So, as I made mention of in my SEC Picks last week, I made the trip down to Knoxville this past weekend to take in the sights and sounds surrounding the Ole Miss-Tennessee game. I didn’t tell many people that I was going (including, apparently, some of the people that I was meeting), but I decided to at the last minute, because I’d never been to Knoxville before, and after hearing so many things about the game day atmosphere I was fairly excited about seeing it for myself. Since returning, I’ve decided to grade the town and the school based on my weekend experience. I also realized that, despite my love for all things SEC football, I really haven’t been to all that many SEC stadiums (about half) so hopefully as I visit more I’ll be able to grade them as well, and I’ll get a better idea of how they all stack up. Let’s start from the beginning.

Proximity to D.C.

Part of what made this trip so attractive to me was the distance from my home. For sure, Knoxville is not just a hop, skip and jump from our nation’s capital, but considering that I have to fly to most all games that I go to, being able to drive was something that I thought would be a nice change of pace, and a bit of a money saver. However, a six and a half to seven hour drive, while definitely doable, is not really optimal out of Friday evening D.C. traffic and some of the most redneck, hillbilly highways and interstates this side of the movie Deliverance. It took me an hour and a half to drive the first 20 miles on Friday night, and at one point I was afraid to stop for gas for fear of having to interact with the locals. Just to put that in perspective, I’ve stopped at gas stations in southeast D.C. well after midnight without thinking twice. At least when I go to Oxford, or Baton Rouge, or wherever else, I know I’ll have to fly. Knoxville just teases you with it’s drivability, and then smacks you in the face if you actually try it.

Proximity to D.C. grade - D

Tailgating

I was shocked on Saturday morning as we walked around, and tailgating was virtually non-existent, and those that were tailgating, were doing it poorly, in parking garages, or, horror of horrors, on their tailgates. Tailgating doesn’t have to have happen in big grassy areas like the grove, or with chandeliers and fine china, like so many people seem to think happens with regularity at Ole Miss, but some effort has to be put in. I think the layout of the campus around the stadium has something to do with it, but no grills, no central congregation of people, and effort at all gets no passing grade for Vol tailgating.

Tailgating grade - F

Atmosphere

The atmosphere before the game, even with the lack of tailgating, wasn’t terrible. There were quite a few people up early and milling around outside the stadium. We made our way to the Volunteer Grill, which sits behind Neyland on the river. I was once again shocked that the Vol Navy, which I had heard so much about, consisted of about seven or eight boats, with only one or two containing any visible signs of life, in the form of orange clad tailgaters. The Vol Grill though, was quite nice, with a towering view of the stadium, and an outside bar packed with at least as many Ole Miss fans as Volunteers.

Atmosphere grade - C-

Fans

Are there sororities at the University of Tennessee? Or salads? Because if the answer to either of those questions is yes, then you could have fooled me. I see as many beautiful women walking from my car to the Grove at Ole Miss as I saw the whole day in Knoxville. And I’ve never seen so few good looking lady folks and so many bald, fat sleeveless T-shirt wearing old men in all my life. With that said, there weren’t all that many rude Vol fans, even though the ones that were tring to be ‘nice’ did so in such a way as to come off as condescending. Note to Vol fan: We don’t care what you think about David Cutcliffe, and we’re tired of explaining why he was fired. So shut up.

Fans grade - C-

Stadium

When people told me that Neyland Stadium held 105,000+, I thought that they meant that there were 105,000+ seats, not that there were 75,000 seats that they fit 105,000+ people into. However, other than my knees bumping into the person in front of me, and someone else’s knees bumping into my back for three hours, the stadium was pretty cool. The sound system was good, and the people that run the video showed a pretty impressive series of clips with Reggie White, who was being honored, and of highlights of the Vols previous weeks game against the Tigahs.

Stadium grade - C+

Band

Best part of the day in my opinion. Watching the team run out through the big T was pretty cool, and Tennessee’s band is absolutely enormous. They also played ‘Forward Rebels’ before the game, which wasn’t really suprising, as I knew that they played the opponents’ fight song before every game, but it was cool nonetheless. Also, in the second half, the band moved from section to section in the upper deck, playing right in front of the fans, which was very cool. The only gripe? They apparently didn’t have enough time to learn a second song. Either that, or they just knew that the UT fans weren’t smart enough to learn the words to a second song.

