A Mental Spillway
The work on this blog reflects the efforts of a person named Michael Merry to clean up and put his mental detritus into some semblance of order. Feel free to comment and please check back. Follow me on Instagram: https://instagram.com/michael.merry/
Tuesday, January 2, 2024
Wednesday, November 8, 2023
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
A Conversation by Email
These emails have been copied verbatim in the order that they occurred with the exception of changing the names.
Subject:
Navigating the Art World
Hello
Professor Krapf,
I
am an MFA student at UP and will be teaching Navigating the Art World this
summer. I understand you are currently teaching the course. Would
you be able to meet with me and give me a little more guidance toward teaching
the course? Best practices, resources for the students and myself, how
you think the course might best be compressed and organised in a summer term,
etc.
Thank
you very much,
Michael
Merry
Subject:
Navigating the Art World
Hello
Michael-
I
offered ART321 during Winter Term and it was tough covering the 14 week
syllabus content in 5 weeks.
I
will send you copy of my ART321 syllabus however I think you should seek
mentorship form Chair Hester on how to teach the course.
I
do not have time to meet with you as I am under a show deadline for a June 1,
201 opening.
If
your summer course is offered in second session I might be able to consult with
you. I did not receive notice that ART329 was to be offered.
Perhaps the ART123 Approaching Paintings would be a better summer course offering.
Regretfully,
Val
-----
Subject:
Navigating the Art World
Hi
Val,
Ok.
That winter term syllabus would be appreciated.
Thank
you very much,
Michael
Subject:
Requests for Art 321 Info.
Hey
Michael-
You
may be MERRY but I am not.
I
do not have electronic copy of that Winter Term syllabus as it was on my UP computer which went down in the middle of F10 and has not been repaired.
I have no ability to get anything off the hard drive.
I
can only give you my S11 syllabus because that is what is handy. I do
not have time to hunt around for other back years copy. I must submit my
syllabus for ART321 to the Art Office each semester I teach and they
should be able to give it to you-- especially if they assigned you to teach it!
Are they telling you to contact me?
I
was not notified of ART321 being scheduled in Summer Session. Did you ask
to teach this ART321 class? I want to know more about who assigned you to
teach it. I know nothing of your background but the course description clearly
states the course problems include both 2d & 3D creative problem solving. I
do not recognize your hotmail email. Are you even a UP Grad student?
If so in what studio concentration? WHo are your MFA
advisors? Perhaps they could mentor you as I do not have time to do this
on short notice.
Regretfully,
-Val.
Subject:
Requests for Art 321 Info
Hi all,
Michael Merry is
indeed a grad student , and Val I am one of his advisors, I've never taught 321 nor do I have a syllabus. Michael is a painting concentration grad. Please
give Michael any insight that you have about 321, I am available to help. Is
there a syllabus in the office to consult?
P
Subject: Requests
for Art321 Info
Professor
Krapf,
I'm
sorry if I bothered you or wasted your time.
Sincerely,
Michael
Merry
Subject:
Check This Out
Hey
Man, check this out!
Scroll
Down.
M.
Subject:
Requests for Art 321 Info
Hi
Val,
Michael
Merry is a first year MFA painting student. I am one of his advisors
- as are Amanda and Patrick.
Sounds
like Michael needs to get the syllabus from the office, he is teaching Intro to
Print this semester and I believe he is capable of teaching 321 - both the 2d and 3d.
Best,
Vanessa
Subject:
Thanks for your help.
Hi
Vanessa & Patrick,
Thank
you for the emails.
This
doesn't look like an avenue I care to explore any further. I'll figure it
out.
Thank
you again,
M.
Subject:
Clogged Channels
Michael-
I
am not faulting you- but feel strongly that some of this communication should
have come from the Art Office when they solicited you to teach.
The
channels are clogged.
However
I will tell you that I clearly did not recognize who you are from your email
address. I bit of background on yourself might have provided a smoother
introduction.
I
would have still said I do not have time right now. Ask the Art Office
for the electronic syllabus and then ask me again at the end of the S11 term.
I
feel strongly that W term and Summer Session should not offer the same 3
credits if the same amount of work cannot be produced.
