it's, uh, hard to say Richt: Jesus Fucking Christ.
Les Miles has a lucky horseshoe implanted in his colon. There’s really no other explanation for it. LSU fans are enjoying it, as well they should. It’s the college football fandom equivalent of having a drunken, dancing bear in your living room tethered to a coffee table with a piece of twine.
Eventually, Miles is going to pass that horseshoe in a scene so horrific that it will turn Skip Bertman Catholic. Because afterward, he will have no choice but to admit that Satan is very real.
Speaking of Catholic, the Washington Huskies WR targeted on the last play of the game was the victim of one of the sickest hits on a football field not to end in a compound fracture and a Lawrence Taylor cocaine-fueled war cry. Jake Locker envies him, because Locker will actually remember watching Jimmy Clausen doing a celebratory song in a gentle sway while a man slips into a Days Of Our Lives coma on the 2-yard line.
Tennessee fans are now learning the lesson the CIA Officer at the end of Burn After Reading didn’t grasp—the wide-eyed delusional generally ends up getting capped between the eyes in a closet. This may well be the fate of the Lane Kiffin era.
As Basil recounts, the Razorbacks took care of Texas A&M in the Jerry Dome in satisfactory fashion. However, the Big 12 is home to a collection of impotent formerly-proud powers not seen outside of the Mediterranean, and I don’t think it gets talked about nearly enough. It’s an elephant graveyard and Oklahoma and Texas get credit for kicking around bones in the dust.
The smell of musk and deception. Heel marks on the roof-line. Bad music on the stereo. All the seats in recline.
It was the same party, more or less, every year. The same drunks would show up, tell the same stories and the same jokes. Argue about the same things. Somebody would fight, but nothing more than an drunken, groping tumble to the floor. Lazy attempts at punches that burn out quickly and broken-up easily to half-hearted protests. The same lightweights would drink too much, too early and end up puking in the bushes. They’d pass out on the couch, get defaced with a magic marker, and weakly (but sincerely) apologize the next morning. Of course, the apology is accepted. You can’t stay angry at a guy when he’s got a large cock drawn down his cheek.
There would always be girls, but girls of a non-threatening caliber. Interesting enough to make you sit up straight and perhaps take a shot to calm the butterflies before you start in with the familiar pitch, the familiar tease and the familiar range of results. Maybe a shared cigarette and some PG-rated affection next to the Natty Light Keg, something a little more PG-13 in an out of the way corner or, if stars really align, a trip back to your room where you hope against hope that none of your roommates have raided your stash of condoms.
The morning would come with sunlight reflecting off the beer cans strewn in the yard and a house in disarray, but not disrepair. A pain in your head and a little weakness in the knees, but nothing some Gatorade and asprin can’t fix (or Pedialyte and Midol if the brown liquor pour was a little strong). Maybe the girl in your bed is a little more of a 6 in the light than the 7.5 you remembered from the dark, but she’s pleasant enough. More importantly, she’s pulling on her jeans and getting ready to go home. Maybe you pick up a McGriddles or two after you drop her off. Mmm. McGriddles.
It wasn’t exciting, but it was familiar and expected. It was comfortable. It’s not until you’re uncomfortable that you realize how overrated exciting can be.
Because this year, shit got uncomfortable. A bunch of high-flying carpetbaggers showed up, and the party spiraled out of hand. At first, it was exciting to have some new blood and a bigger crowd. The Polls, AP and Coach, showed up with some exciting new drugs, strange colors and weird highs. Phil, though a bit of a dork, brought some exciting new stories to the conversations and kept feeding Jager shots to anybody within arm’s length. SI was slick and old-school like the Dos Equis World’s Most Interesting Man and brought an exciting feeling of legitimacy. Some dude who called himself “World Wide” and his buddy Kirk busted in like a hurricane of lights and noise. And Kirk brought some girls that were, well, exciting.
Maybe too exciting. The girls that exert the gravitational force of exceptional beauty that brings on the paralyzing paranoia of being suddenly out of place (even in a familiar setting) that drives you to the bottom of the fifth. Worse than that, they bring on a distorted reality of what’s possible. You give up the dark-aided 7.5s that were previously satisfactory and join the slobbering, self-conscious hordes chasing the unhealthy high.
SI’s cool elegance of experience quickly deteriorated into mindless, repetitious babble. In the span of a few scotches, he went from respected elder to fucking creepy old dude who pissed himself on the couch. Kirk did bring the girls and then proceeded to have dirty, R. Kelly-style sex with every one of them on every padded surface in every room of the house.
