Hello. I’m Jonathan Tu. You might remember me from such blogs as 82 Sluggo Win, and Yertle, the Recruiting Turtle!
I actually can’t go on with this Troy McClure impression. Too many painful memories. Anyway: updates.
Signing Day is over and done with. USC was not number one, nor even 1.5, nor even top three. In years past this would have caused me to detonate myself and several tons of roofing nails in Westwood, but I am eerily calm right now. So calm I can even spellcheck “eerily” and not be horribly angry at such an awkwardly spelled word. Has it been the relatively disappointing past few seasons – i.e., “Fuck! Another BCS win? Audible sigh.” – or the merely excellent (as opposed to unfairly superior, on the level of map hackers in StarCraft or word generating tumescence suckers in Scrabulous) 2008 recruiting class that’s left me unmoved? I’m not sure. I did just complete that whole grand tour of college football, so it’s not for lack of interest.
I think this is a healthy step for me. I’m on a path towards normalcy, which should be a good enough excuse to get past security at LAX so I can fly directly to Tallahassee and thank T.J. Bryant in person for signing with Pete Carroll, grounding order be damned.
I am back in Santa Barbara living the dream: minutes away from a beach I never visit, working a semi-part-time job where I’m not even cooking yet, residing in a garage in a corner somewhat distanced from three hockey bags full of hockey gear, sucking at beer pong and generally being glad I am not crammed sleeping bag-first into the driver’s side of a ’96 Maxima in, oh, let’s say Ohio. I cannot begin to stress how nice it is not having to pretend my alarm clock doesn’t sound exactly like two cops tapping my windshield at 7:12 a.m. in a strip mall in Virginia.
I am also still writing. This is agonizing. If I could channel the angst, despair and frustration of the process into the actual process, I would have a romansbildung the size of Mike Stoops’ forehead vein and the best college football/existential diptych ever written. As it is I have a slowly growing manuscript and a hellish, apostatically barren white screen whose dread glow reminds me that Borges was right: “Mirrors and copulation [and Microsoft Office] are abominable, for they multiply the number of mankind.” Borges was also right when he said that Nick Saban is the terrible black maw of The Beast, and the latest recruiting rankings bear this out.
Bear this out. Bear Bryant? Nevermind. I suck.
Apparently, I am in contention for best National Blog in the second annual College Football Blogger Awards. I’m not going to win, but it was nice having this site’s view count boosted to a whole 200 views per day instead of the steady 36 I’ve been receiving for almost a year now. This, and the Google searches for “kirk herbstreit wife cheating” my readers seem to be following, proves that none of the time I spent churning out elaborate Herbie infidelity jokes was wasted.
And, finally: congratulations to LSU. Now please stop emailing me. It’s been four years since the split title and I am still getting poorly typed missives threatening me over the AP trophy. Me? Me.
STOP. CEASE. ENJOY YOUR CRAWFISH ETOUFFE AND NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP. The same goes for the Georgia fans who can’t seem to grasp that Mark Richt loves ass. Get out there and live!
82 Sluggo Win 