Discomfort, Indeed.

As my wife likes to remind me, I am not really a Southerner; I am a Floridian.  Even though the latitude of my birthplace is 3 degrees south of hers, I am still an outsider, a sort of mongrel, even though a sizable portion of my higher education and all of my professional life has been spent squarely in the South.  I'm not sure I'll ever get to be a member of that club, in part because I don't drink sweet tea and sound like I was born closer to to the Iowa River than the Chattahoochee, where my wife was.

I do feel like I understand this place somewhat, though, and certainly felt more at home in Clemson, South Carolina than I did in Terre Haute, Indiana.  I was an outsider there, too, because the Midwesterners categorized me as one of those from the other side of the Line. College is a place where identity is both calcified and shattered, sometimes more than once.  I never got the impression that there was all that much that identified an Midwesterner, really, or an "Hoosier" in particular.  In fact, nobody even knew what a Hoosier is.

The same could not be said in the Upstate of South Carolina.  The people there had a distinct sound -- distinct from the other side of the state, distinct from the other Carolina and distinct from the other side of the Savannah River.  I could not tell an Ohioan from an Illinoisan in nearly the same way I can pick out an Upstater from a Low Countryman from an Alabaman or a Tennesseean.  The food is different in these places, the music, the dress (especially the colors -- Red is not welcome in the Upstate, and Orange is frowned upon in Athens, Georgia), the sense of place and the sense of story.

I think the story telling comes from the Scots-Irish stock that populates the region; I am convinced there is something inherent in the Celtic blood that makes words pour out like honey -- whether it be from the mouth or the pen.  Like any other people with a strong sense of identity, it's strange to have someone else try to tell your story for you, so I am not even sure I am qualified to write this now, but when I came across this New Yorker piece, my reservations about my credentials receded lazily like the tide over the dark, cakey pluff mud of the Charleston marsh.

After spending some half a dozen paragraphs talking about how Southerners are stubborn, xenophobic, backward, somewhat barbaric, greedy, racist, ignorant, out of touch while culturally dominant, football and Nascar obsessed, tribalist, and violent, he closes with a couple of throwaway sentences that make it seem he's really not judging (the phrase that's used down here is, of course, "Bless his heart"):

But there is a largely forgotten Southern history, beyond the well-known heroics of the civil-rights movement, of struggle against poverty and injustice, led by writers, preachers, farmers, rabble-rousers, and even politicians, speaking a rich language of indignation. The region is not entirely defined by Jim DeMint, Sam Walton, and the Tide’s A J McCarron. It would be better for America as well as for the South if Southerners rediscovered their hidden past and took up the painful task of refashioning an identity that no longer inspires their countrymen.

The implication is that the South we have now is an inferior facsimile of what the South should be that is popularly understood to be personified in a recalcitrant Senator, a dead business man, and a football star, after he describes the region in precisely those terms.  I don't know what sort of inspiration Packer expects the natives of my adopted home state and our neighbors to provide when the the picture he paints of Southerners is so grim.  None of the buildup to this terminus tells us how the positive qualities do indeed benefit society at large outside of a rather ambiguous listing of positive traits: "At the end of “The Mind of the South,” Cash has this description of “the South at its best”: “proud, brave, honorable by its lights, courteous, personally generous, loyal.”  That sounds nice, until two sentences later, he extols vices to counter them.  He is treating my neighbors as either terrorists or children who ought to be mollified.

I am particularly sensitive to that sort of attitude because I chose to be among these people.  I picked Clemson University for graduate work.  I bought my first house in Augusta, Georgia.  I married one of the Peach State's daughters.  We decided together to move to Charleston.  And, in the next place we live, I am certain we will be greeted with y'alls, elongated vowels and an extremely dedicated knowledge of college football.  I like the polite conversation.  I like the weather.  I like the pace of life.  I like the sense of culture.  I like the emphasis on faith.

The task of refashioning the identity has been going on here for over 200 years.  Re-examinations of what it means to be born between Virginia Beach and El Paso came to a rather violent head in 1861, of course, and no one forgets it.  The benefit of losing, though, is being forced to have that conversation; the winner is spared from that kind of existential introspection.

So a magazine entitled the New Yorker is an odd place indeed to read about an explanation on what's going on inside of the cultural mind of the South, especially when, upon completing this story, I was offered a suggested reading link of this story. 

Like I said, I'm not actually a Southerner and I don't know if Packer is either..  I don't know why it feels like politics are dramatically different now than just two election cycles ago.  But I do know that Packer's infantile reduction of the region to the Republican Party, Wal-Mart and the SEC is not productive or accurate.  I am skeptical that you couldn't go to a small town in Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Oregon and find similar evidence of the low-brow to which Packer objects.  And so what?  What exactly is he trying to argue?

