50-48 #63: FRIGHTENING MIDGET ATTACK!

50-48 #63: FRIGHTENING MIDGET ATTACK!

Monsters are everywhere. They creep up around us and into us and fidget with our insides and outsides. Some are furry. Others are scaley, but give the impression of being slimy, not because they ARE slimy, but because we have been crushed down by years of improper vocabulary to equate things that are scaley with things that are slimy. I blame primary school science videos.

Regardless, these monsters are everywhere, haunting us, and sometimes--at least for we fine few here at 50-48--telling us what to do. We first started talking to the monsters back in 1995, and their constant presence has grown through years of familiarity to be a kind of catharsis. But then there are sometimes new variables introduced into the paradigm, mucking up the system and jarring us back into the reality that not everyone talks to imaginary possums.

EX: Last week, as the Hogs were blowing yet another game to yet another inferior opponent, as I stood and watched from the front row of the Tad Pad in beautiful downtown Oxford, Mississippi, calling the Hogs with a sizable Arkansas crowd and giving shit to a certain referee who seemed to be plotting against us at every possession (the bald, black one, for those of you watching on television), the monsters crept in and reminded me that it was just a game. That I was fortunate enough to have front row seats for Hogball, and that I probably ought count my blessings.

But then, on the long, all-night drive home, as my frustration with our inability to make simple layups dissipated in a cloud of tiredness and quiet, new monsters started appearing. At first, I could only see them out of the corner of my eye. They would run across the freeway in front of me, stretched out as it was like a runway to hell, leading me back through the silent dark to another, more depressing silent dark back home. They would turn to me and giggle, narrowly avoiding being pummeled by my car. That’s about the time the billboards started melting. I watched as they dissolved right in front of me, still perched on their stands like Dali clocks. And then the newfangled mess would perk up, take life, and begin telling me to kill my parents.

They told me that my favorite team turns out not to be so good after all. They giggled at me. Then they turned into giant locusts and flew away.

By the time I got home at four in the morning, there was a midget in a toga and golf hat sitting in my passenger seat, explaining in Louis IVX’s French that we would lose again to Florida if Stephan Welsh was allowed to continue to shoot, foul, and turn the ball over at will. I patted him on the head, inherently doubtful, but amazed that I was able to understand him, then watched him turn into a puma and jump out of my car via the moon roof, attacking two young girls walking by on the sidewalk.

Here’s a lesson: Always listen to midgets.

But keep them away from young girls.

We sucked against State, sucked against Ole Miss, and sucked against Florida. The one constant in each of those losses was the disastrous play of Stephan Welsh. His confidence is admirable, god love him, but it is also misplaced. Someone needs to tell him that he isn’t very good. That his full-paid tuition is a glorious gift from Stan Heath, and that he should focus on that gift while fetching water for the eleven other players. He seems nice. He seems like he really wants to do well. For this, 50-48 and its legion of imaginary midgets love him unconditionally. But we’d prefer it he began minding the towels and jocks. Without his turnovers, his missed shots, and his bizarre fouls of three-point shooters, we might very well be 3-0 in conference.

But we’re not. We’ve yet to win. And we here at 50-48 are left talking to imaginary creatures and watching the landscape melt in front of us.

Here’s the problem with crazy night monsters and midgets who turn into pumas and attack young girls: They don’t go away until your team stops stinking on hot ice, so when you want your old monsters back, the ones that are always there and provide just as much catharsis as they do terror, you have no choice but to wait, wait, wait.

But waiting only gives the midgets more time to melt your clocks and pictures. Joseph Heller would call this a catch-22.

Joseph Heller, alas, is dead. And we play the Alabama schools next week. We here at 50-48 would love to tell you that they aren’t very good basketball teams. But neither are the Mississippi schools. Neither is Florida. We have no idea what to expect.

We know that there are monsters nibbling on the outer rim of our door outside. We know that French-speaking midgets NEVER come bearing good news. And we know that whatever the outcome, we love Hogball unconditionally.

Yosarian lives!!!!!!!!!!!!

50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS

PS: 50-48 would like to apologize to Brent Riffel for ever doubting his astute assessment of Stephan Welsh. Riffel is one of our monsters whose predictions are almost always true. Such is the punishment for doubting him.

(And also, he is, as far as we know, neither scaley nor slimey, depending on the state of your primary school education. Rather, picture Danny Noonan in Caddyshack, fresh off a relaxing haircut.)

PPS: 50-48 would like to thank Greg Richard and his lovely wife Amanda for hosting the 50-48 Hogball roadtrip, Rebel sycophants as they might be. We would also like to thank the Ole Miss student section for being such inveterate pussies that they didn't even have the balls to yell at us, even though we invaded the first row of their student section.

C'mon, Ole Miss! Man's game, motherfuckers. Man's game.