The Godfrey Show

Tuesday links is a new feature where I react to whatever the trusty Google RSS Reader feeds me on that Tuesday. Tuesday links also needs a name. I’m open to suggestion. (And for that matter, I’m open to more comments on this blog in general.) Sometimes people ask me what I’m trying to get across with this blog. It’s certainly not limited to college sports or Ole Miss, nor is it a purely comedic affair or some kind of urban journal on the city of Nashville. It’s really just an ADD blend of all of that the occasional shot of safe-for-work boobage. Astonishingly enough, I’m still waiting for someone to pay me to do this.

Today’s “I’m lost in the goddamn suburbs for Thanksgiving and can’t find wireless” edition of “Tuesday Links” (see? It got official in only its second paragraph) is brought to you by Borders, where screaming infants and pony-tailed baristas are coloring my afternoon sunny. Also, it seems that America’s primary use for wheelchairs has shifted from the physically handicapped to the morbidly obese.

- Even in the midst of mediocrity Notre Dame can piss me off. ESPN’s one-trick pony “The Bottom Ten” has Notre Dame on its highly unscientific list of the ten worst teams in college football, except the Irish sit at an inarguably “just mediocre, not bad” record of 6-5 headed into the USC game. ND’s history does allow them self-delusion, but it doesn’t mean we have to buy into it. This insults all the not hard work programs like Washington and North Texas have put in all year long.

- SI’s Stewart Mandel confirms suspicions that Ole Miss’ punishment from the Sports Gods for trouncing LSU in Baton Rouge is a date with Texas Tech in the Cotton Bowl. The number you’re thinking of is 661, the amount of passing yards a far, far more inferior 2003 TTU team hung on the Rebels when these teams last met. And yes, 661 set a single-game record for D1, until TTU broke it 12 more times.

- Would you drive to Dallas for this? In case you’re wondering how you ruin an eight win season with wins on the road against two national champions and the biggest single turnaround since Christ rose from the dead, this is how:

- Damn, I lost twenty bucks: I had evidence of LSU’s Internet fan base displaying their sore loserness at least 24 hours after getting skulldrug by the Rebels (that feels so funny to say, yet so sexy.) Apparently they were slower on the trigger than anticipated, but they still came through with this nonsense. I was actually about 10 seats down from this kid at Tiger Stadium, and while extremely drunk and annoying, I doubt his penchant for penis. Ironically, I sat in front of a rather catty but entertaining gay couple cheering for LSU in the same section as this kid, but felt no need to parade a “HEY QUEER FANS CHEER FOR YOUR SKOOL” post on the Internet.

- I could have pounded out 2000 tired words about operating among the corndog nation for three days, or you could just check out Friends of the Program’s photo essay of a day in Red Stick and get the gist of it. Hey there, school sanctioned whores!

The capes keep it classy.

- And remember kids, I’ve been in Louisiana since Friday. You saw me there.

- CBS locks up the Atlantic 10 Mens’ basketball title game! Hey ESPN! You take that billion dollar SEC contract and your new BCS extension and you SHOVE IT UP YOUR TOOSHIES! How big is this? CBS wrote a full press release, that’s how big!

- Look look! Rolling Stone is talking about Mississippi and it has absolutely nothing to do with politics! And as a side note, I’m not firmly convinced that Akron, Ohio should be annexed as part of North Mississippi by sheer virtue of the recent work of the Black Keys. Two white boys in the Rust Belt are convincing young persons to put down those crazy text machines and learn about blues music.

- How can I love and hate Jeff Tweedy so much at the same time? This is how – He can’t smile for a picture with his own cult leader but yet by all reports we’ll have another full length studio effort from Wilco next year. Annoyed and satisfied, that’s how he leaves me. PS – Chicago sucks balls.

- Does anyone else remember 1999? That’s when a T1 Internet connection in your dorm room was a license to fucking steal, baby (thusly it was also the last year that any American male under 30 years of age paid for porn). I couldn’t imagine dealing with legislation preventing me from missing a mid term to monitor a 32-hour download of a pirated theatre recording of “Fight Club.”

- Sometimes people ask me why I moved to Nashville and doggedly refuse to leave after three years and nothing more than a job keeping me in town. The food is better in New Orleans, the family is in Jackson, my friends are largely still in Oxford, “New Country” is awful, I had to slog through a year-long long distance relationship until my lady could pull up stakes for the West End, and I spend most of my time writing about things related to Mississippi. So why the insistence on staying in Nashville?

