In Las Vegas?????

No more grey haired pictures now.

I think it was B.B. Kings 16 Greatest Hits...a cassette. It was my Daddy's. I appropriated it...and the family tape recorder and played it everywhere I went...which, at this point in my life, was limited to the front and back yard.

This is the song that did it to me...I wrecked that part of the tape. Play, Rewind, Play, Rewind, Play...until I had every hiss memorized. Which was good cause I'd shredded it by then.



King was my Daddy's favorite and I remember one night as a small child being baby-sat so him and my Momma could go see him. It seemed like magic to me...that they could go and see a person from the records. I tried to imagine what it would be like.



Two years ago we were able to take The Boy to see him. It was a rough night on a four year old but, he made it long enough to hear King sing You Are My Sunshine...and that was long enough. It was priceless watching his face.


Keep an eye on your computer for this one...the first few minutes might melt your screen.

As a rule, I am loath to join in with moments of mandatory mourning but, King's music was an integral part of my childhood. As a corporate loss it's crushing, even if not shocking...you can't replace Southerners like this.

There is Another Side

Just to reiterate the ultimate point of my last post...

"Y'all sent me on this terrible bachelorette party and all I got was a snakebite."

 



I rest my case...you want surnames?

We know one of these fellas...in fact, the Boy has spent the night at the family's house.

DISCLAIMER: as I know it will be of great interest to many of our readers, not only were no snakes harmed during the filming but they're probably saving many non-poisonous snakes from being killed in the drive way. They deal directly, and question, the normal reaction that any sane person would have to seeing a snake...which is to kill it without a second thought...and suggest that it's an irrational response.

Sorry I'm just gonna confess here...I will kill them if I see them. I guess I'm a horrible person but I have been chased, have looked into the beady abyss and seen what a snake bite does to a human leg. The only way I'll grab a snake is with a shotgun.

I love the rowdiness and the decay that can be found from one end of Dixie to the other. It's not only beautiful but it makes an important statement about the impermanence of material and the foolishness of putting any faith in it. There is another side though.

There is a grandeur to The South that I am often guilty of ignoring here. There is the beauty of the dogwoods and azaleas, the magnolias and loblollies...and the live oaks. The unassailable taste and quaint manners...the old money beauty of it.

Nowhere is this side more gorgeously realized than during the Master's Tournament at Augusta National in Georgia.

Martha is, at this very moment, balling as Justin Spieth, this year's winner, hugs his Momma.

 

It is a cathedral...glorifying the natural beauty of The South and it is a celebration of it's gentile mores. Five dollars will still get you a pimento cheese sandwich...yelling "YOU DA MAN" or "IN DA HOLE" will still you get you an escort off the grounds. Mind you're manners...this is Georgia not the U.S. Open. This morning, Nick Faldo...that's Sir Nick Faldo to you, said that, off the course, it's the greatest sporting event in the world. "On the course," it's the greatest "by a mile."

 



There's a Thursday afternoon every year in the Spring when I have to fight back the tears. It's not just the overwhelming Southern Beauty of the place, though that does crush, but the memories I have with my Daddy and now with my son...being crouched around the TV (this hasn't changed despite the size of the TV and crispness of the picture) anxiously watching a putt hug the meticulous contours of a green, past the pink azaleas...through the shadow of a dogwood in bloom...watching, covering our faces, peaking....

EDIT...The Boy climbed up in my lap this morning while waiting for his momma to finish getting dressed. He wanted to see the Snakegrabber videos...he's pretty pumped about Mr. Brent...then he wanted see the video of Augusta. He said something about playin there....I would walk buck naked from here to Augusta if it meant getting to play just one hole. I asked him so..."you gonna play there one day."
He turned his head and looked at me, with the most serious expression he could muster..."I am going to win a green jacket." At this point I have no reason to doubt him.

If The River Was Whiskey

Grand Gulf isn't just a military park. They have lots of interesting local artifacts there.

