Redneck Games

The Redneck Games – What I Learned: A Journey in Pictures

Every year, Rednecks from around the country gather to show their redneck pride by participating in the Redneck Games, which is like the Olympics minus the corporate sponsors and fit and trim athletes. Once again, due to a scheduling conflict (I had plans to shop for surge protectors), I was unable to attend 2010 games in person, but thanks to the modern miracle of technology, I was able to search the web for wonderful photos of this glorious event. Below is my photojournalistic journey into a world I’d hoped had disappeared decades ago: the 2010 Redneck Games!

Here are some little-known Redneck games.

This is Mud Skiing!

For obvious reasons, this sport, known unofficially as Statutory Rape, is a not-so-well-kept Redneck secret.

My personal favorite: Bobbing for Pigs Feet!

Goofy old Redneck Men

(No captions necessary)

Rednecks take to mud like pigs take to shit (I hope that's just mud)

I know! What's she doing with him??

The after-coitus-in-the-mud cigarette - I just pray to God it was with a human.

Like their simian cousins, Rednecks are masters of ingenuity.

Rednecks appreciate creature comforts. Interpret that anyway you like.

Redneck Yacht Club

Preparing for the Fireworks Show

Official Redneck Games Torch!

I always thought that the picture circulating the world wide interweb of the guy playing horseshoes with the toilet seat was staged; but Toilet Seat Horseshoing is apparently a competitive sport and toilet seats are a great for placing your ass...er, I mean ads.

I think she's got a flag for all fifty states and a spare just in case Puerto Rico achieves statehood.

I'd ask where that tongue has been except I'm pretty sure it was on that toilet seat.

So they use plungers for something other than sex!

Come to mama!

She looks normal. What's up with that?

This one's up for a CLIO

Haystacks Calhoun had a love child! Who knew or even thought it physically possible??

Redneck Hotness!!

(I will risk no captions below.)

They start ‘em young; the photographs below answer once and for all the Nature versus Nurture debate. Even the most outrageous human behavior can be nurtured.

(Warning: The images below may obliterate your fragile belief in humankind)

What? No mullet??

God gives each child a special talent.

What's that on the edge of the horseshoe?

Cute little girl in a Condedrate flag bikini - there are just too many mixed messages to address so I'll leave well enough alone.

I had no idea there was so much Confederate flag apparel.

There truly is someone for everyone.

There are no words...

We have this problem up north as well.

Nice bonnet.

Redneck Sandwich

Believe The Captain when he says: the South has little chance of ever rising again.

Yours wearing my American Flag Headband,

The Captain

First Born Off to College

Life is full of milestones, unless, of course, your latest milestone is death, in which case you’re toast; but I’m not dead, in spite of the many wishes to the contrary and despite the numerous forecasts of an early demise by the various unsolicited “professionals” who haunted my childhood – teachers and psychologists and tap dance teachers and the like.

Much to their horror, no doubt, I managed to procreate. And as I write this I stand at the threshold of another major milestone as the first born of my three legitimates is about to go off to college and significantly reduce my goddamned food bill. I admit I’m kind of excited, in a characteristically selfish sort of way. First of all, I’ll be able to afford to buy premium beer again with the money I’m not spending on the red meat needed to satiate the hunger of a 6’ 2” teenage boy. Eldest Son of The Captain (ESOTC) will matriculate at The Catholic University of America (CUA) in Washington, DC, as an avowed atheist and Conscious Homework Objector, who is someone who refuses to do homework on principal, the principal here being it gets in the way of his social life. And yes, like yours truly, CUA uses the definite article in its official name, owing to the fact it ultimately reports up to the Pope, and maybe even the Illuminati or the Free Masons, or some other satanic entity, if the rumors are to be believed.

Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, I am looking forward to making the road trips down to DC to visit ESOTC. It’s about time for me to have a mid-life crisis, so the timing is perfect. I can’t wait to see the faces of the kids in the freshman dorm when they see me passed out in the dorm hallway in my Pro-choice T-shirt!! Who better to be an argument for abortion than moi? I’ll drag along my kid brother and our good ol’ boy friend Ron for good measure. I can see it now – three drunk middled-aged men rolling in laughter on the lawn of the national mall. “Look Ron, it’s the Washington Monument!” “No, it’s a giant Phallus!” corrects Ron. “What’s a Phallus?” I ask. “A giant penis!” screams Ron. Uncontrollable laughter follows. Imagine this scene repeated – 12 times, and still funny every time, until the Mall Ranger rudely demands that we move on.

