50-48 #60: EMERGENCY UPDATE: ARKANSAS GIVES VARIOUS INDIAN NATIONS THE FINGER, WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY THROWING LITTER OUT OF ITS CAR.

50-48 #60: EMERGENCY UPDATE: ARKANSAS GIVES VARIOUS INDIAN NATIONS THE FINGER, WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY THROWING LITTER OUT OF ITS CAR. THEN THE INDIANS SLOWLY TURN THEIR HEADS, THE CAMERA ZOOMS IN, AND THEY CRY A SINGLE LONELY TEAR.

Did you know that the Choctaw word for “red” is “okla” and the Choctaw word for “people” is “humma”? Put them together, and you get Oklahoma, Red People, Indian Territory. You also get a basketball team that can’t hold the Razorbacks’ jock.

Hogs 96, Sooners 88. Suck it, Red People!

Here’s some stats:

CLICK.

To wit, CLICK. What a glorious way to close out this shitty year! What a way to usher in 2009, flush as it is with the hope and promise of all stories that have yet to be told. Sleep well, you princes of Arkansas, you kings of the South. The future is bright.

The 50-48 hiatus will be continuing for a brief while, but we’ll return in the new year stronger than ever, providing the sort of penetrating analysis that you’ve come to expect from us. We’ll break down the basketball season, update the status of the hallucinatory possum outside our apartment, engage in hypothetical digressions on aliens, zombies, and unicorns, and swoon hopelessly over the possibilities for this year’s Diamond Hogs.

Have a great New Year. Don’t die. Don’t contract a venereal disease. And remember: if you find yourself in a dark and musty pit, and you look up and see a shirtless man staring down at you, petting a small white dog, put the lotion in the basket. Don’t be a hero.

50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS

50-48 #59: A BRIEF BASKETBALL PREVIEW, IN LIEU OF SOMETHING LONGER AND MORE PERVERSE, WHICH IS SURE TO COME SOMETIME SOON

50-48 #59: A BRIEF BASKETBALL PREVIEW, IN LIEU OF SOMETHING LONGER AND MORE PERVERSE, WHICH IS SURE TO COME SOMETIME SOON

Okee doke. Football over. Basketball beginning. Let’s unpack these facts and see what semiotic residue when can scrape from the corners of this white-tiled reality. Shall we?

We’re 6-1 going into the Jim Thorpe on Wednesday, our only loss coming to Missouri State in Springfield. Also, Southeastern Louisiana took us into overtime. These things being what they are, it might behoove all of us to brace ourselves for an up-and-down season. Such is the nature of playing with a heavy freshman population.

BUT: Though we suffered myriad defensive lapses early and played inferior teams far too closely, our last three games have been handy victories, with an average 20-point ass-kicking margin. In that last one, a 98-70 win over North Carolina Central, freshman Courtney Fortsen managed to avoid whiplash from his massive dreadlocks and gave the Hogs their second triple-double in history.

We have four—FOUR!—Hogs averaging double figures in points: Courtney is leading the way with 15.4, followed by finally-playing-to-his-potential Michael Washington with 14.9, superstar shooting guard and soon-to-be-freshman-sensation Rotnei Clark with 14.3, and stalwart Stefan Welsh (lonely as he may be without backcourt mate Pat Beverly this season) with 10.4. Michael Sanchez is managing 8.7 points and 7.9 rebounds. He’s all feet and elbows and this point, but what he lacks in aesthetic grace is compensated for by (hopefully) genuine potential.

Remember: Stefan and Michael are juniors, but everyone else is an underclassman. Thus the positive vibes that come from seeing us spread our point-margin in the last three games, lowly as they might be to FAMU, Texas Southern, and the aforementioned NCC.

The point to all of this is that even though the team hasn’t performed like a contender so far, there is reason to believe that the boys will be stout by the end of the season. Before we get to conference, however, we have two hellacious tests: Okiehoma on December 30, and Texas on January 6. If you are reading this in Fayetteville, and you are not at those games, I’m not going to be your friend anymore. The youngsters need all the help they can get. Besides, everybody likes screaming obscenities at Okiehoma and Texas. To quote Teach from David Mamet’s American Buffalo: Guys like that, I like to fuck their wives.

At the same time, however, we need to brace ourselves for possible losses. God help me I would sell my soul to beat Texas, and I would sell all of your souls, as well. But we might not be ready quite yet. Regardless, it’s a decent nonconference schedule that should get us ready for the SEC on January 10.

Either way, there will be highs and lows. There will be, to wit, giant bulls running at us, but at the same time we will often manage feats of unimaginable grace in the face of such bulls. (click.)

50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS

PS: NOTE TO REFEREES IN THE TEXAS GAME: If you start giving Texas your typical bullshit sycophantic calls, BEWARE.

PPS: We here at 50-48 love Texas Tech, BUT STOP FUCKING COPYING US, BRUTHA!

50-48 #58: MACK BROWN IS THE DEVIL

50-48 #58: MACK BROWN IS THE DEVIL

In 2006, Texas A&M defeated Texas in Austin during the last regular season game of the season. In the final coach’s poll of the season—the one in which coaches are required to attach their names to their choices—Mack Brown ranked his team ahead of Texas A&M.

In 2007, Texas A&M defeated Texas in College Station during the last regular season game of the season. In the final coach’s poll of the season—the one in which coaches are required to attach their names to their choices—Mack Brown ranked his team ahead of Texas A&M.

In 2008, Texas Tech defeated Texas in Lubbock during the heart of the regular season. In the final coach’s poll of the season—the one that will come out next week—Mack Brown will rank his team ahead of Texas Tech.

But somewhere in between that second and third paragraph, Mack Brown began pissing and moaning about head-to-head matchups as being the ultimate arbiter of championship status. How is it that Mack Brown can think his team is better than Texas Tech (to whom he lost) and Oklahoma (whom he defeated), and still emphasize the viability of head-to-head matchups? How is it that he can think that his team was better than Texas A&M two years in a row, even after losing to them both times? Hypocrisy, thy name is Bevo.

This seeming paradox cannot be reconciled because it isn’t actually a paradox. It is rather a mangled form of reductio ad absurdum by Mack Brown—a shell game designed to magnify his plight to ridiculous ends in the hopes that people will forget the core reality of his situation. And judging by the chatter on sports television and radio, it’s working. Sports fans, as much as I love them, have never been the brightest bulbs on the tree.

What’s missing from the sanctimonious calls for head-to-head matchups is the fact that college football has NEVER been dependent upon such realities. This is the same inherent flaw in similar sanctimonious calls for a college football playoff system. Such has never been a part of the college football pantheon.

A playoff works in the NFL, for example, because all teams are given the same resources. There is a level playing field, making all teams essentially equal at the start of the season. When a playoff arrives, it is a modification of a regular season where all teams play each other, with an equal pay scale, an equivalent schedule, etc.

But such is not the case in college football. 1A teams are not working with equal resources, with equal recruits. There is no draft to ensure that talent is spread evenly throughout. There is no uniform scheduling mandate. The BCS, for example, arbitrarily includes basketball conferences such as the Big East, ACC, and Pac-10, even though these conferences are patently undeserving of their status. Cincinnati, for example, will be representing the Big East in the BCS this season, after being included in the conference a couple of years ago. Is Cincinnati as talented as TCU, Boise State, BYU, Utah, et. al.? Of course not. The one difference between Cincinnati and those schools is that they were invited in mid-decade to join the Big East. Their program didn’t change. Their facilities and their resources didn’t change. They just put a new conference logo on their jerseys. Their schedule didn’t get appreciably harder, because the Big East is not a football conference. Its best teams left years ago to join the ACC. Everyone in the Big East would happily acknowledge that Utah had a stronger football program, but Utah was far, far away out west. Cincinnati was close enough to the East Coast to make them a viable candidate. Plus, they had a strong basketball team.

You see? The arbitrariness of the system leaves no room for the precision of a playoff. USC, for example, has probably more talent than anyone in the country. They do their best to play a relatively strong non-conference schedule. Unlike all of the teams in my beloved SEC, USC does not schedule 1AA cupcakes. But USC cannot be a viable candidate for the national championship game because they play in a horrible conference. It isn’t their fault. They’ve always been in the Pac-10. (On this subject, were I the athletic director at USC, I would be demanding that the Pac-10 make overtures to BYU and Utah to create a twelve-team conference, complete with a championship game. And yes, believe me, I like saying nice things about USC just about as much as you like reading them, but—to use my favorite sports cliché—it is what it is.)

The third best conference in the country this season is, far and away, the Mountain West, just behind the SEC and Big 12. But the conference’s inconsistency in securing big-time recruits and its distance from major media markets ensures that it will never be considered a BCS conference. In a playoff system, would the Mountain West be given an automatic bid into the tournament? Who knows? And, if they were, would they deserve it every year? Probably not.

But, wait, 50-48, you might be saying. What about the NCAA basketball tournament? That works. Yes it does. But that’s because a 64-team tournament allows for enough teams into the system to ensure that the best teams are included. While some deserving teams on the outside of the 64-team circle might be left out, all legitimate title contenders can be included into the system because of its girth. In addition, with the more limited skill set, relative lack of positional specialization, and far-reaching AAU playing and evaluating system, the competitive distance between the various teams and conferences is far smaller. Also, the lack of physical demand that basketball puts on a player’s body (compared to football; we here at 50-48 are not presuming that basketball is easy by any means) makes a large-scale tournament with multiple games per weekend a real possibility. It is not a possibility in football.

What all of these basketball checks make up for, of course, is the fact that half of the tournament invitations are chosen by a selection committee—not by conference championships. Football doesn’t have such checks, but it does have the same core problem. The college football rankings are not based on wins and losses, not based on similar competitive schedules, but rather on the opinions of sportswriters, all of whom are judging how a 50-point victory against Louisiana-Monroe, for example, compares to a 5-point win over Purdue. Again, it is all arbitrary. In such a system, a playoff becomes just as silly as the BCS.

The two core elements of this argument are objectivity and history.

There is no objective standard for judging who are the “best” teams. Records don’t work, because the schedules are so varied. Recruits don’t work, because teams like Notre Dame who get great recruiting classes stink on hot ice. Conference championships don’t work, because all conferences—including all conferences in the BCS—are not created equal.

