Kentucky Sports Radio
[Moderated by Matt Jones]
[Moderated by Matt Jones]
In this round, the “Who Wants to be a Blogger” contestants were each given one of UK’s rivals to make fun of/dissect. Each got a different team and over Monday and Tuesday, you will read each of them. Each judge will pick one favorite to move onto the next round and your comments will be considered by all of them.
I hate it when seemingly innocuous things that I love in my life get ruined by being associated with things that I despise. For example, I used to want to name my future kid “Bryan” but now it would be impossible for me to say his name without thinking, “Stop having such an irrational opinion, dork!”. I used to love my birthday, but sharing it with Christian Laettner ends up ruining it since my hatred of him extends to the point of wishing his birthday didn’t exist. I used to love Dr. Pepper, but we all know how that turned out.
When it comes to Kentucky rivals, this ruination takes on an epic
quality. I have come to dislike Papa John’s, Gym Class Heroes (the lead singer looks eerily similar to a certain former gator), and tall white men (Duke ruined my dating life). But out of all our rivals, no team has created more destruction in my life than Tennessee. The following is an abbreviated list of the simple pleasures in my life that have been destroyed thanks to my irrational hatred of all things Knoxville:
1.The color orange:
Every kid on earth likes the color orange.
Who can resist orange Hi-C from McDonalds or Halloween or orange
popsicles (red are the best though-ah I hate Louisville too!)? But
since I became old enough to realize I was supposed to hate Tennessee
and their delusions of basketball grandeur (matched only by Memphis
fans) and 30-year-plus football win streak, I have developed a
completely insane hatred of the color. I see a pumpkin, I see Fat
Phil’s face. I see a beautiful orange sunset, I see Bruce Pearl’s
sly smile. I see Lindsay Lohan and I immediately want to punch her in
the stomach (though this may have less to do with her fake-orange tan
and more to do with discouraging her to procreate).
Thank heaven the founders of the Kentucky Athletic Department had some
semblance of style. I know they are used to their orange jumpsuits down
in Knoxville, but fashion-wise, unless you’re Halle Berry strutting
out of the ocean in a bikini toward James Bond, no one looks good in
orange. If the look you’re going for is “lop-sided pumpkin”(I’m
looking at you Mr. Pearl), play on playa. Otherwise this is a terrible
choice for clothing.
And really it’s a terrible choice for a school’s color. “Blue!
White!” has a certain roll-off-the-tongue quality that
“Orange!White!” can never match. And the worst part of orange is,
as we all know, it’s inability to rhyme with any other word.
Surprisingly, according to the Oxford Rhyming dictionary, it is a
partial rhyme for the word “lozenge”,which raises the question of
why their cheerleaders haven’t yet incorporated that into their
routines. I happen to think deep hacking cough and Bruce Pearl go
together quite nicely.
2. Volunteering:
The word alone chills me. Look, no one loves
community service more than me (except maybe Billy Clyde’s lawyer) but
using that word to describe myself kills me every time. Call me what
you will, a giver or a worker without pay or a charit-eer. But never a
volunteer. Please tell me someone else has raised their hand when
people asked for volunteers and immediately reconsidered for fear of
being labeled a Tennessee fan?
Furthermore, how can anyone possibly be intimidated by a Red Cross
worker? A devil or some sort of really scary animal I understand. I
even get why I’m supposed to fear being washed away in a tide. But I
will never understand why freely giving your time to help otherwise
needy people is supposed to intimidate me. Perhaps it is fitting for
the team, though, since a large percentage of volunteer hours are
court-ordered community service and they do love their rap sheets down
there.
(P.S. I do know why they are called Volunteers, and I mean no
disrespect to our military guys and gals. Call them generals, or
soldiers, or whatever, but the Volunteers sounds really wussy.)
3. Rocky Top:
I think I can speak for every team that Tennessee
will ever play in any sport for the rest of time: Please stop playing
this song. Sure, lots of teams have annoying fight songs. The Florida
St. chant was cool the first million times, but now its kind of
irritating. Every high school in Indiana uses Notre Dame’s fight song
as theirs, and that gets pretty old. But Rocky Top takes the cake.While not their official school song, its comparable to “Proud to be
an American” and “Sweet Home Alabama” in terms of a “Please stop
telling me how excited you are about your heritage-thank your parents
and move on” songs.
By ruining the song for me, Tennessee has indirectly ruined barn
dances, lumber jack shows, and rocky road ice cream. Ironically, the
duo who wrote “Rocky Top” also wrote “Love Hurts”, which is the
theme song for the Pearl wedding this weekend and the inevitably lively
honeymoon thereafter. Come to think of it, I used to love the song
“Love Hurts”. Tennessee strikes again!
In Tennessee’s official license for Rocky Top it states, “The
University of Tennessee has been granted a perpetual license to play the
song as much and as often as success on the field or court dictates.”
That’s funny because I really thought it had been played during their
basketball seasons, which tend to garner less than successful results.
Guess I was mistaken.
By the way, you’re welcome. That god-forsaken song is stuck in my
head now too.
Thank you, University of Tennessee, for ruining so many simple
pleasures in my life. Take my sweatbands, my Mexican-Jewish national
team t-shirt, and my third-grade Spelling Bee runner-up trophy (it
really should be spelled like the pick-up line “Ten-i-see”) and be
on your way. But please, for the love of home-grown tomatoes, let us
beat them in football this year.
[powered by WordPress.]
Bill Keightley Report : Never to be forgotten.
