Have Eye Nawwt

Most of the Southern accents you hear in the movies and T.V. are nonsense...as bad as anything that came out of Dick Van Dyke's mouth in Mary Poppins. These people are rarely Southerners anyway and, until very recently, if you were a Southerner and wanted to be in the movies, t.v. or broadcasting...you were instructed to get the Cotton Boll or the Peach Pit out of your mouth.

Things have been changing....not only are you hearing real Southern accents but, we're starting to get Southern stories (as opposed to stories about The South). Rectify from A&E was outstanding. Not only did the people in South Georgia sound like Southerners and eat dinner in the middle of the day and say pea-can instead of puhcahn (according to my Little Granny...only uppity people from Atlanta said puhchan)...they communicated like Southerners. What wasn't said was often more important than what was....and what was said usually conveyed a Truth beyond the facts of the sentence.

MUD....not a Movie about The South but, a Southern story...Love and Faith and Violence...coded violence...Retribution and Honor...the Grotesque.



Even now that you hear more actual Southern accents on the T.V. and in Broadcasting...you rarely get an unadulterated listen. People do have to understand you if you're conveying information. That brings us to The Paul Finebaum Show and Tammy.

Finebaum started doing radio in Alabama...like twenty years ago. A sports show. A sports show in Alabama means a show about SEC football in general and the year round rivalry between Alabama and Auburn specifically. It soon became infamous...not only was Paul well connected and unafraid (an Alabama Football coach tried to get him fired...Kenny Stabler threatened to kill him) he took a fiendish delight in letting the callers run wild. It worked...because he's as dry as a Water Cracker...a straight man for a region full of gleefully unhinged people.

When the SEC started it's own network, in co1njunction with ESPN, this year...Paul's Show went national. People have gone nuts for it. National sportscasters are eagerly getting into public spats with local callers...and Charles from Realtown, Alabama...Jim from Tuscaloosa...Phylis are being regularly quoted on Sports Center.

If these people only knew what the show used to be like...when it was regional.

That brings us to Tammy. A long time caller*...her and Paul have been picking at one another for years. Tammy..she's got a cotton boll the size of a softball between her cheek and gum...she don't give a damn whether you can understand her or not. A pure, unadulterated Southern accent for your delight.

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WAR DAYUM EAGLE!

*I'll have to dig up her call about "teabagging" and the one where she threatens to run through Auburn naked...naykid...showing everybody her fanny.