Convenient Myth of Pre-Destination, Egg Bowls and Thanksgiving

I wasn't born into this. As much as I play up my Ole Miss fandom as being some inevitable hereditary curse like Sickle Cell Anemia or clubbed feet, it's not the truth. Yes, both my parents and a considerable portion of various other wings of my family went to Ole Miss, but there are plenty more that attended college elsewhere (or not at all).

Joe Lee Dunn, Pregnant since 1994.

And yes, I lived with Ole Miss sports for 18 years of my life when I came to the point where it was time to make a decision about whether to re-buy in. Maybe my earliest Ole Miss memory was huddled around a Liberty Bowl bathroom heater with the rest of the frostbitten masses on New Years Eve 1992 listening to Billy Brewer, then-defensive genius Joe Lee Dunn (barely into his first trimester of a still-continuing male pregnancy) and Cassius Ware stumble through a 13-0 victory over Air Force. I made a "Cassius B-Ware" sign to hold that was discarded because it meant removing the shivering hands from my jacket.

In the previous year, Ole Miss had jumped to its first New Years Day bowl since 1970...and gotten absolutely destroyed by Michigan. The recruiting spree that brought in much of the talent responsible for that modest-by-national-standards success (including Cassius Ware) would, just two years later, land Ole Miss the harshest NCAA penalties since SMU got the chair. Chucky Mullins died and Brewer was fired. The next generation of the Manning legacy was derailed when Cooper's career ended with a spinal chord condition and Peyton decided national success on Rocky Top was more appealing than toiling away in non-televised obscurity.

I knew all this when it came time to decide whether to continue riding this roller coaster with Ole Miss as a choice for college, or take the one last legitimate road toward true fandom by throwing in with another alma mater with a higher ceiling and a lower trough. Or even choosing not to care at all. But, in the end, I doubled down on my home state and previous experience with four years in Oxford.

It's been a long season. There's only so many different ways to say losing sucks, so let's get all semi-seasonal and talk about the good things; the moments and people that, when remembered, reaffirm my commitment to the Rebels and move along from sport-to-sport, season-to-season.

Deuce McAllister running. People who only know him from his time as a Saint, sadly only think of Deuce as a bruising, hunched workhorse. But before he got beefed up and worn down in the NFL, Deuce was much less workhorse and more work-of-art. He returned kicks, lined up as a WR and ran with an extra gear that was astonishing. When he broke free, he strode...defiantly upright. A sailboat with a strong wind in a bay full of chugging tramp steamers. When Deuce got loose, it was beautiful. The only thing more beautiful was when Ole Miss got within 4 yards of the goal line. Everybody knew what the call was. There was no need for a secret hand signal or play name. Just scream from the sideline, "Deuce over the top." The only thing more beautiful than when Deuce ran was when he flew.

Against Auburn in 2000 in my first season as a full-fledged SEC student-fan, Ole Miss was struggling. The offense had sputtered and everyone was waiting for some kind of spark. The Rebels got a stop and Deuce stood at the 10 yard line awaiting the punt. He pointed at the student section, then pointed to the end zone. There are those who were there who say this didn't happen. Who say I, a perhaps over-served Freshman, simply imagined this. I say it happened. And after Deuce found a seam and sliced through the coverage, it rained whiskey and coke for a solid three minutes. We still lost the game (Rudi Johnson was a bad man and our defensive line averaged about 210 lbs.), but Deuce called his shot. It happened, and when I finally passed on my car six years later, the "Deuce For Heisman" bumper sticker was still proudly affixed.

The Tad Pad, 1997-2001. There was no basketball tradition. There was that thing with Sean Tuhoy in 1981, but that was a fluke. I vaguely remember seeing Gerald Glass play, but that was in the Jackson Coliseum. I love college basketball, and in need of a team to grab onto, I fell in with the Nolan Richardson 40-Minutes of Hell Razorbacks. Shortly after the 94 championship, I took the scariest flight of my life into Fayetteville in the middle of an ice storm to watch top notch college basketball in, what was then, a brand new, state-of-the-art arena filled to the rafters with 20,000 frenzied fans fresh off the red meat of back-to-back national championship appearances. It was comfortable and shiny and huge.

Then, something happened. Because while Arkansas and Nolan Richardson were playing on a national stage and recruiting players from across the country, Arkansas talent got overlooked and slipped downstream into the waiting arms of a relentless coach named Rob Evans. Keith Carter, Anthony Boone, Jason Flanigan, Jason Smith, Jason Harrison (later) joined North Carolinian Ansu Sesay and Michael White and pounded life into Ole Miss basketball. Through the back-to-back Western Division titles, NCAA appearances and into the beginning of the Rod Barnes era, the Rebels entered for the first time into true basketball fandom.

Where Bud Walton was leather, padding and video boards, Tad Smith was concrete, metal and a faded analogue Dr. Pepper scoreboard. The shoddy ventilation system was no match for the Mississippi humidity late in the season, and the court would sweat in the heat-- turning any attempt at a basketball game into a demolition derby. It had a chimney. And water fountains on the corners of the court.  It felt amateur, but also hands-on. A game at Bud Walton was like watching a professional fireworks display. Tad Smith was lighting a bottle rocket, holding it in your hand until the last second and then tossing it into the dark. It felt personal. A rowdy Tad Smith felt dangerous.

Yes, a chimney. You know, for the Christmas stockings.

That was the brilliance of it. It's the firecracker in a closed fist. You don't need nearly as much force if you can confine it into a tight space. The student section was right on top of the court. The "seats" were just numbers on a metal bench clearly not meant to accommodate the backsides of grown adults (much less the vast ass expanses of the deep South). It was only 8,000 people, but it was 8,000 people piled on top of each other and piled on top of you. It was a high school house party while the parents were out of town were 10 were invited, but 200 showed up.

After beating Ole Miss in the first round of the 1997 NCAA tournament, Temple made the trip to Oxford. From the moment they stepped onto the floor, they looked like a girl scout troop who'd taken a wrong turn on a dark road. The same team that had taken apart the Rebels just a few months previous got routed. Temple guard Pepe Sanchez still curls into the fetal position and pisses down his leg every time he passes a hub cap on the street. By the end, they just wanted to get the Hell out of that concrete asylum and back to Philly. And that's how it was, game after game, for the next 5 years. Nobody wanted to come play in the Tad Pad.