Plus, in case you haven’t visited an institution of higher learning lately, you are in for a surprise. When I was in college, we joked about it being like a country club. Well, today, college is a country club. Even the smallest college will have the following:

· A full service health club and swimming pool, complete with rosy cheeked coeds adorning the pool deck;
· A food court – back in the day we used to have to drive to a mall to find one of these; now you just roll out of bed or pick yourself up off the pavement and you’re there!
· A Starbucks – kids these days actually go and drink non-alcoholic beverages and socialize in places like this.
· Free cable and wireless internet (OK, it’s not free to the parents) so kids can do research on the internet or, after all of their homework is done, view websites for mature audiences; is there a more mature audience than a dorm full of young men fresh out of high school?
· National acts that come and do shows on campus, saving students thousands of dollars in cab fare and bail money.
· A beer caddy and a condom dispenser in every dorm room (just kidding).

But you get the picture. It seems I was born a few decades too soon. But there is one thing that was better in my day – lack of technology. No cell phones to take incriminating party photos and no Facebook on which to post them.

Believe The Captain when says: Road Trip!!

Yours destroying those discolored Polaroids,

The Captain

This was my beer caddy.

Politics and Religion

Sex, drugs, and Rock & Roll are The Captain’s old standbys; whenever I can’t think of something to write about, I just go to a prostitute, drop some acid, and listen to Led Zeppelin. Just kidding. I can’t afford the first two and I only have Led Zeppelin on vinyl, which is badly scratched anyway, the byproduct of my adolescent “dark” period, which is a melodramatic way of saying I thought it would be cool to lock myself in my room, turn off the lights and play my rock & roll records. Even in the best of circumstances, it’s not easy to accurately land a phonograph needle on a black disk. Try doing it in the dark after 2 sixes of Genesee Cream Ale! But today is Primary Tuesday, when corrupt egomaniacs vie for the right to represent the Elephant or Ass in this November’s elections, so I am inspired to wade into this dangerous topic that Grandma told me never to discuss in polite company. But with no such company anywhere near me and the fact that Grandma was a rude and demented old bat, I have decided to try my hand at political punditry; but even the political seas aren’t dangerous enough for The Captain. I will not only cross the line, but will deface it with graffiti by writing about Politics and Religion in the same blog – nay, the same sentence! Here goes nothin’.

Shocking Political Behavior and Scandalous Secrets

· Brace yourselves: Barack Obama is half white.

· Stealing political signs is hardly news; whether you’re a drunken teenager or a political rival, pinching lawn signs in the wee hours of the morning is to be expected from time to time. However, the campaign manager for a candidate for Attorney General in waspish Connecticut has taken this tomfoolery to new heights. In broad daylight on the day before the Primary, he placed signs on a private citizen’s lawn on the busiest road in town - without the owner's permission. Later, still illuminated by the midday sun, he drove by the property and saw an elderly female removing his signs and went apeshit. He pulled over, rushed up to the old lady and violently ripped the signs from her arms, allegedly striking her in the process, all the while failing to notice the opponent’s campaign worker who witnessed the entire confrontation. The police were called, and despite his begging pleas to the contrary, the old lady pressed charges, bolstered by the witness statement of the opponent’s campaigner. Now, I don’t claim to be an expert on political campaign strategy, but I see several flaws in this guy’s approach. First and most importantly, he was sober. Second…well, let’s just say that criminal mischief is best managed after dark. And finally, always check for witnesses! What a tool.

· Brace yourself some more: sometimes, politicians tell fibs. Some of these fibs even approach the Captainesque in their creativity and outlandishness. There have been politicians who have questioned the validity of the citizenship of the President of the United States of America (the black half, at least), claiming he is an Islamic alien extremist from Mars who is stealing Kindles from the wealthy and redistributing them to homeless Martian children without health care, whose appearance on earth heralds the imminent approach of Armageddon or, at the very least, the return of Elvis, who some had accused of dancing like a black person. It’s true.

· Sad news: You know that Tea Party that was the inspiration for the numerous political groups that have recently adopted the name? Well, it wasn’t really a party after all. Even though Sam Adams played a role in the original event, he didn’t even bring any of his beer! Not a single ounce of booze was consumed. In fact, they didn’t even drink any tea. Again, I’m no Tucker Carlson, but I do know a thing or two about parties and that was no freakin’ party!! (Let me take this opportune moment to put in a shameless plug for my party, the Keg Party – read about it in my Prior Post).