-Val
Subject:
Requests for Art 321 Info
Hello
Val and Michael,
Congratulations
on your upcoming show, Val, if it is in the area I hope to be able to attend.
This
is the first that I am hearing about this class, but I am more than happy to
help you, Michael, in any way I can. As Val has pointed out, the syllabus for
the course is in the Art Department office, let's get a hold of a copy of that
to begin with and then meet to discuss your ideas for teaching the
course.
Again,
good luck with your show, Val.
Best,
Amanda
Subject:
Apologies
Hi
Michael,
My
apologies for Val. She has had a difficult time of it for the last decade or
so at UP and as a result just oozes bitterness. Just shrug it off and I'll be
happy to help you with the class.
Thanks
for your help with the poster, by the way (I was a total jerk and forgot to thank
you earlier today).
Amanda
-----
Subject:
Apologies
Hi Amanda,
No
Problem.
I
figured out the bitterness pretty quick & just told her I'm sorry for
bothering her.
I
had the syllabus from the website. The class, as she teaches it, looks
very dense. I was asking about any additional resources she uses and a
little advise about how to compress the class into a shorter term and still
meet the objectives.
Anyway,
I can figure it out. If you can spend a few minutes looking at it with me
I would appreciate it.
Thank
you very much.
M.
Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light
Michael Merry
With this piece I am
parodying David Foster Wallace[4]. Before this class[5]
I had heard of but was not familiar with DFW[6]. I have enjoyed reading his work and emulating
the style which can lend itself a kind of alchemical quality.
I thought I would write
about Thomas Kinkade who is a contentious figure in the art world[7]. He calls himself the world’s most collected
artist and has made a fortune[8]
by combining Christian ideals[9]
with a tiered pricing[10]
scheme to sell[11]
his paintings in dedicated mall shops[12]
and on QVC[13][14].
Kinkade’s work is also available on gift cards and many other forms of merchandise
sold through Hallmark and Wal-Mart[15]. A feature film[16]
has been derived from his work and it’s stated ambitions[17]. However, to the postmodern[18]
viewer, steeped in irony[19],
his work is seen as a parody[20]
of itself and of the ideals[21]
it aims to invoke[22].
[1]
Thomas Kinkade is a painter with a large and loyal customer base among the
middle class. He also has a large number
of fans among members of the lower class who would like to believe that they
are members of the middle class. These
people want to have enough income to buy his work so as to display the fact
that they have enough income to buy his work.
He is something of a household name, especially among housewives in
suburban, rural and other areas of diminished cultural sophistication. Kinkaid achieved this by adhering to two
American ideals. 1: Talking a good game
about hard work and self-reliance. 2:
Tiered pricing.
[2] Kinkaid’s work is sold as editioned
prints. It’s hard to understand what
they look like if you haven’t seen them.
Imagine a high quality photograph of a painting in which you can clearly
see the artist’s brushstrokes. A clear
gel-like medium is brushed onto the prints to make them seem like they have the
impasto surface of real paintings. The
result is a print of a painting with one set of brushstrokes in the painting
and another set of unrelated, clear brushstrokes sort of floating just above
the image and affecting the way light hits the surface. It’s visually kind of bizarre.
[3]
The ability to accurately depict the play of light and especially to make light
seem to radiate from the painted surface has been the stock-in-trade of many
painters at least since a middle class emerged in the late Renaissance. Many in the new and growing class were eager
to display their wealth and saw owning paintings of things that they aspired to
own as a sort of next-best way to associate themselves with classes who could afford
to own the actual things. Artists
responded and it soon became clear that the market, especially in Northern
European cities and especially in Amsterdam, was biased toward visually
dramatic effects of light. Within a few
years the paintings lost their status as stand-ins and became commodities
desired over the things themselves.
Kinkade however, calls himself the "Painter of Light" because he sees his
paintings as tools that can inspire viewers to greater faith as Christians.
"Light is what we're attracted to," he says. "This world is very
dark, but in heaven there is no darkness." Christianity
Today
[4] In
addition to parodying Wallace, I’m emulating the format of The Best Creative Non-Fiction by employing a digressive little
preamble.
[5] Creative Non-Fiction with Ben
Yagoda.