The thing about the high school house parties is that they're made to get broken up. Similarly, the atmosphere at the Tad Pad had to either adjust or die. It was born in 1996. It came to maturity in 1997. Started its decline with the embarrassing performance against UCLA in the 2002 NCAAs and then died at the hands of Mario Fucking Austin and Derrick Zimmerman in 2003 when a bullshit traveling call on Trey Pearson in the final seconds gave Mississippi State the win. Bottles where thrown and the only thing that stopped the student section from rushing the court and tearing a strutting Zimmerman apart like a zombie hoard was the recently-graduated Rahim Lockhart standing in front, holding them back with his 74" python arms. What's left is an empty shell, apathetic fans and a student section with all the danger and menace of a used party popper. But for one brief golden age, Ole Miss basketball at the Tad Pad was all that is right with college sports.

The Tuberville Reconstruction. It was a miracle. Anybody who says otherwise didn't see it. Before the infamous "pine box." Before he made his name on the national scene at Auburn, Tommy Tuberville took his first college head coaching job and pulled an Anne Sullivan-style miracle on an absolutely broken, betrayed football program. Ole Miss got popped with a four-year probation of 24 lost scholarships, a two-year bowl ban and a one-year television ban (Which was a service to everyone, really. The Joe Lee Dunn head coaching era is something that should never have been put to video tape-- like the video in The Ring, only with Lawrence Adams quarterbacking. I'm pretty sure Joe Lee was barefoot in a maternity gown on the sidelines. That's not a joke).

Just three years later, Tommy scraped together a program of misfits and rejects: walk-ons, over-looked small school stars, community college transfers, players generally seen as defective in some way by every other division one school. They were some of my favorite players. John Avery is still the gold standard for Ole Miss speed to the point where his name has become a unit of measurement.

"What does he run?"

"Oh, it's about a third-quarter Avery."

"That's not bad."

Meego sees you.

Linebacker Meego Spearman is an Oxford folk legend just short of Faulkner and Willie Morris. Nate Wayne was Patrick Willis if P-Willy shrunk in the dryer. A young Dulymus McAllister was starting to get some attention. Ken Lucas, a converted WR, became a shut-down CB. The Heard brothers. Rufus French was the unrealized prodigy. Matt Luke with the Jake Taylor knees at center. Tutan (pronounced "Two Ton") Reyes. Comone (pronounced Come On) Fisher. Boyd T. Kitchens at tackle. Walker Jones would have been considered the whitest player on the 1959 squad.

And of course, the legendary connection of 5'0 QB Stewart Patridge and Cory Peterson when Tuberville the Riverboat Gambler rolled the dice and went for 2 to beat Mississippi State in 1997. Taking home the golden egg and taking Ole Miss, still in their last year of probation, to a bowl game. It was pure joy and there was the feeling that this was only the beginning of something truly epic.

Tuberville and the foundation he laid was so strong it propped up even David Cutcliffe's droopy-eyed incompetence for four years. If Tuberville stays, Ole Miss wins its first modern SEC championship. He didn't. And so we wait. But still, he oversaw the rebirth of the program and everything good that has happened since has at least partial root in the Tuberville reconstruction.

There's more to this list, and maybe I'll come back and supplement if the darkness continues. But it's good to look back. It reminds you why you keep believing and why you bought in the first place. It's not that I don't have any where else to go. There's just no where else that feels quite so much like home.

Rust Belt Angst: Two Cow Garage and "Sweet Saint Me"

It was a Monday night. It's a hard sell. Relegated to the small back bar of a larger venue, about 30 people put down the $10 cover to see Two Cow Garage.

Finding bands at their beginnings is one of the joys of live music. Seeing them in their raw state and then watching them file, shave and shape down into something that makes sense. The workshop is always more interesting than the museum. The first time somebody experiences a finished work, it begins to die. And it dies a little more with every new viewer.

Two Cow Garage at a show in NC from brand new kind of photography

But Two Cow Garage is not a block of stone in search of a pile of dust. They've been at this for the better part of a decade and just released their fifth album. It's time for someone to let them out of the workshop. Because if you don't, the shavings start to overtake the product and the block is whittled down to a nub. It's great for the select few who got to see the process, but it doesn't work out too well for the block.

Their new album, "Sweet Saint Me," is very good. In a fair and God-fearing world, "Lydia" would be pouring out of radios. It's a song made to be an A-side single. The second best song, "Lucy and the Butcher Knife" is a quirky story song that was made to be a cultishly beloved B-side. The album alternates from orgran-juiced, double lead vocal jump rock to stripped-down, single voice in a room with an unelectric instrument. But from the first time I heard a Two Cow Garage album, I knew this was a band that needed to be seen live. Something wasn't translating from the studio. Like the other albums, "Sweet Saint Me" is very good. The live Two Cow Garage experience, however, is amazing.

"We really appreciate yall coming out tonight. We were in Alabama last night and, well, we're just really happy to be here. Thanks again for coming."

I'm not sure what happened the night before in Jacksonville, Alabama. But for what could not have been much more than the cost of the gas to get to the next show, a grateful rock band took the stage and put on a big Saturday night show in a shitty back room on a Monday. They ran through most of the new album with a vengence, drilling the unfamiliar songs into your head so deep you wonder if they hadn't been there all along. They obliged shouted requests for songs from the crowd and made songs from the back catalogue of my iPod stand up like they had a life of their own. A Replacements cover closed things out on the perfect night of music for a frustrated Fall.

Walking out of the show, the first temptation is to describe them as raw, and that's mostly due to Micah Schnabel's voice. It's all gaps and crackles and strained threads popping out of a V-neck collar and working a clenched jaw. The stage antics are erratic and the instruments swing and shake sometimes with the beat and sometimes exactly offbeat. If there's a "look" of the band, it's like a animated ball of laundry that was wadded under the back seat of a conversion van.

But raw is lazy. The obvious surface parts are raw. The full sound, the full experience is not. This is a mature rock band that puts out a sound that is exactly what it is meant to be. Shane Sweeney slaps the bass like a Stax session player and sings like a truck driver on the 35th hour of a 36-hour haul, too tired for anything but hard, weary truth. When Sweeney's bass and voice meet Micah's, it's tar finding the gaps in gravel and everything else just rolls on top of it. It's those moments when the two come together that Two Cow Garage really finds its sound. It's something that shows up more in the shows than the albums.

