On Saturday, I didn't see a single snap of a single college football game. Not one. This has never happened before in my life. Instead I was an usher at my friend's wedding in Atlanta. This means that this week's ClayNation Starting 11 is going to be a primer on my day in a fall wedding.
The wedding featured a bride who had graduated from Auburn and a groom who had graduated from Kentucky. Are the alarm bells going off yet? The two teams played Saturday night. Seven of the 11 groomsmen and ushers graduated from Kentucky, all of the bridesmaids went to Auburn. The result was a near riot. But that comes in the future. First, the beginning.
9:30AM CT
Departure from Nashville. It's freezing. Seriously, freezing. It has to be the coldest Oct. 17 in the history of Tennessee. Another couple arrives to ride down to the wedding with us, my friend Kelly, and his girlfriend Erin. Kelly is also a groomsman. As we load up for the trip, my wife asks me to clear out the rear of the car so we can put the third seat down and someone can sleep on the way back.
I forget.
As we walk to the car, I realize this fact, and tell the other couple to say they asked me not to put down the third seat or clear out the trunk. We arrive at the car.
My wife immediately notices: "Clay! I told you to put down the third seat."
"They said we didn't need to do it." I nudge the other couple.
They both nod.
My wife narrows her gaze, fiery in my direction. "Did he tell you to say that?" she asks.
Kelly changes the conversation, "How come our tuxes cost $150?" he asks.
Interlude:
Has anyone ever had to pay $150 for a tux before? Here's a comparison. In 1999, oral sex cost $50 in Amsterdam. So a decade ago, you could leave the red light district with a smile on your face for $150. Now I can rent one tux to be an usher at a wedding?
Takeaway: The tuxedo rental business is insane. How are the margins this high for a 24-hour rental? Why isn't there an online tux rental place that FedExes you the tux, does away with the physical store location, and charges like $50?
Basically, why doesn't Amazon rent tuxes?
And if they do have physical stores, why are they such pussbuckets at these places? Do they really need your overarm measurement? Who am I, Tony Siragusa? How many people have ridiculous overarm measurements that change what size jacket they should be wearing?
And why are their hours so bad? The place in Nashville is only open from 10-5 every day.
10-5!
The bank is more convenient. I don't really have any reason to complain about this since I work from home, but my friend Kelly has to take off work to get measured for his tux.
Meanwhile, I tried to submit my measurements online. I'm a normal-sized guy. Give me a 34 waist, a 42 regular jacket, and I'm ready to go. Yet the measurements won't submit until I give an overarm measurement?
I entered seven feet. Or seven inches. I'm not really sure how that form worked.
10:15
I'm pulled over for speeding, going 90 in a 70. Bad news, it's a Tennessee state trooper. Worse news, my tags and registration are expired. Also, I don't have my insurance card in the car. Basically, all I have is my driver's license.
My wife fumes in the back seat. "I hope they don't arrest you," she says.
"If you did get arrested," Kelly says, "that would be pretty funny."
I attempt to make friends with the state trooper, a man with a shaved head, one working eye, and a slight stutter. My tax dollars at work.
"We're on our way ..."
He cuts me off. "Sign this, please."
In my entire life, I've only gotten away with speeding once after being pulled over. Why then? Because I had a Virgin Islands license plate on the car and the cop had no idea how to write me a ticket. I considered keeping the Virgin Islands plate for the next decade. The only time I ever wish I was a woman is every time I get pulled over for speeding.
Also, if a war happens.
Anyway, and I'm not making this up, the speeding ticket and other two violations add up to $784.48.
How is this not cruel and unusual punishment? People pay lower fines for murder.
Truly.
10:30
My wife has spent the past 15 minutes ridiculing my driving. She has been in two car accidents in the past year. But if I mention them, she gets very angry.
In one of them she totaled a car, in another "accident" she lightly bumped a car in front of her at a stop sign. There was not a scratch on their bumper, yet the entire family went to the hospital on a stretcher.
11:00
We stop for lunch. The best part of my day? The Mushroom Swiss Angus burger at McDonald's, number 14 on the value meal. I'm not exaggerating when I say it's the greatest sandwich in the history of fast food. It's like sex meets McDonald's ... aka Louisville basketball.