[6]
Not the Dallas Fort Worth Airport, which I was familiar with before taking Creative Non-Fiction, but the late
author David Foster Wallace.
[7]
Alluding to the art world as a definable community is disingenuous. Sarah Thornton’s description of “a loose network of overlapping
subcultures held together by a belief in art” is as good as any other. She hints at the cliquishness, taste, and
subjectivity that make the art world confounding and fascinating.
More to
the point, Thornton’s description of a network held together by “a belief in
art” allows us to contextualize the mixed feelings surrounding Kinkade’s
work. There are many in the arts who
would like to believe in an idealized role for art in our society, something
along the lines of art existing for it’s own sake or for the enlightenment of
human kind. Being profitable or
collectable is not part of this equation.
On the other hand, there are many in the art world who make a living,
some of them have amassed large fortunes, through the buying and selling of
works of art. These speculators pay lip
service to the art-for-art’s-sake camp but operate more like stock brokers
implementing marketing strategies, hyping their goods, developing five and ten
year outlooks, and networking to get insider information.
[8]
Between 1997 to 2005 Kinkade
accumulated over $80 million.
[9] Thomas
Kinkade travels as part of an ongoing “Share the Light Tour” and with his
brother Pat on their “Heritage Tour” sharing his message of home, family, faith
in God, the celebration of nature, the celebration of romantic moments, hope
and a simpler way of living.
[10]
Tiered pricing is the most American, the most pervasive, and the most insidious
of pricing schemes. The American dream
tells us not only that if we work hard we can all have more and nicer stuff but
that we ought to be working hard to acquire more and nicer stuff. Not to do so would be un-American,
unpatriotic, and maybe even un-Christian in some circles. We the people are psychologically trapped in
an ongoing cycle of achieving goals only to replace them with new loftier ones.
Validation and satisfaction is always just out of reach. Because of this we lose the ability to think
rationally in the face of tiered pricing.
Tiered pricing is a marketing scheme that involves an
entry-level product, a gateway product. When we go to buy this thing we will
see a nicer one nearby that costs a little more. And there are a few more that are each a
little nicer and their prices are each a little higher. Not large price increases, just enough that
it doesn’t seem like such a big deal but that it kinda is. These nicer, more expensive ones don’t do a
better job, they just have some added features.
American car companies pioneered and perfected this approach after the
Second World War.
When the war ended America had become the economic
engine of the world. Everyone had a good
job downtown, Ike initiated the interstate system, and the white people
invented suburbs where they moved to live in homogenous communities of
bungalows and ranch style homes. Huge
numbers of people needed cars to get them from those new homes, over the new
road and to their new jobs. This was
great for the automakers except that customers were buying one car and hanging
on to it for several years. Auto manufacturers
would unveil a redesigned and improved car every five to seven years and there
was no reason to replace a well functioning vehicle in the mean time. Their solution was to entice the customer to
trade-up.
Rather than bringing out a completely redesigned vehicle
every half decade or so, carmakers began adding a few new features to their
cars each year. These features were
adopted from more expensive cars in the manufacturer’s line adding to their
appeal. For example, if a set of giant
fins attached to a Cadillac was out of your financial reach, a couple years
later you would be able to buy a giant set of fins attached to a Chevy Bel
Air. Before long consumers, with an
unconscious drive to acquire more stuff, were purchasing a new car about every
two years.
[11] Kinkade paints “masterworks” which, as
far as I can tell, are not for sale. But
copies are available as editioned prints on paper or canvas, either framed or
unframed and in a range of sizes with corresponding price points. A basic 10.5”x12.5” print on paper sells for
$89. Some of the prints have “light
effects” painted on by “highlighters” or “master highlighters” that add to the illusion
of light and to the idea that these are original works of art. These are then sold at incrementally tiered
prices. Various features may be added, a
little doodle on the back for example, to make them more valuable. Prints with the artist’s signature on them
come at a premium. Those highlighted by
the artist himself are priced at the top of the tier for $60,000.
Recently a
developer opened multiple Thomas Kinkade themed villages in Vallejo California
where, starting from the mid $300’s, you can own a turnkey faux English country
house chock-a-block not only with his paintings but wallpaper, upholstery,
lamps, placemats, coasters, rugs, switch plates, doorknobs, faux antique
furniture and anything else the kitsch-tank can think of.