And history tells us that objectivity doesn’t matter anyway. National championships in college football have always been mythical—have always been the choice of sportswriters. It wasn’t until the 1970s that bowl games even counted towards championships. Bowl games were designed as showcases for certain cities, who invited teams who received significant publicity throughout the season to play an exhibition at their local venue. Let me say that again—exhibitions. When the Hogs won their national championship in 1964, for example, they were chosen prior to their bowl game win. They shared the championship with Alabama.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind the bowl games counting as part of the press’s championship voting. If that system had been in place in 1964, Arkansas wouldn’t have had to share the title with Alabama. (Joe Willie Namath got his ass waxed in the Orange Bowl that season.)

But regardless, the championship has always been arbitrary. Now, the BCS doesn’t even use the AP poll to determine champions. It uses the coach’s poll—a poll created by coaches who don’t watch college football because they’re busy with their own teams on Saturday. Liars and con men like Mack Brown vote in that poll. And Mack Brown has proven time and time again that he votes with his bias for Texas more than any legitimately objective standard. And on the strength of a system like this we want to create a playoff? (By the way, Bob Stoops does not get a vote in the coach’s poll. Arbitrary, arbitrary, arbitrary.)

Ultimately, there is no way to combat the arbitrary nature of college football polling. It is inherent in the system. There is no polling without arbitrariness. And there is no college football without polling. Instead of trying to fix an unfixable system, why not enjoy college football for what it is. 50-48 suggests going back to the pre-BCS system. Was it really so horrible when the coaches and AP split and gave us two national champions? Is it really such a bad thing to win a conference championship and make the argument that the sportswriters got it wrong? The whole impetus behind the BCS was to create better television matchups for ABC. That was the only reason.

Remember, college football was built through the conference system. Conference championships were always the most important part of college football. And conferences were created to match like universities in a certain region. Not universities with similar resources regardless of region, all agreeing upon a standardized schedule so an objective decision could be made on a legitimate national champion.

And speaking of legitimacy, let us return briefly to Texas, crying as it is about the Big 12 Championship Game. In the three-way tie between Texas, Texas Tech, and Oklahoma, it is Oklahoma who has the strongest non-conference schedule. It is Oklahoma who has higher offensive and defensive rankings. It is Oklahoma who is ahead in the polls. Are these categories arbitrary? Of course they are. But they are what we have. As far as “better” can be determined in the hit-or-miss game of gauging success in college football, Oklahoma has all the earmarks.

Look carefully at Mack Brown’s ballot when the final coach’s poll comes out. If he places Texas above Texas Tech, which he surely will, any pity argument he tries to make will immediately become invalid.

So, to sum up:

1. A playoff will never be tenable in a system based on voting.
Voting has always been a constituent part of college football.
Therefore, a playoff is untenable for college football.

2. Everyone who voluntarily wears burnt orange is a monumental dick.
Mack Brown voluntarily wears burnt orange.
Therefore, Mack Brown is a monumental dick.

QED.

50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS

PS: We here at 50-48 are very cognizant of the fact that this isn’t a fully systematic argument, and that it tends to rambling in spots. But rambling is par for the course here. And we’ve been frittering our time away with work and depression, leaving little time to shore up the loose ends. Forgive our mess!

PPS: On this very topic: BOOMER SOONER.

50-48 #57: A RIVER OR STREAM ARE THE METAPHORS BY WHICH CONSCIOUSNESS IS MOST NATURALLY DESCRIBED

50-48 #57: A RIVER OR STREAM ARE THE METAPHORS BY WHICH CONSCIOUSNESS IS MOST NATURALLY DESCRIBED (WILLIAM JAMES, PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY, 1890)

Fourth and one. Oh my God, fourth and one. You’ve had so many chances, Casey. And you’ve fucked them all up. Given every opportunity, you have managed to piss it all away time and time again. In that regard, we’re much alike, you and me. We’re sort of like kindred spirits. (With the notable exception that I don’t have an engagement website, where I’m staring at my blushing bride-to-be in tall grass and sunlight. No bride-to-be would have me. And I don’t like sunlight.) You make your mistakes on a giant grassy rectangle. I make mine everywhere else, careful to avoid grassy rectangles like they were peopled with poisoned tootsie rolls or gonorrheal pseudo-virgins. It’s a sanctified place for me, a holy place. Woe be to me were I to charge in and sully that like I’ve sullied everything else.

And so here you are, on this hallowed ground, this place where the 1964 national championship team played. Where the Miracle on Markham happened. Fourth and one. Fourth and one. Don’t fuck this up Casey. I have been sitting in this car the entire game, listening with dread and gumption as the game has ebbed and flowed. I have been driving through Louisiana, passing slow LSU fans time and time again, each seeing the Razorback paraphernalia all over my car and responding with looks ranging from quizzical to sympathetic to angry. I have put up with this for you, Casey. I know I’ve said a lot of bad things about you in the past. I resented your status as Hootie’s pet. I resented that South Carolina game two years ago when Hootie put you in to replace Mitch. That wasn’t your fault, Casey. You were just doing what you were told. There were lots of Nazis, too, who felt they had no choice but to follow orders.

Hootie is a Nazi, Casey. I hope you see that now, thinking as you probably are of your blushing bride-to-be, running hand-in-hand with her through what I imagine now to be a wheat field, running your hands over the stalks and feeling the flowers tickle your palm. Do you remember Casey? Do you remember how peaceful it made you feel? You there running through the wheat with what’s-her-name? Far away from the losses and the interceptions and the fumbles? Does it tickle, Casey? Find that place inside yourself now, Casey. Go to that wheat field. Soak in the sunshine. And while you’re thinking about it, make your bride-to-be naked. Nudity helps, Casey. It calms the nerves. Cleans the palate. If I weren’t driving right now, I would take all of my clothes off, too.

It’s raining where I am, Casey, just like it’s raining there in Little Rock. Your brother started the game so well, when we jumped out to that early lead. My car ride was happy at that point. I was eating Combos, Casey. The ones with the cheddar cheese inside the pretzel hull. How do they do that, Casey? Do you think they foist the cheese into prefabricated tubes? Or do you think they build the pretzel tubes around the cheese?

None of that matters now, Casey. Stop thinking about my Combos. Fourth and one. Fourth and one. I almost lost faith on our last drive, when we got to the twenty before failing, failing, failing. I thought about my horrible semester, about all the things that had gone wrong, made magnified by what seemed another inevitable loss. And this one to LSU! I wore my Mitch Mustain protest jersey to work last week, Casey. Not because I was mad at you, but because it’s the only jersey I have, and I wanted everyone at my Louisiana job to know precisely where I stood when it came to this game. Louisiana people don’t understand the concept of protest jerseys anyway. Studies have shown that 98% of Louisiana residents can’t even spell “protest jersey,” Casey. 98% of them are morbidly obese. 98% of Louisiana’s women have had abortions. 98% of its men have a chicken wing lodged in one or another part of their esophagus or small intestine.

98% of French people make fun of Louisiana people for being French wannabes. And 100% of everyone else makes fun of French people. This is just math, Casey. I tell you now because I you don’t want to lose to such folk. You’ve lost so many times before. And so have I. But you’re better than them, Casey. I’m not, but you are.

These Combos are so good, Casey. Normally I like to suck them for a moment, pulling the salt off each tube before trying to suck the cheesy center out of its cloister. But I’m not doing that now, driving here as I am in the rain down an interstate peopled with SUVs and pickup trucks littered with LSU stickers, the drivers chewing tobacco or shrimp or sausage or whatever it is Louisiana drivers chew when they’re driving in the rain. I’m crunching the Combos, Casey. Calming my nerves and keeping me from grinding my teeth.

I’m so nervous, Casey. I know it’s fourth and one, and I know you’ve failed so many times before, but I believe in you. This will be your legacy. One good effort here. One simple touchdown, and all will be forgotten. Your slate will be clean. You will be washed white as snow. That isn’t just me saying that, Casey. It’s Jesus. This is a sentiment buried deep in that book that everyone carries around but no one ever reads. “And so it comes to pass that if thou makest a fucking touchdown here, thy sins will be wiped clean. I’ll ride you to heaven on a fluffy white cloud, and we’ll have a dance party. Rhianna will be there. And Tim Tebow will circumcise your baby for you.” First John 8:16, Casey. Look it up.

But not now. Now there’s business to attend to. Fourth and one. If I were there, I would give you one of these delicious Combos. I would take all of my clothes off. Fourth and one. Fourth and one. I’ve been driving for so long now, Casey, and the rain hasn’t let up all day, driving as I am in this car that was robbed and vandalized two months ago. I’m paying for my sins, Casey. And you can pay for yours. Just please, please, please don’t fuck this up.

Jim Hawthorne and his LSU color commentator seem cautiously optimistic about the Tiger defense’s chance of stopping you, Casey. But I still have faith. I have almost swerved off of the road fourteen times during this game. I just passed a policeman. I have to pee. Please, Casey. Please, please, please.

Oh my God. Here it goes. We aren’t running! It’s a pass play on fourth and one. Fourth and one! And there’s London Crawford. He’s open, Casey! “He is WIDE open,” says Jim Hawthorne, the frustration seeping from his voice. “Touchdown Arkansas.” TOUCHDOWN ARKANSAS!

I almost swerved my car into that nice woman’s Buick, Casey. But I didn’t. I missed her. You did it, you did it, you did it! Hootie can take his smoke draw and shove it up his fat ass. I have to pull over, Casey. I’m bouncing all around the car. I can’t stay in my lane. And it’s raining, Casey. I'm driving 97 miles per hour. I don’t have to pee anymore. Or rather, I have become one with my pee and all other things. The universe is expanding, Casey. I’ve never screamed so loudly in my car when it wasn’t directed at another driver in anger.

This is what joy feels like, Casey. You did it. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Your legacy is secure. You will never go unemployed in Arkansas as long as you live. You will never have to buy another drink again. And when I get back there, if I ever get out of this rain, away from all of these LSU cars and trucks, staring now with far more anger than sympathy, the first one’s on me.

I love this rain. And this pavement. And all of these LSU cars and trucks. I love everything right now. We’re much alike, Casey. We’re sort of like kindred spirits. You redeemed yourself on a giant grassy rectangle. It’s a sanctified place, a holy place. Woe be to me if I don’t charge in and try to redeem myself, too. Thank you, Casey. Thank you, Hogs. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You mean more to me than you’ll ever know.

