Possum Holler

In an effort to keep up with the latest trends in entertainment, I have decided that Possum Holler should stage an award show...or rather, an award journal. The first annual Possum Holler Possum Awards or "Posse" will be presented Monday, January 26th. What kind of awards does Possum hand out? Well, the Posses will span all sorts of my personal interests. And the nominees are:

Best Movie:
Big Fish, Cold Mountain, Lost in Translation, Pirates of the Carribean, School of Rock

Best Album:
Rock n Roll (Ryan Adams), Wave On Wave (Pat Green), Terra Firma (Acoustic Syndicate), The Jealous Kind (Chris Knight), Under the Table and Above the Sun (Reckless Kelly)

Best Roommate:
Josh Baker, the cardboard deer, Will Hart, Marc Jones, Jimmy Satterwhite

Best Live Album:
Live at Billy Bob's (Jack Ingram), SHOW (Allison Moorer), Full Exposure (Cory Morrow), LIVE (Charlie Robison), Blue Light Live (Wade Bowen & West 84)

Best Job:
Janitor, Railroad Crew Chief, Roadie, Unemployed, Umpire

Best Game:
UNC over Duke (NCAA b-ball), Cubs over Braves (MLB Divisional Series), Good Ol' Boys over Drinking Problems (Intramural Softball), Chris Moneymaker over Sam Farha (World Series of Poker), Kansas St. over Oklahoma (NCAA football)

Best Song:
Wave on Wave (Pat Green), Constantly (Cross Canadian Ragweed), Songs About Rain (Gary Allan), Hurt (Johnny Cash), A Little Bit (Jack Ingram)

Most Entertaining Television:
Arrested Development, The Second Joe Millionaire, The Simple Life, Newlyweds, Kids in the Hall re-runs

Best Birthday Celebration:
Elvis Presley (Jan 8), Lori Woods (Aug 28), John Nagy (Sept ?), Possum (Oct 2), Sarah Wilda (Oct 11)

Best Living Arrangement While Homeless:
Jeremy Ingle's, Marc Jones', NMR (King, John and Derek), Evan Travis', Mendenhall (my sister's dorm at UNCG)

and finally...


MAN oF The YeaR:
All men who are not communists are considered nominees.


Feel free to cast your votes on the tag board...however, your votes will not be taken into consideration.

As a tribute to what would have been Elvis' 69th birthday, I would like to offer a poem written by U2's Bono entitled, An American David.


