I had business in Charleston SC this weekend. .… That is a 4.5 hour drive most days … It was an 8 hour “drive and creep” on Friday …. Add to my Forest Gump list of “I was theres” – The Great I-95 Shutdown of March 16. …. At 9AM an 18-wheeler flipped about Exit 36 spilling 8,500 gallons of diesel fuel in the southbound lanes …. Block the primary southbound Interstate highway in the Eastern US of A for 24 hours and it make an impact …. it surely does …. My column about the National Anthem apparently did too … Yee Haa!
YES … Indeed … The Hansbrough Hottie HerOwnHottieness was in attendance at LJVMC on Saturday …. Gorgeous StepMom watched Rugged StepSon do VERY WELL! Who’s in charge of getting Her Hottiness up to East Rutherford?
Mizzus tried to warn me. We saw a bulletin about a bad I-95 accident below Fayetteville at 9:30 but since I wasn’t leaving until 11 I figured it would b
e resolved well before I got close enough to be effected. It wasn’t … and I was. Mizzus suggested I go an alternate route which would have meant I-40 to Wilmington and 17 South to Charleston but that meant THE COOPER RIVER BRIDGE. I would rather be stuck in an elevator with three Shineolas and a pit bull with diarrhea than have to deal with THE COOPER RIVER BRIDGE, Yes, I know there’s a “new one”. And I know the “new one” is even higher and scarier for an Internert Legend with no fondness whatsoever for high, long scary bridges. Besides, in three hours they would have the wreck cleaned up…. WRONG!
I was in no time crunch whatsoever. I had a Saturday AM engagement at a Charleston-area Country Club but no have tos to attend to on Friday. Just based on what I saw in the 5 hours it took me to get to Lumberton, I’m betting I was one of the lucky ones.
MASSIVE traffic jams are like blizzards, African genocide …. and seeing Ted Kennedy nekkid … unless you are actually there you can easily block out all thoughts of their existence. But if you ARE directly involved you sense the equalizing effect certain situations have with social strata.
I came to a complete stop around mile marker 50 and never got above cuss and crawl speed for the next three hours. I felt a bit like Edmond Dantes being unfairly imprisoned in the Chateau d’if. I was facing a lengthy solitary internment but without an Abbe Ferea to educate me. My great respect for the intellectual brilliance of my primary readers allows me to move on without explaining those literary references …. Right?
Although I carry a fairly colorful obscenity vocabulary with me at all times, I set it aside for the first 90 minutes choosing to run thru all the little phone errands I had on my list.
I found Mizzus a new car in the first 15 minutes. I called “The Drakes” at Autobahn Automotive. Robert & Erin are THE BEST car care couple on Earth. Robert is one of those Renaissance Tradesmen that I firmly believe are THE HAPPIEST people on the planet. He works with his hands while keeping his brain in full well-oiled mode. Robert takes care of our family’s motorpool and helps us replenish it as needed.
We recently sold Kid’s Volvo with 240,000 miles to a Russian guy. Her 4.0 at Mizzou has earned her vehicular independence for her sophomore year so she gets Mom’s oh-so-reliable peppy Camry. I left a message for Robert & Erin to keep their eyes open for a good “pre-owned” car for Mizzus. Before I had crept to mile marker 46, Erin called with a “pre-owned” Lexus another of their clients was selling …. which Robert had done all the maintenance on for five years. Check that “to do” off the list.
At about the 90 minute mark of cuss and crawl I quickly did the former just to get it out of the way. Forward, backward and converting all my favorite obscenities into pig latin took about 20 minutes …. and the F-150 moved about 20 feet in the process. Banging my fist into the roof of my cab produced the usual bruised knuckles I always get from that oh-so-mature exercise.
I did get an idea though. Knowing I was going to be with a lot of Gamecock and Klempsum fans, I figured this would be a great chance to observe how stoopid, dumm, and no-count they ALL are …. according to UNC’s Shineola faction of course.
When I’m in a mass effect situation like a 20-mile Interstate gridlock, I recall that opening line to The Naked City … “there are 8,000,000 stories in The Naked City, tonight we will hear one”. While I was n
ot personally being unduly inconvenienced I could only imagine the 10,000s of travelers who WERE in some time-sensitive circumstance. Trucks on a delivery schedule … folks going to see sick relatives … and jackass Yankees who get really really scared whenever they are not moving at least 75 mph thru “the South”. The residual effects of seeing Deliverance a few too many times I suppose.
My business was not at The Ocean Course at Kiawah or Wild Dunes but it was at a nice upscale club. There were indeed plenty of USoCar and Clemson partisans milling about. I got the “scoop” on that Garcia kid that Visor Boy is dealing with. The Clemson version differs somewhat from the USC version …. Duh! But, over the course of a day I found pretty much everyone quite convivial. The usual plethora of lawyers, physicians, finance types, engineers and entrepreneurs with various elbow ornaments of assorted visual pleasantness. Pretty much what I find near’bout everywhere I go.
In the How Come Department …. In my travels across America dealing with sports partisans of every hue, color and fanatical allegiance I ALWAYS encounter “hail fellas and gals well met”. The ONLY place I find Goggle-Eyed, Mouth-Breathing, Nose-Picking Short Bus Riding Numb Nutz is ON MESSAGE BOARDS. There one group of GEMBNPSBRNNs are always flatulating about another group of GEMBNPSBRNNs. Apparently all these partisan groups of GEMBNPSBRNNs hang out in some parallel universe that I don’t visit. I had a great time convivializing with my new USoCar and Clemson friends. That I knew about Alex Hawkins, Alex English and Buddy Gore and The Mahaffey Brothers mighta helped. In meeting new folks, ain’t it interesting how you usually find what you expect to find and usually its folks just like you are. Yep … thats interesting!
Recall my comments about The Star-Spangled Brouhaha at the ACC Tournament Finals. How El Sid had his team so organized and at attention … and how while Ol’ Roy himself was ramrod straight and reverent, his team was slightly more casual BUT not anywhere near disrespectful ….. WELL! No surprise that my noting that set off seismic shockwaves among the respective nitwit factions.
CaroLoonies now consider moi some sort of Benedict Arnold for my public pronouncement. Like those nitwits would have a clue who Benedict Arnold was. …. A walk-on deep-snapper for Dick Crum in the early 80s?
Over in WuffNation, some yahoo claiming he was “a retired Navy Commander” wrote to the N&O calling Ol’ Roy every sort of profane unpatriotic so-and-so that he could sneak past the N&O censor. Methinks this ol’ swabbie has consumed too much grog and/or been “at sea” waaaay too long. I reread the Patriotic Act and personally called Karl Rove to insure that The Blue Messiah is still in good graces ….. he is. WHEW … that was a close one! On to East Rutherford ….. and a surprise date with Tommy Trojan.
On the local political front …. Ya’ll recall my previous mention of a smug little journo-dork named Rob Christenson down at the “gets it right less and less these days” N&O. Rob is the sad little fella that is collecting Apple Cheeks’ used make-up tissues and weaving them into a quilt mosaic. The Ed Grimley meets Pat Sajak thing.
Well …. Rob The Journo-Dork has been afumin’ over that nasty Ann Coulter’s recent insulting of his favorite former trial lawyer turned one-term Senator …. and former humble little mill town boy from Robbins. Rob The Journo-Dork also learned (GADZOOKS!) that Rush Limbaugh (Boo Hiss! …make Darth Vader sound!) recently referred to Saint Apple Cheeks as “The Breck Girl”.
I have a unique perspective on that issue since I have had sexual relations with the person who first coined that phrase and passed it on to (Darth Vader sound again) Rush Limbaugh over five years ago …. Along with the term “drive-by media” but that’s another story for another day.
Rob The Journo-Dork was INDIGNANT. According to Rob, Apple Cheeked Johnny has no homosexual tendencies whatsoever since, according to Rob, he (Apple Cheeked Johnny) grew up on the mean streets of a tough mill town and therefore is quite the testosterone-loaded guy, don’t ya know! …. I swear folks …. Apple Cheeks and his gang of full-throttle wing nuts can’t go four days in a row without saying something even stoopidier than they said less than three days earlier. They are now covered thru Thursday.
I immediately conjured up this image of Apple Cheeks as a Butch from Little Rascals or the repugnant Scut Farkus from A Christmas Story. Johnny Edwards – Bully Extraordinaire in Rollins. According to Rob The Journo-Dork at least!
In his hell-bent race to move ahead of N&O colleague Jimmy Jenkins as White House Press Secretary Designate for President-Elect Apple Cheeks Edwards … Rob The Journo-Dork has succeeded in throwing yet more high-octane jet fuel into the raging idiocy inferno that is rapidly consuming “The Edwards Campaign”.
Those of you wanting some early prognosticating for purposes related to wagering. Lay a few bucks on either Mit The Mormon or Fred Thompson on the Repub side. You haven’t heard much about Fred … but you will. And all you’ve heard about Mit The Mormon is that he is indeed a Mormon and some of you might be vexed about Donnie Osmond or Brigham Young having his finger on the nuclear trigger ….. instead of a “level-headed” full-bodied card-carrying lunatic like Reverend Algore of The Church of Impeding Calamities.
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Edmond Dantes is better known as _________ ?
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Those of you who like to plan ahead … I’m planning a thrill-packed sure-to-piss off the loonies column soon comparing Philip Rivers, Tyler Hansbrough and Tim Duncan as modern day throwbacks to high profile college athletes who you could actually respect without waiting for the report of how many babies they had sired or drug arrests they have pending.
An annual pruning ritual took place this weekend. The annual pruning of the Koach K Koaching Tree. Last year it was Adios Quinn Snyder … now its Adios Tommy Ammaker … leaving only Jeff Capel to carry his mentor’s flag as a former player turned Div 1 head coach. (Mike Brey never played for K). This is of course manna from heaven to the Koach K Loathers of America proving that Rosemary’s Other Baby is surely a very bad human being. ….. speaking of pruning, look for both Butch and TO’B to be “cleanin’ out a few lockers” in the next 3-4 weeks.
