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."