50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS

PS: Stay tuned later in the week (if we here at 58-48 find the time) for another installment, designed as it will be to provide a withering denunciation of the claim by those crybaby pussies from Austin that the Longhorns somehow deserve to be in the Big 12 championship game. They don’t. Mack Brown is a surreptitious, two-faced, lying fuck, and we here at 50-48 intend to call him out on it. (SPOILER ALERT: This analysis will include a necessary critique of any and all calls for a playoff system in college football. 50-48 is anti-playoff. It is also anti-BCS. But rest assured, it welcomes all of those from the opposition. Unless they’re from Austin. We here at 50-48 hate those Longhorn shitheads more than anything else on earth.)

50-48 #56: MIRACLE ON MARKHAM II: PROLEGOMENA TO A DISQUISITION ON THE NATURE OF DYNASTY

50-48 #56: MIRACLE ON MARKHAM II: PROLEGOMENA TO A DISQUISITION ON THE NATURE OF DYNASTY

I'm in the throes of a hectic work weekend and thus don't have time to provide an analysis of today's glorious comeback against LSU. Rest assured that it will be on its way in the next few days. For now, there is only victory. And joy.

True, pure, unadulterated joy.

JOY. (click)

50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS

PS: Thanks to everyone who called and text-messaged and emailed today. The best part about Razorback victories is that it makes me feel, however briefly, popular.

PPS: I've been waiting all semester for a victory worthy of that hyperlink. If you click off the HD feature, it will run better. Enjoy.

PPPS: Suck it, Tigers.

50-48 #55: AWFUL DISCLOSURES OF THE HOLIDAY INN BATON ROUGE, OR, THE HIDDEN SECRETS OF A NUN'S LIFE IN A CONVENT EXPOSED

50-48 #55: AWFUL DISCLOSURES OF THE HOLIDAY INN BATON ROUGE, OR, THE HIDDEN SECRETS OF A NUN'S LIFE IN A CONVENT EXPOSED

It was Maria Monk who first peered into the cloistered halls of a dark and labyrinthine building in the early 1830s and found evil lurking in a supposedly holy place. The child of a tumultuous youth, Maria decided to engage in the grand project of self-reclamation by entering a convent. But the Hotel Dieu Nunnery in Montreal was anything but the promised life of seclusion and quiet, patient reflection.

After a series of gross discomforts, Maria escaped, before thinking better of her dire predicament and returning, hat in hand, to the convent. Still, the nuns forced her to pay a fee for re-entry. Such is the business of godmaking.

When she re-donned the vestments and got about the chores of being christ’s bride, Maria found that things were more than simply amiss at the Hotel Dieu. The nuns, it turned out, were the public concubines of the priests, raped incessantly to feed the urges of the unmarried men of the cloth. When babies were born of these sexual experiences, they were quickly blessed, then murdered in ritual sacrifice before being dumped into a basement pit filled with lime.

Hmm.

The message Maria provided for the country [presented in semi-titillating Victorian prose as Awful Disclosures of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery Montreal (1836)] after her second escape from the nunnery is clear: Beware of dark and labyrinthine buildings. Even if they seem nice. Even if they are well-stocked with beverages and laughter. Even if, like a Holiday Inn for example, they have a quaint little Mexican restaurant in the lobby and one of those elevators with the glass backs, allowing riders to watch as the floor below ascends and retreats.

We here at 50-48 were also the children of tumultuous youth. We here at 50-48 also sought shelter in a dark and labyrinthine building. And we here at 50-48 were also chagrined by the experience.

Evil lurks.

So it was that we returned to the Baton Rouge Holiday Inn after witnessing Hootie’s players defeat the hapless LSU Tigers this weekend. During the game, we sat right behind the Ole Miss bench, and we here at 50-48 did our level best to shout every disgusting thing we could think of at the huddle of coaches massed on the sideline, hoping that Hootie would hear one of our verbal ripostes and cry like a little girl. To no avail. He was probably text messaging some Oxford news anchor. We only saw him from behind, but his posture would seem to indicate the proper motion for either internet stalking, pederasty, or generic wanton infidelity.

Then the dejection by my Tiger-loving family. Then my own dejection at yet another Hootie win and an almost guaranteed Ole Miss berth in the Cotton Bowl. Then off through the interminable LSU traffic to the Holiday Inn.

Little did we here at 50-48 realize, we were staying in the Ole Miss team hotel! Oh, the cruel and vicious fates! We enter a place for sanctuary, only to discover it’s possessed by the devil itself! It was a horror near indescribable in its all-encompassing blackness.

That’s when we here at 50-48 knew we had to act. Thus the old question goes: Would you have killed Hitler if you had the opportunity? With Arkansas’s Hitler so ever close, so under the very roof that we ourselves were under, we formulated a Valkyrie operation of our own.

We moved slowly, silently out of our room, down the hall to the bank of elevators situated just across from the soda machines and ice vendor. We carefully—but without giving any indication of willful intent—pushed the up button and waited, waited. The glass monstrosity seemed to creep along at a snail’s pace until we were sweating bullets in the artificial hotel cold of the foyer.

But came it did, after so much waiting. We smiled politely to the elderly woman exiting, giving no indication that it was our intention to ride up to the sixth floor, seek out Hootie’s room, then murder him in cold blood.

We walked onto the elevator, looked out at the floor down below, looked out at the hotel lobby, decorated as it was to provide a sense of easy comfort to anyone coming from any part of the country—a sort of drab, positive malaise designed to numb more than anything else. Then we turned to face the bank of buttons and lights that would take us to the dark lair where the great Satan himself was probably making phone sex calls to a local Baton Rouge hotline. We pushed six.

But the light behind the number didn’t appear.

We pushed it again. And again.

Again with the cursed fate! The sixth floor required card access! Our murder plot was foiled.

Instead, we returned to the room, watched Texas Tech get boatraced by Oklahoma, and ate some delicious peppermint sticks. Such is the nature of potential revenge. Attempts are thwarted, but potential never completely dissipates.

Meanwhile, the Hogs blew another lead. They lost another late road game. The cosmic disappointment that game provided only topped the slow building of another disastrous day. And I don’t want to talk about it.

I finally fell asleep, nightmares bouncing off the inner-shellac of my skull, haunted as I was by the dark presence of Hootie just four floors above me.

“I must be informed that one of my great duties was to obey the priests in all things,” Maria wrote, “and this I soon learnt, to my utter astonishment and horror, was to live in the practice of criminal intercourse with them. I expressed some of the feelings which this announcement excited in me, which came upon me like a flash of lightning; but the only effect was to set her arguing with me, in favour of the crime, representing it as a virtue acceptable to God, and honourable to me. The priests, she said, were not situated like other men, being forbidden to marry; while they lived secluded, laborious, and self-denying lives for our salvation. They might be considered our saviours, as without their service we could not obtain pardon of sin, and must go to hell. Now it was our solemn duty, on withdrawing from the world, to consecrate our lives to religion, to practice every species of self-denial. We could not be too humble, nor mortify our feelings too far; this was to be done by opposing them and acting contrary to them; and what she proposed was, therefore, pleasing in the sight of God. I now felt how foolish I had been to place myself in the power of such persons as were around me.”

You see?! You see?! Does that not sound familiar?! We are all surreptitious nuns. We have all been abused by the false religion of Hootie and his minions. God speed, Ole Miss. You’re going to need it.

I have never been unwillingly fucked by a priest. I have never slaughtered my baby, blessed it, then dumped it in a giant pit deep in the bowels of my apartment. But as I lay there in that hotel room, I was conscious that I was resting defeated under the same roof as a victorious Hootie. Conscious that the basketball team had dropped its first game of the season to Missouri Southern (more about the basketball team in weeks to come). I was for all practical intents and purposes Maria Monk. I were become Maria Monk.

And as I lay dying, I thought what Maria probably thought during one of the myriad times a nefarious man of the cloth covertly entered her room, convinced her that it was God’s will that she remove the robe, then pounce on top of her with the zeal of someone whose sexual choices had been thinned through a career choice cleverly disguised as The Call:

“Fucked yet again.”

50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS

PS: (50-48 would like to include this brief disclaimer that Maria Monk’s story was disproven soon after its publication. Also, 50-48 is engaging in a fit of fantastical storytelling and is not admitting to conspiracy or attempted murder in any form or fashion. We’ll save our revenge against Hootie for when we see him in hell.)

50-48 #54: EMERGENCY UPDATE: FINALLY! LEE WINS THE WAR AND THE SOUTH RISES AGAIN! WE KNEW IT WOULD HAPPEN SOONER OR LATER.

50-48 #54: EMERGENCY UPDATE: FINALLY! LEE WINS THE WAR AND THE SOUTH RISES AGAIN! WE KNEW IT WOULD HAPPEN SOONER OR LATER.

Just a quick update to let everyone know that former Hog Cliff Lee just won the American League Cy Young Award! Though Eric Hinske had some quality at bats in the postseason this autumn, Lee was really the only Razorback shining star in the majors this season. His award is all the more impressive considering that control problems last year had him pitching in Bum Fuck Anonymous Triple-A City. This is the biggest comeback since Napoleon returned from Elba! (And is sure to have a happier ending.)

Congratulations, Cliff! The Hogs still love you!

We here at 50-48 feel like a lion who just finished a satisfying dinner of 48 delicious midgets. And we would like to provide this inspirational message to Roy Halliday, K-Rod, Dice-K, et al: SUCK IT, BOYS! WOO PIG SOOIE!

Thank you for your time. Please return the normalcy of your day. Good night, and good luck.

50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS

50-48 #53: PSYCHOPATHY

50-48 #53: PSYCHOPATHY

Did you know that psychopathy isn’t listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders? Instead, it’s included as part of the broader diagnosis of “antisocial personality disorder.”

And speaking on behalf of antisocial personality disorder sufferers everywhere, we here at 50-48 would just like to say: WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!?!

The idea, of course, is that more common disorders such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder have recognizable, diagnosable symptoms. Psychopaths are psychopaths precisely because they experience no symptoms. They don’t give a shit about anything. Trying to gauge not giving a shit is kind of like trying to measure air with a ruler. Until, that is, said psychopath goes and kills someone, then says something like, “Huh. Olive Garden would totally hit the spot right now.”