Do we need any further proof that there was serious money in bootleggin'?

Prohibition didn't end in Mississippi until the 60's. That don't mean there weren't a thriving, and well regulated, brown liquor market in the state. Far from it... Black Market Tax . In fact, it was a raid on a Junior League Ball, attended by the Governor, that finally forced the state's hand. There was no rush to legalize akahol. The bootleggers were getting rich, the state and state officials were getting their cut, and the Baptists were happy (the last thing they wanted was to have to buy theirs in a public establishment...hahaha. Do you know why you always take more than one Baptist fishing at a time...because if you take just one he'll drink all your booze. :oohyeahthat'sagoodone:).

A family friend, who died recently, used to get paid 50 bucks to run a trunkload of whiskey from Vicksburg to Jackson when he was a teenager in the 50's. You can still get moonshine here without much trouble.

I think it's also important to mention that we have a short but significant history with submarines. The Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley was the first submarine to ever sink a ship. It took down the USS Housatonic....known up until that point for seizing a British blockade runner that was trying to deliver two ship engines for Confederate Inronclads. It was a serious blow. Take note Scots...it was one of your ships the bastards stole. Sadly, neither the crew or the submarine survived the exchange but they sank that b**CH!

While we're briefly on the subject, today in 1865, William Catledge of the 5th Florida Infantry, CSA, was paroled at Appomattox (one of 53 men that were left of the 5th). He was my Grandmother's maternal Grandfather. He wasn't the only Catledge that fought and her paternal side was also well represented but, it's William's name that appears, after about 6 pages of Campbells, among the list of those that were present at what amounted to the bitter, bitter end.

 You would be forgiven for thinking that this was a portable torture device carried by the U.S. army used to extract intelligence from the locals but...NO! This torture device was willingly worn by our Belles. That's what was under the hood of those old gorgeous hooped dresses.

Residents of the area remain on guard from attacks to this day. There's a nuclear power plant just a few miles from the park. She is ready for shenanigans...in fact, she kinda looks like she wakes up every morning hoping somebody will try her.

There's Yankees to worry about, terror attacks...it's like the Devil's petting zoo around there...

...it is going to Flood!

Then there's us....a danger that, while it may be unintentional, can never be dismissed.



We are them. Those of us who weren't kidnapped from West Africa are anglo-celts who were too poor and rowdy to live in Scotland, Ireland and t'North of England...who have spent the last 200 years procreating in swamps. We have moonshine, guns, submarines and a nuclear power plant! What could possibly go wrong. HA!

Not Too Pretty to Burn

On Good Friday, me and The Boy took a trip to Grand Gulf State Park. Grad Gulf is right on the river...maybe 20 miles south of Vicksburg. When I say on the river...I mean nervously close to the River. The water on Friday was up to the little two lane road opposite the park.

It won't surprise you to hear that my arch enemy took his most gruesome form on this lane a few years ago. I was in the car when Satan's House Pet crossed my path...the blackest, fattest, most ghoulish, ugggh...and it still gives me shivers.

There's not really a town here anymore. The first one was burned down by David Farrugut...Furragut, whatever, David Yankee, as part of the U.S. invasion of Mississippi during Lincoln's war.

It was burned in 1862...cause that's what they did. Then in May of 1863, they came back to seize the charred remains in order to use the gulf as a supply point for the invading army. Unfortunately for him and his...Georgia born, Gen John S. Bowen

had prepared the hills around what was left of the town. There Hoskins' Light Artillery, from Brookhaven, MS were splint between two small "forts."  Hoskins' gunners with 13 light pieces fought off seven US gunships, firing some 2,500 rounds into the Confederate positions...they even disabled one of the ships.

Sadly, it was barely a setback for grant. They just moved down river and landed unopposed and marched on Port Gibson ("Too Beautiful To Burn" - U.S. Grant. How cute.) where Bowen, severely outnumbered, was forced to retreat after a day's fighting.  Grand Gulf was evacuated.