Band grade - B

Nightlife

Not bad. The bars aren’t as good as Oxford, but there are a lot more of them. One question though, for not one, but TWO of the bars on the strip. If you’re going to open a drinking establishment on the most popular strip in Knoxville, what makes you think that make it a cash only bar, and serving only beer, and in one case, only three types of beer, is a good idea?

Nightlife grade - B

Overall

Overall, not a bad weekend. But some publication ranked SEC roadtrips a few weeks back, and put Tennessee, at the top of the list, and I’m just not seeing it. There are, at minimum, three places I can think of that I’d rather go, and remember, I’ve only been to half of the SEC venues.

Overall grade - C-

Oh yeah, pictures can be found right here.

I just checked my site statistics, and just today I’ve had a visitor from all the way around the world in Tokyo, Japan. It’s like when you go to a reunion or wedding, and the person that traveled the farthest to be there gets recognized, well this is their recognition. Don’t believe me? See for yourself…

I actually know who this great traveler is, too, since I just got an e-mail from her. In fact, it’s an old high school and college classmate that I hadn’t heard from in quite a while. She, like everyone else in my high school, it seems, is married with a 2 year old son, and she has another son on the way soon. Anyway, it seems she’s doing very well, and it was nice to hear from her, I really wish I heard from more of my old classmates more frequently. I suppose I’ll see them all at my ten year reunion which…is…next…year.

God I feel old.

I haven’t been on any real vacations since I was a kid, so when I got the chance to go to New York City with a few friends of mine, I jumped on it. I ended up having such a great time that I wanted to share it with everyone.

Wednesday, March 23rd

I woke up on Wednesday morning in Jackson, MS, ate lunch in Memphis, TN, grabbed some dinner in Washington, D.C. and fell asleep on an air mattress in an apartment in New York City. The drive from Washington to New York was marred by sleet like rain and a few accidents that slowed me down, but otherwise it was uneventful.

Thursday, March 24th

I woke up on Thursday and looked out from the balcony of the apartment we’re staying out at a great view of the Statue of Liberty. We slept late, so the crew was up and out the door rather quickly. By quickly, I mean we were out the door after we had discussed for a half an hour which clothes would keep us the warmest, and after we had gone over the checklist of our carrying items about four times. We hit the door with three cameras, one video camera, and two back packs filled with scarves, gloves, hats, and maps in tow. Our fist stop when we got off the train in the city was the site of the WTC. It was amazing to see the work that they had already done to get the buildings back up, but there’s still a lot of work to be done before the site looks anywhere near what it used to. After such a late start we grabbed a bit to eat at a pizza joint and headed back out in to the chilly New York air. We walked through the streets of Chinatown doing some shopping and some general people watching, and then we headed to Little Italy. Little Italy seemed to have more shopping than Chinatown did so the girls were definitely happy. We scoped out some possible dinner destinations, and then headed west towards SoHo and Greenwich Village. It was interesting to me to see so many completely different sects of people in such a small space between Chinatown, Little Italy, and SoHo, but I suppose that’s what New York City is all about.

After seeing the sights and hearing the sounds in SoHo, we headed north to Greenwich Village, where we were able to see the first Barnes & Noble bookstore, New York University, and the house where Mark Twain lived when he was in the city so long ago.

I could sit and watch people for hours. I love to just sit back and see all the people as they run around, trying to get where their going as quickly as possible. That’s what we spent most of the day doing, really, just viewing New York; just being in the city. It may only be a few thousand miles from Mississippi, but in reality it might as well be a completely different planet.

The people watching that we did next was completely different, but still completely unique to New York. We traveled up 5th Ave. and crossed over Broadway as we headed to New York’s Museum of Sex. I have to say that the Museum of Sex wasn’t really what I had expected. There were some interesting things to see and read, and I WAS able to take a few pictures, but all in all it really didn’t live up to the expectations that I had for it. One thing that it did have though, was some benches, which was a good thing because by that time I was completely exhausted.

We wanted to get back to Little Italy for dinner, but everyone was pretty tired, so we decided to take the subway for the first time. I have to say, the subway in New York is quite different from the Metro in D.C. For starters, it’s not nearly as clean. It’s also a lot more confusing, and I was a little bit afraid that following Trisha was going to get all of us lost. But we made it back to Little Italy problem free, and chose a small street-side Italian restaurant to have dinner at.