AP: Dude, this place is destroyed. I think the only thing left to drink in his joint is Apple Pucker.
(Def Leopard starts blaring from the next room)
AP: Nevermind. Coach just took his shirt off, jumped on the coffee table and poured the whole bottle over his head.
COACH: (swinging his shirt and touching himself inappropriately): YEAH, BRO! STICKY SWEET!
AP: Well, nothing left to do now but take a shit in the shower and sketch out somewhere else.
ATTICUS: Wait, what? The shower?
AP: Yeah man, that dude Yancey is passed out, head first in the toilet. I think he might have Hendrix’d. I would check his pulse, but you know, plausible deniability and all that.
ATTICUS(pale and sweaty and fighting what feels like the beginning of a bad trip): What the fuck is that smell?
AP: What? No, I said I was going to shit. I haven’t yet. You alright, man? You don’t look so good.
ATTICUS(follows the smell into the kitchen): Jesus. Who put a condom in the toaster?
PHIL: Kirk told me if you warm it up first, it makes it more pleasurable, you know, for the chick.
AP: What chicks? All the ones SI didn’t creep off are locked in one of the rooms with Kirk..
ATTICUS: Which room? I sleep back there.
AP: I don’t know. Whichever one the “Ignition” re-mix is blaring out of.
WORLD WIDE (walks into the kitchen): Well, boys, it’s been fun, but this place is played. I just got a text that there’s a deal over at Bama’s house that’s just raging– like they used to do back in the old days. Y’all in?
AP: Yeah, let me hit the bathroom real quick. Then, I’ll grab Coach and we’ll be good to go. Where is Coach?
WORLD WIDE: Last I saw, he was rubbing one out in the recliner.
AP: Best just to let him finish.
PHIL: Do you think they have a toaster over there?
AP: Hey, Atticus, you need to come with us. Get out of this fucking Hell hole.
ATTICUS: I think I can feel my kidneys bleeding.
WORLD WIDE: Yeah, I know the feeling, man. But you really should bail with us. I donkey punched a hooker earlier, and you don’t want to still be around when she comes to.
ATTICUS: Donkey punch?
WORLD WIDE: Half way through I realized I didn’t have any cash. Seemed easier this way.
KIRK(struts in shirtless, humming to himself): Man, that’s a mess back there. Smells like Corso’s trailer. Atticus, let’s roll out of here, man. I hear shit is hoppin’ over in Gainesville.
WORLD WIDE: We just got back from Gainesville.
PHIL: I say we go to Boise.
AP: You would. Dork.
KIRK: I do hear they’ve got some thick girls there, though.
ATTICUS: You don’t understand. I live here. I’ve got nowhere else to go.
What is number 4? Just a taller ledge to fall from.
A small town coverboy quarterback with a modest approach to his newfound fame. A veteran coach with a history of steady success, but still searching for a defining achievement to fill out his legacy. A promising would-be king assistant coach with an alumni pedigree. Odd, home-grown musicaltributes with a cult following. A lazy national press stroking high expectations on little more than what can be found in the first 10 pages of a media guide-- returning starters, an home-heavy schedule without any big names and a pleasant pre-packaged narrative around a coach and quarterback. Around the forbidden pleasures of contraband beer in the Grove, there are even casual whispers of a young basketball phenom who might open a second front in an all-out Rebel assault on the national sports scene. It’s 1970 and the Rebels are finally going to rise again. Of course they are. Look, even the slick Yankee media types think so.
On October 12, 1970, William F. Reed sang the refrain of the first verse of the Manning legend for Sports Illustrated. In it, he retells a story about a guy in Tupelo who was about to jump off a bridge.
“Wait,” said a friend. “Think about your family and your religion.”
“Don’t have any family,” the jumper said. “And I don’t believe in religion.”
“Well,” said his friend desperately. “Then think about Archie.”
“Archie who?”
“Jump, you S.O.B. Jump.”
Even if he doesn’t jump, the story ends well before a four-count. If the intervention on the bridge is success, the missionary friend no doubt will go on to indoctrinate our jumper into the legend of Archie and the glory of Ole Miss. The convert, now fully stocked with both Archie and religion all in one neat, focused package marked “reasons to live,” will go onto witness what is, by now, four decades of heartburn no sweaty hangover can produce. Archie breaks his arm on the Astro-Turf of Hemmingway stadium. Johnny Vaught suffers a heart attack. And after but a short 4 month reprieve, our jumper finds himself back on the bridge in Tupelo. Only this time, he’s got to fight for space on the guardrail with his missionary and the other converts.