I have to tell you...reading Bowen's CV is an exercise in excruciation for an unreconstructed Southron. He had predicted where the Yankees would attack and had repeatedly requested reinforcements from Pemberton in Vicksburg...DENIED. They weren't run out of Port Gibson...they were in an untenable position because of sheer numbers and had to withdraw. At the Battle of Corinth, MS...he had overrun a significant US position. Instead of exploiting the advantage...his commander Van &*&^&ing Dorn called a halt. At Champions Hill...Bowen led an attack that was on the verge of breaking the Yankee center but, AGAIN, he was not supported!

Taken prisoner after the fall of Vicksburg, Bowen died of dysentery after being paroled...32 years old. Did I mention that this Jedi was a Georgian?  Damn right I did...you want me to tell you again? :)

While we're here...let's hear from Robbie Robertson. A Canadian who has gifted The South with genuine treasure. About the song...he said he wanted to express the dignified sadness he often encountered in Southerners. He had Levon there for guidance I'm sure but, it's Robertson's song and it is cherished.*



Up on the hill behind the "forts" is an old cemetery.

It's my favorite place on the park.

As an aside for C...we saw the most outrageously yellow little bird I've ever seen in my life there.

Not far from Grand Gulf...just off the Natchez Trace is the site of Rocky Springs. At one time there were 1,500 souls there...between the war and disease the town was abandoned by 1930. There is a church there...built in the 1830's. That's a rare specimen in these parts. It has a fabulous old cemetery. There are a couple of Confederate Veterans buried there but they very recent additions compared to the others. It's in the same style but possessed of a more grand decay. I was gonna take the Boy by there on the way home but he was passed out by then.

There's an old Dog Trot or Cracker House on the property. We have fantasies of building one of these on a sandy piece of property, shaded by Live Oaks, somewhere along the gulf coast one day.

This picture has global significance. Those are azaleas....they are swarming with Bumble Bees. I've read that bumble bees are disappearing around the world. Well, it turns out, they are disappearing to Grand Gulf, MS. There must have been 100 of these fat stingers buzzing around the various buildings. The Boy finally couldn't take it anymore despite my insistence that they weren't going to sting him. I think he was just sleepy.

Halfway there he had generously offered to let me listen to my "disc." Big Star Third.

"Does he sing like this for every song?"
"Yep."
"This the worst singing ever."
By the time we got to Jesus Christ he had settled in to it. Ha.




See Charity Chic  for an interesting post on that other Canadian. :)

More on Grand Gulf to come....

Low Living, Sight Walking.

I've been out and about.

In front of a house on Plank Rd in Baton Rouge. It ends with an incomplete word...a syllable.

Broadmoor Theatre on Airline Highway...Baton Rouge.



A constant and faithful companion.

Pentecostal Church in Biloxi.

 

Raleigh MS...Rogers's Grocery.

 

 

Somewhere around Prentiss.

Between Rocky Mount Church and Winona.



Little Sammy Davis of Winona on Harmonica...not in the Delta but that don't sound much like the Delta anyway.

Fever Dream

 

The Fight Between Carnival and Lent - Bruegel

 

This was supposed to be a post about the third season of American Horror Story. Set in New Orleans...the writers, for the first time, take great pleasure in slaughtering some of the locals. Locals in the surrounding area...not New Orleans. They all have a kind of shallow affection for New Orleans...generic shots of the Quarter and St. Louis cemetery, vague Jazz notes...but don't have any interest in actually writing a character that would exist there. They do take great care in reconstructing cliché's of Southerners and ripping them limb from limb.

I couldn't get it written...couldn't get a video made...so, there's this. One note...I do not let the Boy talk to me like this...unless I am goading him. Which I was without mercy. Ha.

  

 

We'll try it again tomorrow.