Let me take some time to say that I had decided before hand that I had decided this trip to New York was going to be the conclusion to my “nothing-but-water” experiment, and I decided to stick with that. I had a coffee earlier in the day, and it was nice, but the beer that I had with dinner at the Italian restaurant was absolutely the best thing that I’ve had to drink, well, ever.

We had planned on going to the Empire State Building at night, so that we could see the whole city lit up, but everyone was exhausted, so we decided to hang it up for the day and leave that for later on in the weekend.

We cut out and got to bed early, as we had planned on going to the Today show on Friday morning.

Friday, March 25, 2005

I was rudely awoken at 5:30 on Friday morning to the sound of people getting showered and dressed all around me. We were out the door around 6:30, with the same bags full of cameras and gloves and scarves and hats from the day before. We made our way to onto the PATH train to the World Trade Center and from there we took the 2 train to Times Square. The first thing I saw when I walked out of the subway station into Times Square was the gaudiest, most obnoxious looking McDonald’s that I have ever seen. The second thing that I saw was a twenty foot high billboard of one Eli Manning, about thirty feet off of the street greeting New Yorkers making their way to midtown. We headed over to the NBC Studios and the Today show set, about six blocks away, and made our way to through the crowd into what could best be described as the “corral” for the thousands of other people from around the country that had come to see Matt, Katie, and big fat Al. After about and hour and a half, after which I believe that I had been on television for a grand total of about 3.2 seconds, I decided to call it quits. I wandered off to Rockefeller Center across the street, while the rest of the crew stayed to try and get the attention of someone famous.

After our Today show experience, we had an early lunch, and made our way over to Fifth Avenue. The girls were happier than pigs in shit, as we made our way through some of the world’s most famous shops, like Saks Fifth Avenue and Tiffany’s. We got to a few places that the guys enjoyed too, like Trump Towers and FAO Schwartz, where we got to see the big piano that Tom Hanks played in the movie Big. After walking for what seemed like forever, we stopped for another quick bite, and made our way over to a subway station and headed down to the south of Manhattan, to see Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty, and Battery Park.

The great thing about New York is that you can go two or three blocks in any direction, and see something completely different than what you were just looking at. And we certainly did that.

Friday night we went to see a comedy show at Gotham Comedy Club. We got really lucky to see five great comics, including Todd Barry and Sherrod Small, from VH1’s Best Week Ever. There are a couple of good comedy clubs in my area, but I’ve never been. I was in tears the whole night, and Lea “Chuckle Bitch” Pentecost got called Mrs. Reliable because she was a guaranteed laugh. We got to meet and talk with Sherrod Small after the show, and we rolled to the apartment shortly after that.

Saturday, March 26th

Saturday we were all pretty tired, so we slept in for a little bit, and got to Times Square again a little bit before noon. We checked on tickets for a Broadway show, and decided against it, because we didn’t think we’d have enough time. We had lunch at Planet Hollywood, where soft drinks cost three dollars and a burger will run you twelve dollars, and then we headed north towards Central Park.

We got to take pictures in front of the Ed Sullivan Theatre, where David Letterman tapes the Late Show, and then we hit up Central Park. Central Park is absolutely huge. As our friendly “guide” told us “Nobody walks the whole park”. He was right, as we quickly realized, and we took the subway about thirty blocks to the middle of the park where we walked through and came upon the Metropolitan Museum of Art. At this point, I was completely dog tired, and had a pretty sharp pain running through both of my feet, but I soldiered on. How many times are you going to be in New York City, you know? I took a few pics in the Met, but I just wasn’t feeling it, so I kind of laid back and waited for the others to get tired of looking around.

After the Met, we walked a few blocks to the subway and took it to Grand Central Station. It’s pretty cool to me how beautiful these old train and subway stations are. I’m kind of partial to Union Station in D.C., but Grand Central was amazing, nonetheless. We called it a day at that point, and headed back to the apartment, but we made it back out to Times Square for dinner, and one last look at the lights.