Shocking Religious Behavior: Did you know that there are real religions out there that encourage sobriety for all, virginity for women, and abstinence for men?? And you wonder why fewer and fewer people attend church!!

Believe The Captain when he says: I may occasionally fib, or steal a sign, or even be half white and half white, but I am no politician. And I certainly do NOT abstain!!

Yours throwing a party with Sam Adams and the New England Patriot Cheerleaders,

The Captain

The Summer of Paint, Second Generation aka The Summer of Clubber

Eldest Son of The Captain (ESOTC) is unwittingly following in his father’s footsteps, spending the summer before he goes off to college painting; I say “unwittingly” because anyone with their wits about them would avoid my tracks like a fat rabbit avoids the tracks of a mountain lion. But he got a job painting the schools in town to earn money for college and as a bonus is learning some valuable life lessons - like the importance of getting a college degree so you don’t end up like Clubber, a 40 something townie who is the unofficial paint crew supervisor in spite of the fact he gets the same hourly wage as ESOTC and the two other college bound burnouts on the crew.

During the school year, Clubber, who lives at home with his mother and reminds one of an overgrown Oompa Loompa minus the tan, is a Hall Monitor at the local high school, from which he graduated 25 years ago; he apparently liked it so much he never bothered to leave. When he’s not sneaking a cigarette behind the shop wing or ogling the freshman girls, he’s the hired snitch for the Assistant Principal. But with all the little hoodlums on summer break, he’s the self-appointed paint crew chief and Master of the Universe. Some examples:

· Professional painters will always prep the surfaces, paint the trim, and then finish by rolling. Clubber, who ESOTC describes as a giant bowling ball with arms and legs and three holes in the head, is at least smart enough to know he has no business on a ladder, so he chooses to roll exclusively and let the young students do the grunt work of taping and trimming. He does demonstrate some creativity, however, as he sits on an office chair with casters to roll his way down the corridors, pun intended. The only problem is that he rolls ahead of the trimming, leaving his young charges with having to clean up the paint he splattered all over the floor (it’s way too fucking hard to roll a chair over a drop cloth, you know).

· He complains to anyone who will listen that his tax dollars have been squandered on a $230 piece of cleaning equipment for the schools (which will save the town money in the long run), ignoring the smacks-you-on-the-head irony that tax payers pay him to sit around and smoke on school grounds and leer at teenage girls, while occasionally providing witness statements to the Assistant Principal about fights he could easily have broken up.

· Will walk the length of a long corridor to take the elevator up or down a single story rather than take the stairs; rumor has it that Clubber hasn’t taken the stairs since his second senior year, which is about the time that Burger King introduced the double Whopper.

· One thing that clubber has grasped, though, is the municipal employee workplace culture; one day, because the crew ran out of tape and he was too lazy to drive 3 minutes to the hardware store to pick up some new rolls (there’s that word again), he instructed the 3 student laborers to “go hide in the library ‘til quittin’ time.” They get similar instructions when they run out of paint because Clubber has yet to grasp the concept of taking an inventory of supplies.

· Admittedly, Clubber has done an admirable job of preparing ESOTC for the working world by unknowingly modeling the behavior of corporate managers – talk a big game about stuff you really don’t understand, issue executive orders with little forethought, and then blame your underlings for your own stupidity. But ESOTC has figured out a way to diffuse the big guy: bring him food – lots and lots of it. And this doesn’t even dip into ESOTC’s earnings because he also works part-time evenings and weekends at a local Panera Bread, so he’s able to procure huge bags full of discarded product loaded with carbs and sugar which he brings to Clubber at the start of the day. Is it really OK to be an enabler for an obese middle-aged townie in a dead-end job? Who can say? But ESOTC’s work day certainly goes much better!

So thank you Clubber for preparing my son for the cruel, hard world, a place ESOTC can avoid for the next four years in college (so long as he actually completes and hands in his assignments in the same semester they are due). Please accept those dozen doughnuts I had delivered as my expression of gratitude.

So Believe The Captain when he says: Grab your chair and a can of spray paint and let’s decorate the Principal’s office!

Yours signing my artwork, “Clubber Was Hear!”

The Captain