Red River rollin'

The devils have been at me again. It's that or the alcohol, but either way I'm feeling malignant and I swear it's no fault of my own. Tomorrow's the Big Day, or so I've been told everytime the t.v. comes on, or the radio cuts to commercial, in class and at work. "Texas sucks! Texas sucks! Texas sucks!" over and over, everywhere I turn. Thousands of screeming bumpkins, the decendants of land grabbers and salt-of-the-earth types headed south to "Big D" for the newly renamed Red River Rumble. Apparently "shootout" was too violent for marketing; They needed something more p.c. for the t-shirts. God bless the capitalists.

Unbeknownst to me, and I am quite sure most Texans, this is the biggest game of the year. The Cotton Bowl is sold out, and "it don't git any bigger then the Cotton Bowl". Unless of course you're at Kyle Field, Jourdan-Hare Stadium or Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium, just to name a few. And certainly there are larger, older rivalries elsewhere but don't bother trying to explain anything like that to a Sooner in this state of mind. I've tried it twice, and both times got a look as if the very horns of Bevo himself were protruding from my skull.

What kind of hell am I in here? Surrounded by people who don't understand me, forced to root for a team I've hated since second grade, missing the good-time vibes and wild rhythms of city I once called home. I do miss Austin the more I stay in OKC. Yes, it was for the best that I left; there was no future for me then. But lingering effects remain. There is a certain wild man freedom about Austin that can't be found this far north. It's visceral, breeding the kinds of impulses that would make a man sleep on the street for a night just to see how it feels, and hang out with an old drunk named Bird while he gives drumming lessons to anyone fortunate enough to wait in his bus stop booth, for tips of course. I had to leave though; It was getting to me. I suppose that's a part of being Kept, but how I do miss it all.

I predict a big win for the Horns in the morning. Let's say "40-3" Texas. If those bastards let me down and lose, I'm going to have to eat an 8"x11" photo copy of a longhorn bull in class on Tuesday. And if anyone thinks that alone is hard to choke down just remember this: On Monday, no one south of the Red River will care all that much if things went badly on Saturday. I, however, will have to deal with a poor Texas showing until May 2006, when God willing I'll be leaving this place! Enjoy!