Ole Miss is destined to lose. We’re a fanbase living through a cruel curse of false idol, looking only for comfort inside a red cup. The sports gods will crush the bones and squeeze the hearts of our saviors to punish us for daring to consider success. Abandon hope and spare yourself the pain of the letdown.
Of course, this is all little more than Mormon archeology; backing up your preconceived beliefs with a shotgun marriage of past and present. Even so, I’ve been confusing the Mayans with the Israelites since the final whistle blew in Dallas in January. It’s a self-defense mechanism to temper against the off-season’s extrapolation of hype. It’s a shitty way to live, it’s a backwards-ass way to tell a story and the time for temperance is over.
A flipped coin lands on heads 100 times in a row. On the 101th flip, the chances of heads versus tails is exactly the same as on the first, because what happened before has absolutely no bearing on what happens now. And as Ole Miss football spins in the air for the 116th time, how it comes down has nothing to with what came before, despite the desperate need for context of those of us looking-on. The outcome of the 1970 Rebels has as much to do with our season this year as the 1987 Kent State Schockers or the 1956 Austrailian National Cricket Team.
Houston Nutt and Johnny Vaught have about as much in common as half-crazed weasels and the burlap sack they came in. Jevan Snead ain’t Archie Manning any more than the other current 100 players bear similarities to their positional counterparts. If only there was another part-time stationary designer defensive end with the power of flight (and the power to move you) that has somehow gone overlooked in Ole Miss lore. And what this contrived history leaves out is that before either the heart attack or the broken golden arm, Ole Miss lost to Southern Miss due to a twist of fate no more sinister than they simply didn’t play well that day, which leaves open the heretical possibility that even with Manning and Vaught at full capacity, the team might not have been all that good to begin with.
That’s certainly not to say that we can’t learn anything from the past. When the freshman from Carrolton, Texas with the Neilson’s tags still dangling from his Nantucket red dress pants pulls over his Tahoe to tell me to come off the bridge and grab a Nutt Rag because The South Will Rise Again, I’ll still step back from the edge. It won’t be to follow young Kingsley to the Right Reverand's Revival tent, but to find a taller launching point.
Because I know what Kingsley hasn’t figured out yet in his 11 months of Rebel religion—Butch Cassidy was wrong. It isn’t the fall that kills you. It’s the impact. The fall is actually the fun part, especially when you've waited this long to climb this high. Know that it’s coming, then instantly forget it and enjoy the ride as long as it goes with no expectations otherwise. Face to the sky, spread wide and eyes wide open, enjoying the view. So far, Memphis and Southeastern Louisiana have blown past like ugly couples having sex in an 82nd floor apartment. Not much to look at, but in the end, little more than benign mileage markers on what is sure to be a long, strange journey that will last as long as there’s still wind rushing by. Oh look, somebody lost a visor...
"Jump back down to the rooftops, look out over the town. Think about all those strange things circling round."
Neither Notre Dame nor Michigan is really all that good. Seriously. I watched it. Was it good football game? No. It was a close football game. There’s a difference. Those two teams are pretty evenly matched and that has to be scary for alums of both. At some point early on, a stat flashed by showing that on average, ND’s O-line outweighed Michigan’s D-line by a large margin, at least 60 pounds. So if you’re Michigan, who seemed to start most plays directly in front of Jimmy Clausen, what do you take from this? You’re really that badass? Maybe so, but I didn’t see it. Tate Forcier; let’s see you in a year. That kid has some moxie. Still, pulling it down and taking off on a play early in the first half, it was clear that he’s still learning what he can and cannot get away with at the college level. He was caught from behind and dropped for a loss. Expect a whole lot more of that in conference play.
What the sam hell is going on at Georgia? They’re supposed to be at the point where they don’t rebuild; they reload. As a Hog fan, I have no idea what to expect next weekend. Oklahoma State handled them. I mean, handled them, like a Hell’s Angel deals with a drunk frat boy. And the Cowboys lose to Houston? As someone who saw many a Southwest Conference game up close and personal, let me assure you, Houston’s football tradition is not rich. Andre Ware, David Klingler and… (if you want to see team love at its finest, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_Cougars_football; highlight: “Dissolution, Disappointment, Renovation - The Helton Era”) Oklahoma State was basically playing for the national title game. If they win out, which was by no means impossible given their talent, they’re the sacrificial lamb that Tebow has demanded. You can come to me with your letdown, “hard to get up for this game” hoosafudge, blah blah blah, your coach is a man! He’s 40! And by God, he cannot seem to put together a season in which he does not shit the bed at least once! This year it happened early! But I don’t give damn about Eskimo Joe’s; what does this say about the Dawgs? The Cocks scored 30 more points on Georgia than they did on NC State. Once again, as a resident of the Triangle, let me assure you, NC State is a miserable football team. Of course, Arkansas being Arkansas, we’re doomed next week. That could be when UGA puts all together, but they sure as shit haven’t so far.