 

Without Correction

The second in a series of post concerning my favorite records.

 

Eggleston

Reviewing Alex Chilton's Like Flies on Sherbert for Allmusic, David Cleary tells us...

"...this release is a dreadful disappointment. Production values are among the worst this reviewer has ever heard: sound quality is terrible, instrumental balances are careless and haphazard, and some selections even begin with recording start-up sound."

Then, horror of horros...."Chilton's false-start vocal on "Boogie Shoes" is simply left in without correction".

"Without correction"? It wasn't left there on purpose for a purpose beyond Cleary's capacity or willingness to accept. There is a proper way to do things and this was not it...it was an error left uncorrected. I guess Jim Dickinson just didn't know what he was doing.

 

Cleary is well within his duties to point out the haphazard nature of the record. Let 'em know that if they're looking for The Ballad of El Goodo...it's not here. As for what's correct or incorrect Cleary can stick it above his collar...right up his butt.*

I wonder if he bothered with Bach's Bottom...surely his head would have exploded at Free Again (version 1)..."Put some kung fu on it this time"...or if he heard Chilton's sessions from 1970, before Big Star...



Throughout the sessions Dickinson would record players while they were warming up and use those takes. There's the oft reported anecdote that Chilton wanted Dickinson to play guitar because he still played like a teenager. The illusion created by crafting is removed. The false starts and uneven mixes...the overdubs to hide blank spots...it creates a level of uncertainty for the listener and when the whole thing comes off it is exhilarating.



I don't think there's any irony in the record...even the cover of Boogie Shoes sounds like earnest fun. How many songs have buried..."trampled" on even...by well crafted, precise production? Still, the potential for a meta reading can't be denied. They knew, Jim Dickinson certainly knew, what they were doing. Others got what they were doing too. It's impossible, at least for me, to see Slay Tracks hit with the impact it did and not think of Like Flies on Sherbert.**

Finally, one reviewer complained that they all sound drunk and high.

Playing rocknroll while drunk and high on the dope. Well...I swanny!

That's Memphis David...it may not play in Cincinnati, Oh-hyy-o but, nobody gives a damn.



*I've got the Trouser Press Record Guide from the 80's and the one they published in the 90's. In the 80's, Trouser's take on Bach's Bottom and Flies is as vitriolic as Cleary's...accusing the records of "trampling" on Chilton's songs. By 95, Bach's Bottom was an "intriguing stop/start" record.
** I think this is what they call foreshadowing.

Warrior's Shadow

It doesn't come up much on here but, I was high-ish-ly trained in history...the work of it...the craft I reckon. My studies focused on the British Empire in the 19th century. It was just a good piece of luck that William Storey was at Millsaps College when I enrolled. Thanks to him and his encouragement I was able to turn my own interests into a legitimate pursuit.  One that eventually led and allowed me to study under people like Mridu Rai*, Jonathan Spence, Paul Kennedy, etc.

One of the biggest advantages I had though...was speaking English.

I don't speak Japanese. So another keen interest of mine, Sengoku era Japan, has gleefully remained a hobby. There comes a point where if you don't speak or read a language...you hit a ceiling. So instead of learning Japanese...I just watch samurai movies.

 

My historical interests are not particularly sophisticated. I have no interest in how people used to wash up after supper or how their traditions for washing up were actually invented by their oppressors and therefore aren't really Real traditions. I like battles. I want WAR!...not anthropology and political studies. Just as in the heyday of British Imperialism...Sengoku Japan's got plenty of that.

One of Lincoln's more enthusiastic thugs, who freely talked about the need to exterminate Southerners and then Indians, famously described war as Hell. Which, as Clyde Wilson points out, is a sly dodge of responsibility for burning people out of their homes. Wilson contrasts this with a quote from Nathan Bedford Forest..."war is fighting and fighting means killing." No dodge...no outside force that dictates or excuses the most extreme behavior.