Still, psychopaths make up about 25% of the American prison population and a full 1% of the broader male population of the United States. “Beauty and ugliness, except in a very superficial sense,” wrote Hervey Cleckley in 1941, a world still choking on the breathing apparatus and neuro-synapse fire of Adolf Hitler, “goodness, evil, love, horror, and humor have no actual meaning, no power to move him.”

Of course, one of the consequent questions asked of psychopaths is the great moral puzzle: would you cause one person’s death in order to save the lives of others. Some would say yes, because the good of the few outweighs the good of the one. Others would say no, there is never a legitimate moral justification for causing the death of anyone. Psychopaths wouldn’t say yes or no. They would talk about Olive Garden. Or they simply wouldn’t understand the question. Or, influenced by the vast overproduction of slapstick comedy, burgeoning as it has since the days of vaudeville, they would argue that the death of the few caused by the death of the one would be far more entertaining.

We bring it up because we here at 50-48 couldn’t muster the gumption to let the Hogs’ disastrous loss to South Carolina ruin our Saturday. Don’t get us wrong. Our Saturday sucked, just like every other day sucks in this dirty hellhole of a place. But it wasn’t because of the Hogs. Casey Dick sucked, then got hurt, then saw his brother replace him. The running game mustered all of 54 yards. Michael Phelps and Jim Leyland were on the South Carolina sidelines, rooting against us. And they’re both awesome.

Normally, such events would drive us into an alcoholic frenzy. But this week they didn’t. We here at 50-48 have come up with several possible scenarios as to why this is: 1) Life is so bad and our general wish for the sweet release of death so palpable, that sport losses don’t even phase us anymore. 2) The crappy state of Razorvision and the lack of television coverage made the loss seem so distant that its power couldn’t overtake us. 3) We are psychopaths.

The first scenario can obviously not be the case. True, life is bad. True, we here at 50-48 do wish for the sweet release of death. But sport losses always phase us. The second scenario is possible, but Razorvision has sucked since its inception and there are plenty of games that take place far, far away from this horrid cesspool of a place in which 50-48 resides.

That leaves only one possible explanation. We are psychopaths. 50-48 will send a special emergency message as soon as we murder a busload of people, along with the one guy that would have been able to save them.

If there’s any justice in the world, scientists will study our brains after the unfortunate event, create a fancy name for the brain problems so obviously existent inside the hard shell of our skulls, and put it in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Still, if we survive the next two weeks, and State manages to defeat us on the 22nd, we will be left with this response: WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!?!

Then we'll go to Olive Garden. Olive Garden would totally hit the spot right now.

50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS

50-48 #52: HE OF THE NOODLY APPENDAGE IS BLESSING US ALL

50-48 #52: HE OF THE NOODLY APPENDAGE IS BLESSING US ALL

When physicist Bobby Henderson created the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster in 2005, in response to discussions in Kansas about the teaching of intelligent design in science classes, he inspired people all around the world to begin worshiping a floating meatball wrapped in noodles. The 50-48 Religious Tolerance Desk even issued an official statement that year showing support for the new organization, arguing in part, “We here at 50-48 love all faiths, especially those that ridicule evangelical Christians.”

Why do we bring it up? you might be asking. First, the doctrine’s Eight “I’d Really Rather You Didn’ts” provide a powerful counter to Judeo-Christianity’s oft-cited Ten Commandments, and we here at 50-48 think that readers everywhere could benefit from their clairvoyant wisdom. Second, and most importantly, devotees of the Flying Spaghetti Monster—Pastafarians, to wit—believe above all else that pirates are “absolute divine beings.” Pirates loved peace and candy and board games just like everyone else. Their overly-negative reputation as drunkards, rapists, and Johnny Depp wannabes comes not from actual fact, but from an overwrought propaganda campaign propagated by Christians of the Middle Ages and Hare Krishnas. Pastafarianism has also successfully correlated the rise of global warming to the diminishing number of pirates in the world. Here is a handy chart: CLICK.

Finally, the pirate-laden theology of Pastafarianism is the dogma of 50-48’s new favorite non-Razorback, Mike Leach, who personally gave the most disgusting scum on the entire planet—the Texas Longhorns—a nice big shitburger to eat this weekend. It was a fitting punctuation to a glorious day that also saw the Razorbacks hang on to win a tight one against another 50-48 favorite, Gus Malzhan, and his game Tulsa squad.

(Of course, these aren’t the only interesting elements of Pastafarianism. The existence of the group itself leads to insistent and fundamental questions such as, in the words of the Associated Press, “Does religion require a genuine theological belief or simply a set of rituals and a community joining together as a way of signaling their cultural alliances to others?” But, unfortunately, trying to unpack the ontological consequences of that one would only lead us down a winding road, far, far away from the Hogs’ win and the Longhorns’ loss. Que sera sera.)

So, let’s get to it, shall we?

1. I'd really rather you didn't act like a sanctimonious holier-than-thou ass when describing my noodly goodness. If some people don't believe in me, that's okay. Really, I'm not that vain. Besides, this isn't about them so don't change the subject.

Obviously, Hootie isn’t paying attention to these commandments. And, sure, if there was one dark blot on an otherwise great day, it was Tubby’s inability to make Auburn look like anything other than a Pop Warner girl’s field hockey team. We here at 50-48 imagine Hootie is sitting somewhere upon his vast promontory high atop his compound in East Jesus, Mississippi or wherever his shit-filled compound that passes for a Fortress of Darkness and Solitude lies, giggling with giddy glee at taking credit for another victory he didn’t deserve and plotting which players to blame for his next loss.

2. I'd really rather you didn't use my existence as a means to oppress, subjugate, punish, eviscerate, and/or, you know, be mean to others. I don't require sacrifices, and purity is for drinking water, not people.

Sorry, Spaghetti Monster, but Coach Leach and his pirate horde oppressed the ever-living shit out of the Longhorns this weekend. But, in his defense, the students, faculty, fans, and alumni of the University of Texas are not people. They are Satanic demons from outer space sent to earth to give us all an example of how not to behave. Also, they’re vampires. Also, despite what they might tell you, they all have chlamydia. No, no, no. Trust us. Don’t listen to that slutty girl in the bar in Austin, slurring her words and telling you how deeply emotional she felt when Lance Armstrong returned heroically from ball-cancer. She’s a walking VD factory. The devil is a deceiver, and he comes in many forms.

3. I'd really rather you didn't judge people for the way they look, or how they dress, or the way they talk, or, well, just play nice, okay? Oh, and get this into your thick heads: woman = person; man = person; Samey = Samey. One is not better than the other, unless we're talking about fashion and I'm sorry, but I gave that to women and some guys who know the difference between teal and fuchsia.

Speaking of looks and judgment, I’ve come around the bend on the hallucinatory possum that lives outside of my building. After a weeklong stakeout in the wee hours of the morning, I have come to the reluctant conclusion that Scampers is NOT a figment of my imagination. Though I have not yet mustered the courage to touch him, his consistent presence and inconsistent behavior lead me to believe that I simply have neither the imagination nor the possum expertise to create the depth of character required to climb trees, steal catfood, and dive headfirst into fenceposts. So my self-diagnosis of my own mental state is improving! Still, I’m reminded of the old joke: I used to think the brain was the most essential organ of the body, but then I thought, “Right. Well, look who’s telling me that.”

4. I'd really rather you didn't indulge in conduct that offends yourself, or your willing, consenting partner of legal age AND mental maturity. As for anyone who might object, I think the expression is "go fuck yourself," unless they find that offensive in which case they can turn off the TV for once and go for a walk for a change.

The Hogs ALMOST gave away a sure victory this week, and Casey practically gift-wrapped their comeback with a late interception that kept us from scoring and gave the Golden Hurricane a final drive to win. BUT THEY DIDN’T. So no criticism this week. The running game seemed to die on the vine, but Michael Smith’s 27-yard run in the first quarter was brilliant. Casey’s late interception hurt, but his 385 yards gave him more than the superior talent of David Johnson. The Hogs let a 17-0 lead evaporate, but they didn’t panic, even though Tulsa had one of those fancy ranking numbers prefacing their name. Sure, it’s now seventeen in a row against Tulsa for the Hogs, but this was a fundamentally different dynamic than years past. Tulsa’s offense would be a legitimate test for anyone—led, of course, by demigod and future Petrino-successor Gus Malzhan. Finally, the game-winning score came from little Dennis Johnson. After Tulsa tied the game with a field goal late in the third quarter, Johnson took the ensuing kickoff 96 yards for the winning score. Despite the frustrations that come from losing, WE ARE GETTING BETTER. And we here at 50-48 would much rather have steady improvement than some sort of baseline inferior mean, exacerbated every once in a while by a “defining win.” (Good luck with that, Rebels.)

5. I'd really rather you didn't challenge the bigoted, misogynistic, hateful ideas of others on an empty stomach. Eat, then go after the bitches.

Nine of my last 10 meals have consisted entirely of Cheetos and candy bars. Why is that? What is it inherent in Cheetos that fosters such obsessive behavior? I don’t know. But I want out of this cheese-coated cage. Still, despite my best efforts, I have yet to find a hotline for such problems. I tried to call the suicide hotline, but the operator didn’t seem to think that Cheetos addiction constituted a viable reason to suck on a gas pipe. I called her a turd, then hung up. And then I ate some more Cheetos. Cruel mistress!

6. I'd really rather you didn't build multi million-dollar synagogues / churches / temples / mosques / shrines to my noodly goodness when the money could be better spent (take your pick):
1. Ending poverty
2. Curing diseases
3. Living in peace, loving with passion, and lowering the cost of cable
I might be a complex-carbohydrate omniscient being, but I enjoy the simple things in life. I ought to know. I AM the creator.

This one seems to be a message to you, Little Rock. Stop trying to gild that shithole stadium with scoreboards and new aluminum siding. It isn’t helping. Instead, use that extra money for something positive. Perhaps you could pay for ego-reductions for everyone in West Little Rock. Or maybe you could teach everyone in North Little Rock to read and bathe. I also envision a fancy new government-subsidized whorehouse for use by visiting Razorback fans from out of state. Here are some name suggestions: The Pig In A Poke; Crazy Dirty Hog Sex; Woo Pig Do Me. You’re welcome.

