Can the Texas Longhorns beat the Baylor Fire Bolt?

I've been blogging the University of Texas football seasons for The Austin Chronicle for about four years now. This Saturday is the last game of this season. Here's my latest blog post (which doesn't mention unsubstantiated rumors that Mack Brown will retire as Texas coach after Saturday's game):

Texas fans nibbled on Thanksgiving turkey and expected the worst. The Aggies could taste this win. They wanted to end the rivalry with forever bragging rights as they shuffled off to the SEC and leave the Longhorns with the beer-soaked, early-morning regret that is the Big 12.

My die-hard UT fanatic brother-in-law feared a blowout. “It’ll be close,” I said. He shook his head with a grin that spoke of my naiveté. You know what happened next.

Aggies complained of a bad call, of the injury that kept Cyrus Gray out of the game. But the truth is the Texas defense finally rose to the level necessary to offset the befuddled Burnt Orange offense. Special teams did, too. We’re talking points off of turnovers. Quandre Diggs’ 81-yard punt return. A defense that battered the Aggies and their seasoned quarterback Ryan Tannehill, capped by a Kenny Vaccaro interception that led to a rare touchdown.

The rag doll named Case McCoy did the rest with a gutsy gallop into the Texas A&M defenders, who smacked him this way and that as he struggled for any yards they’d cede. Enough to get Texas in field-goal position. It worked. Justin Tucker made up for a night of horrendous punts by finessing the ball through the uprights from 40 yards out as time ran out.

In College Station you can find billboards still up in summer heralding the last win over the t-sips. In Austin, we marvel at the strange traditions: the overalled cheerleaders with their odd gang signs, the incessant “howdy,” the constant standing and swaying at Kyle Field. That cute little dog they worship. We’ll miss every bit of it.

Read the rest here.

Zellner brothers want your holiday help

Austin-based indie filmmakers Nathan and David Zellner (Goliath) want your help to complete their film Kid-Thing. The word is shooting is done on the film, but they're trying to raise $10,000 for post-production. Donations get you such goodies as DVDs of their films and a hand-drawn caricature of you by both the brothers. Not good enough? For just a bit more you get the brothers' tap-dancing photo above with a personal inscription. Now that's tempting...

Here's their description of the film:

"Kid-Thing is a fever-dream fable about Annie, a rebellious girl whose existence is devoid of parental guidance. She spends her time roaming the land, shoplifting, vandalizing and making prank phone calls. Her routine is broken one day while playing in the woods; she hears an old woman calling from a mysterious hole in the ground, asking for help. Scared and untrusting of the unseen stranger, Annie deliberates on her course of action."

Longhorns ain't afraid of no ghost

The ghost of Texas Tech circa 2008, that is. It's that very same scary Halloween weekend and this time it's a trip to Stillwater for the Texas Longhorns football team. Read my Austin Chronicle blog here.

Football, poetry and me

A view from the podium.


Larry Thomas reads.

It's been an interesting week. Monday I went to my first Mack Brown press conference as The Austin Chronicle continued in its quest to turn me into a sports writer, specifically on the University of Texas Longhorn football beat. It resulted in two pieces that you can see here.


Friday, poet Joe Hoppe, prose writer Maxine Beach, who is also the new head of the Austin Community College Creative Writing Department, and I got up early to drive to Granbury. After biscuits and gravy at a local diner, we read at Langdon Weekend, an event sponsored by Tarleton State University. In the photo above you can see my view out on the audience with a copy of my novel Evacuation Plan in the foreground.

Later we listened to a reading by Texas' new poet laureate Larry Thomas at a private residence overlooking the local lake.

On the way back we stopped in Dublin for some of that real-sugar Dr Pepper minus the period.