50-48 #27: HOW CANDIDE WAS BROUGHT UP IN A MAGNIFICENT CASTLE AND HOW HE WAS DRIVEN THENCE

(Originally published 4/6/08)

50-48 #27: HOW CANDIDE WAS BROUGHT UP IN A MAGNIFICENT CASTLE AND HOW HE WAS DRIVEN THENCE

It is times like these when our awareness falters. When the cool spring afternoons breed lethargy in far nobler men than myself. That is why we must stay alert. Continue to test our awareness whenever possible. Since Razorback sports clearly won't save us, perhaps catlike reflexes can.

Hogball's game against North Carolina, which I so dutifully tried to affect with a brief dose of reverse psychology, didn't go so well. That, quite possibly, was to be expected. But all is not lost on the basketball front! Your faithful chronicler guessed (predicted) 3 of the Final Four teams in the NCAA tournament, and also was perhaps the only person in the country to correctly pick the final 2. My bracket was (and is) freaking immaculate, and if Tiger High comes through tomorrow night, it will be even more so. So forget the culture of moral leniency fostered by head coach John Calipari, forget the girlfriend beatings, and root, root, root for the Tigers! (Also, for those of you in Fayetteville: If it isn't too much trouble, please go find Geoff Jensen and remind him about the folly of his NCAA tournament picks, and the genius of mine. Say something snotty about Notre Dame. Mention that I'm handsome and debonair. Tell him I drive a Ferrari. He'll totally hate that.)

And so we wait for another season, hoping that Roetni Clark and the incoming freshmen can find the swagger that this bunch never could. Yes. I said swagger.

Man! Those All Blacks videos were awesome. But you know what might make them better? If a magical fairy came floating through the sky inside of a pink bubble, went down to New Zealand, and put a spell on them. She would give a brief discourse on the nature of goodness and badness in witches. She would probably talk briefly on the subject of introjection—a shift in identity based on a perceived need. Introjectors, she would dutifully note, take on the personality of friends, icons, or sports teams in order to recover from a suspected lack in themselves. She would cite Freud: (See "Mourning and Melancholia," in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. XIV (1914-1916), On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement, Papers on Metapsychology, and Other Works, ed. James Strachey (London: The Hogarth Press, 1957), 236-258.) I would probably make some comment about Freud being totally irrelevant in this the age of advanced neuro and cognitive sciences, at which point she would become totally nonplussed. She probably had a few belts before she even jumped in the fucking pink bubble to begin with, the lush. I would remind her of that time back in college when she slept with two (count them, Glenda! TWO!) guys in the same night, just because she got drunk after receiving a D+ on her term paper and she wanted to boost her self esteem. But did it, Glenda? Did it boost your self esteem? Or did it make everyone think you were a whore? You should have heard what Cindy said about you at the rave that next weekend, as we sat naked under the blacklight, watching a glowstick go back and forth, back and forth. What did she say? I'm not going to tell you what she said, Glenda. Because it would hurt your feelings. And I didn't tell you THEN because I knew it would hurt your feelings. So even though I saw you in the corner of the room, making out with the lightswitch, I didn't go over and relay the message. I wouldn't do that because I'm your FRIEND. And that's what friends do. You know, you've always been such a fucking fraud, Glenda. You ride over here in your pink bubble, making all sorts of I'm Better Than You eyes at my Ferrari. (Yes, yes. I know, Glenda. My Ferrari is still way better than Geoff Jensen's car. Did you hear about his bracket? He had Notre Dame in the fucking Final Four! Yeah…yeah. You're right. He's totally my bitch.) At that point, Glenda would cut me off. She would start crying a little bit. Would apologize, as she always does after she's had a few belts in her and we get into an argument. Then we would hug, and maybe make out a little. We'd say it was just for old time's sake, but we'd know that wasn't true. There wouldn't be any ecstasy, oxycontin, crystal meth-amphetamine, or cocaine. There wouldn't be a giant canister of nitrus that we stole that one time from the dentist's office. She had long ago traded in that life for a pink bubble and a magic wand. I had long ago traded it in for mind-numbing brilliance in NCAA tournament prediction. We would pause, gather ourselves, and then she would do what she came to do in the first place: transform the All Blacks from a group of surely-chemically-enhanced group of malcontents into a plate of freaking cookies.

Ah, Glenda. She's a good witch. But she always did have a thing for animating food. If she stuck around long enough, I would ask her to try to use that wand to breathe a little life into the Diamond Hogs. At that point, however, she would just laugh. She would tell me that she had a better chance of de-gayifying homo unicorns. That she had a better chance of de-cuteifying pet mooses. (She always says "mooses" instead of "moose." It's one of those obvious affectations that only solipsistic good witches use. But I forgive her for it. One time, during our History of the Uselessness of Texas midterm, she looked over my shoulder to see my answer. I forgave her for that, too.) The sad fact of the matter is that the Diamond Hogs suck. After dropping the LSU series in front of my very eyes, the boys dropped a series to Vanderbilt, split with Centenary (Centenary!), and now will be struggling this afternoon to salvage a series win against lowly Auburn. They are the anti-crocodiles in the broader Paul Hogan paradigm. They are scared yellow circles, forever doomed to roam the earth, desperate to escape the clutches of a series of enemies.

And our enemies are out there, growing stronger. That is why awareness is so important, vigilance so necessary. Dare I say it? Perhaps FOOTBALL can save us? It feels weird to say that. Almost like the time that Glenda and I crushed up her brother's Rittlin and cut it with that No-Doz she stole from the truck stop…(Actually, I'm not going to tell that story.) Football took its first step toward saving us Saturday, when the boys practiced in full pads for the first time this spring. Coach Petrino is saying and doing all the right things. And I am growing to love him unconditionally.

I am a white person. And he is something I like.

As is Glenda. As are all of you.

(Even Jensen.)

50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS

PS--Yes, I know that was a weird one. And no, I have no idea why.