7. I'd really rather you didn't go around telling people I talk to you. You're not that interesting. Get over yourself. And I told you to love your fellow man, can't you take a hint?

Prior to the start of games on Saturday, I was accosted by an angry group of psycho-Protestants who came knocking to ask if I was interested in attending their church. When I told them I wasn’t, they began questioning my motives. I told them those, too. And, whoa! They didn’t like that. The conversation got a little heated, as it always does with psycho-Protestants, and it was all I could do not to mention that I had to be going, because I had an appointment to ass-rape virgin orphans at the particular request of my lord and master Satan. But I didn’t. I was the picture of restraint. Besides, those people looked like they had just stepped off the Texas bigamy compound. Not the sort of folks you want to tempt. Still, I love being accosted by angry psycho-Protestants. It was like the Flying Spaghetti Monster was looking down upon me, promising me that the day was going to go my way. “You see,” he said. “At least you aren’t like that.” Right on.

8. I'd really rather you didn't do unto others as you would have them do unto you if you are into, um, stuff that uses a lot of leather/lubricant/vaseline. If the other person is into it, however (pursuant to #4), then have at it, take pictures, and for the love of Mike, wear a CONDOM! Honestly, it's a piece of rubber. If I didn't want it to feel good when you did it I would have added spikes, or something.

NOTE TO LITTLE ROCK: This would make a great sign for the bathroom wall at the Woo Pig Do Me.

So, what have we learned today? Well, the Hogs are continually improving, and as the recruiting classes continue to pour in, we can all look forward to competing nationally very, very soon. Also, we were reminded of what dirty fucks the Texas Longhorns are. But most importantly, we spent time meditating on the commandments of the great pirate religion of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, in honor of Mike Leach and his Texas Tech Red Raiders. Without them, Saturday still would have felt a little hollow. And so, we here at 50-48 exit for the week, stage left, by saluting the team that provided the perfect punctuation to Arkansas’s win over Tulsa:

Guns up, motherfuckers.

50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS

PS: Praise be to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and his noodly appendage of grace and redemption. Ramen.

PPS: Remember, those wanting to be on the 50-48 mailing list, to be updated when new installments come online, all you have to do is send an email to fiftyfortyeight@gmail.com.

50-48 #51: THE DEGREES OF SEPARATION BETWEEN BOBBY PETRINO, CARL SNAVELY, AND ED GENERO: THE OFFICIAL 50-48 OLE MISS RANT

50-48 #51: THE DEGREES OF SEPARATION BETWEEN BOBBY PETRINO, CARL SNAVELY, AND ED GENERO: THE OFFICIAL 50-48 OLE MISS RANT

For those who only read the stat sheets, Bobby Petrino’s return to coaching with the Arkansas Razorbacks was marred by a 23-21 shellacking by the “University” of Mississippi Rebels at Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium on Saturday. But this contest wasn’t about one football game. It was a test of one man’s ideals. The Razorbacks did the school proud, and they did that man proud. Bobby Petrino. He won because they played.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: We here at 50-48 are confident that 50-48ican Peter Samuel “Cards” Aiello will fully cognize and appreciate the above reference, but we are unsure if others will. Ladies and those under 25 have something of an excuse. For all others: We will not tell you from where the reference comes. You ought to know. For shame.]

So, the Razorbacks lost to the Rebels this weekend. But we here at 50-48 are not decimated by the defeat. But before we get into that, let’s briefly recount the salient facts of the game:

We take comfort in the acknowledgment by reporters and pundits from both sides of the Mississippi River that the Razorbacks were robbed of victory by a completely bogus call by a dirty necrophiliac pedophile of a line judge. We appreciate Mississippians’ candor at such an admission, and we acknowledge that such acknowledgments are what make the great state of Mississippi not Texas. But there were actually THREE horrible calls, all made by line judges, that grossly affected our chances:

THE PHANTOM GROUNDING CALL: In the first half, Casey Dick (in the throes of yet another in a long line of horrible games) threw a pass to the Ole Miss sidelines after moving outside the tacklebox and finding none of his receivers open. The back judge, whose duty it is to make intentional grounding calls, recognized this, whistled the play dead, and moved to re-spot the replacement ball for the following down. But the line judge standing by the Ole Miss contingent, upon hearing their boos, decided that though he was nowhere in position to make such a call, he would go ahead and call intentional grounding to satisfy the irate and imbecilic fans behind him. Dear Ole Miss fans: The tacklebox and the hash mark are two completely different entities. We here at 50-48 understand that you know far more about alcoholism, illiteracy, and the intricacies of stringing innocent black people by the neck from trees than you do football, but a little effort isn’t asking too much. Or maybe it is. “Book-learnin” is not an undertaking formally practiced at the “University” of Mississippi. (For verification, see the current veneration of John Grisham and compare it to the former veneration of William Faulkner. Or just talk to anyone from Oxford. Dumb fucking assholes.) Regardless, they had every right to boo. Expressing one’s ignorance is an important part of the football experience. The line judge, however, has no excuse. This is one of those pricks we knew in college who would snort the white shit on the table because he saw Al Pacino do it in a movie. Fucking wannabe. Fucking loser. His goal in life was to be a referee, and even at the advanced age of middle-fifties-ish, he’s still a line judge. We—like everyone else who believes in truth, justice, and the American Way—hope he fells himself by one of his own bullets the next time he traipses out to the woods at 4 am to experience the joys of “huntin season.” But he wasn’t done fucking with us yet:

THE PHANTOM TOUCHBACK: After an Ole Miss punt sailed into the endzone and that very same assfaced line judge marked it as a touchback, he once again heard the befuddled, ignorant Rebel fans booing. So he kept his arm raised, walked out of the endzone, and spotted the ball on the two-yard line. NOTE TO FUCKSTICK LINE JUDGES EVERYWHERE: Stealing 18 yards from a team won’t make your wife come back. She’s still fucking that stockbroker. It won’t make your hair grow back, your dick get bigger, or that collection of Star Trek action figures you keep in your closet grow any more complete. The limited edition Captain Kirk doll, the one where he’s having tantric sex with the green robot woman, will always elude you. You will always be nothing. You will always be a fucking child. You will die alone, and no one will ever remember you exist. You are meaningless. And speaking on behalf of 50-48, Razorback fans everywhere, and all people already consigned to hell: I hope I see you there you dirty motherfucker. After the snakes remove themselves from your eyeball holes, I’m going to personally skull-fuck you while the rest of your body is writhing in fiery agony.

Unfortunately, however, his wasn’t the call that hurt the most:

THE PHANTOM INTERFERENCE CALL: London Crawford has had a rough career. He’s really fast, and really nice, but can’t catch for shit. Still, he’s been improving, and when he came down with Casey Dick’s horrible pass with less than thirty seconds left in the game to set up the game-winning field goal, his redemption with Razorback fans was finally complete. Until, that is, the line judge watching the play called offensive pass interference. It seems no use to delve too deeply into this one, as anyone who has seen the game or the replay clearly admits that no such interference exists. Again, let me give a quick nod to all of those professional sports watchers who actually acknowledged the bad call. It is refreshing. That call cost us the game.

Or did it?

We here at 50-48 stopped blaming officials for losses after an inglorious career in pee-wee league basketball. (Well, we didn’t. But we’re trying.) You don’t like the grounding call, then throw it to one of the TWO receivers who were open when you threw it away in the first place. How many balls did Casey throw to the sidelines prematurely? A gazillion.

You don’t like the false touchback? Drive down the goddamned field and score anyway. The bottom line is that if you had told anyone in that stadium that the SEC officials would have made three bad calls in the game, s/he would have said, “Well, no shit.” SEC officials are terrible. That is why 50-48 has always advocated for the Big Ten system, whereby officials are reviewed and graded each week, then assigned to games accordingly. If this were done, both of those line judges would be bartending next weekend. Fucking cunts.

The last call is a bit harder to shrug off, as it came at the end of the game and quite literally stole victory from us. But the core reality of the thing is this: if you don’t want a call at the end of the game to steal victory from you, play better in the first three goddamned quarters. We missed a field goal in the first quarter, which would have given us the win. Chris Gragg dropped a sure touchdown pass in the second quarter. That’s ten points in a two-point game!

But then there are the two major culprits. Casey Dick is a walking, passing disaster. This was a game where we were hopelessly outmanned in most positions. After all, Ole Miss had Ed Orgeron’s players. We had Hootie’s. That was a disadvantage right there. And nowhere was it more apparent than at quarterback. Don’t be fooled by the fact that Casey had 75 more passing yards than Jevan Sneed. Snead was efficient and accurate. He spread the ball around, passed efficiently in all four quarters (instead of just the fourth), and found open receivers. This was the most important offensive discrepancy in the game, and if it wasn’t there, none of those calls would have mattered.

Of course, Snead was blessed that Razorback cornerback Isaac Madison was getting heavy playing time. Three-quarters of his passing yards came against Madison, including both of his touchdown passes. Isaac did not have a good game. It is no surprise that he is a Hootie recruit. Still, he’s only a sophomore, and with years of tutelage under Coach Petrino, he will get better.

So we suffered from some bad calls, missed some key opportunities, and had two players in important positions completely fuck up. Such is the recipe for disaster. Still, after all that, we only lost by two points. Though Orgeron’s players clearly had more size and talent than Hootie’s, we still came within two points of winning. Ole Miss ran the predictable, ugly Hootie offense, and he typically almost coached them out of a surefire win. Coach Petrino, on the other hand, demonstrated a complex and interesting game plan that, with even a modicum of execution, would have won the game.

This is something we can be happy about. But there are others:

Hootie proved what a gutless fucking coward he was in typical Hootie fashion, proving to everyone with a brain why he is taint-scum. With the Ole Miss players and cheerleaders ready to run onto the field prior to the game, and with the security guards screaming at them to go, Hootie held everyone back until the Hogs took the field so that he wouldn’t be booed. NOTE TO HOUSTON NUTT: You should have been aborted in the first trimester. You are lower than shit. NOTE TO OLE MISS FANS: Thinking Hootie is a good football coach makes you a fucking idiot. It is just a signal to everyone else that you know nothing about the game in any of its myriad facets. This, of course, is not a problem. There are billions of people around the world who don’t understand football. But thinking Hootie is a good person makes you complicit in all of the heinous things he perpetrates. It makes you no better than his whole dirty family. Anyone who thinks Houston Dale Nutt is a decent person does not deserve to breathe the same air as sentient beings.

