Let all the Bulldog faithful rally behind the men who now wear the red and black with two words, two simple words which express the sentiments of the entire Bulldog Nation: Auburn Sucks.
Kris Kristofferson, the singer and songwriter whose literary yet plain-spoken compositions infused country music with rarely heard candor and depth, and who later had a successful second career in movies, died at his home on Maui, Hawaii, on Saturday. He was 88.
I’ve mentioned before here how much of a part of my life that Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid has been in my fifty years in this earth, and he also was in another top tier western classic, Heaven’s Gate. Aside from his fifty plus movies, he has quite the catalogue of music hits, which were likewise re-recorded by artists like Al Green and the Grateful Dead.
”For the Good Times” is a sweetly sad song written to a former love affair, though the opening lines sound like something many of us have been singing in our heads since Saturday night, particularly those opening lines.
It was his first hit, reaching number 1 on Country billboards in 1970. Despite a decorated military career and degrees from the United States and Oxford, Kristofferson spurned the opportunity to teach for a career as a performer. Working as a janitor at Columbia Studios, he would meet several influential artists, including Bob Dylan, who he’d later partner with musically and in Pat Garrett, as well.
The song would go on to win the Academy of Country Music’s 1971 song of the year, and Rolling Stone has it listed as #18 on its “40 Saddest Country Music Songs of All Time”.
It’s late September, and I had just turned 10 years old. Ten is a glorious age…you’re still a kid, but thinking you turned a pivotal corner in life where now you’re a “big kid”. You ride your bike on the neighborhood street by yourself. You get to start watching some grown-up movies, and that summer was some kind of awesome. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Ghostbusters. Red freaking Dawn (Wolverines!!!). Police Academy and Footloose. Little did I know that Terminator was about to come out next and completely blow my mind.
McDonalds hamburgers were around 50 cents, and they sold something called Sanka. With the Eastern bloc boycotting the Olympics, the summer of 1984 saw the Americans slaughter the medal count and we were brimming with youthful national pride. Red Dawn fueled that a bit. I was 10, sue me. Also, about the same time, Miami Vice aired on TV. It was peak little man machismo time, to be sure.
About the same time I was getting into some peak 80s music, too, and listening to 96 Rock in the evenings (or Z93). Prince was peaking and even had Purple Rain the movie come out, but Huey Lewis and the News and the Cars were two of my faves at the time. Around the same month, this song peaked on the Billboard at #1:
That one would come on at night and I still think fondly of our house in Jonesboro as the late fall evenings allowed us to open the windows and run the ceiling fans, cool breeze blowing through the room. Drifting off to the sounds of the radio in the background, and dreaming of cracking whips like Indy, fighting Ghosts, or the Russians, whichever foe appeared first, I was in my imaginative prime.
I’m a single child, and we didn’t have many kids in the neighborhood, so I also dreamt of playing Georgia football. My opponent, rather than being another person, would be the several black trash bags filled with grass clippings after dad mowed the yard. I’d throw the ball as high as I could, catch it, and run into the bags on purpose to be tackled.
Don’t make fun here. It was the best I could do all by my lonesome.
If I wasn’t trying to be a Wolverine or a Ghostbuster, I was madly fighting the black plastic foe to be the best Bulldog I could be. I wanted to be Herschel or Belue or Lastinger. I wore red and black religiously. My shirts were often either Bulldogs or Adamson Indians, where my parents taught in the 80s. I was swelling with team and community pride.
So the same week that Waite’s hit, Missing You, hit the number 1 spot was the same week Georgia was gearing up for Clemson. Little did I know that a moment in Georgia lore was about to unfold.
Man, talk about amazing. The 84 season wasn’t by the standards set the previous years, but the kick – and the amazing call by Munson – was something life changing. I don’t think words can do justice to the moment in the game, so Larry’s take on it will be more than enough for those purposes.
The following Monday, I’d go to Lake Harbin into Ms. Ontall’s room, wearing my Georgia shirt and a smile, to boot. It wouldn’t be long that my typical spirit gear would slowly be replaced with some slightly neon pastel shirts and knock-off Ray Ban sunglasses, doing my best impersonation of Sonny Crockett, riding my Huffy and pretending I was cruising in a black Testarossa. Missing You would be replaced a week later by Let’s Go Crazy by Prince, although Waite’s song so appropriately matched with Butler’s feat from the prior weekend.
