50-48 #33: BIDING TIME WITH MY FINGERS, HOPING TO DISTRACT THEM FROM PLOTTING MY DEATH. OR, PROLEGOMENA TO A DISQUISITION ON OUR INEVITABLE PROCLIVITY

(Originally published 6/30/08)

50-48 #33: BIDING TIME WITH MY FINGERS, HOPING TO DISTRACT THEM FROM PLOTTING MY DEATH. OR, PROLEGOMENA TO A DISQUISITION ON OUR INEVITABLE PROCLIVITY TOWARD GRIDIRON SUCCESS.

The majority of swine breeds extant in the great big world descend, as surely you've already guessed, from Sus scrofa, the Eurasian wild boar. Groundbreaking archeological evidence places domesticated pigs in the Middle East around 9,000 BCE. It might be as early as 10,000 BCE in China. No wonder the Middle East is kicking our ass in a silly war and the Chinese are rapidly becoming our economic masters! Let this be a lesson: Those who choose to keep themselves close to pigs will prosper. The Israelites, for example, chose to shun pigs as unclean animals. The next day Egypt enslaved them.

That's right, 50-48ians: I'm not dead yet! So brush up on your obscure literary references and bizarre non-sequiter digressions into oddities-all-kinds. 50-48 is back! (Though we here at 50-48 headquarters will be operating on a periodical basis until closer to football season.) I know that in 50-48's absence you've been practicing a careful exegesis on former installments, hoping to find a kind of wisdom reserved only for those who communicate with imaginary friends. I'm glad to know it. The editorial department at 50-48 encourages readers to construct well-reasoned analyses of the author's deranged mind based on his Razorback commentary.

(And on that topic, why hasn't University of Arkansas Press called about a 50-48 anthology? It can only be a conspiracy by those in power. Dissenting voices being what they are, and hyperlink technology still baffling dead trees everywhere, it may never happen. But just in case, 50-48 encourages readers in Fayetteville to picket the McIlroy House on campus until talks are underway. Those wishing to e-protest can send the fruits of their rage to uapress@uark.edu. Or, they can just travel on over to the press's website, where they will discover a new history of Dickson Street and a new Arkansas History textbook, corralled by none other than 50-48ian and newlywed Brent Riffel.)

The pig bit seared into your brains just three short paragraphs ago was designed to illustrate a painful truth: I am hanging by a fucking thread over here. I have separated myself from pigs (NINE plodding hours to Lafayette, Louisiana), and I am suffering. Pretty soon, University of Louisiana at Lafayette officials will probably be knocking on my door, demanding that I help them build a pyramid. Unfortunately, my crappy-ass apartment building has no white-bearded, self-doubting snakeoil salesman willing to turn all of my sticks into asps. No matter. I have separated myself from pigs, and now I am suffering the consequences. For now I will stem the burgeoning urge to blow my fucking brains out by remaining focused on two abiding reminders that there is decency in the world: 1) The good folks at Post have just upped the "Honey Bunches of Oats" ante by creating "Just Bunches"—"Honey Bunches of Oats" without the flakes! If I weren't so devoted to global pattern theory, and if the Hogs had managed to win just ONE of their bowl games the past two seasons, such a creation might make me regret making fun of people who believe in god. 2) The Razorback football team invades that cesspool of degeneracy, Austin, Texas, in less than 75 days! (Again I regret the lack of any available Moses, as that town is aching for a plague of locusts or frogs or Ebola or AIDS.)

This most recent 50-48 hiatus was prompted by your author being incredibly busy and relatively unhappy. He is now relatively busier and incredibly unhappier. So be it. It is in speaking with you 50-48ians that his lightness of being becomes bearable.

Besides, today is a monumental day in Razorback history, one of those pivotal moments that serve as a fulcrum for everything to follow. Today Nolan Richardson's contract officially expires, and—in an O'Henrican twist—John White officially stepped down as Chancellor. Now our healing can officially begin. We can begin inviting Nolan to ballgames, and we can go toilet paper White's absurd mansion. But for all of my hatred for our now-former chancellor, White did have some surprisingly decent things to say in his AP interview, the most refreshing being, "It might require my no longer being there for Nolan to feel comfortable coming back. He has done a lot for the University of Arkansas. There shouldn't be that kind of division."

Right on, you arrogant butthole. How John White lasted as long as he did is still a mystery to me. It's almost as compelling a whodunit as the current disembodied foot invasion of British Columbia. Hungry for more? Here's a map of where the feet have washed up. Whew. Creepy. For those of you planning a beach vacation this summer, swim carefully.

Did you know that pigs have four toes on each hoof, but only walk on two of them? The phenomenon gives them the appearance of tiptoeing through life—of cautiously moving through the muck of their pens, hoping at some point for food, friends, and a chance to stab the longhorn next door in the balls. But pigs, too, know pain. A jet engine during takeoff measures 113 decibels. The scream of a frightened pig has registered 115.

Here I stand before you, my fellow 50-48ians, screaming the jet-engine yell of our favorite animal, tiptoeing through the muck of my pen, wanting nothing more than to stab a longhorn in the balls. This is a comparatively brief message to let you all know that I haven't forgotten. Soon I will be receiving a copy of Hooten's Arkansas Football, courtesy of one of the lovely young ladies of 50-48. After practicing my own deconstructive analysis of the text, I will return in a few weeks to provide 50-48's Official Football Preview.

Until then, let me leave you with one more random fact: Pigs are the only other animals besides humans to get sunburns. For those of you planning a beach vacation this summer, tan carefully.

50-48
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