Lee got closer to our looming point, when he said, after another fantastic victory at Fredricksburg, where he was outnumbered by 40,000 men, "it is well that war is so terrible, else we should grow too fond of it." Lee, like so many of the Confederate generals, was a throwback, a true warrior...not a thug, a murderer, an annihilationist. Without losing sight of its cost, I think Lee did love aspects of war...and what it required...sacrifice, honour, courage...selflessness.

Of course there's also the spectacle. It's the masculine drama...the stakes are ultimate and you get to put your pecker on the table while waving a flag. 

Nobody's ever done it with more style than the Samurai.



There's an outstanding book by Joanna Bourke called an Intimate History of Killing: Face to Face Killing in the Twentieth Century. One of the things she demonstrates through interviews, letters, diaries, etc is that combat veterans are often reluctant to talk about their experiences not because they are horrified by them but because they enjoyed it. They power was seductive but so was the aesthetic experience.**

 

The actual Battle of Nagashino was not directed by Kurosawa and was probably not so stylishly metaphorical. The Samurai rode these little pony's that could barely carry their weight...and they were surrounded by retainers jogging along with them in a charge. There would have been thousands of foot soldiers at the palisades with the hand gunners...who would have come out to finish it off by hand.

Still he hasn't made it up from whole cloth. If you've ever seen the old screens you know there were high style elements to the chaos. Perhaps more importantly it's closer to how these events persist in the imagination. In the film, the shadow warrior, the Kagemusha, demonstrates the highest qualities of a warrior. It's an act that is utterly futile...on every conceivable level. If only we could mount up and ride with him.

Who doesn't love Samurai movies...oh yeaaaaah.



*One of my favorite recurring scenes from graduate school was her pulling a pack of Marlboro Reds out of her sari. She's obviously razor sharp but, she was just a fun lady.

**I recently listened to a podcast on Greek Hoplites...the issue of post-traumatic-stress-disorder came up. I thought I was gonna eat my car keys. It's the worst kind of anachronism because you can see the legs on it. By the time they were done...it was probably on psychopaths that thrived in war.

For Bear...Somethin' about Momma, Trains, Trucks, Prison, Gettin' Drunk...

David Allan Coe...



I have my issues with Coe. He's prickly, which is alright, and doesn't care about being misunderstood in his writing. That's admirable.



Some of his best work was obviously driven by resentment. He's a songwriting genius....just ask Tanya Tucker, Johnny Paycheck or David Allan Coe...but he's never been embraced by the country establishment. At this point, it's hard to tell who's to blame....put out a stunning record...follow it up with an album featuring your father's corpse on the cover. Maybe he's a genuine Outsider...somebody who wants desperately to be loved and accepted because he knows he never can be.

If That Ain't Country cuts right to it. It's a series of tropes...and a thinly veiled mocking but, it ends with a mini-medley of Country Classics..."I didn't grow up in a tobacco field but, it's not necessary, I really can do this."



Coe is not a Texan. He's not from Nashville...he's not a Southerner at all. He's from Ohio...Akron, f****** Ohio. He spent a lot of his childhood in Michigan juvies...but he wants to make sure you know he "can sing all them songs about Texas." It's also probably got something to do with why he drapes himself in Confederate battle flags and tours a kinda Dixie Minstrel show. Can't say I love that.

Man...he can be brilliant though.

Alabamy Bound

Me and The Boy are Alabama bound but...we are not going to fetch our woman. She will be here at the house enjoying a few days without her mens. That's what she claims anyhow...we know better.

What woman really wants time to herself?

So while she's being miserable without us...me and The Boy and Daddy will be in Birmingham to watch the Gators play East Carolina. Despite another abysmal season the Gators managed to get an invite to a bowl...the glamorous Birmingham Bowl.

Alarms are set for 5am...we will be on the road by six. We'll be flying through Meridian by 7:00. You know Meridian Mississippi....ruthlessly brunt to the ground by the Yankees...home of Jimmy Rodgers.