[12]
Kinkade sells his work in dedicated
stores designed to re-enforce the branding of his paintings. The entryways suggest The Shop Around the Corner and the interiors comfortable old
country homes, maybe in Ireland or Cornwall, where people wear flannel pj’s,
drink warm cider and believe in Dickensian endings. There are multiple rooms with light-up
electric fireplaces, faux antique furniture and a lot of woodwork. The lighting is low and sets a cozy mood, the
opposite of what you expect when you go to look at a painting.
[13]
The acronym QVC stands for Quality, Value and Convenience. QVC operates a cable television channel and a
website that allows consumers to make purchases from home. While the programming is not slick enough to
be described as spectacle, it employs strategic lighting, attractive models,
“expert” and celebrity guests, and regular hosts who lend a sense of
familiarity. The result is an aesthetic
somewhere in-between morning talk shows and telethons. (There’s a sort of
hanging expectation that one’s favorite crooner may make an appearance in the
next segment.) I can imagine this
attracts certain types of viewers and inspires them to eagerly part with their
money.
[14]
While the products sold via QVC are fairly described as quality items, (Sears
was one of the first companies to sell on the network) no serious artist or
collector wants to see art marketed and sold in this way. Such a format is seen as pandering to vulgar
consumerism, (Vulgar in the sense that the obscenely wealthy use to invoke the
idea of seething masses of unwashed peasants who are forced concern themselves
with making a living) negating any aesthetic experience of the work of art and
placing all emphasis on the nature of the art object as a commodity.
[15]
Many collectors of Kinkade’s work buy under the assumption that it will
increase in value over time. Antiques Road Show may lead a person to
think that they only need to wait a few years and they’ll be gloating down at
the rest of us from their own Xanadu.
However, as we have seen in examples ranging from Tickle Me Elmo to Gone With the Wind commemorative plates
to Beanie Babies, nothing produced in large numbers will increase in value any
time soon. Buying a Kinkade is probably
a lot like buying a new car and seeing a twenty percent depreciation as soon as
you drive it off the lot. A collector’s
great-grandchildren might be able to see a measurable profit, but I doubt
it. To be worth anything these items are
going to have to become rare (a scenario that I would not be unhappy with) bits
of Americana indicative of the zeitgeist of an era. The quantity (not to mention quality) and
diversity of Kinkade’s merchandise suggests that a small eternity will pass
before anyone gets rich by selling off their collection.
[16]
In 2008 Kinkade self-produced a semi-autobiographical movie Thomas Kinkade’s Christmas Cottage. It is a celebration of his most popular
painting of the same title. Taken in
context with his general marketing tactics the movie seems to be little more
than a sales and promotion vehicle.
However, the movie stars Peter O’Toole, who’s work on
the film we might ascribe to mental faculties declining in old age, and Marcia
Gay Harden who is harder to explain away.
Including the Kinkade movie, she has played in six films in which art is
an essential part of the story and she has an MFA from NYU’s Tisch School of
Fine Arts.
[17]
Kinkade states that his “mission as an artist is to capture those special
moments in life adorned with beauty and light.
I work to create images that project a serene simplicity that can be
appreciated and enjoyed by everyone.
That is what I mean by sharing the light.”
I imagine that Kinkade’s description of himself as
having a mission to share the light must
have a familiar ring for Christian evangelicals whose rhetoric emphasizes each
individual’s mission to use their God-given talents to share the gospel.
[18]
The postmodern era may be described as an era without overarching narratives. In the modern era events and meanings were
contextualized in relation to hegemonic narratives and ideals. An example would be the American dream as a
fulfillment of a manifest destiny defined by previous generations. Or the way the NAZI’s whipped Germany into a
lather with their master race schtick.
(NAZI artwork has some things in common with Kinkade’s.)
The implication is that Kinkade’s audience may have an
anachronistic sort of world-view under which his artwork itself is less
important than its association with the narrative contexts with which it is
complicit. Owning the work is a sign of
a one’s ongoing identification with a particular way of looking at the world.
