How Low Can This Blog Go?

Ah, there's nothin' like ethnic humor. Pretend-Texan John Kelso is the Austin fishwrap's humor columnist (For a white, after a series of columns about his cancer treatment, he was the tumor columnist. Mrs. Kelso wrote this blog to complain about the defamation of her hubby, but if the Foo sh*ts, you gotta wear it.) and Kelso defends Baja Oklahoma with all he's got on the eve of the Texas-Oklahoma football game in Dallas. This blogger doesn't have a dog in this fight and — truth be known — neither does Maine-born Kelso. Having said that, Kelso gets off some funnies at the expense of those folks up North. (That's gridiron talk. The long-time coach at Ohio State, Woody Hayes, always referred to hated rival Michigan as "that school up North.")

Q : How does every ethnic joke start?
A : With a look over your shoulder.

If this is (fair & balanced) stereotyping, so be it.

[x Austin Fishwrap]
Me, Be Nice To Oklahoma? That's Baloney
By John Kelso

Tag Cloud of the following article

advice avery balls baloney barbecue become bologna bowling buy code decided display doctor em entire far fence fine football furniture game half happening job live longer mention months nobody nowata oklahoma orange pool porch pound really relatives roof roster seems sell shed sit stadium stuff suburbs tells texans texas year

created at TagCrowd.com

It's become a tradition for me to insult Oklahoma every year on the day before the big game with Texas. And for OU fans to respond by telling me how sophomoric I am and to ask whether they really pay me for writing this stuff.

I'm tired of this twisted relationship. I'm embarrassed by the time-worn, disparaging jokes I've told about Oklahoma. Like the one about the man who has six months to live and goes in to ask his doctor for advice.

"Buy you a Dodge truck, marry a 300-pound woman and move to Oklahoma," the doctor tells him. "Will it make me live longer?" the patient asks.

"No, but it'll sure seem like it,'' the doctor says.

Seems like good medical advice. But you won't catch me using that sort of material this year as we prepare to gather Saturday to see if our Texans can beat Oklahoma's Texans in football. Half the stadium will be orange, half the stadium will be red, and half the Oklahoma roster will be from the Dallas suburbs. So this year, having aged like fine wine and become a more mature, humanistic person, I've decided to take a more benevolent approach and point out the finer things about Oklahoma.

Oklahoma has its own distinct cuisine, such as barbecued bologna. In Texas, we just elect baloney. But really, some barbecue places in Oklahoma really do barbecue and sell bologna.

"Any way you want it: pound, sandwich, half pound," said Avery Smith, who smokes the bologna at Leo's Barbecue in Oklahoma City.

He uses hickory. I'd use the disposal.

"Yeah, it sells pretty good," said Rae Charlton, the cashier.

I think I'd gnaw on the furniture before I'd order the barbecued bologna.

Another good thing about Oklahoma is that our border with Oklahoma, unlike the one with Mexico, is relatively safe. So we don't have to worry about Okies coming over here and stealing our jobs. And this isn't entirely because there's nobody smart enough in Oklahoma to hold down a roofing position.

How am I doing so far? Am I up for that Texas Ambassador to Norman job yet?

I should mention that Oklahoma is the site of many fascinating tourist attractions, such as the bowling ball fence and shed in Nowata, Okla. The entire display contains nearly 1,400 bowling balls, and the fence has 108 bowling balls.

"Made a little bowling ball shed," said Chris Barbee, 67, who put up the display in his front yard. "It's got 344 bowling balls, and 140 pins up on the roof. Then we have a pool table with bowling balls painted like pool balls." Admission is free.

Other pluses: The Oklahoma dress code isn't overly stuffy. In Oklahoma, elegant casual is a sleeveless T-shirt with fewer than three barbecue sauce stains on it.

Here's a biggie: Oklahomans are extremely loyal to their Sooner football team. Heck, they'll pack the Cotton Bowl way before the game even starts and just sit there in the stands, like something's happening. This is because the furniture in the stadium is much fancier than the stuff they've got on the porch back home.

Did I mention what an advantage it is during the holidays if all of your relatives are from Oklahoma? If they are, it means you can do most of your Christmas shopping at one location: the Travel Center of America.

Hook 'em. Ω

[Downeaster (Maine-native) John Kelso has worked for the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman as a humor columnist since 1977. Before coming to Austin, Kelso worked at several newspapers: The Manchester (NH) Union-Leader; The Boonville (MO) Daily News; The Palm Beach (FL) Post, and the Racine (WI.) Journal Times. Kelso has been a general assignment reporter, a copy editor, a sports editor, and an outdoor writer. As a pretend-redneck, Kelso is all gimme cap and no double-wide. His redneck-shtik appears thrice weekly: Sundays, Tuesdays, and Fridays in the Austin Fishwrap.]

Copyright © 2010 Austin American-Statesman

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Sapper's (Fair & Balanced) Rants & Raves by Neil Sapper is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at sapper.blogspot.com. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available here.

Copyright © 2010 Sapper's (Fair & Balanced) Rants & Raves