11:45
We plug in the GPS to check our time situation. After 10 minutes my wife says, "Uh oh." We're scheduled to arrive at 2:55.
The bus taking us to pictures departs the hotel at 3:00.
Now, we have to arrive, get changed into our tuxes, and depart in five minutes.
1:05 PM
Twenty minutes later, the time changes. We're now on the East Coast.
I hate the timezone change.
Firmly.
For my entire life as an adult, I'm only ever driving from the central time zone to the eastern time zone. I'm always losing an hour. And don't give me that crap about gaining it when you come back. I never need to rush back to something in the central time zone.
Nashville is fairly close to the time line. It gets dark early in winter, the sun goes down earlier in summer, basically the only thing worth gaining in the central time zone is an hour earlier late-night television. And now that I have a kid I'm too tired to stay up for that anyway. Plus, thanks to dawn arriving in Nashville at 4:55 every morning, he gets up as soon as the sun rises.
So, as you can see, even time is lined up against me.
1:15 PM
My iPhone is losing battery life, which means I may not have any ability to keep tabs on the scores. Two issues with the iPhone. A.) The battery life is shorter than a Wizard of Oz munchkin and B.) You can't read anything when you use the Internet browser. How do you zoom on Web pages if you don't have the app downloaded?
Yeah, it's great that there are 85,000 apps, but if you could just read a Web page by using the Internet browser you would need like 18 apps.
For instance, the only app I have that is designed to do anything other than read a Web page is paper football.
How is this not noted as a flaw?
1:15-2:50 now ET
My wife says, "Stop driving so fast." Repeatedly.
2:51
We exit near the hotel. The road to our hotel is only there because the Perimeter Mall is also there. The entire road, and this is the complete truth, is just a loop around the mall.
This is my issue with Atlanta, the entire city's road system seems to exist so you can reach a shopping center that didn't exist before.
We stop at eight consecutive lights, all bordering the mall. With this rate of speed, now I know what the immigrants felt like crossing the Atlantic.
2:57
Arrival at the hotel. I leave the car running and go digging through my bag for black socks. Unfortunately, I mistakenly brought blue socks.
With tiny penguins etched on them.
2:58
Kelly beats me to the hotel desk and gets his key first. Our tuxes are waiting in our rooms.
3:01
The desk clerk takes her time checking me in. I learn that the hotel has a free breakfast, something about Wi-Fi, and am tempted to strangle the clerk with my penguin socks.
Here's the only thing I've ever wanted other than a hotel room: a toothbrush in my hotel room. If you don't have toothbrushes, I couldn't care less about the other accoutrements.
In fact, a promise, the next hotel chain that starts providing disposable toothbrushes and toothpaste, I will stay in for the rest of my life.
3:06
I'm dressed in my tuxedo and nonchalantly waiting in the lobby as if I've been here all morning. Several other groomsmen arrive to inform me that Oklahoma and Texas, while poorly played, is currently tied at 13.
3:10
We all climb into the shuttle en route to the church. Beers are opened.
The groom says there is a television in the church but it doesn't work. "It's only for videos."
Videos of what?
3:15
The groom says there will be no televisions at the reception because the bride believes they would be a "distraction."
The Kentucky grads all groan.
Question: If millions of people choose to do something, i.e. attend or watch a football game, and 125 do something else, say, attend a wedding, doesn't that make the wedding the distraction?
3:31
Drinking inside the church is forbidden. So everyone stands on the curb outside and drinks. Kerry wins the BlackBerry, iPhone shuffle and becomes the first to report that Texas has beaten Oklahoma.
3:55
Florida and Arkansas are scoreless midway through the first quarter. We're seated in a large room with two televisions. A groomsman begins to work on obtaining a signal from the television.
"Who has a flat screen," he asks, "only to watch videos?"
4:05
We confirm the church has a flat screen only to watch videos. Arkansas leads 7-0 on Florida.
4:15
Picture time!
We take eight photographs. In one of them the groom is walking 10 feet ahead of us and we're supposed to chase him. It's only the second most homoerotic shot.
In the most homoerotic shot, the groom stands in front and everyone gets in a straight line behind him and raises their arms in different directions. "I promise it looks really cool," the photographer says.