THIS IS WHY, ASSHOLES. RICHARD BELDING IS COMING TO TOWN.

Have a good Tuesday.

Godfrey Uncategorized

Greetings from the remote Mississippi settlement of “Flowood,” a remote suburban outpost in the Jackson system (formerly known as “Brandon,” and changed because “Brandon” is such a 90s type of name for a boy. They should call it “Tanner” now) known for its high concentration of affordable starter homes for young families and clusters of overdeveloped Baptist church parking lots and stip malls, or in some cases Baptist church strip malls.

One of these, then a Jason's Deli, then another one of these, then a McAllister's, then another one of these, then Starkville.

While there are exactly 12 casual dining “delis” per churchgoing family in Rankin County, there’s a scant amount of available wireless, so I’ll get right to this:

- Important: I’ll be back on Southern Sports Tonight this Wednesday around 4:30 p.m. talking all things Egg Bowl. My goal is to use “Croom” as a verb, noun, adjective, adverb, conjunction, dangling participle and Hoodoo Prayer chant, creating a kind of linguistic versatility previously reserved only for swears and blasphemy.

- More Important: I did in fact file a column for this week’s Local Voice, so be sure to check that out this Wednesday-ish. I was hungover, so it wasn’t really good. Then again, it’s free, so don’t bother me about it.

- Most Important: I just found out the strip mall coffee bar I ducked into closes at 9 p.m., as does everything in the “Flowood” outpost. This, unfortunately, curtails not only my blog but exactly 11 seperate high school and college “fat girl” Bible studies going on around me.

Holidays YEAH!

Godfrey Uncategorized

Not listed above: Waking up in a New Orleans hotel room not knowing you went to New Orleans.

Too hungover to make the funny, so fill in for me.

Godfrey: “Hey, that’s no penis trophy, but….”

Godfrey Uncategorized Beware of coonasses

Chariot of death and war. And Ritz chips.

The Romans approached the gates of their enemy marching as an imprenetrable “phalanx.”

Hannibal used elephants.

The British navy used boats (context clue on that one).

This blog is employing a far more dangerous route to breach enemy lines – SOUTHWEST FUN FARES! (insert ominous music.) WITH A LAYOVER IN BIRMINGHAM (more music! more!).

Times like these are best suited with WASP-appropriated hip hop terminology, so it’s on, motherfuckers. I’ll be posting gingerly throughout three different airport terminals, then the convoy to the off-site base, then a rendezvous at the jump point, then it’s jungle time, college boys. Lock-and-load, there’s no sleep when you’re scanning for Charlies.

It’s hard to perpetuate a “war” mentality after losing umpteen straight to a team that almost got impaled by a Sun Belt team, so the attitude of the day is a rather wacky, “devil may care” 1980s action comedy:

They’re seven years down on their luck against our most dangerous foe – a band of Russian ninjas running a drug cartel LSU.

The stakes are higher than ever, but so is the wacky comedy!

They’re underestimated and outgunned, but if the unlikely duo of a down and out football program and an Ozarks Outcast can get this far, there’s no telling what kind of zany capers they’ll end up on in…

“The Red Stick!”

Godfrey Uncategorized Beware of coonasses

I think some stereotypes are A-OK.

I like my ninjas Asian, for instance. No matter what Hollywood regurgitates up, a blond haired dude with a boa staff just doesn’t do it for me. The name “Hiroto Lee, C.P.A.” will always be tougher than “Wentworth Wellington, 11th degree black belt” in my mind. Think I’m being offensive? Observe:

You know how this ends.

Also, I like my waitresses fat. Big time fat. If a Mexican woman with a huge rack and one of those asses that moves independent of the regular human body is sauntering my way to serve me lunch at a local eatery, those refried beans just got tastier on principle.

Like this, but with 45 extra pounds in the bunda and holding a Lunch Combo #7 with extra guac.

So upon hearing an elderly black man talk college football outside the Church Street YMCA tonight, I slowed my pace long enough to hear him finish his rant not because I needed any particular insight, but rather because I assume in good faith that all old black men are really good at telling stories and/or singing the blues and/or coaxing teenage white women away from prostitution.
Read more…

Godfrey Uncategorized

Those of you with radio listening devices, tune in to hear me tonight on Southern Sports Tonight on 98.1 FM The Ticket in Fort Walton, Florida.

Normally a port city rife with the most virile of jorted Alabama and Florida denizens would eat me alive, but thanks to one decent fourth quarter scare and an upset Gator fans are practically thanking Ole Miss for, I’m allowed to temporarily pass through Flora-Bama once I’ve calmly paused to have my scent registered. Still, it’s best not to make any sudden movements.

Listen online here.

Godfrey Uncategorized Shameless Whoring

….which, ironically, is followed a week later by an Egg Bowl. Hey, puns prevent weeping.

“LSU HATE-Capades 2008″ takes a sudden, sharp (make that phallic) turn for the worse as the aforementioned “Magnolia Bowl” trophy has made its photographic debut.

I can go two ways on this:

The usual Klonopin-induced answer. (What’s that? You’re an Ole Miss football fan and you aren’t on Klonopin? Xanax? Nothing? Wow.): “So yeah, I guess I can see what they were going for, and it certainly captured the elegance of the bloom..”

The rare, completely sober, manic and therefore inherently “true” answer: “WHY, LORD, WHY? WHY DOES OLE MISS FUCK UP ANYTHING IT TOUCHES? WE JUST TOOK ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF FOOTBALL HISTORY AND PAINTED A COCK ON IT!!!!!”

We knew leaving this to the hands of student government officials would result in disaster. Let someone else get a “P.C.U.”-esque prank of a trophy – this a storied SEC rivalry and should be fawned over with equatable pomp and circumstance. I’m all for a “schlong bowl” between two directional schools in the Sun Belt, because they exist solely for our amusement (and to beat Alabama once every ten years).

I’ve cobbled together dialogue from secret sources direct from the closed-door meeting that took a generations-spanning, life or death rivalry game and deemed its grandest reward to be a youth soccer trophy shaved into a fiberboard dildo :

Ole Miss official: “Hey, I’ve got a grand idea! Let’s name one of the South’s greatest college football rivalries after a near-century of title-less yet epic football games!”

LSU official: “Grand idea! If my hands weren’t webbed I’d give you a hearty thumbs up for such a logical move!”

Ole Miss official: “What shape would you reckon the trophy should be?”

LSU: official: Hmmm. “That’s a tough one.”

Ole Miss official: “I’m not sure either. The name is ‘The Magnolia Bowl,’ but it almost seems too logical to just to develop a crystalline Magnolia flower. Besides, we’re Ole Miss and we need to get this done on the cheap.”

LSU official: “Agreed. Besides, among LSU fans we’re a little tentative to use crystal, glass or anything that couldn’t be used in an impromptu game of cornhole at a parking lot tailgate around 2 a.m.”

(a pause)

LSU official: “Wait, I’ve got it!”

Ole Miss official: “So do I!”

Both officials, simultaneously: “HOW ABOUT A LARGE, THROBBING WOODEN PENIS MID-EJACULATE?”

….Slap its hearty shaft, inform the proud parents and check the time of birth – Ladies and Gentlemen, Penis/Weiner/Cock Bowl 1 has arrived.

Godfrey Uncategorized

I can live with this. Maybe even learn to like it.

Back when it was announced that the student governments for both LSU and Ole Miss had agreed in principle to name the Ole Miss / LSU football game “The Magnolia Bowl,” I didn’t think much of it. Not that there’s anything wrong with “Magnolia Bowl.” Nothing says irrational, blind hatred like flowers! And when someone says “magnolia,” I do in fact picture a lush, green campus in the haze of an August morning. Well, that and…

DRINK YOUR JUICE SHELBY! DRINK YOUR JUICE! DRINK IT!

Only sorority girls from Louisiana and gay men should have that film memorized.

Sadly I am neither.

Anyway, I just didn’t think anything a college student senate ever did mattered. When’s the last time that yearbook fodder did anything other than write fake legislation to pass a fake resolution to officially request that someone lobby to formally inform an actual adult that the freshman class wants Blimpie’s campus location to stay open past 9? Read more…

Godfrey Uncategorized

Ever. Just don’t even do it, Axl. For God’s sake, just look at yourself. It’s time to hang up the spurs, or in your case, the hair plugs. You’ve been gone this long, best just stay that way, ‘pardner.

The "Predator" franchise desperately needs a "re-imagining"

Guns N Roses’ 1991 masterpiece “Appetite For Destruction” is an album without a year, without an era, even without the foolish concept of time itself. 35,000 years in the future on another planet, genetically enhanced space monkeys will be learning to shred the power chords to “Mr. Brownstone” on holographic guitars. Once they master the solo to “It’s So Easy” they’ll share an ancestral bond with we simple humans by henceforth forever battling the urge to fuck anything wearing a jean skirt and lycra.

The original artwork for "Appetitie," banned from major distribution for obvious reasons - the letters are hard to read! (Oh an possibly some rape-type objections)

It’s a scientific fact – roaches, Styrofoam and “Appetite” can survive anything and therefore exist in no particular time or space outside of the one you choose. For instance, I shouldn’t even mention it came out in 1987. I was six years old when it was released, therefore having limited experience in cocaine and heroin abuse or knowing what it’s like to beat up a hooker in L.A. firsthand (whereas now I’m well versed).

No matter, because in ‘91 “Appetite” became, still is and will always be, the definition of rock and roll. I’m not a huge GNR fan, but like every other red blooded heterosexual white male in this country, at some point I encountered the album and found a different path thereafter. Mine came with a Circuit City Christmas Gift Card from my grandmother in 2000. Read more…

Godfrey Uncategorized

Welcome to LSU HATE Capades, kids. I’m making a public call for all Ole Miss or Ole Miss related blogs, message boards, Facebook groups, credit card mailing lists, Methodist prayer circles or gun clubs to join hands and our focus the reflective, concentrated energy – some call this “prayer,” some “meditation,” some “spell-casting” – on the well-being of not only the Ole Miss football team but also its fans, as a brave handful of us travel to Baton Rouge to face a wounded (and therefore alarmed and much more dangerous) Tiger team.

Kicking off the LSU Hate Capades is an unprecendented move in college journalism by the LSU student publication The Daily Reveillie. TDR has posted what should be considered the finest piece of investigative journalism since Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle.” Two Reveillie reporters blew open the world of LSU gameday fandom in a piece so painfully self-examining and alarming one could only hope that Al-Jazeera is taking notes. By posing as two Alabama fans filing a video report on LSU, two Reveillie reporters bore witness to the kind of subhuman antics of alcoholic depravity that 11 other schools bear on an annual basis. Although I’ll sidestep the calendar mandated LSU HATE Capades practicum to acknowledge that dressing in a Bama sweatshirt to attract low-class behavior from strangers is a grand and delicious irony. (Pot and kettle are one at last. Thanks, Saban.)

Not sure if this isn’t just bitter partisan blogging from a fan whose team has eaten seven years in a row? Or perhaps you feel like canceling your Katrina aid checks to curb the personal sting of an economic recession? You’ll find a bevvy of reasons here. (Editor’s Note: Mr. Godfrey would request massive, Double Gulp cup sized kudos for not creating a joke that just rhymed the aforementioned “bevvy” with “levy.” It’s called class, you Grimace looking mongrels.)

Murrow had his moment in London. CNN found its grace in Bagdhad. These braves souls left a Death Valley tailgate and entered the journalism pantheon.

In this simple piece of journalism a group of our sworn enemy’s own have found pause long enough to become introspective. One can only imagine what single moment or thought prompted this kind of self-actualization. I’m at a total loss, having long since assumed that any war crime committed against visiting fans inside of Tiger Stadium was not only forced but encouraged viewing for Tiger fans as young as two and as old as 90. Much like the Hitler Youth, indoctrination must occur early and programming must be repetitive.

Much like a young vulture being coerced by the pack leader to join in the final cowardly kill of a wounded mammal, on assumes LSU fans are taught as early as preschool that throwing full cans of beer at women and children or screaming Tiger Bait at a confused tourist while speaking Creole and exposing your genitals is not only a call to action or an expression reserved for celebration, but an everyday occurrence.

But it’s possible that, of all places, the Reveillie will cause the average corndog to enter a moral quandary with new found questions such as the following:

Is it possible that cheetah print zoot suits and throwing water balloons filled with urine at opposing fans somehow offends those not of our tribe?

Does the wearing of Mardi Gras beads and vomiting flourescent colored frozen beverages year-round somehow indicate that our tribesmen are perceived to be of a lower social tier?

Is it possible that our traditional embrace of Godless hedonism and customs of French governing practices brought about the wrath of a vengeful God in the form of a twenty-foot storm surge?

Could this crusading form of journalism somehow incite a secret plot within the LSU fan base to assainate poor character and nonexistant class? Apparently some Germans tried to kill Hitler. I never read about it, but Tom Cruise told me.

Expect no such derivation from the predicted mania. Much like a plague of zombies, they will strike fast and without thought, and they cannot be stopped, they cannot be quarantined, until all are destroyed.

See you Saturday.

Godfrey Uncategorized