28 queries. 0.676 seconds
August 31st, 2009 at 4:06 pm
first
August 31st, 2009 at 4:07 pm
this one is awful
August 31st, 2009 at 4:08 pm
I liked it and I hope you win.
August 31st, 2009 at 4:09 pm
I loved this one by the way…making fun of BTI, Mexican-Jewishness and Rocky Top…stellar
August 31st, 2009 at 4:11 pm
you get bonus points (closer to zero now…) for knowing (correctly) that Rocky Top is not the official fight song of the Vols.
August 31st, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Never really got off the ground; time to put the red tag in the locker.
August 31st, 2009 at 4:17 pm
+1 for the shot at BTI. The rest…not so hot.
August 31st, 2009 at 4:20 pm
its tough to be a bad post when you make fun of BTI, lop-sided pumpkins (err, Peal), Duke and that team that wears puke orange.
Matt, maybe you should make these two the finalists and move to the last round.
August 31st, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Nothing makes me have to choke back more vomit than the hunter orange display put on by UT. Awful, plain awful. Yes, I did enjoy the article and I too cannot stand to hear Rocky Top anywhere thanks to those bastards. Also love the FSU mention cause they suck too!
August 31st, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Kate brings the thunder, nicely done…
August 31st, 2009 at 4:30 pm
http://collegebasketball.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=981730
“Kentucky: After watching the Wildcats practice last week, I’m convinced they’re the most talented team in America. I’m not sure it’s even close. Everyone talks about John Wall and rightfully so but, folks, DeMarcus Cousins is a beast. If John Calipari’s squad puts it all together, there won’t be a better team.”
August 31st, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Looks like Slick Rick just hired an asst. on Teague’s high school team.
The uofl board expects Teague to commit later this week or early next week.
August 31st, 2009 at 4:38 pm
I liked this a lot.
August 31st, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Umm…I’ll have to pass on this one. You missed a good opportunity to hate on smokey’s and bloodhounds but you settled for a red zone field goal or something like…I think.
August 31st, 2009 at 4:51 pm
YOU JUST LOST B/C YOU MISSSED THE OPPORTUNITY TO PLAY MY FAVORITE YOUTUBE CLIP OF THE ALABAMA FAN SAYING……………”THEY SOME LOW DOWN, THEY DIRTY, AND THEY SOME SNITCHES, PLUS I HATE ORANGE B/C IT’S UGLY”. WHY????????????? YOU MISSED OUT!
August 31st, 2009 at 4:59 pm
I have yet to be on the Matt Jones lets pass Kate on in every round bandwagon, but I actually
laughed and liked this post a lot. Especially since I found myself skimming through the
first post today because I was bored with it.
August 31st, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Decent effort but not your best stuff.
August 31st, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Rockstar, Kate!
August 31st, 2009 at 5:12 pm
I thought this was a perfect match for the style of KSR. It was funny and imaginative. And it felt like every couple of lines was another shot across the bow.
Very nice.
August 31st, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Solid effort. Not out of left field, as the DSM-IV post earlier. However, it had a nice structure, some human truths (Bryan being dorky, volunteering) sprinkled in and plenty of jokes. So, thumbs up.
August 31st, 2009 at 5:21 pm
MJ if she doesn’t win point her our way. The lady has the same talent with words that Meeks had with the shot.
August 31st, 2009 at 5:38 pm
I thought it was great. I love McDonald’s Hi-C.
August 31st, 2009 at 5:51 pm
I’m only about 60% sure Matt DOES know why they are the Volunteers. He mentioned upsetting the military folks…but the way he made it sound, sounded like people who have signed up for duty. I don’t really think about military when I think about the Ten. Volunteers…I think Davey Crocket’s Tennessee boys. Then I think about how much I want UK to destroy their team this year in both sports.
August 31st, 2009 at 5:55 pm
Ummm…I didnt write this.
August 31st, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Very good, Kate.
August 31st, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Good job. The style of this post was much more like blog. Very nice!
August 31st, 2009 at 6:36 pm
great job again kate! your my favorite! matt jones, give this woman a job!
August 31st, 2009 at 7:09 pm
You have lost my vote.
August 31st, 2009 at 7:10 pm
And with me, also you have lost Beisner’s and Tomlin’s vote, as we make up the “dork” contingent of KSR.
August 31st, 2009 at 7:24 pm
Agree with #18–she is a rock star. Best of the bunch so far, even absent the dork vote.
August 31st, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Better then the 1st post, but not here best. Followed a theme but I think there were a lot of other things that could be made fun of with Tennesse. This limited that a little.
August 31st, 2009 at 9:24 pm
I have to agree, Lolablue! Witty. Well-written. Wonderful. (Get WW Wes to sign her up!) Let’s compare her to the super-KSR-blogger, Matt Jones: better grammar, better sense of humor, WAY BETTER fashion sense, and WAY more efficient. In addition to the required UT topic, she got in multiple good shots at Gillispie, his lawyer, Pearl, Fulmer, Papa John, the Cards, FSU, Memphis, schools in Indiana, the Mexican Jewish national team and BTI — with a nod to Rich Brooks’ tomatoes — all in one great post. She’s a winner, and KSR needs one. Maybe WE should vote on whether to keep the dorks or her …
September 1st, 2009 at 6:34 am
Well done Kate! I think you won one for the ladies. There is nothing that gets my blood boiling like hearing “Rocky Top” over and over and over…and over. I agree with 33 in that you got in various jabs at a multitude of additional topics while still staying on topic. In my opinion…Kate wins. She had me chuckling throughout her post.