And I’d return to my parent’s front yard Sanford Stadium, doing my level best to be the Bulldawg great I wanted to be. But this time, instead of dodging trash bags and throwing the ball high into the air, I used the two pecan trees at the end of the yard as goal posts, put the ball up on a kicking tee, and started practicing to be the next Kevin Butler.
Let’s do a Saturday mix of our highlight countdown of Dawg touchdowns with another Athens institution – R.E.M.
Last Sunday was the anniversary of the release of R.E.M.’s 4th album, Lifes Rich Pageant, which turned out to be a critical turning point in the band’s career, refining their sound and moving them from popular moody college rock band to a worldwide sensation. The album featured two songs that would skyrocket and move the band forward with their most commercially successful album to date, peaking at number 21 on the Billboard charts: “Fall on Me” and “Superman”.
Superman features Mike Mills as the lead singer, and is a cover of the original version that came from The Clique, which has a distinctly more psychedelic sound than R.E.M.’s version of the song.
Part of the driving reason for the change in the band’s sound came about from their selection of Don Gehman as their producer. Originally hesitant to work with a major producer, as the band was still clinging to their independent roots and rejecting the major studio influences, the guys had Gehman come to Athens to work on some recording samples for some of their ideas for the next album. Mills was wanting to broaden the band’s experimentation with various other instruments, and Gehman’s work on John Cougar Mellencamp’s acoustic album piqued their interest in working with the producer, who had an extensive career working with the likes of James Brown and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, and later Hootie and Blowfish and Tracy Chapman. He earned his first studio credit working with Stephen Stills and his notoriety was really developed in his ability to construct what is considered the evolution of the construction of P.A. systems for modern band concerts.
The book Reveal: The Story of R.E.M. provided a lot of insight into the band’s work with Gehman. The guys were going through a bit of a change at the time, as well, with Berry getting married right before recording the album, and Mills and Berry were debuting a Led Zeppelin cover band called the Corn Cob Webs at the 40 Watt, while Stipe was also touring with various bands of interest at the time. While they didn’t care for John Cougar Mellencamp, they were wise enough to recognize good recording quality when they heard it.
Gehman was invited to a gig, where he was allowed first impressions of the band. “I was intrigued” he would recall “I wouldn’t say impressed”. The band was running up on their final two albums in their contract with IRS, and they were looking for leverage to renew their contract. The band had a backlog of songs ready for recording. The oldest was “Just a Touch”, which was written about the day that Elvis died, and was one of the fiercer songs of the band’s at the time. “Fall on Me” had been one of the more recent concepts, a song written by Stipe about acid rain. Another eco-conscious song, “Cuyahoga” was also brought into the fold for recording on Pageant.
Interestingly, one song considered at the time was “PSA”, which was recorded as a studio demo in 1986, and would later be revamped as “Bad Day” in 1986, but was the prototype of “It’s the End of the World as We Know It”. See if you can hear it:
Gehman wasn’t intimidated by the young band’s resolute nature to do things their way. One of his first rules of recording is that listeners like to know what words are signing – even if they don’t understand them or the message. This lead to a conflict with Stipe, when Gehman asked the singer “what the fuck is this about” and challenged Stipe on his lyrics, where promptly crossed his arms and left the studio in a fit. Stipe would later admit that Gehman’s direction threw him for a loop for several records, but ultimately pushed him in a different lyrical direction that would lead the the singer and the band’s success for albums to come.
In all, Berry felt the drum sound improved, Buck declared himself as “not a lead guitarist” and wouldn’t explore long, heavy solo riffs, Mills got to play in the lab with several different instruments and types of keyboards, and Stipe became a refined singer. The rest, they say, is history. “Superman” was recorded during these sessions as a proposed B-side album.
And speaking of Superman, today’s Dawg P*rn is brought to you by Superman himself, Brock Bowers, from last year’s Kentucky game. His 21 yard score is at the 1:07 mark.
What a game. Ray Davis had just rushed for 280 yards the week prior against Florida, Georgia had looked human in games leading up to it, and most of the pundits were predicting this to be the upset game for the Dawgs.
The defense limited Davis to 59 yards, and Bobo decided to open the crayon box and allow Beck and Company to finally play around a little. Georgia would amass 608 yards of offense to Kentucky’s 183, in a beautiful evening game in Athens. Let’s hope to see more of these in 2024.
Mediocre results plus infractions? Let’s celebrate with appropriate song:
I kind of feel sorry for Brock, but he made a business decision that I totally understand. He’ll get the playing time and exposure I’m sure he was looking for, but at this moment, he’s gotta be thinking:
It doesn’t stop with football, either. Apparently there were issues with the swim program not giving athletes required days off from practice, as well as this:
Lars Jorgensen, Kentucky’s swim coach from 2014-23, was not named in releases by the NCAA or the school Friday. Jorgensen resigned in June 2023 amid allegations of sexual assault.
Kentucky said in a statement it could not comment further until the full decision is released by the NCAA.
Big Blues Nation…at least they’re a basketball school. Or they were, anyway.
As one commenter said, “don’t love it, don’t hate it”. Something feels off…then you realize it’s Luke Combs singing it, not Tom Petty. Little did I know there was a country western tribute album called Petty Country released a while back, and Combs is one of the contributors. He may have struck lightning by remaking Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car, and while this ain’t bad, it pales in comparison to the actual Petty version (note: the Petty estate gave the blessing for this, so not a knock on anyone, just saying).
Florida roots aside, I love me some Tom Petty. So let’s cleanse our ears by putting up an original version of one of the greatest to wail in Southern Rock history:
Born in Valdosta but raised in north Gainesville, Florida, Petty was inspired by an early encounter with Elvis as a family member worked on a film set featuring the King somewhere near Ocala, Florida. As a fellow Refugee pointed out, Petty learned the guitar from Don Felder, who would go on to join the Eagles and write Hotel California. Though he worked on the grounds crew at the University of Florida, he never attended though the Gator faithful claim him as their own. Maybe this attachment to an SEC foe is why the league went with the Combs version.
His earliest musical endeavor was a band named Mudcrutch, which featured Petty and two members who would go on to make up the Heartbreakers, Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench. They only had one recording, Depot Street, that had studio quality but didn’t chart anywhere. Clearly, from the jump, Petty had a style of his own:
Sounds a little like Elvis Costello, no? Regardless, Perry’s unique, somewhat nasally balladeer sound that merges Bob Dylan with a slow southern drawl is one of a kind.
My one recommendation to the SEC, keep the video, replace the lyrics with their original artist. As a Dawg fan, it doesn’t bother me if they play Tom in Gainesville on game days. Some artists just don’t (or can’t) need to be covered or re-recorded, and Petty is one of those artists.
Not trying to be Petty about it…or maybe I am doing just that.
Proud to say I was playing tenor saxophone in this recording. We rehearsed and played this in the corner of Butts Mehre way back when, some time ago, and it still makes the hairs on my back stand up every time I hear it.
So the upcoming release of EA Sports College Football will have an interesting feature embedded for Bulldawg fans: black jerseys and potential blackouts.
I’m not gonna lie, the black jerseys just don’t do it for me. I like the blackout idea from a stadium aura standpoint, but they look more like practice jerseys than anything else and I favor the traditional red jerseys for home games, anyway. Just one man’s opinion here.
They did get one thing right in the updated version: Tech’s cheerleaders. Woof:
But this is a vidya game we are talking about here, and isn’t reality, which made me think of this musical palate cleanser from a good while back:
But, if you’re a gaming type and this is your bag, I’d like to ask a Thursday question of you:
What UGA tradition would you like to see captured in this latest release of College Football?
The Dawg Walk? The lone trumpeteer? How about an AI Larry Munson to call your games?
I’d imagine this is some welcomed news to athletes, but nothing new to coaches and their already expanding list of worries. For once, a coach might be heard saying “I don’t give a shit if the NCAA allows it, I’m not!”
Sutherland had a reputation of being able to play any role, any time, from drama to horror to comedy, most notably (for this blog’s purposes, anyway) his role in Animal House as Professor Jennings.
If Senator Blutarsky were alive today, I think he would’ve posted a musical palate cleanser in honor of Donald’s passing. It was his way of doing things, from what I can remember. With that being said, here it is:
RIP, Donald, and be sure to connect with the Senator while you’re up there. He’ll make you laugh and love Georgia football and all things Athens like we all did down here. Godspeed, good sir.