I'm not somebody who dislikes genres on their face. It can be helpful to have a mental context for something, and thoughtful genre assignments can provide that. But let's not try to drill too deep or over-think things just to avoid the obvious. Two Cow Garage is not Alt Country, and I don't think they fit into the newly fashionable "Cowpunk" label either. There's not much twang to this music outside of the livestock in their name, the sideburns on Shane's face and their occasional use of a cowbell. It's rust belt angst with the literacy to be able to express it. It's just straight forward rock and roll, and beautifully so.

There are a handful of bands that I will openly proselytize for, bands you may not know, but you should. Bands that, in a fair and just world of meritocracy, would be packing out five-figure venues and filling the airwaves. Glossary, The Felice Brothers, The Dexateens, Blue Mountain...and now Two Cow Garage is proudly on that list. If they come by, pardon the sawdust and the inconvienent show time, and go be saved.

Life In Central Time, And Other Moments Of Joy In a Lost Season

Central Time is God's time. Just spending time in the comfortable daylight where early isn't so bad and dark loses just a touch of its edge makes me feel like a more balanced soul. It's proof that the Lord resides somewhere in the strip of America between Chicago and New Orleans, riding his circuit in an '86 Fleetwood Fiesta with blue Astroturf flooring and a peeling "Eat a Peach" decal from the previous owner. Doin' deeds and eating gas station breakfast biscuits.

It gets a little white knuckle in the Fiesta on the Pig Trail, but I have no doubt he wheels it into Fayetteville on occasion. Once you peel back the ever-growing layers of four-laned strip mall build-up, you've got a core that is one of America's under-rated college towns. Aside from Ole Miss bringing along our Golden Flake early morning kick-off curse, this is the kind of weekend you should use to experience a gameday road environment for the first time. There's not an awful lot on the line, so nobody's chewing glass in anticipation. But, it's still an SEC West game, which  brings with it a certain level of intrigue and an enjoyable level of excitement. Energy without spilling over into meltdown.

Ole Miss/Arkansas games have a weird rhythm to them. It's a series that has a hard time finding its beat. Before the Houston Nutt shotgun rivalry was born, it was more like being set-up on a date with a girl who's lived across the street from you your entire life. We've got sort of parallel history, and it seems like there should be some kind of spark between us. It just never seems to catch. Even the Houston Nutt fire has started to dampen, and we've fallen back into our routine of nodding politely on the walk out to grab the morning paper.

Arkansas is a team with deflated aspirations of making the jump (they got double-bounced by Auburn, it appears) and is coming to terms with non-BCS success. Ole Miss is a team trying to find a foundation for whatever's coming next in moral victories and pride. What happens when they get together? A five hour teenage grope fest with Crimson and Clover playing in the background. The threat of electricity hanging in the air without a lighting strike ever actually finding the ground.

Other programs have rings of honor where they remember the greats from their championship teams. Ole Miss is quickly developing quite a ring of martyrdom. Great players who played their asses off stuck on bad teams. Upon induction, they will receive a pastel Vineyard Vines hairshirt and have their names engraved on the train tracks outside of campus. Jerrell Powe is earning his place in this illustrious grouping with his play this year, trying to pull whatever he can out of an underachieving defensive unit that was supposed to carry the team. However, being in the backfield on every down only means so much when there's no containment on any other part of the field. I don't know that Jeremiah Masioli will qualify with only one season. But as Rick Cleveland points out,  running for his life behind an offensive line of walk-ons while watching his former team compete for a championship is the steepest punishment for petty theft this side of Saudi Arabia.

But like I said, this was a day for small victories, including good timing to avoid the rain and the generosity of friends with shelter, whiskey and televisions. And a good Saturday night college town band with no cover charge at Grub's playing Gillian Welch's "Miss Ohio" featuring a male singer and a 3/4 time pace. And $2.50 beers and greasy late night food. And feeling amused superiority at the young novice drinkers puking doubled over trashcans with exposed undergarments...only to end up in the same position yourself later in the night.



And one guy in a studded black leather jacket, a portable amp and a worn guitar on the street banging out Ronnie James Dio solos, non-ironic mullet flowing in the wind, while drunken frat boys cheer and toss dollars in his case.

It doesn't matter if nobody's listening. Or if the people who are listening don't get it. It's all about keeping the faith. And that's easier to do in a good, Christian time zone.

Post-Puberty Defeat And The Valor of Polish Calvary

The light of Monday morning broke through the windows of the Tuscaloosa Chuck E. Cheese to find a lone figure asleep in the ball pit. Mouth open, a half-eaten piece of rock candy stuck to his auburn hair hanging over a freckled face, he clutches a wad of ski ball prize tickets to his chest. Jefferson Davis Bryant (J-Bear to his friends), owner of the establishment, found him while closing up shop the night before.

Coming to grips with defeat through balloons.

"You want wake him?" asked the Ecuadorian cleaning staff.

"No, Consevella. Let him be. Just clean around him. The little guy's had a rough day."

Loss was unfamiliar to Greg McElroy. Undefeated since puberty, he coped in the only way he knew how-- the same way he had the last time a Greg McElroy quarterbacked team came up short. He binged on rock candy, ski ball and then cried himself to sleep in a corner of the ball pit while animatronic bears serenaded him with happy songs from a better time. 

Like Greg, the Alabama Crimson Tide are not a group that really knows a lot about losing, and that includes how to get the taste out of your mouth and move on. More likely than not, they're going to take the same route of frustrated English soccer fans and just take out their frustration by mercilessly beating the sense out of someone who can't really defend themselves. That's obviously the thinking of whoever set the kickoff for 8:00 pm CST. Some things aren't fit for the light of day, and Mark Ingram against the Ole Miss linebacking corps is likely going to be one of those.

But maybe...just maybe, they won't know how to bounce back. Like Drago in Rocky IV, the rest of the world has seen them bleed. With the unfamiliar taste of blood in their mouth, Alabama might come to the revelation for the first time that they are, in fact, mortal. With that lesson learned, they lose the edge, the swagger that previously drove their team. Sometimes loss metastasizes in more loss.

Ole Miss knows loss to the point where coping has become part of our unofficial motto of never losing the party. When you wake up on Sunday morning with that taste in your mouth, the best Listerine is the melted ice in last night's rocks glass. Gargle, swish, spit and get ready for the week to come. 