Blow it up

This blog cut its teeth on criticizing commercials, and quite frankly, I think I ought to get back to my roots. I don't watch as much tv now as I did in school, so it's going to be harder to actually manage. Now that football has started, and Dr. Sighted is inconsolable because UGa is behind by 2 TDs right now to Boise, we are seeing and will continue to be seeing more commercials. She did a better job during the first half of the Clemson game when we looked like injured garbage. Adjusting to marriage is hard.

Dick's (the sporting goods store) has a fun campaign where they have professional athletes giving instruction to people buying apparel and explaining why they need it and how it will make them perform better. A few memorable ones were Darelle Revis selling shoes or shorts or whatever and talking about going to his island -- Revis Island -- only to find out that his protege is named Gilligan. There is another one involving Ndomakong Suh (best name ever) hunting quarterbacks selling whatever Revis wasn't There is a good one now with Steven Jackson (not the basketball player) moving in slow motion. There is one, however, that goes over dumber than Kris Humphries answer inevitably will the first time Kim Kardashian asks, "Does this make my butt look big?"

Clay Matthews is the go to guy after the Packers won the Super Bowl, because he looks like a mutant Midwestern wrestler with hair like the cute blonde in your sophomore biology class. He is selling shorts or shoes or whatever in this commercial and it's just him running into stuff in the store. No clever comment from the store, they try to be funny with the family blocking him, except there's nothing going on that they are blocking. There's nothing to blow up! There should have been cowboys robbing a train or a caped man with a handlebar mustache kidnapping Song Girls (Clay went to USC, you see [the real one in LA, not the fake one in Columbia, SC] and the Song Girls are the best thing about the school) that he could blow up. Right now, it just feels like build up with now release. No snap, no crackle, no pop!

The wasted opportunity of the situation is what gets me most. Bad commercials are a dime a dozen -- just ask Taco Bell. But bad commercials with potential to be great? They are the ones that make us feel like we did when Utah State choked away the Auburn game today.

Check out my hook while the DJ revolves it

I made a shocking discovery recently, and I don't know what I should do about it. No, it isn't anything that requires penicillin. I was sitting out on my patio while reading a magazine that if you saw me read it would make me look thoughtful, intelligent and worldly all while not at all appearing pretentious. However, Georgia in June is, to be charitable, kind of warm. But, of course, I was reared in the Sunshine State, so think of Brer Rabbit and the Briar Patch. Was that one of the Disney stories that was racist?

However, I still elected to have a tasty glass of ice water with me out there. I was challenged to meet the medical requirements of 2 liters a day, and I am trying to meet it. It also helps to alleviate the sweating. It also helps at work when it's really boring trying to drink really fast and the results of drinking really fast helps to occupy the time.

The thing that I noticed was, that after a little while in the Georgia sun, the ice in the ice water will, of course, melt. I don't know how much you remember from chemistry, but when you add things to water, the water gets less watery and more what you put in it. However, my ice cubes taste bad. It's hard to describe, but it's a sort of stale and terrible. It didn't always taste like this. What went wrong? Is there anything I can do about this, or does that red Georgia clay turn into gross in ice cubes? I'm counting on you, internet!

The evil citrus

I don't understand grapefruit. It looks like a giant orange on the outside, which is a pretty good start. It even looks pretty nice on the inside, but it's all deception; not unlike a beautiful woman who turns out to have syphilis. Take a bite into what looks like a delicious fruity meal (at least compared to its citrus brethren) and you are shocked and amazed by how frighteningly terrible this actually is. What other fruit to people make a habit of adding sugar to in order to enjoy? Grossberries?

Now, as a Floridian, I have sworn an oath to protect and defend citrus. However, now that I am officially a Georgia resident I can finally speak out publicly. This doesn't change my opinions of the others; oranges, limes, tangerines and lemons are all still pretty great, although lemons are a little boring. Limes are, as always, underrated.

On a recent visit, my dad purchased grapefruit juice, because he was afraid the other items in my refrigerator were being unruly. Grapefruit juice is like the fridge warden. I decided this morning that I might give it a try with my breakfast because I neglected to purchase orange juice, the heavenly citrus juice, yesterday at the grocery store. It is an unforgivable oversight, really. But I couldn't do it. I've said this before and I'll probably say it many, many times in the future: grapefruit juice tastes like bile. It evokes in me the same reaction you get when you burp a little too hard and get some throw up in the back of your mouth. Not my idea of a good experience.

There is good news, though: I do still have limeade. While it's a little bit sugary for a juice, it's still citrusy and satisfied my need for an acidic morning. My throat is frequently dry when I wake up, and orange juice is that cure for that. Among other things. Like scurvy.