Lane Kiffin:Asshole, no. In fact, pussy. Wow. 4th and goal from the 2. Hey, if we can’t make two yards on the ground, then we don’t deserve to win. Well sir, the football Gods agreed, because you got beat by a UCLA team that is not all that good at Neyland. These are the types of playcalls that drive me insane. Yes, if you put the ball in the air three things can happen and two of them are bad, but what a gutless call as a coach. Run it. It’s on ya’ll. No, I don’t really know of a play that would beat their defense from this spot, even though it’s two yards and any type of quick hitter has a better than 50% shot of working. And UT fans, the cupboard ain’t bare. I’ve bled Razorback Red since birth; trust me, I’ve seen teams without talent. Further, look to your own staff. Orgeron stockpiled talent at Ole Miss and lost like a son of a bitch. Talent will not make your coach grow some balls or a brain. What a spectacle, though. His dad is making that defense in to something unholy. It was almost like Kiffykins was happy to blow it by the goal line just to turn it over to Monte and Eric Berry to pull this thing out. For the train wreck enthusiasts out there, may I put in an early word for the Tennessee Volunteers, 2009 edition.
Joy! And Pain! Sunshine! And Rain! Pain is watching Damian Williams trot out as a captain for USC and call the coin toss. Pain is watching the starting lineups scroll by and seeing, “WR- Damian Williams, Springdale, Arkansas”. Pain is hearing Kirk Herbstreit say that Williams was an afterthought when he transferred to USC along with Mitch Mustain. Joy? Joy is when you start explaining to your wife that Matt Barkley is a lot like Mitch Mustain was at Arkansas, a young quarterback making his way in the world. You then tell your wife, “and Mustain was undefeated as a college quarterback.” She pauses, takes a sip of wine, and questions Mustain’s sexuality. Joy personified.
Bye week. My fellow Brothers of the Caine have a lot more to play for this year, being the trendy dark horse National Title contenders. For the Hawgs, the early bye was probably a good thing, giving us more time to prepare for the most important game of our season. If we win this one, off we go; a loss and we’re scrapping and clawing the rest of the way.The Rebels, though, they’ve got a long road to that Georgia Dome, and not exactly an ideal situation in regard to depth. The piper plays his song and we all dance to his tune, but that piper, he’s a real son of bitch, and so help me, he will get his due. The piper looks a lot like Omar Little. Come week 11, the training rooms in Oxford and Fayetteville may well ring with some crazy ass mofo whistling the “Farmer in the Dell”.
Sit in the dark with the spasm of the lights across your face. It’s not white, it’s just empty of color. Dirty and jumpy. You can’t tell how long since the regularly-scheduled broadcasting has ended. Then you realize that the nonsense disruption of the late night is not all that different from the nonsense disruption of the waking hours. At least this is naked, honest nonsense, without pretense otherwise.
You know the fan is spinning above you in the dark, disturbing the air just enough to prove that it’s turning, but not enough to do any good in the fight against the staleness. Yet, despite the cynical proof of life simply for life’s sake exhibited by the blades, something stirs.
The leather of the chair has slowly worn and given way to an increasing composition of ad hoc duct tape attempting to contain what’s left of the padding. Both tape and hide cling as you lean to grab the round stem of the square bottle on the floor with Zevon’s words rolling in your head, shouting down the buzz from the television. The bottle is brought to bear, a swallow to fuel the fuzz from within and the bottle to fight the fuzz from without.
“I’d rather feel bad. I’d rather feel bad. I’d rather feel bad, than not feel anything at all.”
Glass on glass is a clean kind of violence; the violence of the fragile rage. Rise and stride past the bottle embedded in the screen. The room smells of well-used whiskey and fresh ozone, like a lighting strike at Tiger stadium in the darkness after a game. You’ve suffered the external fuzz long enough. It’s time to create a little nonsense of your own.
The Sons of Caine is once again open for business.
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