Towards the end of the game, the Ole Miss fans in attendance began chanting “Houston Nutt, Houston Nutt,” as if we, the Razorback fans, would be somehow moved to jealousy by the refrain. Here again is demonstrated why the “University” of Mississippi is on the verge of losing its accreditation. You can’t hate them, because they’re just so fucking stupid. It’s easy to hate LSU fans because they’re mean, and at least they understand what’s going on down on the field. But poor little drunken, illiterate Ole Miss people are just so sad. They’re like the retarded boy at school who hits one of your friends. You can’t get mad at him because he’s retarded. He couldn’t help it. Poor little retarded Rebels. So, the “Houston Nutt” cheer fell on deaf ears, I’m afraid. The entire lot of us wanted to say in response, “Oh, no, sweetheart. You don’t understand. We want you to have him.” But they wouldn’t have understood. Autistic monkeys don’t understand anything. And the Ole Miss fan section was peopled with autistic monkeys.

That whole campus is peopled with autistic monkeys. And now they have a leader! “Houston Nutt, Houston Nutt, Houston Nutt!”

Of course, the best part about the game is that 50-48 was there in person! After we lost, I walked through campus happy. It is better to lose with 75,000 of your best friends than to win by yourself down in the south Louisiana hellhole in which 50-48 resides. For those of you 50-48icans who hung out with me, I really appreciate it. That is exactly what I needed.

So, there are some lessons, I think, to be learned here: 1) Hootie is a rat-fink fuckface. 2) The mothers of potential SEC line-judges should be eugenically sterilized. 3) Casey Dick is four short games away from graduation! 4) Being in Fayetteville, being in the presence of the Hogs, seeing that helmet, and singing those songs: that is the greatest feeling on earth.

So remember, Rebels: The next time you’re coming down from the high of victory, probably (we assume) by lynching a black boy for glancing at one of your buck-toothed, ugly-ass Mississippi white women, just know that we wouldn’t take Hootie back for all the money in the world. It is better to lose with dignity than to win with that pederast on your sideline.

You know, in 1940, the undefeated, #1-ranked Cornell Big Red entered a game against Dartmouth and won 7-3, extending their win streak to 19 games. But after the game, Cornell coach Carl Snavely reviewed the game film and realized that the Big Red’s only touchdown came on an inadvertent fifth-down. He consulted with the athletic director and with his players, then voluntarily forfeited the game to Dartmouth. That instance is by far my favorite in all of college football history. It demonstrates the kind of class and sportsmanship that is supposed to be part and parcel of the game itself—that which separates it from cruder professional forms.

Of course, Hootie and the autistic monkeys over at the “University” of Mississippi won’t concede the game to us even though they acknowledge that we were robbed. Their coach has neither class nor sportsmanship. But I imagine if he did, the lead in the Daily Mississippian would look something like I imagine the lead would have been in the Cornell Sun following such an honorable move:

For those who only read the stat sheets, Carl Snavely’s return to coaching with the Cornell Big Red was marred by a 3-7 forfeit shellacking by the Dartmouth Big Green at Schoellkopf Field on Saturday. But this contest wasn’t about one football game. It was a test of one man’s ideals. The Big Red did the school proud, and they did that man proud. Carl Snavely. He won because they played.

50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS

50-48 #50: THERAPY (WARNING: NEITHER FUNNY NOR INTERESTING…SORRY)

50-48 #50: THERAPY (WARNING: NEITHER FUNNY NOR INTERESTING…SORRY)

Of all the horrible things that have happened to us here at 50-48 this semester, none was as terribly gut-wrenching, as punch-in-the-belly disastrous than Saturday’s loss at Kentucky. Sure, the vandalization, damage, and robbery of my car will have more long-term consequences. My inability to function at a normal work pace, too. And, while I’m thinking about it, I’m starting to come to the very real conclusion that Scampers the Friendly Opossum might very well be a figment of my imagination. I don’t even want to fathom the possible repercussions of hallucinatory monsters on my overall mental wellbeing. But on the sliding scale of guttural emptiness and depression, nothing comes close to Saturday night.

Casey Dick was typically horrible. But still, with seven minutes to go, we were up two touchdowns! The Kentucky fans had left the stadium! Then the Curtis fumble. Then the touchdown. Then many more in a vast menagerie of penalties. Then the second touchdown. Game over. We here at 50-48 have never felt so crushed. Never have we felt so strongly the desire for victory as an actual physical need. And then the collapse. Everything went black.

The consistent failure of the University of Arkansas football team has sapped our will to live. It has certainly sapped our will to insert some sort of bargain-basement levity into the process of coping that we are all engaged in at the moment. It is not—if we might be so bold as to engage in a bit of armchair psychoanalysis—the loss itself that provides the pain. It is the pride that we take in the team in spite of that loss. It is the full run of gaps in the synapse fire of our identity transfer from self to team. We lose ourselves, then see the overhead projector representations of ourselves fail us. And the entire negotiation, of course, is based on a core of dissatisfaction in the first place. But at the same time, the expectation of loss was always there. We do these things in spite of ourselves.

So it isn’t the guarantee of victory that invests us. We make this transfer willingly, even though we know that our own abilities and proclivities would probably serve us better in the great game of self-making. We see that white pig on that metallic red helmet and we melt.

We melt, we melt, we melt.

It’s what makes us fans. It’s what makes us Southern.

We here at 50-48 have, in the last couple of weeks, been engaged in a long-running discussion with a number of people, including some 50-48icans, about the nature and constitution of the South. At its heart, I think, is the fundamental fact of our loss to Kentucky. We knew going into the contest that we had hitched our wagon to a sinking ship (to mix a metaphor across land and sea), but the fact of that hitching didn’t serve as a source of shame or embarrassment. Instead, it grounded our self-conception, even though we knew the possibility of loss existed. Even though we knew that the recent history of Arkansas Razorback fandom is rife with trials, hurt, and embarrassing moments. We see a pig flag and all of that shame goes away. Or we talk to an LSU fan and it all goes away.

Such is the nature of Southernness. Even though we know that the history of the South is rife with racism, conservative illogical thought, illiteracy, et al., we claim it as our own. We subsume ourselves into the broader cope of its identity. We see a confederate flag and all of that shame goes away. Or we talk to a fucking yankee and it all goes away.

None of us like Casey Dick, but we find ourselves in his success or failure every time the boys take the field. None of us like the glut of right-wing fucksticks that run the governments of the former confederate states, but we somehow forget their myriad failures when we embrace the grander ideal. And, this, of course, comes on top of the fact that we don’t like the grander ideal in the first place.

Whatever the grander ideal was this week, it collapsed on top of us. I don’t really know what my point was about the South, but maybe it was this: We here at 50-48 are having trouble understanding why the things we so truly love—the things that encompass the core of our own self-conception—continue to pummel our goddamned guts out.

A car isn’t part of that self-conception. Neither is money. And so those pains are different, stable. Distanced, perhaps. But when the things that constitute your selfhood—your work, your team, your region—conspire against you, you are left outside your building, staring at an opossum that may or may not actually exist.

You invent invisible monsters and wait for things to change.

But they probably won’t change. Nothing changes. The light at the end of our football tunnel, made so slightly visible by our win against Auburn, has now disappeared again. Experience says that it won’t be back for a while.

But then again, the boys take the field again in six days, and this time I’m going to be there in person. There is always a much greater comfort in being a loser when you’re surrounded by 75,000 other losers all suffering from the same crisis of definitions. Even if they don’t know it.

Sorry this wasn’t funny. If it’s unfathomably boring or confused, sorry about that, too. I’m not even going to go back and read it for errors. Your role in this transaction, whether or not it’s always obvious, is as my quiet, unassuming therapist. And if this session wasn’t our most productive, I do apologize. But after that disastrous fucking nightmare, I can’t find funny anywhere.

50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS

50-48 #49: THANATOSIS

50-48 #49: THANATOSIS

It strikes me now as I sit down to write this installment that I barely remember the rules on how to write an update following a Razorback victory. But I’ll try to remember.

OFTEN IT IS NECESSARY TO BEGIN WITH A QUOTE, DESIGNED AS IT IS TO GROUND THE REST OF THE INSTALLMENT, PROVIDE A THESIS, AND DEVELOP A THEME THAT CAN BE RECALLED THROUGHOUT THE TEXT, FOR EITHER A POIGNANT OR HUMOROUS EFFECT:

Noted self-hating Arkansan Douglas MacArthur once argued, “There is no substitute for victory.” I’m not sure when he said it. I wonder if it was before or after he was having his ass handed to him by the teeny-weeny Chinese, scampering as he was to get back below the 38th parallel before a North Korean mercenary sent a fiery hot bayonet into his brain. Either way, I don’t think this is the right quote for us. After all, there are plenty of substitutes for victory: drug addiction, for instance. Or maybe some other form of chemical dependency. How about Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder? That one’s always worked for me. Or suicide? Joining a traveling circus? Chronic masturbation? And then, of course, there is the most puritan of all the answers available to us, and the one, unfortunately, that we’re probably most familiar with: losing.

Defeat is a substitute for victory.

You see? Douglas MacArthur was full of piping hot shit.

So that one won’t work. How about this one from noted periodical magnate Malcolm Forbes: “Victory is sweetest when you’ve known defeat.” That’s a little more like it. I have known defeat. And all of us have in this season of troubles and doubt. But such is the lens through which we experience our victory over Auburn’s Tigers this weekend. And it is all the more glorious in its effect.

MAKE SOME BRIEF COMMENTS ON THE GAME ITSELF, HIGHLIGHTING THE PLAYS AND PLAYERS WITH WHOM YOU ARE MOST ENAMORED. DEMONSTRATING YOUR GIDDY PRIDE WILL ENDOW THE READER WITH A SENSE OF CAMARADERIE, A FUNDAMENTAL UNDERSTANDING THAT IT IS OKAY, EVEN ENCOURAGED, TO REACT IN A SIMILAR MANNER:

Matt Harris’s interception with twenty-seven fleeting seconds left in the contest gave me a spiritual erection. Or, perhaps, it was the cosmic cock ring that sustained the spiritual erection I first felt one lonely minute earlier, when Kodi Burns’s fourth-down pass sailed over the head of his receiver and ended Auburn’s potential go-ahead drive.