One of the great overlooked quirks of the invasion of Poland is that when the Nazi tanks rolled across the border, the Poles sent horseback calvary to meet them. These poor bastards straightened their uniforms, took a strong swig of vodka and actually charged tanks with horses. Not because they wanted to or even thought they had a chance of success; they charged because when it comes time for a fight, you're pride-bound to do the best with what you have. It's a Hell of a mentality, and it's one that you're going to need if you're going to be on the Ole Miss side of things tonight...along with a little good vodka and maybe a lance. Jerrell Powe didn't drive his moped all this way just to lay down. He's going to a club a fucker or two, and I'm riding with him. 

As for little Greg in the ball pit, play him home, boys.

A Circular Motion, Week 7: Columbus, Caminos and Cubans

Because if you stare into the great abyss looking for the future, what you're really seeing is the past, we preview this weekends games by looking back through History.com's "This Week in History."

McNeese St. at LSU (6:00 pm CST)/Columbus Stumbles Into The Bahamas (Rum Drinks O'Clock EST)

Relying simply on pure balls and blessed ignorance, funny-hatted captain with poor clock management narrowly staves off mutiny and desertion with unexpected success and exotic spices. Scholars debate whether he was ahead of his time or clinically insane.

MSU at Florida (7:00 pm EST)/Rommel Commits Suicide By Cyanide (3:35 pm Fuhrer Time)
A struggling superpower looks for a fall guy outside of the infalliable dear leader, who is genius and cannot possibly be the cause of the downward trend. A close assistant is singled out and done away with.


Iowa at Michigan (11:00 am CST)/Blind Man, Terrified Co-Pilot Set Land Speed Record (8:45 am CET)
Full of bravado, a man in the dark puts the pedal down. He has no idea where he's going, but he knows he's going to get there fast...and probably with his shoelaces untied. Beside him, a very nervous man holding a clip board screams encrouagement, because his life depends on this success.

California at USC (12:30 pm PT)/Charlie Rich Presents CMA Entertainer of the Year Award to John Denver, Lights It On Fire (8:38 pm CST)
A former winner on the decline looks around at where the industry is going. Instead of passing the torch, instead decides just to set the whole thing on fire by incincerating an award of questionable relevance. Then, goes to hang out with a monkey at a truck stop.

Arkansas at Auburn (2:30 pm CST)/William Jefferson Clinton and Hillary Rodhman Are Married (4:00 pm CST)

A marriage of shotgun convience erupts into turbulance/betrayal/lies/strange sexual advances/world domination.

BYU at TCU (3:00 pm CST)/The Republic of Texas Joins United States (2:15 am TEXAS TIME)

After breaking away from a small-time, dysfunctional association, a pissy group of white guys with inflated opinions of themselves come to the painful realization that maybe independence is not quite all it's cracked up to be.

Baylor at Colorado (5:00 pm MT)/In 1943, Italy Declares War On Germany (Sometime After Brunch CET) 
A weak ally with a deposed maniacal leadership jumps from a clearly sinking ship to join up with former rivals. They prove to be as worthless to their new friends as they were their old ones.

Ohio State at Wisconsin (6:00 pm CST)/The Cuban Missle Crisis Begins (8:30 pm Rum Drinks O'Clock)
Two beheamoths have a staring contest for what seems like weeks. Big talk and anxious build-up drags on into fatigue and resignation to death. By the end, everybody's just tired of watching and not particularly concerned if the world ends or not.

Ole Miss at Alabama (8:00 pm CST)/Young Hitler Survives Gas Attack In WW1 (11:42 CET)
Evil takes a knock from the old Empire, but is not finished off. Left alive, he later goes on a rampage through lesser horse-calvary states leaving bombed out cities, smoldering ashes and bitter defeat in the wake.

Iowa State at Oklahoma (6:00 pm CST)/Western Movie Star Killed By "Suitcase of Death"(8:45 pm CST)
Cruising the roads of victory, a successful Okie puts it into the ditch and is unexpectedly knocked off from behind by a blunt object projectile. Mourning Oklahomans agree the loss, while tragic, probably prevented what they foresaw as a slow, messy decline into booze, whores and dice games in the desert.




Oregon State at Washington (7:15 pm PT)/Car-Truck Hybrid 'El Camino' Rolls Off The Line (9:00 am CST)
Once with high hopes as the ushering in a new era of a struggling national brand, the hybrid struggles to live up to the hype. Once billled as "the most beautiful thing that ever shouldered a load," the stock keeps sliding into an object of ridicule and pity.

A Circular Motion: Looking Back to Look Forward At Week 6

Because if you stare into the great abyss looking for the future, what you're really seeing is the past, we preview this weekends games by looking back through History.com's "This Week in History."

Baylor at Texas Tech (12 pm EST)/Lincoln Observes Military Balloon Demonstration (11:22 am EST)

Controversial new aerial technology is demonsrated before big-eared executive, who is dubious of its actual worth in battlefield conditions. Decision is made to stick to Naploeonic formation tactics with the occasional calvary/wildcat charge.

Minnesota at Wisconsin (12 pm EST)/Minnesotan Circles The Globe On Foot (10:45 pm GMT)
Disenchanted Minnesota natives hit the road. When asked why they've decided to subject themselves to the pain of a journey that's going to inevitably bring them to exactly where they started, said "I was tired of Waseca, tired of my job, tired of a lot of little people who don't want to think, and tired of my wife."

Tennessee at Georgia (12:21 EST)/Chief Joselph Surrenders, Still Screwed (5:30 MST)
After attempting to lead honorably in the face of a dishonest world, a tired chief tries in vein once more for a victory for his people. After failing, he declares, "Hear me, my chiefs: My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever." Then, limps to Canada.

UCLA at California (12:30 pm PT)/90210 Premieres on Fox (8:00 PT)
Counting on drama and sensantionalism to bring them into competition with more staid industry stalwarts, a network under edgy new leadership brings the bad boy with the dark past to lay wreck to any notions of academia, scholarly pursuit or free love with illicit substances, unplanned pregnancies and cutthroat tactics. On the way out, a tree burns and a nation embraces its guilty pleasures.

Alabama at South Carolina (3:30 pm EST)/Stalin Demands the Liberation of Stalingrad (6:12 am MSK)
The humbled once-brash dictator stares down the new, seemingly irresitable darkness on his doorstep and perpares for a final, depserate push to turn them back. Meanwhile, the rest of the free world watches and waits to meet their new overlord.

Clemson at UNC (3:30 PM EST)/Dalton Gang Gets Greedy, Ambushed, Decimated (1:15 pm MST)
Pushing their luck in an effort to take a shortcut to long-term prosperity, well-known outlaws are caught in a firefight that results in severe attrition. Those who survived offer only solemn warnings to others who think about challenging the law: "The biggest fool on earth is the one who thinks he can beat the law, that crime can be made to pay. It never paid and it never will and that was the one big lesson of the Coffeyville raid/Miami Yacht Party."

LSU at Florida (7:30 pm EST)/Sputnik Launched Into Space (10:29 pm MSK)
Supposedly less technically-advanced nation under leadership of questionable sanity continues to shock and confound the world with feats of success that seem to far outstrip their perceived abilities or performance in basic functions.

Auburn at Kentucky (7:30 pm CST)/James Bakker Indicted, Jessica Hahn Cashes In (8:30 am EST)
A fraudulent faith healer's scam finally gets exposed, while the underling he screwed over on his way out of the door makes the most of a bad situation to pad the wallet and build notoriety.

USC at Stanford (5:00 pm PT)/Liz Taylor Marries Construction Worker (8:30 pm PT)
Legendary Hollywood institution, tired from scandal and battered from the spotlight, goes slumming in rehab with the first swinging dick with a full head of hair who winks and slaps the ass. Everyone involved assumes it will end in either divorce or matricide, possibly by arsenic.

MSU at Houston (7:00 pm CST)/Work Begins On Mount Rushmore (6:15 am CST)
An ambitious visionary struggles to manipulate hard, formless nature into a lasting work of art in a desolate landscape. Little does he know, he will never live long enough to see his efforts come to fruition.

Menomena: West Coast Cool and the Value of Desperation

I need some desperation in my music. We are going to crack this symbol, bleed these fingers, break these strings, pound these keys, strangle this mic stand until you get it.

And that was what was missing from the Menomena show. By all accounts, they're comers. A rising West Coast rock band that's about ready to break out. They brought three racks of pedals, one and a half keyboards, two laptops, baritone sax, windpipe, a variety of guitars and two plastic baby doll heads. And they played them all. Yeah, the guy played the bass line with his feet while blowing out some rough bursts on the baritone sax. That was impressive. But did it actually do anything for the song? Eh.

They are all very talented musicians, and they know it. There are two great varieties of performers. The first are the self-concious who go over the top to compensate for their perceived (real or otherwise) shortcomings with pure sweat equity. The second are the cocksure geniuses of their own mind who believe they are actually the second coming of the Christ, and doesn't think you fully appreciate the greatness. But they're about to convert you.

The drummer, Danny Seim, brought it. There's no doubt. On a stage of electronics, style and technology, he brought the lo-fi wood, brass and bare feet that drove the show. The highlight of the set was a song called "Dirty Cartoons," with vocals by Seim. As the rest of the band joined in for the final build-up harmony, it was one of the few earnest moments of the night. The kind that made you sit up and see what could be with a little less primp and a little more madness.

For the rest, they were too sure of their own talent and the crowd's appreciation of it. The bass, either played by pedal or string, was steady and interesting. The keys were everything an accent should be. The guitar was strong. Even the three and four part harmonies were flawless. But that was the problem. They had nothing to prove. It was like watching the smart kid in the class solve an equation. It's the difference between a rock show and a recital.

Every show should be a revival. You have a message and crowd of non-believers. If you don't convert them, they'll spend the rest of their lives wandering hopeless and lost. It's that simple. There's somebody out there tonight who doesn't believe. And we're going to beat on their chests until either their eyes open or their ribs crack.

The band picked up energy as it went along. Looking back, it was a solid effort and certainly worth 3 beers and a $15 cover. But it was very California in the assumption of cool and appreciation. It was beauty without heartbreak, which is just kind of empty. If you like Menomena, you should check out Centro-Matic/South San Gabriel. All of the genius, a little more offbeat and a whole handful of desperation...because what else is there in Denton, Texas if not desperation?

Ronnie Hawkins's The Long Corner: Arkansas/Alabama

I spent last Thursday night watching a Ronnie Hawkins documentary. I spent Saturday afternoon at an Arkansas Razorback watch party. In the time in between those two events, I observed the build up of the large community of Natural State ex-pats with whom I work, live and carouse. From then through the end of the game, one line from The Hawk, another Razorback in exile, kept coming into my mind:

"The Big Time is right around the corner.' They told me that for the first time in 1952. Boy, it's been a long corner. If I don't hit the Big Time in the next 25 or 30 years, I'm going to pack in the music business and become a full-time gigolo."

Oxford Underwear Bandit: Justice and Cash

There are two things we hold sacred here at the blog-- justice and cash money. When the pursuit of those comes together, there's no holding us back. So it is that we take on the case of the Oxford underwear bandit, where local Lafayette County authorities (a modern-day version of the Untouchables) have put out a $1,000 reward for information leading to the thief's capture.

Between June 5 and Sept. 5, Oxford police have dealt with a dozen break-ins where a suspect -- the same person, police believe -- has entered young women's homes, stealing only their underwear -- ignoring jewelry, electronics and other valuables.

Almost all cases have involved students at the University of Mississippi, with one case being a recent Ole Miss graduate; the exception being a 36-year-old mother who police describe as "very young-looking."

The suspect has tended to strike between 7:30 a.m. and 11 p.m., always with the home uninhabited -- although in one case, a woman returned within three minutes of the break-in, thanks to a home alarm system

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/sep/12/underwear-thief-targets-homes-of-women-attending/

After extensive research and surveillance, we've narrowed it down to five prime suspects:

Rebel the Black Bear

Description: A large black male, full shiny coat of hair, smells of berries

Last Known Residence: The Ewok Village on Hawthorn Road next to Campus Walk

Current Occupation: Mascot hopeful and the constant search for sweet, sweet honey.

Motives: Known forager, possible family history of petty larceny, intrigued by musky smells, naturally curious

Alibi: Has never stolen anything he couldn't eat, and thongs get caught in his teeth.

Jackie Spears

Alias: Dr. Teeth

Description: Young black male with a luminous smile.

Last Known Residence: Memphis, Tn

Current Occupation: Grillin' the shit out of anything that moves.

Motives: To get caught and bring his mugshot glory to the greater Oxford area.

Alibi: Has never actually seen a pair of women's underwear. They dissolve as soon as he opens his mouth. To Jackie Spears, "panties" are as real as leprechauns.