Then on past Cuba...Livingston...Eutaw...to Tuscaloosa where we will be stopping to visit Bryant Denny Stadium .  I may have over sold that stop...as The Boy asked me about throwing the ball on the actual field.

Birmingham is next...and it's Art Museum which I can tell he's underestimating. Once he gets a look at a full suit of Samurai armor...we'll be fine. Besides the next stop is Full Moon ...so, even if he doesn't dig Ida Kolmeyer...

I know he'll dig the ribs.*

Just because...Knebworth**



* I know you rabbits don't care but trust me on this one....

**Skynyrd, of course, is not from Alabama but from the Jacksonville Fl. area...where my brother lives...where my Moma grew up...Gator territory.

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.

.
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.

The Game

 



I wanted to post a really smug picture but...I couldn't find one. Curse me for being so humble.

 

Today for the 131st time, Yale and Harvard will get down for what is the most storied rivalry in all of football...with an Ivy League Championship on the line.

 

 

 

Tackle football is a game that was born in colleges. Yale's first football team was fielded in 1871...one year after the Rugby Football Union was formed in England. It's part of the same the phenomenon...where various forms of football were being sorted out in the late 19th century. It's not a new game...and it owes a great deal to British expats in the U.S. and Canada.* Like rugby, at the time, the game was thought to be for the better sorts..."not like the coal miners' sons who played English football," as one commentator put it in the 1890's.

 

It was in the Ivy League and among other elite schools in the North East that game went from a chaotic form of rugby to the game none of you recognize today. Why weren't Southerners involved in the creation of a game they have come to utterly dominate? It's because of an episode that is totally unknown in US history classes...but euphemistically called Reconstruction. We were under occupation being bleed white.

 

Why am talking about this..I know this stuff and y'all don't care. Have some more old pictures and illustrations.

 

 

 

 Erik F. Bartlam, History MA, 04

*Canadians are not given the credit they deserve for helping to shape the game. Not only do they have their own league with a rich history...they developed crucial aspects of the game.

______

Yale receives the opening kickoff...they have the number one offense in the lower division they play in. Harvard has the number one scoring defense.

After a quick first down pick up...Yale is forced to punt. They were not forced to kick a crap punt but, they did it anyway.

You think Harvard could work another color into their uniforms...Crimson, Black, White, Gold. Tacky.

Tacky and just had to punt.

Commercial Break.

Dammit....Punt Block.

Harvard ball in the shadow of the endzone.

STONED....Harvard is moving backwards now. 3rd and goal from 11

 Harvard held to a field goal....disaster avoided.

Yale 0 - Harvard 3

Yale is moving the ball now.

HAHAHAHAH...Intelligence and football intelligence are not necessarily compatible. First down Yale because Harvard sent 12 men out on the field. Being able to count is obviously not a requirement for admission to Harvard.

First down and goal on the 6.

TOUCHDOWN BULLDOGS!!!

Yale 7 - Harvard 3

All because Harvard can't count...

End of the first quarter...

 

Yale 7 - Harvard 3

 

Three plays...three plays for a loss...punt. Yale ball on their own 45.

Idiot...move up field with the ball. 4th and 1. Yale takes a timeout.

First down Yale.

They are running all over these idiots.

Dammit...hang on to the ball. 4th and 17...ha they're going for it.

Keep falling on your face morons...we love that.

 

 

Ha. Harvard fumbles on the 5 yard line. You thought you were gonna score...

 

 

You suck!

 

First down Yale. 1:05 left in the half...y'all need to pick up the pace.

 

Halftime

 

Yale 7 - Harvard 3

 

Shit...I got distracted during halftime.

 

Yale 7 - Harvard 10

 

Dodged a bullet there...blocked field goal.  Yale ball.

 

Crap...Yale punts.