Kelly shakes his head, "I don't know about you," he says, "but I'm opting out of the teabag shot."
4:25
Most of the groomsmen relocate to the parked bus and, in a silent effort to reclaim their manliness, begin drinking beers heavily.
There is also a flat-screen television on the bus.
But, you guessed it ... no satellite signal.
It's for videos or DVDs as well.
4:59
Outside the groom's room hangs a picture of Jesus that appears to focus on His nipple. I stand looking at the painting for a few seconds.
Another man passes, "You don't really think about Jesus' nipples that much until you see a picture like that," he says.
5:30
Florida leads Arkansas 13-10. Southern Cal is up two scores on Notre Dame. Virginia Tech is down to Georgia Tech.
My iPhone battery hangs perilously on the living side of electronic life, bars vanishing at a rapid rate.
5:35
We line up to begin ushering guests into the church. Things begin ominously, I take a woman's arm and her mentally handicapped daughter throws a screaming fit.
She pats me on the arm. "It's okay," she says.
As I walk down the aisle, I'm expecting to be tackled from behind. My mind is racing. What's protocol? I have to take the beating without resisting, right?
If I bleed do I owe more money for the tuxedo rental?
5:51
A grown man who shall remain nameless, but who does not have a BlackBerry or an iPhone pulls me aside when he sees me checking scores. "I hate Florida" he says.
I nod.
"Can you keep up with the game during the service?"
I nod again.
"Here's what you do, if Arkansas scores, give me a thumbs up, if Florida scores, flick me off."
Welcome to a Southern wedding ladies and gentlemen.
5:55
We take our seats in the pews. I silence my phone and set it on auto-refresh.
Loved it--glad you posted. Also, this is an excellent reminder of why we chose to get married in August in Florida--there no weekends that year when both Florida (my side) and Virginia Tech (his side) were off and we did actually want friends and family to attend, much less the other person.
But damn, it was hot. The things we do for football.
Travis has become enamored of several objects, phrases or events which he frequenly references in the column. Among the most frequent:
'Bama Bangs - a term coined by Travis to refer to southern men's hairstyles that feature prominent bangs for no apparent reason. Brodie Croyle and John Parker Wilson are oft-cited violators of 'Bama Bangs rules.
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When Clay Travis, acclaimed author of Dixieland Delight, decided to spend the 2008 season up close and personal with UT football, he—and every other college football aficionado—thought he was in for a rollicking ride with one of the leading contenders for the national title. After all, when the Vols kicked off the season on September 1, the defending SEC East champions were ranked 18th in the country. As head coach Phillip Fulmer prepared for the game, he reflected upon a coaching career that included an astounding 147 victories, two SEC championships, and a national title. With 34 years at UT under his belt as both a player and coach, the Tennessee native had just signed a contract extension that projected to keep him at the university long enough to become the winningest coach in program history.
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There is no college ball more passionate and competitive than football in the Southeastern Conference, where seven of the twelve schools boast stadiums bigger than any in the NFL and 6.5 million fans hit the road every year to hoot and holler their teams to victory.
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The newly favored man is not really a man at all, but a hairless, effeminate, germ-fearing, non-meat-eating, exfoliating, wristband-wearing woman of the worst order. We as men are told that we must embrace the sacred feminine in ourselves, even if it doesn't actually exist, and become the very quintessence of woman, plus penises. This situation is untenable. This trend must stop.
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Clay Travis is the only former student manager in the history of college athletics to marry an NFL cheerleader. He managed to pull this off despite an irrational affinity for the television shows Dawson's Creek and My Super Sweet 16. While being raised in Nashville, Tenn., Travis developed a healthy obsession with college sports and Alyssa Milano. As a teenager his greatest accomplishment was taking a doo-rag wearing Luke Duke (balling as Tom Wopat) to the hole at the Nashville YMCA.
In the midst of a stellar legal career during which he specialized in rewarding the unjust and punishing the oppressed, Travis began writing for CBS Sports's SPiN section in September 2005...
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Loved it--glad you posted. Also, this is an excellent reminder of why we chose to get married in August in Florida--there no weekends that year when both Florida (my side) and Virginia Tech (his side) were off and we did actually want friends and family to attend, much less the other person.
But damn, it was hot. The things we do for football.