Man, we’re stupid…

How dumb is our nation? How incredibly stupid, ignorant, and shortsighted is our population?

Very.

With 14 days to go until this painful campaign season comes to an end, it has become glaringly obvious that our nation has lost any shred of credibilty it may once have had. Whatever currency we possessed with other governments in the “We Know Democracy” debates has disappeared. 14 days to go, two political candidates, and there remains one simple, stupid fact:

There are still undecided voters out there.

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Persistence is Key…

One wonders what would be the outcome of such persistence put to noble use…

Criminal Tenacity

And they say that Americans have lost their determination.

A million miles away…

Forgive me if I sound desperate, but such is the voice of man far, far from home, lost and alone without a compass and without a way.

I knew this day would come. I think we all came to that realization separately over the past few years. However, the difference between knowing something will come and having that very thing knock at your door is like hearing of the Holocaust and having the Gestapo standing in your living room. It is a shock to the senses and a blow to the reality I have carefully constructed over my 31 years on this planet. To even type the words makes my heart ache with loss, but I must do it or you will wonder whether I’ve lost my mind.

Larry Munson has retired.

To non-UGA fans, this means very little. Maybe you’ve heard of him, maybe you’ve heard a call of his played on ESPN or YouTube, maybe you know nothing at all. But to the initiated, to those whose veins run both Red and Black, Larry Munson is the voice of The University of Georgia. Not just the football team, mind you; Larry is the signature sound when one thinks and dreams of Athens in the Fall.

To overstate his impact on UGA as an institution is impossible. He created, for thousands of fans and alumni everywhere, a verbal fresco of college football, of tailgates and war cries, of cigars and hotdogs, of heroes made and heroes broken, of enemies vanquished and hope restored. To hear him was to hear the University as one sees it in person. The sights, the sounds, the smells, the heartache, the triumph, Larry Munson brought into homes across the Southeast an open window into Sanford Stadium and college football at large.

And there is where the magic goes missing now. I have lived away from Athens nearly all my life. Minus my 5 years attending Georgia, I spent most of my Autumn Saturdays elsewhere. Unless I made the commute, which I often did, my only unfailing hope of following my Beloved Bulldogs was to turn the radio over to Larry, and let him conjure for me, wherever I was, a portal onto the Field, between those sacred hedges. For as long as he spoke and as long as I listened, Sanford Stadium was nearer to me than the 300 sections in the upper deck. I felt the game in way that only true presence can be felt. I knew the emotion; I could feel the worry in the crowd, the anticipation, the hope. No matter the hour or the place, Larry always found a way to bring me to the game.

And now, that great, gravelly voice has retired. That sweet, anxious storyteller has put down his microphone for the last time. Living farther away from Athens than I ever have, my gap remains ever wide, and my belief in the old magic is gone.

So you must forgive me if I sound desperate, for my compass is lost, and the road this Fall is as dangerous as I can remember. And while I know the paths that may lead me back to Athens, the distance seems much greater, and I no longer have the comfort of Munson’s voice, telling me when to drive faster, when to worry, and when to hunker down.

Thank you Larry Munson, for being the window and the wit of the Bulldogs for all these years. May God grant you many more, if only to hear the joy you brought us all.

Phoenix Between the Hedges…

It all began on a passenger tram in the Dallas airport. I was more-or-less sleeping on my feet, waiting for the nice robot woman to tell me I was at my terminal. Reading my ticket again, just to make sure I would actually make my flight, I heard the distinctive drawl of someone who had spent a good portion of their life sipping whiskey from solo cups.

“You headed to Phoenix?”

Dazzled by this mind-reading savant, I looked up and said, “Uh, yeah,” realizing only after sounding like an unemployed can collector that I was wearing my UGA hat.

Turns out, the kind words came from an Auburn alum, himself headed for the Plains to watch his beloved Tigers take on LSU.

“Seen a lot of y’all marching through the airport,” he said, checking his own ticket. “Good sign, good sign.”

I smiled and we chatted a bit more before my stop. Stepping out the door, he wished me good luck, and there we departed for our separate pilgrimages.

As I moved on, I thought about how fortunate I was to be an SEC football fan; to have someone I have never met - a fan of a team I will never, ever like - wish me God speed, knowing exactly how anxious I was in that very moment. Whistling “Glory, glory”, I hopped down the last steps of the escalator and marched the last few yards to Gate A20 for my final flight to Phoenix.

That ethereal connection to Southeastern Football, just a few yards fresh, was about to set up solid as day-old concrete.

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SNL…

So I would rather this post fade into the background. I am saying something that I really didn’t want to ever say outloud. The truth is, a lot of folks have been saying it for years, and I’m just now catching up.

SNL sucks.

Yep. I’ve bought in now. I stayed away from those two words as long as I possibly can. But in the wake of last night’s show, one that I had hoped would be fantastical beyond my wildest unicorn fantasies, I can no longer be rational and reach another conclusion.

There was once wit and wisdom that came with almost every single skit. There was once such tremendous talent in every character that you couldn’t help but laugh at just the anticipation of it all. That, my friends, is no longer.

Sure, they have a fresh cast of actors and actresses that seem to at least get what makes America laugh. But somewhere in either the writing or the translation, something horribly funny gets lost among the cheap political attacks and blatant fart jokes.

Tina Fey, and her spot-on Palin impersonation, opened the show with a side-by-side Hillary Clinton press conference. The utter cheapness of her gags and overall lack of any message other than “Palin is an idiot. Hillary is amazing,” submarined a sketch that had enormous potential for laughs.

And it just got worse from there.