 

This is starting to look shaky....

 

 

Yale 7 - Harvard 17

 

Alright, alright...three plays...three first downs.

 

I am going to eat my &^%%$$#$#ing car keys. The Yale receiver had the catch for a first down and then it was snatched away and returned for a touchdown.

 

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEF THIS!

 

Yale 7 - Harvard 24

 





Commercial Break...


Alright then Yale on the one...TOUCHDOWN!!!

Yale 14 - Harvard 24

Hahah...unsportsmanlike on Harvard....

First down Yale on the Harvard 10...this is still a ball game.

TOUCHDOWN YALE!!!!!

Yale 21 - Harvard 24

It's on now clowns.

Program note...Tomorrow 10:30am Hull City v Hotspurs.

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!  Fumble Harvard....YALE BALL!!!!!!!

FIRST DOWN YALE!

That's another first down.

Field goal attempt coming up.....GOT IT!!!!  Tie ballgame.

Yale 24 - Harvard 24

1:31 left Harvard has the ball...3rd and 3.

S***. First down Harvard.

First down Harvard...they are getting nauseatingly close to field goal range.

KISS MY F&^%^^^I*NG GRITS...touchdown Harvard.

Yale 24 - Harvard 31

55 seconds left...that's all Yale has to work with.

First down Yale...out of bounds stops the clock.

Seven seconds...first down and out of bounds. Hot damn

Got it...and out of bounds at the Harvard 26. 20 seconds left.

SHITSHITSHITSHIT. Interception...

I hate football.

Muck Raking.

From local Memphis TV in 1979 we have Straight Talk With Marge Thrasher...and she is having none of this nonsense. In fact, she's in a right tizzy about it. The Regal couple just seems confused.



Tav handles himself like the consummate Southern Gentleman that he is.

More important for our purposes here...are the "invisible performers" he's talking about. He's almost certainly talking about people like Charlie Feathers and his mentor Junior Kimbrough, Othar Turner, Jim Dickinson, Jessie Mae Hemphill and even our very own Alex Chilton there...and I have no doubt that R.L. Burnside was on his mind.*

 ** Snake Drive written by R.L. Burnside

It should be pointed out that Panther Burns is covering R.L. Burnside more than a decade before Bad Luck City and almost 15 years before Fat Possum Records.

Behind the Magnolia Curtain was released in 1981...the same year, you will of course remember, that The Fall were touring the US behind Grotesque and Slates...while also running through songs that would appear on Hex. You will also know that one of the greatest moments in the history of sound occurs on this tour...Winter..."that's an alcohol free lager...well, anyway I digress."



It was recorded at a show in Memphis, Tennessee...where Mark E Smith met our man Tav. Both were on Rough Trade and The Fall Online is convinced that Mark E Smith was introduced to the song Bourgeois Blues through the Panther Burns cover on Behind the Magnolia Curtain. If he owned that record...he heard Snake Drive.

This proves, beyond all reasonable doubt, that Mark E Smith was indeed completely obsessed with Hill Country Blues.

Here's where I drop the mic...wipe my hands of this nonsense and leave the room a champion.

ALL I DO IS WIN WIN WIN NO MATTER WHAT...

*If you're a little confused by the geography...Memphis is in the extreme southwest corner of Tennessee bordered by Arkansas to the west and Mississippi to the south. The reason that everybody in Mississippi ends up in Memphis instead of Jackson is that The Delta and the Hill Country are within Memphis's sphere of influence. When they go to town...they don't go to Jackson they go to Memphis.

 

Special Thanks to Gronmark for the Hasil Adkins reference...which reminded me of Panther Burns...which led to me uncovering this fascinating rocknroll artifact.

 

** If Mississippi was a sound it would be this song...here's Jim Dickinsons boys, and Burnsides and Kimbroughs...burning Bonaroo down with it. Bonus Track.

 

 

Why'on't y'all deal with it!