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.)