[19]
Irony is a subversive rhetorical strategy and is a fundamental characteristic
of postmodern thought. The postmodern
viewer expects that a work of art should employ irony to cause the viewer to question the validity of
modernist narratives. An example would
be to undermine a pictorial style by overdoing it to the point of ridiculousness.
[20] “A Kinkade painting was
typically rendered in slightly surreal pastels. It typically featured a cottage
or a house of such insistent cosiness as to seem actually sinister, suggestive
of a trap designed to attract Hansel and Gretel. Every window was lit, to lurid
effect, as if the interior of the structure might be on fire. The cottages had
thatched roofs, and resembled gingerbread houses. The houses were Victorian and
resembled idealised bed-and-breakfasts ...” Joan Didion. The Guardian
[21]
Kinkade’s style is heavy handed to the point of cartoonishness. The postmodern viewer automatically
understands this as an ironic gesture.
Since Kinkade is evidently sincere in his idealism and apparently
unaware that by overdoing it his work is undermining itself, his work reads as
a parody of itself.
[22] A
few months after this was written Thomas Kinkade died of an overdose of alcohol
and valium. In the days following his live-in
girlfriend / personal assistant reported that the relapsed alcoholic Kinkade had
“been drinking all night and not
moving” and died in his sleep “very happy.” She then also reported that she had been
collecting defamatory information for several months in case of just such an
opportunity to tear Kinkade down and personally devastate his wife. She must have gotten a share of the loot as
that information never became public.
It also became more widely known that Kinkade’s
distribution company was on its last legs as it had lost several suits by those
franchisees who had opened all those stores in malls across America. Among the substantiated accusations was that
the franchisees were not told that the company was going to undercut their
profit margins in favor if its own at every opportunity.
Roll Tide, An Accounting
For those of you who are not in the know this text contains hyperlinks to bring you up to speed. You'll want to start with this ESPN documentary.
When I was not quite five years old my dad took a promotion and moved us from Minnesota to Alabama. On the first day of kindergarten, a little girl marched up to me and asked me Are you for Bama or Awbrun? I had no idea. She made it sound like a big deal. A really big deal. I don't remember what I said. Maybe I just said I didn't know. I do remember that it was the wrong answer. I got kicked in the shin. At recess a rock flew from a pack of girls past my head. On the bus home a girl from another grade pinched me hard under my arm. The next morning she tried to give me an indian burn.
The Girl who lived across the street from us had a little black poodle named Bama. When Bama got hit by a car she got another dog and named him Bama.
On January 26, 1983 my dad and I were doing something out in the yard when we saw our neighbor, Mrs. Norwood, walking aimlessly in her yard. A couple weeks earlier we had found a neighbor with Alzheimer's wandering the neighborhood and I thought that was what was happening to Mrs. Norwood. She was staring into space in the same way. I followed my dad across the street. He said her name, Marci, and tried to take her arm. She backed away He's Dead...
Who's dead?
The Bear.
A little later we saw another neighbor, Mrs. Silas, wandering in her yard with the same lost look about her.
Paul Bear Bryant, who earned his nick name for wrestling a bear when he was thirteen years old, played for Alabama against Vanderbilt with a partially broken leg, helped the Crimson Tide win the 1934 National Championship, was selected in the fourth round by the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1936 NFL Draft (although he never played professionally), took a break from coaching to serve in World War Two, coached the Crimson tide for 25 years, won 6 national championships, won 13 conference championships, died 28 days after coaching his last game and was posthumously award the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan.
A friend who grew up in an Auburn household told me that when he decided to go to Alabama because it had a better department for his intended major, his mother stayed up nights worrying and tried to talk him out of going because Baby, those people just aren't like us.
At a party at the University of Alabama I met a pretty girl with that hypnotic Old South / old money accent. Her name didn't stick with me, but I remember that she was getting an MBA in marketing and seemed smart and likely to succeed. I asked her what kinds of things marketing grads wrote about for their thesis. Hers was going to be about Bear Bryant. After an awkwardly held back laugh, I asked her something about how that would affect her job prospects. She told me she was going to work for the university's athletic department and specifically for the football program. She said this as if there was no question that it would happen.