Billy Cannon

Alias: Legend, Louisiana State Inmate #13334956

Description: 6'1, 220 lbs, cloven feet, smells of sulfur and corndogs, head like a Dick Tracy villain

Last Known Residence: Angola, Louisiana

Current Occupation: Director, Louisiana State Prison Medical Director/Eluding sneak attacks by maniacal Billy Brewer still trying to tackle him.

Motives: Known theft of other valuable Ole Miss trophies, including 1959 National Championship.

Alibi: Only runs at midnight. Also, still has the underwear of every first born daughter in the state of Louisiana mailed to him on their 15th birthday in keeping with Napoleonic law and the "Billy Cannon Appeasement Act," the last piece of legislation signed by Governor/Mental Patient Earl K. Long.

Pete Boone

Alias: God's Banker

Description: Gray around the ears, black around the heart, polyester around the waist.

Last Known Residence: An army cot in Robert Khayat's laundry room.

Current Occupation: Ole Miss Athletic Director/Meter Maid/Author

Motives: The only way to profitably scalp the rest of his season tickets for this year's home games would be to partner them with slightly-used coed lingerie in his eBay listings...also could be used to help move the inventory of his latest novel.

Alibi: If he was indeed guilty, could not resist the offer of $1,000 to turn himself in, though he would weep tears of betrayal into the bills for nights afterward...just like after David Cutcliffe was fired.


Lefty Testudo



Alias: Frequently answers to, "Hey you, stop pissing on my hedges."

Description: Like the starting center for the Lollipop Guild's intramural basketball team with a skill set and lifestyle mirroring Lithuanian legend Arvydas Sabonis late in his career.

Last Known Residence: Winters in the pine straw piles behind the Ole Miss physical plant, but summers on the cool tile floors of the AOPi House lobby.

Current Occupation: Evangelizing against the evils of Canadian whiskey/Perfecting the practice of "Blackout Mondays"/Burrows like nobody's business

Motives: History of high-risk behavior involving the residences of Ole Miss women and strange mating habits in the wild...also a known forager.

Alibi: Only interested in plus size women's underwear, otherwise they won't fit fully over his head, leaving him susceptible to sunburn.

Late Breaking Bullitein Update, New Suspect is Added:

Kenny "The Snake" Stabler
From his autobiography "Snake"about Raiders training camp:

"The collecting of female undergarments," Stabler wrote, "became an annual rite of training camp for many of the Raiders . . . I liked to tack my collection up on the walls."

Stabler also has a history with Oxford's second favorite criminal offense and defending the Redneck cultural traditions under fire by the Man,

"All I wanna do is drive around in my truck and drink Jack Daniels... and they just don't understand."

Ole Miss/Vandy: Another Chapter In The South's Greatest Football Rivalry (Brought To You By Eddie Money)

Early morning start? Check. Low rent broadcast coverage? Oh yeah. The dulcet tones of at least one dude named Dave? Present. A stadium half-filled with red-eyed, overheated fans? Done.

When they all come together, it can only mean one thing-- the South's greatest football rivalry has come around once again to amaze and astound us with feats of self-destruction, apathy and mediocrity. It'd be like if Steve-O from Jackass joined Nickelback on a tour of Topeka and then it was broadcast by the local high school A/V club.

It was an exciting time when we heard about the new, record-breaking ESPN/SEC TV deal. Every game on some branch of ESPN! While we had grown to have a colloquial affection for the Trip-Daves formation and Golden Flake glory of Jefferson Pilot (eloquently expressed by Dr. Saturday here), it was time for us to shine the shoes, cut the hair, wash the ass and go for the bright lights of the Worldwide Leader.

While we were correct that the days of the 11:30 CST starts and Three Dave coverage were over, what we didn't know was that they would be replaced by kickoffs that were actually 30 minutes EARLIER, equally regional television exposure with 2/3rds fewer over-hyped Daves, replaced by the stunning ambivalence of college football's third-most unjustified Heisman winner-- all still under the global empire of Golden Flake snack products (and, at least where I watched it, Eddie Money's 2010 World Tour...good seats only $10. Like the best of Dean Martin last year, I'm buying).



So what went wrong for the Rebels in the 2010 incarnation of this classic match-up? I will defer to the words of John Lee Pettimore, who was one of the brave, sweaty, over-caffeinated crew standing on the line Saturday morning in Oxford:

John Lee Pettimore:  There are few words. Crowd sucked. Team sucked. Grove still kicks ass. Team sucked. Our O-line couldn't block me and three trolls.: 
Atticus: Trolls can be ferocious. I'd take a troll or two on our line these days

John Lee: At least they wouldn't stand straight up and try to lesbian titty rub the opposing D-line. I bitched and moaned about O-line recruiting for the past three years in order to avoid having to watch this. I will continue to bitch and moan.

So where do we go from here? Set new goals and redefine what it means to have "success." What are those new goals you ask? I'm still considering that, but I'd imagine they will include not throwing up on my shoes, avoiding actual rape on the field and beating Arkansas in Fayetteville. 'Till then, I'm riding with Eddie. Take me home, boys.

Tulane: And the Art Of the Finishing Move

"It got pretty gritty. I started to hear the word "draw" in my sleep. Then one day, I was just walking down the street when I heard a voice behind me say, "Reach for it, mister!" I spun around... and there I was, face-to-face with a six-year old kid. Well, I just threw my guns down and walked away. Little bastard shot me in the ass. So I limped to the nearest saloon, crawled inside a whiskey bottle, and I've been there ever since."

This was we expected at the beginning of the season. A larger than life defense, anchored by Jerrell Powe, carrying a largely undeveloped offense with Nathan Stanley holding on for dear life. Then, Jeremiah Masoli took a wrong turn at Albuquerque and somehow ended up sharing the backfield. For one half, the only surprise was the pleasant competence of the offense.

Then we laid our guns down, turned our backs and some squirrelly little bastard shot us in the ass.

We've crawled back out of the bottles and now, wandering the streets of New Orleans, another prepubescent voice calls out "draw." Time to find out if we've got what it takes to stomp on a throat.

Ole Miss/Jacksonville State.

I would like to talk about what happened yesterday, but I don't know. I fell asleep after the first half. And if any of the coaches or players were honest, they'd admit the exact same thing.

Like Houston, I was awoken by a flurry of text messages with varying forms of "What the fuck?" I pulled the game back up at the beginning of the first overtime. It was then that Lefty Testudo sent me this:

Lefty: This is awful. What will Bama do to us. There will be no virgins left.

Atticus: Any virginity we've got left isn't worth protecting.