But none of that (what Emerson might have called my connection to the Divine Mind) could have happened without the foreplay of Michael Smith’s 35 carries and 176 yards. There are, of course, obvious flaws with Auburn’s offense, and our defensive stops were more a creature of the Tigers stopping themselves, but no one would deny that Auburn’s defense is stout. Or they wouldn’t have. Until, that is, little five-foot-seven Michael Smith took the ball 35 times and compensated for all of Casey Dick’s ugly, ugly errors. He had, as Emerson might have noted, “ma[de] [him]self necessary to somebody.”

As a sidenote, Emerson also said, “What we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us.” Auburn did not find this to be true.

Then again, no one at Auburn knows who Emerson is anyway.

INCLUDE A SEEMINGLY OFF-TOPIC, PERHAPS BIZARRE STORY TO KEEP THE INSTALLMENT FROM FOCUSING SOLELY ON SPORTS OR YOUR OWN ANGER AT WHOMEVER YOU MIGHT BE ANGRY AT THIS TIME AROUND. DO YOUR BEST TO MAKE THE STORY AT LEAST TANGENTIALLY RELATED TO THE BROADER TOPIC (OP CIT ABOVE), FOR THE SAKE OF CONTINUITY, BUT DON’T WORRY TOO MUCH ABOUT IT IF YOU JUST GO OFF ON A RAMBLING, INCOHERENT DIATRIBE. ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT YOU REALLY LIKE RAMBLING, INCOHERENT DIATRIBES:

I have, regrettably, taken to smoking again this past month or so, a habit that I figured I had put away long, long ago. I hope to put it away again soon. But what damage it does to my consistently metastasizing heart condition is quelled in compensation by the presence outside my apartment of a cute little opossum. I go out and smoke those delicious, damaging Winstons after dark and see Scampers—I call him Scampers; it was the cutest name I could think of. Scampers is very nervous about my presence outside the apartment. His reticence has led me to believe that he is, in fact, a secret agent sent to destroy me. Or if not, he might very well be the product of witchcraft: a well-meaning but overly-curious young boy who wandered into the woods and ran across a kindly old woman with a hideous skin condition. “You’re green,” Scampers might have said. “Yes, I’m green,” she’d say, the venom that comes from hiding from society soaking the syllables of her voice and diction. “Why are you green?” “Sometimes little boys ask too many questions.” “My mom says that there’s no such thing as a dumb question.” “Your mother is a whore.” “What’s a whore?”

Oh, Scampers. You little devil.

So then, of course, the witch took him into her cottage, waterboarded him, then turned him into an opossum. So now he roams the night, hiding in the dark corners and wondering if I, too, might be a witch, waiting for my moment to call his mother a whore. Sometimes, when it seems that we’re alone, I’ll move as close as I can and whisper, “Your mother isn’t a whore, little Scampers.” But then one of my neighbors will walk by and punch me in the neck and tell me I’m a lunatic. Scampers just scampers away.

But Scampers never punches me in the neck. And he doesn’t think I’m a lunatic. He climbs up into the tree on the side of my building, then hangs upside down by his tail.

GOOD LORD. WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT? NOW PROVIDE A BRIEF REMINDER TO YOUR AUDIENCE THAT YOU HAVEN’T FORGOTTEN YOUR INITIAL PURPOSE HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE. YOU OWE THEM, IN ONE RESPECT OR ANOTHER, A PAYOFF ON THE INITIAL THESIS PRESENTED IN PART ONE. THEY HAVE, AFTER ALL, READ DOWN THIS FAR. DEMONSTRATE YOUR GRATITUDE BY NOT FUCKING THE REST OF THIS UP:

Much like the teeny-weeny Chinese, waiting as they were on pins and needles to teach a certain self-hating Arkansas shithead his manners, and much like Scampers, felled as he was by circumstances beyond his control, the Razorback football team has been (if we’re lucky) playing opossum lo these many weeks. But our patience now seems to be paying off. As each Hog sluffs off his thanatosis in his own way and time (still waiting on you, Casey!), each Hog fan gets closer and closer to the kind of cathartic release that only comes from boiling his tormentor in her own fucking cauldron.

We have suffered through tonic immobility. We have feared our tormentors and even our would-be friends. But now our fate is starting to turn.

Winston Churchill, who coincidentally was also tortured by psychotic old woman, once said this: “Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.”

Do you hear that Hogs? Scampers? Inner child?

FINALLY, CALL BACK A SEGMENT FROM THE OPENING SECTION OF THE ESSAY, BRINGING A CLOSE TO THE CIRCULAR PROSE AND GROUNDING THE ORIGINAL ARGUMENT WITH THE EXCLAMATION OF REPETITION, TRICKING YOUR AUDIENCE INTO THINKING THERE WAS A PLAN TO THIS WHOLE THING IN THE FIRST PLACE—THAT IT WASN’T IN FACT JUST SOME SLIPSHOD COPING-THROUGH-TYPING MECHANISM THAT ALLOWS YOU TO KILL THE MORE DIFFICULT PARTS OF THE DAY. THEN YOU CAN EAT THE REST OF YOUR CHICKEN NUGGETS:

It strikes me now as I sit down to finish this installment that the Hogs barely remember the rules on how to maintain a winning streak following a Razorback victory. But rest assured: they’ll try to remember.

50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS

50-48 #48: EMERGENCY UPDATE: FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!

50-48 #48: EMERGENCY UPDATE: FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!

GOAL LINE STAND WITH LESS THAN 1:30 LEFT! THEN AN INTERCEPTION WITH LESS THAN :30! HOGS WIN! HOGS WIN! SUCK IT, AUBURN!

We here at 50-48 are in the throes of the worst semester we’ve had since our comprehensive exams. Some of the lowlights:

1. Continuous financial problems.
2. Yet another in a long litany of failed relationships.
3. One of my students died.
4. A completely bogus speeding ticket coming off the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge.
5. David Foster Wallace killed himself.
6. My car was robbed and vandalized last night. Thousands of dollars in damage.

NONE OF THAT MATTERS TONIGHT!!!!!!!!!! I’M POURING OUT SOME OF THIS MILWAUKEE’S BEST LIGHT FOR MY BELOVED RAZORBACKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SO THAT’S WHAT WINNING FEELS LIKE. HELL FUCKING YES.

50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS

50-48 #47: UMBRELLAS

50-48 #47: UMBRELLAS

Thomas Hardy, flush with the wisdom that comes from being a Victorian’s Victorian in Victorian England, argued in his typical Hardyesque prose, “The sudden disappointment of a hope leaves a scar which the ultimate fulfillment of that hope never entirely removes.”

Martin Luther King, flush with the giddiness that comes from being a revolutionary’s revolutionary in the Civil Rights South, argued with his typical Kingesque flourish, “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”

These are, quite obviously, two very different worldviews. The question for we Razorbacks is which ontological path should we spend our quiet afternoons lazily meandering down. Well, here’s some tools with which to make your decision:

EXHIBIT A: Thomas Hardy was a brilliant “Renaissance man,” so to speak, maintaining a successful career as an architect along with his writing. Not only did he receive the Order of Merit, but he also managed to score a major prize from the Royal Institute of British Architects. He was a tremendous influence on British letters, and without his literary output, it’s entirely possible that D.H. Lawrence’s semi-pornography and Virginia Woolf’s supreme brilliance would never have seen the light of day. Among his own gifts to the universe were Far From the Madding Crowd, The Return of the Native, and Tess of the d’Urbervilles.

EXHIBIT B: Martin Luther King was a Southern Baptist preacher who cribbed his dissertation.

Check and mate. Martin Luther King’s success stemmed from a rhetorical brilliance that Hardy couldn’t have dreamed of matching. But in the great game of secular logic, well…

Conclusion? This disastrous losing streak, continuing as it does with no end in sight, has scarred us all for life. No fulfillment in later, sunnier seasons will ever fully wash it away.

So, let’s talk about something else! How about some highlights from the 50-48 Great Escape From Lafayette Whirlwind Tour this weekend?

• I was almost attacked by three wild horses.
• It turns out the horses weren’t wild, and I got to pet them.
• Petting horses is awesome.
• I held a two-week-old baby and didn’t drop it on its head, thereby disfiguring it for life.
• Holding two-week-old babies is not awesome.
• An overabundance of those peppermints that sort of dissolve in your mouth as you suck them. It was, dare I say it, a veritable peppermint orgy.
• The Veronicas!
  
• Admitting you like The Veronicas is not awesome.
• There was a crazy game of poker!
• Admitting you like O.A.R. is at least a little more awesome.
• Maybe not. I don’t know from music.
• I’d like to make it one of 50-48’s ancillary goals to get “music” (or, perhaps, “popular music”) eternally removed from the list of fine arts. Sure, it’s kind of an art, like cooking is an art. You learn a skill and memorize the function of your instruments, then follow a fucking recipe to create an output. Everyone ends up with subtle variations one way or another, but in the end, green bean casserole is still green bean casserole. It all tastes the same. Same with music. It all ultimately sounds the same. It’s cooking with different utensils. That’s why the bulk of artists, writers, filmmakers, etc., are generally an educated, intelligent bunch. Musicians are fucking idiots and college kids. There’s a reason for that. If you can follow directions, you can be a musician. It’s a hustle. A dodge for creativity.
• I have no patience for music.
• Still, here’s one more fun song.
• I am sometimes a hypocrite.
• On that subject, the scar of disappointment talk notwithstanding, I’d still blow any member of the Razorback football team if he asked nice enough.
• I got off on a tangent there. Time to get back to my highlight reel.
• Skinamax!
• Porno is awesome.
• Tyrell Motherfucking Fenroy.
• I attended the Cajuns game against archrival NLU this weekend after suffering through the Hogs lackluster ass-raping at the hands of the Pilipino Circumciser and his comrades, and star running back Tyrell Motherfucking Fenroy rushed for 297 yards and 3 touchdowns. He would have had thirty more yards and another touchdown if the incompetent gaggle of Sunbelt Conference officials hadn’t made a bogus holding call that didn’t even affect the outcome of the play.
• He amassed those stats on 20 carries.
• That’s 15 yards per, for you non-mathematicians.
• It was McFaddenesque.
• Every time Tyrell broke another long run, I screamed and hollered and made the general ass of myself that I normally do at such contests, even though I was sitting amongst the NLU faithful.
• The young lady who attended the game with me was an NLU alum and was temporarily frightened that I was putting her life in danger.
• I was able to reassure her through the time-tested method of lying.
• She did not know the rules of football, so the lying project was very easy.
• I am sometimes a liar.
• On that subject, I’d like to go ahead and rescind my offer to blow the football team. That might have been a lie. But if Darren or Felix or Peyton or Matty-Ice are reading this: I am a phone call/plane ticket away, boys. And if it’s Matty, I’ll even bring the coke.
• Colombian eight-balls are not hard to find if you know where to look.
• Don’t do drugs.
• Unless that’s your thing. We here at 50-48 don’t give a fuck what you do in your spare time. Still, just like listening to popular music makes you stupider every time you do it, so too do drugs make you stupider every time you do them.
• I am sometimes overly moralistic.
• And I have no patience for music.
• Nor do I have patience for losing.
• If we don’t win another game soon, I’m going to kill myself.
• I will leave a suicide note here at 50-48, demanding in one way or another that all 50-48icans go back and study all the previous posts to gain a sort of scriptural perspective on the ultimate meaning of my generally pathetic life.
• In lieu of flowers, I will demand that all 50-48icans buy Matty some blow.
• You see what’s happened here? Even when trying to change the subject, the losing surges forward like an overwhelming cloud, devouring all the topics in its path. And we’re back to disappointment again.
• We here at 50-48 are incredibly disappointed.
• The German poet Freidrich von Schiller once noted, “Disappointments are to the soul what the thunder-storm is to the air”

Break out your fucking umbrellas.

50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS

50-48 #46: LIFE SUCKS, THEN YOU DIE, BUT DEATH DOESN’T COME SOON ENOUGH

50-48 #46: LIFE SUCKS, THEN YOU DIE, BUT DEATH DOESN’T COME SOON ENOUGH

The intricate system of breath and neuro-synapse fire that constitutes the base fact of existence is, it turns out, when weighed by the great blind lady, also a system of credits and debits. And we as participants in those dual systems can also serve as evaluators—can add up the plusses and minuses to create a positive or negative evaluation of the great meaningless game. Let’s try that.

DEBIT: The Arkansas Razorbacks embarrassed themselves and the state by getting the ever-living shit kicked out of them by The Great Texas Satan this weekend.
CREDIT: The Longhorns still lose in the long run, because after the game, the Hogs got to go back to Fayetteville, while the Burnt Orange Illiterate Criminal Parade had to keep living in Austin.

DEBIT: Yeah, but at least they won.
CREDIT: (silence)

DEBIT: Leprechauns do not exist.
CREDIT: Unicorns do.

DEBIT: Miraculous fortune saved Hootie from obvious end-of-the-first-half game mismanagement and provided his team with a signature win on the road against Florida, despite his obvious idiocy.
CREDIT: Obsessively doing the Gator Chomp in my apartment really worked my lateral delts.

DEBIT: It’s going to take a lot more than a few Gator Chomps to fix your lateral delts.
CREDIT: I don’t care.

DEBIT: But you do care about Hootie beating the by-god Florida Gators while your team got monumentally ass-fucked by Texas.
CREDIT: (silence)

DEBIT: Texas has not been nuked off the face of the earth, nor has it been sold back to Mexico.
CREDIT: If you ignore something long enough, it will eventually go away, or so they say.

DEBIT: “They” are probably lying. And besides, it is impossible to ignore the things that you hate. Such is the nature of hatred.
CREDIT: (silence)

DEBIT: You simply don’t have the fortitude or joy to write anymore this week.
CREDIT: This is 50-48 #46, and 50, 48, and 46 make a nice, tidy two-number declension.

DEBIT: Cancer.
CREDIT: Bit-O-Honey.

DEBIT: You are alone in a dark, cold world in which everything is positioned to belittle you and make you feel bad.
CREDIT: I’d like to go back and change all of my credit answers to Bit-O-Honey.

DEBIT: No changing answers.
CREDIT: (silence)

So! What have we learned? There is no god. Life is unfair and horrible and we are forced to suffer through it until the sweet release of death comes and saves us from the long pressing nightmare. A world where Hootie and Texas win is a world in which any moral human being should not want to live. The 50-48 Mass Suicide Desk is giggling like a maniac right now…

50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS

50-48 #45: HOW TO RESURRECT CATS FROM THE DEAD

50-48 #45: HOW TO RESURRECT CATS FROM THE DEAD, OR, NOTES ON THE MONUMENTAL ASS-THUMPING WE RECEIVED FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA

In 1935, Albert Einstein and others began cooing about quantum superposition. A system—say, a football season or an intensive program of self-medication because you can’t deal with the brutal solipsism metastasizing all around you—will simultaneously exist in all possible states of being until the precise moment of quantum measurement, until the state of decoherence is eliminated. “Subatomic particles,” Einstein said (or, perhaps, might have said), “exist in all places and forms. They don’t exist in a position. They exist in all positions—a superposition! It only collapses out of that superposition when someone has the balls to pull out his fucking ruler.”

Then he said (or might have said) this: “Decoherence, shmecoherence.”

Uppity German bastard.

We here at 50-48 like to call quantum superposition “A Formula for Hope.” For example, fellas: Under the doctrine of quantum superposition, all boobs you haven’t seen can be huge and perfect and exactly symmetrical to the one resting beside it. And ladies, until you start actually asking questions, the fella standing next to you is not—we repeat, NOT—staring at your boobs.

More pertinent to our principal topic, the 50-48 Particle Physics Desk would like to point out that under the doctrine of quantum superposition, the Razorback football team still has the potential to be a one-loss conference champion. Formula for hope, indeed!

But, alas. Along came Erwin Schrodinger, who we here at 50-48 like to call “The Great Cosmic Buzzkill.” Were Schrodinger alive today, watching the Alabama game this weekend with a plate of nachos and a tall glass of sweet iced tea, he (like you) would have found no hope whatsoever in that padded and helmeted fiasco. He would have gone straight to Einstein’s grave, dug up his corpse, and punched it in the face.

Schrodinger responded to the doctrine of quantum superposition by proposing an experiment where a cat is placed in a box with a vial of poison. A Geiger counter would wait patiently for any sign of radiation, and when it found some, the vial would break, release the poison, and kill the cat. But the box is shielding all that pesky quantum decoherence, so nobody knows what’s happening inside. There isn’t a measurement. So the cat, according to quantum mechanical principles, is, at some point, both alive and dead at the same time. A Jesus cat. A zombie cat. Until a custodian comes in, opens the box, and pronounces an official death.

Still, when seen without the piss and vinegar, Schroginer’s cat can also provide us a measure of hope. Sure, Alabama’s two pick-sixes, their 300 yards of rushing, and our complete all-facets meltdown probably registered with any available football Geiger counter, thus breaking the vial, releasing the poison, and destroying the sweet kitty of our season. BUT! The fundamental unknowableness of our future provides all the decoherence we need. And until we get to the end, until we open the monstrous box that is this 2008 season, our cat is both alive and dead at the same time.

A Jesus cat. A zombie cat.
And so, according to the dictates of quantum mechanics, we are a team of ravenous zombies. And according to the dictates of zombiology, we must go feed on human brains to survive. Also, we need to watch out for this bitch. She does not like zombies. Here’s a montage of what she’s capable of doing to us.

Thus the gameplan this week is to practice hard, self-actualize, and be on the lookout for heavily-armed, beautiful supermodels. Oh, and START TYLER WILSON!!!!!! Seriously: If we aren’t really zombies (and we here at 50-48 are not conceding that point), then we have only one more win this season. (Even if we aren’t the walking undead, the power of my hatred alone will allow us to defeat Hootie. If we don’t beat Hootie, I will kill myself and fucking webcast it for all of you to see.) But other than Ole Miss, there are no more wins on that schedule. And so, with a free year of practice without expectation, why not give next year’s backup nine games of real-game experience? He’s obviously more talented than Casey Dick. Casey’s numbers were inflated by bad teams and a brilliant offensive mind. Imagine what that mind could produce with a legitimate quarterback sticking his hands under Jonathan Luigs’ ass. We’ll still have the hell beaten out of us, but at least we’ll score points.

But if we ARE zombies, born like dead cats in a box from the sick mind of Erwin Schrodinger, then infinite possibility is still possible. (No tautology left unturned.) That being the case, we need to start eating a steady diet of brains. We here at 50-48 suggest starting with the UofA freshman class. Statistics show that less than half of them will graduate from college anyway, and an even smaller number will graduate from Arkansas. Why not make them food for the bloodlust of our zombie-cat football team?

This would be the equivalent of swinging the heavy bat before entering the batter’s box. Because the brains we’ll be feasting on this weekend will be incredibly less filling. As you all know, the Hogs enter The Source Of All Evil In the World this week. Without Austin, Texas, puppies would never die. Africans would never starve. And cheerleaders would never get VD. We must muster all of the brain-eating power within us to thwart the Longhorns. They are, without question, the scum of the fucking universe.

Or, perhaps we would benefit from taking a different approach. Instead of seeing the cat as simultaneously alive and dead, we could choose instead to side with Einstein. Our season still simultaneously exists in all possible states of being until the precise moment of quantum measurement, until the state of decoherence is eliminated. The state of uncertainty in college football dictates that we choose to recognize possibility in the face of obvious disaster. We must, like a fat non-zombie cat, stare Schrodinger in the eyes and say, “Fizicks, I defiez dem.”

Suck it, Einstein. Suck it, Schrodinger. WE MUST DEFEAT THE DEGENERATE COLLECTION OF HUMAN FUCKING GARBAGE THAT IS THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS. We must stare down all three, look them in the face, and say, “Decoherence, shmecoherence.”

Fizicks, we defiez dem.

Or, we could just eat their brains.

50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS

PS: Remember, if you aren’t already on the email alert list, you can send your email address to fiftyfortyeight@gmail.com to receive notification of every new 50-48 installment. Welcome to hell.