A guy who worked in the kitchen in an Italian restaurant where I was a waiter had more or less the same dream. He got a degree in something to do with coaching, graduated and applied for the only job he had ever wanted. When the university didn't hire him to coach he said They'll be another, stayed in Tuscaloosa (so as to be near the team) and kept making pizzas. As far as I know he's still there holding on to the hope that he'll someday get the call to lay down his ladle and come coach The Tide.
When I was working in an upscale restaurant in Oxford, England a guy from Alabama who had met my roommates in a pub jerked open the restaurant's the front door, yelled Roll Tide Baby! as loud as anyone ever yelled anything, and walked toward me expecting a high-five.
About a month after that, in a pub in Belfast, I heard a Celtic band play the Roll-Tide-Roll version of Sweet Home Alabama.
A year or so later I was working in Birmingham, about sixty miles from the University of Alabama. The basketball team was in the sweet sixteen. When I got to work, someone had set up a TV in the kitchen. This was a big deal because this was at a corporate chain restaurant and represented a huge violation of rules that were sometimes followed to absurd lengths. Hardly anyone came in to eat. About midway through the lunch shift someone turned on a football game. Not even registering that it wasn't football season, I assumed that this was just what was on the sports channel before the basketball game. It turned out that we were not going to watch basketball and that this wasn't exactly a football game. It was the A Day Game. (Every football program has spring training which ends with the offensive and defensive squads scrimmaging against each other.) When I asked about the basketball game nobody knew what I was talking about.
When I was dating Linda, my wife, she would have me over to her parents' house for dinner and to watch the game on Saturdays. One year we watched the Tide struggle against Auburn in the Iron Bowl. Every few plays my father-in-law would jump out of his chair and yell C'mon Bama! After a while he was pacing and then at a commercial break he took off running upstairs and came back wearing a ratty old Alabama shirt. Had to put on my lucky shirt. Alabama won.
My wife's grandfather, R.P. McDavid III, was a close friend of Bear Bryant's and they are buried next to each other. When The Coach was coming over for dinner the boys were sent out in the front yard to throw a football around so he would know he was in the right place. It's not exactly public knowledge that when the Miami Dolphins tried to hire Bryant away the first person he called was R.P. A little old lady who's a regular at a place where I worked likes to talk about the glory days of Alabama football and things that The Bear (pronounced Bea-h) said or did. When I told her who my wife's grandfather was she said Oh yes, I remember McDavid. He kept The Bear in Bama.
Two days after Alabama hired Nick Saban away from the Dolphins and made him the highest paid coach in college football, I overheard a mother with a new baby telling a friend that the baby's name was Saban.
My wife and I don't live in Alabama anymore. When we moved away I looked forward to not having to think about football every other minute. Although I've never been a real fan, last night there were a lot of people in our living room watching the Tide skunk LSU in the championship game. My wife demonstrated how Roll Tide could be used in place of just about any word in a sentence and that simply saying Roll Tide Y'all brought a feeling of warmth and togetherness to any situation.
When I was not quite five years old my dad took a promotion and moved us from Minnesota to Alabama. On the first day of kindergarten, a little girl marched up to me and asked me Are you for Bama or Awbrun? I had no idea. She made it sound like a big deal. A really big deal. I don't remember what I said. Maybe I just said I didn't know. I do remember that it was the wrong answer. I got kicked in the shin. At recess a rock flew from a pack of girls past my head. On the bus home a girl from another grade pinched me hard under my arm. The next morning she tried to give me an indian burn.
The Girl who lived across the street from us had a little black poodle named Bama. When Bama got hit by a car she got another dog and named him Bama.
On January 26, 1983 my dad and I were doing something out in the yard when we saw our neighbor, Mrs. Norwood, walking aimlessly in her yard. A couple weeks earlier we had found a neighbor with Alzheimer's wandering the neighborhood and I thought that was what was happening to Mrs. Norwood. She was staring into space in the same way. I followed my dad across the street. He said her name, Marci, and tried to take her arm. She backed away He's Dead...
Who's dead?
The Bear.
A little later we saw another neighbor, Mrs. Silas, wandering in her yard with the same lost look about her.
