Former Ole Miss receiver Taye Biddle, he of the are-you-fucking-kidding-me variety of dropped catches in the Rebels’ 2003 Cotton Bowl season that particularly spiced up an early-season loss at Memphis, is recovering after being shot twice in his hometown of Decatur, Alabama.
Irony being a rather wicked marksman, Biddle took one bullet to the leg, and (fatefully) one to his hands. It’s unclear if the shot was made by a Heisman caliber marksman from 50 yards out and delivered in open coverage, but it was no doubt a perfect spiral.
I’ve left my blog to be gutted, redesigned and renovated while I’m in Europe on business for most of January. I won’t be around here to monitor the comings and goings, so play nice, kids. I left $300 in a sugar jar over the stove, and you have Nana’s phone number written here on the fridge.
If my blog was a stately suburban home in an affluent Chicago neighborhood, or, say, a prized collectible racecar, some mop haired doe-eye teen star would learn a LOT of those tricky teenage lessons of life you don’t live in the honor roll world in a wild weekend of cops, girls and crazy predicaments…
The three crimes encompass both black and white; young and old; metro and country locales; and west, central and east Tenneessee.
Therefore I point to the great state of Mississippi, where a hundred-plus years of racial strife rarely (if ever) featured child molestation or deleted scenes from “Hannibal.” At least not yet. There I go giving Jerry Mitchell ideas…
Come back home, where hate crimes are committed with good, old fashioned practices. The way your great-grandaddy and his cousins would do it.
The BCS Championship media day in Miami produced this wire story on Charlie Strong’s bizarre inability to break through to the head coaching ranks. It’s not news among SEC fans that Strong has a white wife, although I’m guessing that most college fans up north and out west weren’t aware. Normally that’s the kind of leading-the-witness journalism I’d rally against, but I 100 percent completely believe that race has something to do with Strong’s inability to find a coaching job.
Also:
Strong, a 48-year-old black man, shook his head affirmatively when an Orlando Sentinel reporter asked him if his interracial marriage was a factor in getting passed over for jobs including one at a Southern school a few years ago. Strong, whose wife is white, said he heard that too many times for it to be rumor.
Logical suspects? Alabama during the Saban hire or possibly LSU during the Miles hire. But the smoking gun has to be Ole Miss during the 2004 firing of David Cutcliffe and hiring of Ed Orgeron.
To be fair, if you consider the mentally challenged or Cajuns a minority, then Ole Miss did in fact “diversify” twofold in its hire.
A note on Drive By Truckers: There’s nothing specific to the band’s 2008 album “Brighter Than Creation’s Dark” for me to finally recognize DBT and get on the fan bus, but for whatever reason this was the year I found out how great this band is.
For years people have recommended the band, my ITunes page and web sites such as Pandora (built specifically to recommend me music) have always thrown DBT in the mix. I’ve been aware of DBT for probably five years or so from various mentions on hipster radio and print; I simply outright refused to listen to DBT because I was convinced they were commie noodle rock marketed to frat-boy nu-hipsters who worship jam band bullshit.
I arrived at this conclusion based off of:
1. The name “Drive By Truckers.” A name is a subjective thing, but “Drive By Truckers” is a lot more “String Cheese Incident” than it is “Uncle Tupelo.” Granted, in this right I would dismiss the Flying Burrito Brothers if they debuted tomorrow, but I’m not looking for flawless logic – I just hate Widespread Panic.
2. The artwork. Jam-bandy in some respects, of which I’m having a tough time clarifying. The American Gothic meets R. Crumb illustrations look the kind of felt banner type shenanigans you’d buy at a head shop in Asheville.
3. They toured with Widespread Panic. Not everyone catches Stockholm Syndrome, but I don’t think any of Hitler’s neighbors ever bragged about being so after he nuked half a million gays and Jews. And yes, I’m aware that the image of a stoned sixth-year business school graduate from Auburn sporting 20 pounds of gut and a permanent five o’clock shadow having a petit mal seizure in place while convulsing along to a 45 minute guitar/keyboard/oboe jam session for the third night in a row at the Mid-South Coliseum makes me think of the Holocaust. I’m comfortable with that association.
4. Shit. I just realized Stockholm Syndrome is a another goddamn jam band.
All water under the bridge at this point. “Creation’s Dark” is a solid effort, although I’m now leaning towards their earlier works, hallmarked by such songs as “Decoration Day” and “Outfit,” as the definitive best offering from DBT.
“Leaning towards their earlier efforts…” that wasn’t a douchebag statement in the slightest. Not at all.
Anyway, this should probably be a lesson that I should perhaps listen to the actual music of a band before passing judgement, but it won’t be. I doubt I’ll change my ways.
Thank God Whiskeytown wasn’t named The Patagonia Railroad.
I received my first cell phone for Christmas of my junior year. Of college. That’s it, pictured above.
Couldn’t text for two more years until I bought the texting plan on my own. Couldn’t email on it all. Couldn’t browse shit, let alone the Internet. Played “snake” like a motherfucker though.
This will undoubtedly be my “uphill, both ways in the snow with no shoes on” hardship tale for future Godfrey progeny. And if said progeny are male, I’ll further garnish my story of a woeful youth with the fact that I completely missed the sexting trend.
My ten year high school reunion is in nine months. Not once in four years of pre-collegiate education spread over two states did I once sleep with an emotionally unbalanced female teacher or receive a photo message on my phone of a naked female student.
In ten more years that admission will be on par with a present day confession that you never went to prom, got picked last in gym class dodgeball or didn’t get kissed until college.“Take it easy on John, OK? He didn’t get a single hand job from Ms. McKenzie in four years of homeroom.”
If you’re a 16 year-old-geek, who (theoretically) sports glasses and braces on daily basis, finds fascination with comic books and was forced into the freshman marching band because your parents thought you really needed some time outside of your bedroom, is having an Iphone containing not a single shot of classmate cyber-poon the equivalent to spending THREE GODDAMN NIGHTS constructing a Valentine’s Day mailbox for your desk out of paper mache and red construction paper only to receive a paltry five (out of a possible 35) cards, none of which are from girls who don’t ride on the special needs bus?
Still working on some site updates, new formatting. Yadda. (”I mentioned the bisque.”)
I love this picture. 9 wins, a January bowl win over a top 10 team and the only thing I can think to say is, I hope they didn’t let Dex hold the trophy.
