Shoutouts - Red/Blue Weekend

Y'all know what this is. We had fun this weekend. We ate stuff. We drank other stuff. We saw people and watched things. Odd events took place. All-in-all, our weekend was great and, via these "shoutouts", we wish to salute the people and institutions which made it such.

Leading off, we'd like to offer our apologies to the various FotC's who we didn't see this week. We were going to have Red Tent Rebellion, host folks for drinks, hand out checks of varying dollar amounts, et cetera; but we didn't. Blame it on Ivory Tower if you're going to blame it on anybody. We'll party with y'all next time. Buh'lee dat.

To Smeargle, thanks for picking up the beer at Kiefer's. I mean, I wasn't gonna pay for it anyway, but thanks.

To 25 Days a Week, thank you for explaining to me the intricacies and strategies of collegiate tennis.

To 25 Days a Week's girlfriend, thanks for the snowcone (no, I'm not 12--snowcones are good, dammit).

A shoutout goes to R]-[0])3$+@r--or whatever that stupid shit is--for passing out in the back of Ivory's car on the way home from Clarksdale's Juke Joint Festival. We were tired of listening to you yammer anyway. Oh, and you're welcome for us giving you a reason to leave Starkville, 'humper.

To the four or five black children who warned us not to "go that way" because "somebody's about to get shot," a proclamation brought about by your astute observation that "they" were "throwing up their signs," thank you.

To the ensuing gang violence we saw anyway, thank you. T'was wildly entertaining.

And thanks to you, Clarksdale Police Department, for recently purchasing tazers. No, we didn't see anybody get tazed, but boy did we hear that shit.

Hey, redneck guy serving barbecue on the side of the street, stop being so damned racist. Once you've achieved that, I will commend you on your pork (it was meaty, smoky, spicy, and vinegary; an excellent treat to shove down our throats while watching the aforementioned gang violence).

A bit of a dis goes out to Dutch man who owns a record shop or some damn thing somewhere in Clarksdale for passively-aggressively accusing Ivory Tower of being a racist (kind of an enduring theme of the night). Backstory: we asked this guy for directions somewhere, he gave them, and Ivory asked "oh is that the place with all of the White people standing around out front?" (It was a country bar; we wanted Blues.) The man then replied "I don't look at things that way, you do." Chill out, broseph. You're Dutch and shit. And anyway, Juco is the racist.

T Model Ford, despite pushing ninety, you're going strong. Major props from these Cuppers.

To balding guy in an orange shirt who fell asleep sitting up at some juke joint, thanks for bringing the lulz.

To the sketchy trailer near Ground Zero selling hot tamales, "damn fine work" I say. Those were truly excellent tamales. Although, I must inquire what the hell else you sell out of that trailer because your sign says "tamales and barbecue" but your business practices say "lots of illegal shit."

Super Chikan, you are a virtuoso, a troubador, and a live wire. You are exactly what a place like Ground Zero was opened to host.

Juco's ugly, disgusting racism, I don't ever want to see you again. [ED: Juco isn't a racist. He was simply a bit taken aback by what we saw in Clarksdale and kinda feared for his safety. We took this as an opportunity to accuse him of bigotry which, when considering the fact that we actually saw relatively large-scale gang violence no further than 30 feet away from us, is a bit unfair.]

To Clarksdale, thank you for bringing out the best and worst in all of those who step into your borders.