The sad truth is that there is more talent, pound-for-pound, on this cast, than any other in long, long memory. They do the best with what they have, but the writing is just too bland, too quirky, and way too predictable. Given the bright spots here and there, I wonder what it would take to break out of this rut and forge a new path toward funny for this generation.

Apparently a lot, considering how many folks have been clammoring for just such a thing for years now.

Maybe it’ll happen soon, but someone will have to tell me about it. I just can’t watch any longer.

Gadgets (pt. 1)

So I like gadgets. I mean, who doesn’t love the all-in-one capacity of an Iphone, or the sexiness of chick all bluetoothed out? Who hasn’t wanted to strip naked and make sweet, greasy, silicon robot love with a service android? I…ok…so maybe I love gadgets. That said  though, there rarely is a hot ‘thing’ that I’ve found that the world doesn’t already know about. Well, suckas and suckettes, today I proudly introduce you to TWO pieces of technological wizardry that a) you know nothing about, and b) must purchase immediately.

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Bugs…

I have a terrible habit. It’s not really a habit, more of a unfortunate casual occurrence.

I get a lot of bugs in my food.

I don’t get them, as if I’ve asked for them, and I don’t refuse to wave off the flies and gnats that inevitably circle my plates during evening dinners outdoors. No, I often and unexpectedly get dead roaches, flies, and other critters in my otherwise wonderfully prepared food.

On a first date that I desperately wanted to go well, I got a roach in my pasta salad. The tragic part is that I didn’t discover this fact until after I put the thing into my mouth. On another occasion, hoping to make another solid impression with the ladies, I found a roach in my beer. Once again, it took my actually putting the thing into my mouth in order for me to find him out.

There have been others less disgusting. But the point really is that one person shouldn’t have so much extra protein in his food. I submit my latest encounter as yet another impossibility on the road to consuming most of the exo-skeletal creatures in the northern hemisphere.

On a flight back from Italy, midway through a delicious salad that I had hoped would rival the previous week of greens and tomatoes, I flipped over a leaf to find a caterpillar gnawing on some of my greens.

That’s right. At 32,000ft and change, somewhere over the edge of Western Europe, I had a live caterpillar in my salad.

For a moment, I was flabbergasted at the idea: a worm has no business eating anything at 32,000ft. But then again, neither, really, do I. So I passed my salad off, ordered another Leinenkugel, and waited on my chicken.

Fortunately, it was bug-free.

There’s always next time.

This is for your own good…

I know this will be grossly offensive to most of you, but it’s for your own good. Someone has to say it. Someone has to stand up and brave the masses to speak the truth. That person is me, I am Spartacus. And so here we go…

Family Guy is awful. American Dad is ten times worse.

Whoa there! Hold on, don’t fight it….let it settle….there you go. Family Guy is not as funny as your friends say it is. Even they don’t think it’s that funny. They just think that the rest of the world thinks it’s flippin’ hilarious.

“Oh man, how great is Stewie!” “Dude, Brian says what the rest of us are afraid to say.” “I love Peter’s flashbacks….toooo funny.”

No. None of that is true. It’s a cartoon. It’s novel. If it were a sitcom, it would rank somewhere between a  MASH spin-off and a documentary on Slurpee cleaners.

God, Family Guy is awful. Sweet Mercy, American Dad is borderline suicidal. Give it up, try books. Try gambling. Try the Internet. Just stop trying to like them.

Let the damned, awful things die.

Theme changes…

As you may have noticed, my theme changed today. Why you ask? It has a lot to do with me being a raging idiot when it comes to the techno-science that occurs in order to make a website widget-ready. That said, I am working hard to enhance my old theme in order to revert back to something more comfortable, something safe, something….wow. You know, this water thing is kinda peaceful. What was I saying? Oh yeah, converting themes. I plan on…wow, heh heh, it’s kinda cool this dark water, very relaxing. I think I’ll just let go of the side of this boat for a while and drift, maybe check out what’s under the surface…sweet…..blurb, blorp, bubleeleraapbeparpbap*.

(Author’s note: I realize someone drowning would have neither the time nor the technology to physically type out his or her demise. But it’s cyberspace, so I did. Suck on that, motorheads!)

Boomdiada…

I’m not a real sentimental person. OK, I’m a real sentimental person. But I’m not a crier, at least not in public, or without a stick of cookie dough. There are a lot of things that get me close to tears….the movie Love Actually for one, and really, really great personal stories of triumph over adversity. Those get me close, but rare is the moment that breaks the dam. And of course I would not be writing this if there wasn’t a “but WAIT!”…

And so here it is…

Many of you will laugh. Most of you will probably just say “eh” and move on with your day. But for me, there is a great intersection of so many personal loves in this one minute that I cannot help but be overcome with a general welling up and overflow. Summer camp, nature, space, explosions, astrophysics, sharks, oceans, fire, Discovery Channel, and a heavy dose of gratefulness for being alive and aware.

In the end, I think that’s about all sentiment and sadness and joy really are: a crossroads of experience, desire, and the present. I’m the same way with pictures of the Earth, 1000+ year old churches, and the Garth Brooks song “When You Come Back to Me Again“. If I’m paying attention -which I always try to be- I get that way when riding the I-85 South off-ramp onto J.R. Allen parkway; driving into Wewahitchka, Florida; crossing the Chattahoochee in Cottonton, Alabama; rumbling across the speed stripes in Cusseta, Georgia; and any smell of fir and wildflower in Western, North Carolina.

Those are just a few.

You have your own. Take time to enjoy them all (even if it means crying out loud).

The World is just Awesome…