I need to thank Lea & Bo and Austin & Tricia for inviting me on the trip. I had a blast, and we’ve actually talked about making some more trips in the near future. So watch out, we may be coming to your neighborhood soon.

That’s right folks, it’s that time of year again. OM-LSU game week. The week when the rivalry intensifies to epic proportions, and the Ole Miss faithful, upon coming into contact will LSU’s best and brightest, whether it be in Oxford or Baton Rouge, suddenly have an enormous craving for a deep fried combination of cornmeal and manufactured meat product on a stick.

That’s right. Corn Dogs.

In one of the oldest and most perplexing twists of fate on this, God’s green Earth, It has been noted that LSU’s fans consistently smell of the golden fried treat. Yes, all of them. Some people believe that the LSU fanbase is the worst in the SEC, and possibly in nation, in terms of the way they treat opposing fans who travel to Red Stick to watch their alma maters go toe to toe with the Tigahs. I’ve heard everything from bourbon bottles being thrown at the visitors section, to grandmothers in purple and gold giving the bird and spitting on opposing fans. Me? I don’t buy it. Quite the opposite.

I think that LSU fans are some of the best in the SEC, if not the entire landscape of college football. Everytime that I’ve been down to Baton Rouge for a football game, I’ve been treated nicely, and wished a good time, and a good game. I’ve had food shared with me, drink shared with me, and good times and good conversations with an overwhelming majority of the purple and gold clad fanbase. And there simply is no better place to watch a football game. Anywhere.

That’s why when I travel down to Baton Rouge this weekend to attend what I’m sure will be another great clash between the Rebels and the Tigahs, I’ll be going with a secondary mission. In my attempt to dispell the myth of an ugly, mean, and unruly LSU fanbase, I’ll be talking with and taking pictures with as many LSU fans as possible, and when I get back from the trip I’ll be posting on it. I’m really hoping that I can open some eyes with this one, because many people won’t even go to Baton Rouge to watch a game because of what they’ve heard about the fans, and it’s really causing a lot of people to miss out on a must-see college football atmosphere.

And the whole corndog thing? I think it’s a plus. There are definitely worse things to smell like.

I hate weddings. Everybody always talks about how weddings are a great place for single girls and single guys to hook up, because they’re all in the same place, and they’ve all got the idea on their minds. Well you know what? Bullshit. The kind of girl I want to meet doesn’t have marriage on her mind, at least not right now. And I can probably meet her in a bar, without having to put on a suit and tie, and without having to sit through a long quiet boring ceremony to do so. “But there’s dancing, and drinking and celebrating and good times all around”, you say. You call that a wedding ceremony? I can do all that at Thursday night happy hour. At least at happy hour, girl’s dresses aren’t’ lavender, or made of taffeta, and they’re much, much shorter (the dresses, not the girls).

I have to go to two weddings in the next two weeks. While I do hate that my friends want me to drive to Poughkeepsie, NY this weekend and fly and drive to Natchez, MS next weekend, I do at least appreciate that they had the good taste to choose women who knew better than to have their weddings during football season. If you want to be picky about it though, there is always something going on that a wedding will interrupt. For instance, this weekend, the SEC baseball tournament is going on. I’m not saying that it’s more important than a friend’s eternal happiness, but it’s close. There’s really only one weekend out of the whole year that is good for weddings, anyway, so if you have two friends get married in the same year, you’re shit out of luck anyway.

I also don’t understand why there is so much happiness at a wedding. Don’t get me wrong, for the bride and the groom, it’s probably going to be one of the happiest days of their lives. Well, for about half of them at least. But really, think about everyone else. The parents of the bride are out a boatload of cash for the wedding and the reception. The parents of the groom are out a slightly smaller boatload of money for the reception, and possibly the honeymoon, if they’re feeling generous. The bride’s friend’s are upset because the entire afternoon is nothing but a constant reminder of how utterly single they still are. The groom’s friends are pissed off because they know that they’ve just lost a really good drinking buddy (or at least someone who will split the tab). Married people don’t hang out with single people. Single people go to bars to drink beer and eat buffalo wings and to talk about sex. Married people go to restaurants and sip wine with their meals and talk about when they’re going to have babies. For the love of God. This upsets single people. If anything, it’s all that being upset that causes people to hook up with each other at weddings. Hmm….Bring on the depressed chicks!