Photos have finally surfaced of AJ McCarron's tattoo that features the Mobile skyline.
And they are glorious.
McCarron's tattoo is fabulous, a true work of art.
Our beaver pelt trader of the week is Bosinian farmer Blazo Grkovic who strangled a bear to death with his bare hands when it attacked him.
You'll recall that we previously discussed in the mailbag what animal the average man could kill with his bare hands.
I guessed a cow.
But Blazo Grkovic took down a bear.
Yes, he really got the Mobile skyline tattoo.
Truly extraordinary.
@jarradamato Tweets:
"if all 14 SEC coaches competed in The Bachelorette, who'd win? And better yet, who'd be most likely to fight another coach?"
You ask this question as if I watch The Bachelorette.
Which I totally do.
Okay, you can eliminate profession and money from the equation. All of these guys have the same job and they're all comparatively rich.
Looks and age are important, but not dispositive.
Basically this turns into a recruiting pitch, who is the best at selling themselves to the bachelorette while also subtly downplaying all rivals? It got James Franklin into trouble last year, but the simple fact is recruiting athletes is a lot like recruiting a wife, you have to be good at selling yourself and maximizing your attributes. And you also need the gift of gab. The more you outkick your coverage in life, the better of a recruiter you are.
Age does matter unless the bachelorette is rooting for her husband to die young.
So I'm tossing out everyone over the age of sixty. That means Nick Saban, Steve Spurrier, and Gary Pinkel are gone at the outset. I'll toss out Mark Richt -- too religious to go after it in the hot tub scenes -- and Gus Malzahn because he is really not very exciting at all. (Malzahn might be the first Bachelorette contestant to take a date to offensive film study).
So you've got a final nine of Will Muschamp, Kevin Sumlin, Bret Bielema, James Franklin, Mark Stoops, Butch Jones, Hugh Freeze, Dan Mullen, and Les Miles.
I think this would be a competitive nine. Bielema would be the least attractive of the group, but he's outkicked his coverage the most.
So I think he'd be a real sleeper here. Plus, I feel confident that Bielema has used a stool as a weapon in a bar fight before and that kind of alpha male status matters in these competitions.
I feel like at some point Les Miles would eliminate himself with sheer weirdness -- he would definitely ask for or give a foot rub on his first date or something like that -- and Dan Mullen is so overconfident that he'd demand sex on the first night's date and subsequently get dismissed.
I feel like Hugh Freeze would giggle uncontrollably when he saw a girl in a bikini and Mark Stoops would drink too much with Bielema and then sleep through his date.
Butch Jones has too much of a golly gee mentality to win this competition so I think he'd be the nice guy who gets eliminated.
Ultimately I think this competition would end up with a final four of Will Muschamp, Kevin Sumlin, James Franklin and Bret Bielema.
Given the fact that black bachelors always lose, we'll say the final two are Muschamp and Bielema.
I think Muschamp wins the Bachelorette.
Agree with my analysis, ladies?
Kris J. writes:
"With the evolution of the SEC and the role that television is taking in the conference, and with coaches like Les Miles rappelling off the side of a building, don't you think it is time for the coaches to have their own stadium intros similar to professional wrestlers? Couldn't you see Saban in a dark cape rising to the playing surface as if coming up from the underworld? I envision Will Muschamp somewhat Stone Cold Steve Austin-esque guzzling beers before crushing them on his head. Unfortunately, Bobby Petrino is no longer available to ride in on his motorcycle along with his bikini clad female entourage."
Okay, this is complete and total genius.
I love it.
It's summer so here is your challenge, design the best possible stadium entry for your favorite coach. Email your submissions to clay.travis@gmail.com and I'll pick the best entries for every coach and run them over the next several weeks.
I don't want to spoil any of them, but if Kliff Kingsbury's isn't him rolling out shirtless with shades in a hottub surrounded by sorority girls, I'm going to be crushed.
Honestly, what about a music video intro? Remember when WWF (now WWE) wrestlers started doing intro videos? Remember the Honky Tonk Man? How awesome could these intro videos be?
Y'all are going to kill it on these, I just know it.
Matt W. writes:
"Mother's day is just behind us and Father's day is two weeks away. As a father of two very young children,I struggle to find the perfect mother's day gift on behalf of my kids. And I know my wife will have to do the same. Yet all I really want is sex. Yet there isn't a great way to send that message. It kinda comes off "schmucky". "Fathers Day sex present" just doesn't sound right. But who are we kidding. The kids have almost zero to do with this day at this age. Shouldn't we as parents celebrate how we got to be parents? Any suggestions on how to get this ball rolling?"
When you have young kids mother's and father's day are just complete and total messes.
Because for a few years you're responsible for a wife and a mom or a dad and a husband.
The kids are worthless on gifts, yet their very existence means that, paradoxically, your responsibility on the day skyrockets. It's a recipe for a complete disaster, especially since having young kids is incredibly stressful already.
I think the default father's day present for men should always be sex.
Always.