With baited breath, I anxiously await the input of Basil and the rest of the Arkansas nation. That's fine. It's certainly their right. They ate their cupcake without pulling a Mama Cass. The Ole Miss message boards are already thick with calls of "Fire Houston." And then, one voice of unintentional wisdom rings out from the commentariat abyss:

"Let's not overreact. I'm not going to jump ship like the rest of the Titanic survivors."

Nothing to see here...

Drive on. It don't mean nothing
My children love me, but they don't understand.
And I got a woman who knows her man.
Drive on. It don't mean nothing.
It don't mean nothing. Drive on.






Is this a song about Vietnam veterans seeing actual horrific things in war? Yes. Is it inappropriate to use this as a metaphor for college football? Probably. That being said, I'm still jamming out to some Johnny Cash tonight...and then when Earl shows up at my doorstep, I'm going to have me a Lt. Dan moment with the sports gods.

I'm sorry, Jeremy. Somebody should've told you about this place before you came here. Good luck with your new career in Canada.

Is This The Beginning? No, But You Can Get There From Here.

Sometimes the devastating hangover or the blackout brown liquor drunk can take a form akin to the famous "Jordan Flu." The idea that when your body is weakest, you turn over control to the more primal instincts and perform in a purely efficient way, elevated to a different level. When things go wrong in the boiler room, your internal Captain Sully Sullenberger has let go of the wheel to go down below and help Mr. Scott put things back together. That's when Captain Busey takes the helm, throws some Marshall Tucker Band in the cassette deck and tries to drive with his teeth.

So it was that I, filled with daquiri, nerves and a few struggling delusions of preseason hype before last year's Alabama game, sat watching Nebraska and made the comment, "We need us some Samoans." Actually, I believe my initial dispatch to Basil while watching Ndamakong Suh was "Mr. President, we have to give bears the right to vote... or bears will rise up and then BEARS will be in Congress and we will be the ones performing in the circus, wearing little hats. " He then translated it into a more understandable form.

Outside of personal prophecetical fulfillment, I'm still not sure what this Masoli signing actually means for Ole Miss. Our last highly-touted transfer QB, another reclamation project with a ganja-tarnished image trying to make good, will be best remembered as part of the chorus to the Coach O song and for the rumored shanking of a teammate. While it's not a perfect comparison, one question remains valid-- can a quarterback walk in cold to August camp and successfully make a positive impact in an SEC offense?

One thing is for sure, the vision of Masoli's skill set and physical make-up is the stuff little Houston Nutt used to doodle on his junior high wide-rule notebooks during home room. Basically a rather large badger with opposable thumbs who is low enough to the ground to hide behind the line, run with power, take the hit after flipping the lateral and smell of freshly juiced pineapples. If he can get his head straight, he can run this scheme and provide the Rebels with at least the minimal amount of offensive competency that's going to be needed for us to win a good chunk of our games this year.

I never embraced the idea of the Masoli transfer. It seemed forced. I couldn't make a connection. Even if Masoli came in and lit the world on fire, what connection can he really have to Ole Miss. At his best, he's a damaged mercenary. Like Rooster Cogburn or Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner. Why do I care? I couldn't make the connection until I read Steve Duin's excellent column. Now it works. If anybody understands being a victim of space and time and carrying the stain of those you once associated with, it's Ole Miss. Now lay back into the Right Reverend's river here, Jeremiah, let's see if we can't both wash some of this dirt off.

Jackie Spears. Grillin.

Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is shine up the snatch-outs and grill the shit out of Death until he forgets what he came here for.

That, boys and girls, is how to own a mug shot. No half-eyed, empty void of the DUI arrest. No disheveled hair, Hawaiian shirts or bathrobes of the Noltes and James Browns. Not even the stoic, sad professionalism of the career small time criminal. For all we know, Jackie Spears woke up one morning and committed armed robbery specifically with the intention of getting in front of a camera to show off his golds, and this is exactly where he wanted to end up. Like Hannibal Smith chomping on a cigar, I love it when a plan comes together. Whether or not the plan itself had any value or larger purpose is certainly up for debate, but not necessarily relevant.

If you're not reading at least one daily newspaper, you're cheating yourself. The daily crime round up of the Commercial Appeal is Solomon's Mine for oddities, humor, tragedy and whimsy. With only a very little imagination, you can flesh out each dispatch into your own do-it-yourself episode of The Wire. On the day of Jackie Spears, Memphis also had an ice cream truck for a getaway car, a meth cookers' love story and the next great step in pharmacology-- anti-anxiety pills with a light, minty finish. Because it's hard to get easy if you're not sure that your breath is fresh.

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/jul/29/crime-report-three-charged-aggravated-robbery-kidn/

Call and Response: Reconnecting with Galactic

It's a very primal satisfaction...to cry out into the dark and hear someone else cry back. It provides a sense of place, like a haggard kind of sonar. It can help you find your way back home. It can help you find your escape. Share joy or provide sympathy. Signal a warning, start a fight or announce a celebration. It's what makes the response so electric, and it's what makes an echo so haunting. More than anything else, it's a reassurance that you're not alone.

And when we first started putting bone to skin and foot to ground to try to find a beat, call and response got built in. So here we are in 2010 and the best sounds are still built around this very same caveman formula, and nowhere is this ancient art more alive than New Orleans.

New Orleans in August is something akin to an industrial dish washer set to "Pots and Pans" with a weeks dead nutria rat strung out on your top rack. It's at this time that some of the local musicians, who would otherwise be perfectly content to follow to the Kermit Ruffins formula of weed and BBQ in Crescent City perpetual motion, decide to venture out into the rest of the country.

With the strange Katrina/BP bounce, everything New Orleans, from the food to the art to the long-suffering football team, has suddenly become America's good-hearted, chronically snakebit little brother everybody's rooting for to pull through. It's as if someone took the lovable loser mystique of the Chicago Cubs, planted it in a swamp with a dash of black pepper and let it ferment for a few hundred years. As far as it goes, 2010's turned out to be a decent vintage.

It was this gulfstream of events that brought Galactic to an energized, packed-out venue in the Mid-Atlantic where no less than 5 years ago, the Neville family would've been best known for Aaron's ill-fitting denim vests and adult contemporary duets. But today, the crowd was ready. They cheered on Ivan and Ian when they joined the band on stage and were prepared to embrace the beauty of the trombone lead. On this night, when the band cried out the obscure chants of the back corners of the Quarter, the voices in the dark cried back with a jubilant fury. There's a difference between echo and reverberation, and you know it when you feel it.