Elvis son of Tupelo
Elvis mama's boy
Elvis the twin brother of Jesse who died at birth and was buried in a shoe box
Elvis drove a truck
Elvis was recorded at Sun Studios by the musical diviner Sam Phillips
Elvis was managed by Colonel Tom Parker, an ex-carnie barker whose last act was a singing canary
Elvis was the most famous singer in the world since King David
Elvis lived on his own street
Elvis liked to play speedcop
Elvis had a monkey named bubbles before anyone
Elvis wore a cape at the White House when he was presenting Nixon with two silver pistols
Elvis was a member of the Drug Squad
Elvis wore eye make up, just hangin' out
Elvis wore a gold nudie suit and trained his lip to curl
Elvis was macho, but could sing like a girl
Elvis was not a big talker
Elvis was articulate in every other way
Elvis dyed his hair black to look like Valentino
Elvis held a microphone the way Valentino held Nita Naldi in blood and sand
Elvis dressed black long before he dressed in black
Elvis sang black except in lower registers where he was a student of Dean Martin
Elvis admired Mario Lanza
Elvis delivered the world from crooning
Elvis was a great crooner
Elvis had a voice that could explain the sexuality of america
Elvis was influenced by Jim Morrison in his choice of black leather for the '68 comeback special
Elvis invented the Beatles
Elvis achieved world domination from a small town
Elvis was conscious of myth
Elvis had pharoah-like potential
Elvis was made by america, so america could remake itself
Elvis had good manners
Elvis was a bass, a baritone, and a tenor
Elvis sang his heart out at the end
Elvis the opera
Elvis the soap opera
Elvis loved America, God, the Bible, firearms, the movies, the office of presidency, junk food, drugs, cars, family, television, jewellery, straight talkin', dirty talkin' game shows, uniforms, and self-help books
Elvis, like America, wanted to improve himself
Elvis, like America, started out loving but later turned on himself
Elvis, body could not stop moving
Elvis is alive, we're dead
Elvis, the charismatic
Elvis, the ecstatic
Elvis, the plastic
Elvis, the elastic with a spastic dance that might explain the energy of America
Elvis, fusion and confusion
Elvis, earth rod in a southern dorm
Elvis shaking up an electrical storm
Elvis in Hollywood, his voice gone to ground
Elvis in Las Vegas with a big brassy sound
Elvis the first rock'n'roll star with scotty moore, bill black, and d.j. fontana
Elvis with James Burton and Ronny Tutt
Elvis the movie star made three good films: Viva Las Vegas, Flaming Star, and Jailhouse Rock
Elvis the hillbilly brought rhythm to the white race, blues to pop, and rock'n'roll to whereever rock'n'roll is
Elvis the pelvis, swung from Africa to Europe, which is the idea of America
Elvis liberation
Elvis the kung fu would come later
Elvis hibernation
Elvis built a theme park he later called Graceland
Elvis woke up to whispers
Elvis thought of himself as a backslider
Elvis knew guilt like a twin brother
Elvis called God every morning then left the phone off the hook
Elvis turned Las Vegas into a church when he sang "Love Me Tender"
Elvis turned America into a church when he sang "The Trilogy"
Elvis was harangued by choice; flesh vs. spirit, God vs. rock'n'roll, mother vs. lover, father vs. the Colonel
Elvis grew sideburns as a protest against Tom Jones' hairy chest
Elvis would have a president named after him
Elvis was one of the boys
Elvis was not one of the boys
Elvis had an acute intelligence disguised as talent
Elvis broke Priscilla's heart
Elvis broke Lisa Marie's heart
Elvis woke up my heart
Elvis, white trash
Elvis, the Memphis Flash
Elvis didn't smoke hash and woulda been a sissy without Johnny Cash
Elvis didn't dodge the draft
Elvis had his own aircraft
Elvis having a laugh on the Lisa Marie in a colour photograph
Elvis under the hood
Elvis, cadillac blood
Elvis, darling bud flowered and returned to the mississippi mud
Elvis ain't gonna rot
Elvis in a memphis plot
Elvis didn't hear the shot but the king died just across the lot from
Elvis, vanilla ice cream
Elvis, girls of 14
Elvis, Memphis spleen shooting at the TV, reading Corinthians 13
Elvis with God on his knees
Elvis on three TVs
Elvis here come the killer bees head full of honey, potato chips, and cheese
Elvis, the bumper stickers
Elvis, the white knickers
Elvis, the white nigger ate at Burger King and just kept getting bigger
Elvis sang to win
Elvis, the battle to be slim
Elvis ate America before America ate him
Elvis stamps
Elvis necromance
Elvis fans
Elvis psychophants
Elvis the public enemy
Elvis don't mean shit to chuck d
Elvis changed the centre of gravity
Elvis made it slippy
Elvis Hitler
Elvis Nixon
Elvis Christ
Elvis Mishima
Elvis Marcus
Elvis Jackson
Elvis the pelvis
Elvis the psalmist
Elvis the genius
Elvis the generous
Elvis forgive us
Elvis pray for us
Elvis Aaron Presley (1935-1977)

I pulled out my copy of the Official Rules of Major League Baseball today to make sure I had this right:

Rule 21(d)

BETTING ON BALL GAMES. Any player, umpire, or club official or employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has no duty to perform shall be declared ineligible for one year.

Any player, umpire, or club or league official or employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has a duty to perform shall be declared PERMANENTLY INELIGIBLE (emphasis added by me).



Major League Baseball's version of that crazy uncle who is loved by all the kids but despised by everyone else wise enough to see the patheticism of his antics has made his annual, unexpected (because you never know when in the year it will be), unwelcome visit back into the national spotlight. The latest media blitz is spawned by the shocking announcement that he will be releasing a book containing his confession that he did, in fact, gamble on baseball games in which the team he was managing was involved. Rose has been permanently banned from the game of baseball ever since the accusations came out some 15 years ago. Led by a crowd of Rose supporters, baseball bobbleheads have been calling for Rose to confess if he ever wanted to be allowed back into the game and admitted into the Hall of Fame. I argued in a journal entry in the old POJ almost a year ago that this was a ridiculous idea since a confession would make him that much more guilty. Leave it to Pete Rose to hammer this point home and force all those MLB columnists to eat their words. Rose stands to make a pretty penny off the sale of his new book, not to mention the Primetime interview with Charlie Gibson. Early indications point towards the ever-indignant Rose showing no signs of remorse and obviously going through the motions of whatever is needed to convince Comrade Selig to reinstate him. To me, this is just another excuse for Charlie Hustle (this monicker takes on a completely new meaning these days) to see himself in the headlines again.

Sports journalist are already beginning to share the same skepticism, and I pray that ol' Buddy Brewer shows better judgement than he has in the past and realizes that Rose has not changed, will never change, and is best cast into baseball hades along with Joe Jackson, Eddie Cicote, and any number of other members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox.