08/02
Watching The Olympics
……. The flying pixies of women’s gymnastics never cease to amaze me. It’s not so much the incredible athletic feats, but that these are teenage girls doing these unbelievable stunts in front of gazillions of people. UN-freakin-believable!
Will someday Misty May-Traynor and Whatshername her tall blond partner roll out on the sand in wheel chairs….. 80 year-olds in their 28th Olympics still wearing red-white-blue bikinis? Whatever happened to Al Oerter and Edwin Moses?
I always say I won’t watch the Olympics this year….. then I always do. Is Bob Costas the next Dick Clark? He has been dipped in Lucite. Somewhere there is a Dorian Gray portrait of Bob Costas.
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Outliers Explains It
……. Any discussion of the issues with Big Time College Sports contains the “it” that everyone stumbles over. The politically correct “it” that sits in the middle of the discussion and everyone pretends its not there and everyone knows it is. We have discussed it here before, but it is rare anyone dares to bring it up.
IT is: The ever-growing majority of BCS / Final Four level college athletes are black. The vast majority of fans in the stands and fat cats in the suites are white. Ergo….
America has managed to recreate the glory and gory of The Roman Coliseum. The combatants on the floor of the arena and the spectators in the stands represent two very different cultures.
I’m not going to discuss it today…. but I will in a week or so. Before I do, I want you to get a copy of The Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. He explains it on a practical and intellectual level that 98% of you have never considered.
The genus for the phenomenon is found in the Junior B level of Canadien hockey. It is fascinating. Do your homework and we will discuss later.
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Whoopee Cushions Don’t Need Instructions!
……. As I explained a few months ago, creating views on the Internet isn’t rocket surgery – nekkid cheerleaders, cute kitten videos and anything provocative about Ye Olde Unpleasantness will do it. If you haven’t, go back and read thru the reader comments to the John Gacy’s Basemewnt column….. “interesting”.
This may be the only market on Earth where academic impropriety consistently outdraws nekkid cheerleaders. From a prurient standpoint maybe that’s good.
The notion that Carolina is so wonderful that it has its own “way” to describe said notion of wonderfulness would be simply seen as silly in a normal world. Braggadocio is not new. Muhammad Ali and Joe Namath became sports icons using the concept. But when some of the “hypers” actually believe their own hype….. and some of the hypees are equally as gullible and thin-skinned then a Hatfields v McCoys backyard blood feud is ignited.
There is nothing special about the centuries old feud between “ag schools” and “liberal arts schools” – the farm boys vs the frat boys. Pretty much every state has two such institutions. The insults are interchangeable and the worn out stereotypes are passed down thru generations.
Grandpa A tells you that “all those State boys drive tractors and date billy goats” then the grandkids believe it, right? Conversely, if Grandpa B tells his grandkids that Chapel Hill is really “Commie Hill” and “all ‘dem boys are light in their loafers…. hehehehe”. Well, you don’t argue with your Grandpa.
All the 30-40 farm boys vs frat boy rivalries across America comes down to “cows & queers”. A base concept as sophisticated as a whoopee cushion. Whoopee cushions don’t come with instructions in four languages. You don’t have to explain “a whoopee cushion” to anyone. Anyone above the age of two “gets it”.
The Carolina Way has become a two-way whoopee cushion. For decades the conversational impaired Carolina guy bored everyone by spouting it. For decades the gullible State guy amazed everyone by letting it bother him so. Then Marvin tweeted and the State guy turned the foolishness upside down and began bludgeoning the Carolina guy with it. To the rest of us who never fell for it, it’s just another whoopee cushion at the party. Another punch bowl being pissed in.
Just as anyone above the age of two “gets whoopee cushions”. Anyone above the mental age of five, gets tired of whoopee cushions after about the third time some galoot brings one to the party. But some galoot always does.
Any column about Ye Olde Unpleasantness brings out all the whoopee cushions. BUT….. this time a new factor entered the mix – The BK Factor
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The BK Factor
……. Upfront – Bob Kennel is a friend of mine. Lets get that out-of-the-way. I’ve known Bob going on 2+ years. We met thru this website. He invited me to lunch one day at Ruddino’s Sports Bar. We swapped Eastern North Carolina stories of high school rivalries. We swapped State – Carolina stories. Bob started in on his insufferable Liberal Democrat crap. Who knew that Jim Hunt was the 13th disciple….. I stood up to leave.
I have plenty of friends from Downeast. Certainly I have plenty of fine NC State friends. I’m always glad to meet more of both. America being what it is today, I’ve culled most Lib/Dems off my Christmas card list and am not looking to add any new ones. Bob blinked thinking I was kidding. I started walking out the door. He realized I wasn’t kidding. We set the parameters of our friendship…. and it began.
Bob Kennel is a cult figure within WuffNation. Outside of WuffNation, and the wuff monkey boards, Bob is only “known” thru obscure references to him on this website.
Bob played baseball at NCSU in the mid-50s while studying engineering. As his baseball career winded down his business career flourished. Thru it all his deep and abiding love for North Carolina State University burned with the heat of 1,000 suns. Bob loves everything about NC State; its academics, its athletics, its traditions. Some would measure Bob’s level of alma maternal passion as being well beyond healthy and considerably beyond rational. But what man has the right to measure another man’s passions. Not I.
Bob Kennel was “Bob Kennel” long before the Internet, but like a tree falling in the woods, not everyone knew about / heard him, especially the younger generations of WuffNation. The BK Factor was born when Bob met the board monkeys.
That one goofy Super Wolfpack Fan should so enrage some of his own fan base as much as their hated rivals is “a certifiable hoot”.
I understand Bob. I understand board monkeys. I understand why that combination is so combustible. I’m not sure that Bob or his army of adversaries understands their relationship. I do. ….. and I delight in it!
Bob is determined to convert all Wuffs to his type of Wuff fan. Alas, the congregation he has chosen to preach to ain’t buying what he be preaching. I tried to explain to him the basics of Board Monkey 101 early on in our friendship. Then I realized Bob and the board monkeys need one another. I was upsetting the natural order of things.
I like spicy food and eccentric people. Most of my chosen acquanti are well-endowed in the “eccentric” category. Bob Kennel, bless his heart, is the habanera pepper of peculiar.
.….. And THAT is why I call Bob Kennel “My Friend”.