Paul Bear Bryant, who earned his nick name for wrestling a bear when he was thirteen years old, played for Alabama against Vanderbilt with a partially broken leg, helped the Crimson Tide win the 1934 National Championship, was selected in the fourth round by the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1936 NFL Draft (although he never played professionally), took a break from coaching to serve in World War Two, coached the Crimson tide for 25 years, won 6 national championships, won 13 conference championships, died 28 days after coaching his last game and was posthumously award the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan.
A friend who grew up in an Auburn household told me that when he decided to go to Alabama because it had a better department for his intended major, his mother stayed up nights worrying and tried to talk him out of going because Baby, those people just aren't like us.
After she read this my friend Sandy told me that she knows of a preacher in Oregon who ends every prayer with the words Roll Tide and Amen.
A lot of people from Alabama end the national anthem with a strong Roll Tide! whether they're at a football game or not.
At a party at the University of Alabama I met a pretty girl with that hypnotic Old South / old money accent. Her name didn't stick with me, but I remember that she was getting an MBA in marketing and seemed smart and likely to succeed. I asked her what kinds of things marketing grads wrote about for their thesis. Hers was going to be about Bear Bryant. After an awkwardly held back laugh, I asked her something about how that would affect her job prospects. She told me she was going to work for the university's athletic department and specifically for the football program. She said this as if there was no question that it would happen.
A guy who worked in the kitchen in an Italian restaurant where I was a waiter had more or less the same dream. He got a degree in something to do with coaching, graduated and applied for the only job he had ever wanted. When the university didn't hire him to coach he said They'll be another, stayed in Tuscaloosa (so as to be near the team) and kept making pizzas. As far as I know he's still there holding on to the hope that he'll someday get the call to lay down his ladle and come coach The Tide.
When I was working in an upscale restaurant in Oxford, England a guy from Alabama who had met my roommates in a pub jerked open the restaurant's the front door, yelled Roll Tide Baby! as loud as anyone ever yelled anything, and walked toward me expecting a high-five.
About a month after that, in a pub in Belfast, I heard a Celtic band play the Roll-Tide-Roll version of Sweet Home Alabama.
A year or so later I was working in Birmingham, about sixty miles from the University of Alabama. The basketball team was in the sweet sixteen. When I got to work, someone had set up a TV in the kitchen. This was a big deal because this was at a corporate chain restaurant and represented a huge violation of rules that were sometimes followed to absurd lengths. Hardly anyone came in to eat. About midway through the lunch shift someone turned on a football game. Not even registering that it wasn't football season, I assumed that this was just what was on the sports channel before the basketball game. It turned out that we were not going to watch basketball and that this wasn't exactly a football game. It was the A Day Game. (Every football program has spring training which ends with the offensive and defensive squads scrimmaging against each other.) When I asked about the basketball game nobody knew what I was talking about.
When I was dating Linda, my wife, she would have me over to her parents' house for dinner and to watch the game on Saturdays. One year we watched the Tide struggle against Auburn in the Iron Bowl. Every few plays my father-in-law would jump out of his chair and yell C'mon Bama! After a while he was pacing and then at a commercial break he took off running upstairs and came back wearing a ratty old Alabama shirt. Had to put on my lucky shirt. Alabama won.
My wife's grandfather, R.P. McDavid III, was a close friend of Bear Bryant's and they are buried next to each other. When The Coach was coming over for dinner the boys were sent out in the front yard to throw a football around so he would know he was in the right place. It's not exactly public knowledge that when the Miami Dolphins tried to hire Bryant away the first person he called was R.P. A little old lady who's a regular at a place where I worked likes to talk about the glory days of Alabama football and things that The Bear (pronounced Bea-h) said or did. When I told her who my wife's grandfather was she said Oh yes, I remember McDavid. He kept The Bear in Bama.
Two days after Alabama hired Nick Saban away from the Dolphins and made him the highest paid coach in college football, I overheard a mother with a new baby telling a friend that the baby's name was Saban.
My wife and I don't live in Alabama anymore. When we moved away I looked forward to not having to think about football every other minute. Although I've never been a real fan, last night there were a lot of people in our living room watching the Tide skunk LSU in the championship game. My wife demonstrated how Roll Tide could be used in place of just about any word in a sentence and that simply saying Roll Tide Y'all brought a feeling of warmth and togetherness to any situation.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)