For most frat boys of the Southeast, Galactic is something of a known quantity. Not on the same level of familiarity of the Panic, but somewhere around the neighborhood. You've probably seen them before and probably more than once. The albums have played in the better of the jammy party mixes since the mid-90s. It's no different for me, and I had no special expectations for the show.

But for whatever reason, this one just hit. Like musical comfort food at the moment it's most needed. A good piece of fried chicken after a bad break-up while stranded in Canada. They brought out some Nevilles (Cyril, Ian and Ivan) and threw down a two hour set complete with extended Stanton Moore drum solo, blistering harmonica, bristling, brass splintering horns and slapping bass with hip-hop and bounce interludes. When traditional vocals were called for, Cyril Neville takes the lead. There aren't many better.

Most music, of all genres, whether you know it or not, is generally built from the bass and rhythm up. With Galactic, it's a celebration of the bottom and there's no question who's driving this wreck. It's the sweaty white boy behind emo glasses with his foot on the gas and bass drum pedals. Everybody else is just trying to hang on by their fingernails, but smiling throughout. Because they know it's damn good when it works. And like I said, on this night, it worked.

To All Seasons, An End.

Two significant parts of my life came to an end this past week with the U.S.'s World Cup and the first season of Treme coming to an end. Both had tremendous build-up, moments of glory and mixed feelings. So, in the name of conflagration and journalism's grandest tradition, let's take a look back at two completely unrelated items in a forced metaphor. Bob Bradley, meet Big Chief Albert Lambreaux. Clint Dempsey, get your hands off Janette Desautel, you greedy bastard. Davis McAlary's passing a joint to Landon, who's been crying in the corner all night. Wait, who the fuck invited Bill and Mick? Shit's about to get out of hand.

There's a moment when Sonny goes to Houston to sit-in with some other New Orleans players who are doing a session at a roadhouse. He plays one song, they thank him and ask him to move over. Somebody else wants the seat for the next one.

"But I can carry it."

"That's alright, man. Thanks for sitting in."

Sonny steps back into the crowd and watches as his replacement and the rest of the band lays into "At the Foot of Canal Street." It was at that moment that Sonny knew he didn't really belong. He probably knew all along, but this was the visual proof. It's not because of some cruel twist of fate or evil forces working against him. It's not because he didn't work hard enough or didn't have the will to get it done, he just was not on that level.

Watching quarterfinal games on Friday was that moment for U.S. Soccer. We tap danced on the guardrail and had some good moments in the bramble of group play. The good teams are just trying to scrape by. The bad teams are just trying to put bodies in front of the goal to hang on for a draw. In the middle, teams like the U.S. split the difference. The result is a random madness of deflections, own goals and penalties. The outcomes seem more like happy accidents than decisive conclusions, and it's understandable how people can become frustrated with it.

The knockout round is almost a completely different sport. The kids have been sent home and it's time for the adults to go to work. Brazil and the Dutch played beautiful football. And not just beautiful in the "beautiful game" context of finesse and showmanship. It was complete. They were hardnosed when necessary, dirty at moments, and most of all, turning chaos into stunning order that, after it's over, seems like the build-up was all part of some masterplan. It's Van Morrision singing "Cypress Avenue" after sitting through some local wedding cover band sing "Brown Eyed Girl." There's a loose association, but vastly different tiers of performance.



That's not to say that the U.S. didn't accomplish anything. We won the group, showed competence and played with gritty pride, none of which are givens when it comes to American soccer. Playing a game to put out the last African nation in the first African soil Cup brings a lot of bad juju. But it wasn't ancient black arts or continental terroir that brought us down (though I do put some blame on the very presence of Terry McAulfie and the stench of loserdom that trails behind him like a sulfurous cropdusting).

The African teams have a reputation not all that different than Louisiana football-- unbridled athleticism that tries to overwhelm with sheer size, speed and attitude with no shape, direction or strategy. But if you can contain it, bring order without killing the joy, it can be a legitimate force.

But that wasn't Ghana. They put together an organized, thoughful game that left our players playing chase for the majority of the match. That crazy Serbian door-to-door encylopedia salesman with the loosened tie and the confused look has done a job on par with Nick Saban in Baton Rouge. They looked even more the polished, professional squad in their next game against an equally organized Uruguay. They belong.

More than anything else, this U.S. team gave us shared moments. The moments when you're clutching an American flag in one hand, with your fingertips dug into the shoulder of the stranger next to you. For waning minutes at the end of the Algeria game, the country was united under the right foot of Landycakes. Shared desperation can bring an energy. It was talked about in New Orleans immediatley after the storm, there was almost a brotherhood among everybody who was left. We're all up againt the same wall, but the fact that we're all still standing is an impressive accomplishment. But when that adrenaline wears off and you realize you're still standing in the same place against the same wall, it's a fast decline. It's time to either move forward or fall down.

Your keeper in the opposing team's box is the physical manifestation of desperation. It means the good ideas have run out. All that's left to do is throw everything you've got into the breach and hope the confusion is enough to disrupt the logic's foot on your throat. Against Ghana, Tim Howard was the human kitchen sink, hurling itself headfirst into the ball. It was time to go home

But there's more than one way to handle the revelation that you don't belong. Sonny realized he couldn't create, so he self-destructed and went Berman on some leather at a shady bar. But then there's Davis. And if there's any reason for Sonny to exist on Treme, it's to serve as comparison for Davis. Like most everybody at the start of the show, I was annoyed by Davis. I understood his purpose and what he represented in the New Orleans eco-system, but still cringed every time I saw him on screen...that is until they start to develop Sonny. Davis is a loveable tag along. Sonny is a leach, and that's an important distinction that gives Davis a new nobility. There was a time when Davis and Kermit Ruffins were peers, but Davis got left behind. Instead of getting moody about his short-comings, he becomes a fan, even pushing Kermit further. "America needs it some Kermit. You're standing there telling me all you want to do is get high, play some trumpet and barbeque in New Orleans your whole life?" ("Sounds good to me.") Sonny just slunk off into the dark and tried to take Annie down with him, rather than letting her outshine him.

So where do we go from here? Sonny would spit on the ground, comment on how soccer sucks anyway and go watch some Nascar. Don't do that. Be a Davis. Be an appreciator and take joy in the extraordinary, even when you're not directly invovled. This is when it gets good.