Back before the Iron Bowl, a writer for Deadspin asked to interview me for a story he was writing on how it is that dudes that write for Deadspin know who Paul Finebaum is: will his shtick work nationally, should it work nationally, does he have the talent to make it work nationally, is Harvey Updyke the best thing to ever happen to him?

Days went by. Weeks. Months. I thought they had scrapped the thing, and my paranoia over being misquoted and taken out of context and being made to look a general fool who despite being editor of the greatest of all possible Auburn websites actually doesn’t know all that much about football, etc. kind of had me wishing that they had  (I could still truthfully tell people I’d been interviewed by Deadspin). This was Deadspin for crying out loud; they can smell that kind of fear and make animated GIFs out of it.

They finally ran it yesterday.

“I’m surprised how well Finebaum seems to have translated nationally,” says Jeremy Henderson, editor of the War Eagle Reader, “because the stuff he’s talking about is mostly Auburn and Alabama fans screaming at each other.”

… and (punching bag… sure, why not):

Finebaum got his start in radio appearing on morning shows in Birmingham in the mid-1980s, when he was a columnist for the Post-Herald. As the Auburn blog editor Henderson remembers it, the morning show hosts brought the writer in as a punching bag

… and lastly:

“He isn’t just giving voice to the Auburn-Alabama rivalry,” Henderson said. “He now has the power to actually affect it, to permanently change the narrative. The main story line of this year’s Iron Bowl—I’ve already nicknamed it Toomer’s Karma—was essentially written by his producers. His producers put Updyke on the air. His producers took the concerned call from the Auburn horticulture professor who heard Updyke on the air. His producers pulled the audio for police. After Updyke’s arrest, his producers put him back on the air. And back on the air. And back on the air.”

Though surely some syntax was lost in translation in that first quote, I generally come away sounding not like a jackass / dick (say what you will, but Paul was tres nice when I interviewed him), which was the goal. Thus achieved, the experience can officially be remembered as one of the tiny personal victories that dot the recent calendars of my career–perfectly-timed air bubbles in the Aquatic Ruin Zone of this Sonic The Hedgehog 2 we call our early 30s.

Thanks to Jack Dickey, the writer. He wrote late last night to thank me again. And to offer his condolences for Bama’s win. Deadspin and TWER, BFFs.

We think it’s brilliant—probably lone reeds along those lines when it comes to most people we know, standing tall, waving boldly in the cuh-rap sands of cinema. But damn, it’s smart. And damn, it captures a certain American time. And damn it’s acted well.

"Hi, I'm Kimberly."

We paused it to check on Sadie and when we came back to the screen saw what we had done to Meg Ryan during the Cafe, rose-in-a-book scene. And of course we paused to take a picture.

Thanks a lot, Sports Illustrated.

ESPN’s producer Martin Khodabakhshian (real name) sent me an urgent email the night of the Arkansas game, which I needed no excuse to step away from: he wanted some of TWER’s popular, old Punt Bama Punt photos for their upcoming documentary on the Iron Bowl (which we were the first to break news of, by the way, back in August). Credit promised, sure thing.

I spent an hour or so uploading the photos, copying them to his bosses, etc.

I didn’t know if ESPN was actually going to use them or not, but ah, yes, they helped tell the bogus story (here’s the real-er story) of how and why Toomer’s began to be rolled.

Still, it was nice to see the site front and center like that, not as a microscopic afterthought.

By the way, here’s some stuff (stuff one, stuff two) I posted on TWER about Auburn’s kinda-sorta role in Osama’s death.

My editor at Auburn Magazine pointed me to some praise for the Bo Jackson story I wrote for them (also posted at TWER) from UMagazinology, a blog of — true story — “news and observations from university magazines” :

Auburn Magazine has done a lot of things right lately, and I’d list the latest cover and cover story among them. The story is by Jeremy Henderson, an Auburn alum and fervent admirer of Bo Jackson, the Heisman Trophy–winning running back from Auburn who went on to stardom in both professional football and baseball. Assigned by Auburn Magazine to interview Jackson on the 25th anniversary of his Heisman, Henderson must confront the fact that Jackson prefers not to be interviewed by anyone, and consistently eludes Henderson’s attempts to pigeonhole him. The writer, who at age 5 had actually met Jackson at a charity event, does the smart thing with the story and mimics Gay Talese stalking Frank Sinatra. The resultant piece is clever, but cleverer, I think, is the cover, a simple typographical play on the Nike ad campaign that could not be avoided 20 years ago—“Bo Knows.” Betsy Robertson edits the magazine.

Clever, yes. But cleverer? Impossible. (I was kind of hoping they’d go with the Polaroid of me sitting in his lap.)

There was this dude, let’s call him Wonderbar, which is what he called himself, on YouTube. He had posted every episode of every Disney Afternoon cartoon. It was an amazing library. The man was a saint. Sadie was hooked. There aren’t cartoons like that on television anymore.

And now they’re not on YouTube anymore. User account suspended. Rescue Ranger episode frozen in midstream. Sadie and I are both genuinely depressed about it.

It’d be one thing if he was hurting sales of “Disney Afternoon” DVDs, or licensing revenue from reruns. But there aren’t DVDs. There aren’t reruns. And Disney still went straight up Flintheart Glomgold on him, on all of us.

Singing the theme songs to DuckTales, Rescue Rangers, Darkwing Duck, and Tail Spin (never got around to Goof Troop) with Sadie was one of my favorite things to do in life. Reenacting the last episodes was one of my favorite things to do in life (my Fat Cat, Mole, Meps, Launch Pad, Balloo, Uncle Scrooge and Monterrey Jack impressions are killer). Gadget is one of Sadie’s role models. Or at least she was.

Blatherinblatherskeit, Wonderbar, I’ll never forget you.

@ToomersOaks tweeted. The Auburn beat writers interviewed the Bama fan with the “Screw Updyke” sign. CNN kept after the 60-somethin’ Auburn woman dressed up for a War Eagle mardi gras. Auburn fans shouted the Auburn fight song at the young, disturbed street preacher, who instantly responded with the worst version of “All Hail The Power of Jesus’ Name” ever sung on Toomer’s Corner, or elsewhere.  God scratched his head. I left The Hug, and headed for the library and the microfiche.

I found an interesting story on Jay Jacobs in The Birmingham News from 1982, and some interesting descriptions of the scene at Legion Field after the ’82 Iron Bowl from The Plainsman: “Guys were hugging guys, girls were hugging girls, and guys were hugging other guy’s girlfriends.” And apparently if you looked hard enough you could find “23-22″ Elvis dolls for sale.

On the way home, I read an email from a reporter at the Opelika-Auburn News who wanted to interview me about the supposed Bear Bryant Death Rolling. I am, apparently, an expert. And I have to say… I don’t want to lose this feeling.

I may have, you know, gotten the month wrong (I meant February 6th, not January), but I’d like to think I captured the nonsensical spirit of the most significant pop culture moment of the previous decade… not that it mattered to Katie’s mom: “Oh, you shouldn’t have done that, Jeremy Dale.” Think it might be the only time I’ve disappointed Ma Alice. It wasn’t a good feeling. But I still can’t help but think it was worth it.

I interviewed B-Real from Cypress Hill on Wednesday (Jon Horton’s evil t-shirts notwithstanding). He was in his studio in Los Angeles.

Here’s how the conversation started:

Me: “So what’s that?”

B-Real: “What?”

Me: “That music in the background – working on some new material? Another ‘Insane in the Brain,’ perhaps.”

B-Real: “….Man, that’s the ice cream truck.”