And not traditional Wednesday night sex where you don't even take your socks off, ladies, I mean special sex.
In fact, I don't know a single man who wouldn't make this trade right now. It should just be the default father's day present -- "Today you get special sex." (Every married person knows what I mean by "special sex" so I'm not going to define it. But it lasts longer than five minutes and you do more than usual).
For instance, you mean, I can get a tie or a striptease with you in a new piece of lingerie? This isn't even a contest.
As for mother's day, you should just let your wife not have to be around the kids on the Saturday before mother's day. This is what she really wants. Trust me. She doesn't want to have to get the kids all dressed up for a special brunch where they are going to spill all over themselves and then she has to clean the clothes before they stain and stop the kids from fighting and worry about whether or not your stupid ass is going to be dressed right for the brunch.
She wants to go to a spa and pretend she doesn't actually have any kids.
She may also want to get drunk and stay in a hotel room while you hire someone to clean the entire house. Honestly, hiring someone to clean the entire house is probably the single best gift that any husband can ever give a wife.
It should be the default mother's day present for all of us.
There, I've solved mother's and father's day forever.
Danny C. writes:
"In the Internet era, how long would Milli Vanilli have been able to keep their fakeness under wraps?"
The moment their first single, "Girl You Know It's True," became popular, TMZ would have outed them because too many people would have been aware of the conspiracy.
If not then, certainly it would have been when their songs started skipping a track at a major concert and they ran off the stage in late 1989, nearly a year before they won a Grammy. That video would have gone viral immediately and their careers would have crumbled then.
It could have happened even sooner, while they were still in Europe even. It's possible Milli Vanilli would have never even made it to the United States.
Meaning I would not have purchased their album when I was ten years old.
Which, to be clear, absolutely never happened.
Tom A. writes:
"This isn't a question. It's a cry for help. Tell me something good about Mizzou football in the SEC. Tell me it's going to get better. Lie to me."
It's going to get better!
Also, your penis is the largest that your wife has ever seen.
Doug W. writes:
Alan P. writes:
"Clay,
I am a proud Alumni of Mizzou and a huge fan off all sports Mizzou and SEC. My wife is a graduate of Illinois and roots for them when they are good. Mizzou and Illinois are border rivals, playing them every year in basketball (we used to play them in football, but that series has stopped). My oldest son just graduated college and is attending Illinois this fall. My wife mentioned that the “Illinois Caravan” was coming to where we live (with the football and basketball coaches) and I looked at her like “why would I care?” She wants me to go to Illinois football games. Really. They suck. Where is the line between being a good dad and being a Mizzou Alumni/Fan?"
Great question.
First, I'd turn this into a trip to see your son more than I'd call it a trip to see a game. That way your fan loyalties aren't being infringed upon and you actually have something to look forward to. Think about your own experience in college, if you saw your parents once a month or so that was plenty, right? (I went to school in D.C. and didn't see my parents that often. The farther you went to college the less likely you saw your parents very much. That's healthy, you have to grow up at some point and college is a good time to step away). Your son isn't very far away so he can drive home without having to hop a flight. So I think once game a month is fair.
That's the way I'd pitch it to his mom as well. Turn it into a weekend visit to see your son instead of a trip to the game.
Just try and schedule it so you can still go to Mizzou games as well.
Plus, you're actually in good shape here, Mizzou and Illinois don't play in football. You might as well root for Illinois to win in the Big Ten as well. Hell, I root for Michigan because my wife is a Wolverine alum. It actually makes watching another conference more fun if you have a rooting interest of some sort.
Joshua L. writes:
"I love quality music, and rap is no exception. Artists like Kanye West and Tupac are/were fantastic artists with a voice, but my parents refuse to even acknowledge their talent. As a person slightly closer to my parents age, can you explain why the older generations refuse to look past content/language and see or understand that these guys are more than just inappropriate?"
So now I'm a spokesperson for your parents?
I'm 34, not 54.
Oh, man, it's all downhill from here. I'll be an AARP member before long.
Last year I turned 33 and had an 18 year old intern who would be enrolling at Auburn for her freshman year come fall. I also had a four year old son. I did the math and realized that my four year old son was actually closer in age to her than I was.
Now I'm speaking for your parents.
Speaking generally, I think sometimes parents get lost in the individual words and fail to see the cohesive whole of the artwork. It's the rough equivalent of not liking a portrait because there's nudity. The focus on the salacious aspects of the art to the exclusion of the whole says more about the consumer than it does the artist. Now, sometimes artists and their representatives are being intentionally provocative to attract more attention -- something I would know absolutely nothing about -- but I don't believe that's the case here.
Artists speak in the language of their surroundings, but rise above those surroundings to create something profound.
Whether it's Tupac's west coast ghettos or William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County, ultimately these are just stories about people profoundly told.
I will say this, I don't know that your parent's age is the real barometer here so much as a willingness to experience something outside your comfort zone. Lots of people, regardless of age, don't like to leave their comfort zones.
Nate L. writes:
