E-mails Sent to the
University of Alabama
English Department
Flag-Football Team.
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The University of Alabama English Department Football League (UAEDFL) was founded in 2007 and has since established a weekly event involving cleats, tear-away flags, and a highly elaborate rule book. Before each contest, Brian Oliu, the league's commissioner, sends an e-mail to the English Department Listserv to rally these poet-athletes. From time to time, we'll be sharing these missives with you.
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E - M A I L 9
The Fall of the UAEDCFL.
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To: Alabama English Department Listserv
From: Commissioner Oliu
Subject: The Fall of the UAEDCFL
Sweethearts,
In early 2000, the South Hunterdon Regional High School French Club met in the parking lot of South Hunterdon Regional High School (where else would the South Hunterdon Regional High School French Club meet?), at approximately 6am EST (5am CST) in order to begin what was certain to be a magical bus ride full of Twizzlers (the cheery cherry ones had just been released and, by gosh, the kids were just going gaga over them!) and a viewing of The French Connection, which would be booed off the bus by Ithaca because, let's face it, there's nothing more boring to high schoolers than Academy-Award-Winning films, unless, of course, you count The Great Ziegfeld because everyone knows that kids just LOVE that Luise Rainer! She was so great in Heut' kommt's drauf an! To be fair, the majority of us were mostly interested in the intricacies of sleepwear: there was no Dean Demyon with a ruler measuring the shoulder-straps of fabric making sure that they totaled an inch (2.54 centimeters) of fabric and destroying the amazing bonerific (in French, bonerifique) fantasies crafted by viewing just a little bit more shoulder blade. The clavicles of Melissa Napoleon to this day give me pause.
Where was this delightful charabanc, commanded by our bus-driver, Wolf, who may or may not have been racist and may or may not have been a wolf, hastily speeding towards? Why America's Hat (in Canadian, toque) of course! Land of Maple Syrup and Calixte Lavallée and Canadians and Canadiens and most Nickelodeon original programming (you think that US dancers were good enough to be on Roundhouse? Hoser, please!) and the diversified triangle, glockenspiel, wood block, cowbell, timpani, gong and chime percussion of Rush! Keytar solo! Man, when I saw the lights of the Château Frontenac piercing through the Quebecois sky, I knew, guys, that I had arrived at a place where anything, including Tylenol laced with codeine, was possible.
The trip was, dare I say, magical: elevators to the top of Quebec City's largest buildings, speaking French to strangers "Ou est le bibliothèque? Je m'appelle Brian!", downhill ice skating, freezing hot maple syrup on the snow, visits to a Bee Museum where we learned about sex in mid-air (it's an advance move that should be reserved for bees), all the things that typical Canadians do on a typical Canadian day!
And then, much like the Springhill Mining "Bump" Disaster of 1958, disaster struck. It struck in the form of a margarita ordered at a Pizza Hut. I was there.
The fall out was even greater than when Gary Suter cross-checked Paul Kariya and knocked him out of the Olympics; our French teacher, Madamoiselle Migone, a sweet woman who was kind of a babe, as most language teachers are, rained fire upon the heads of the imbibers like it was the War of 1812 all over again. The girls of the group, so shaken by the events, would no longer let the boys sneak into their rooms and us men were led to entertain ourselves by watching Canadian television and trying to execute Stone Cold Stunners or Rock Bottoms on our hotel beds. Suspensions were to be handed out like poutine in cafeteria lines. Our school play was to be pushed back a week because one of the stars of the show was unable to participate in after-school activities while serving out his suspension. Ski trips were to be canceled.
But not yet.
The rest of the trip played out without incident, but one couldn't help feel a darkness, a coldness, looming over our heads (like Canada!) like the Sword of Damocles. Our bus ride back was less joyous; our jeans cold and dampened by the snow and ice, our shoes salted. O Canada. O, O, Canada.
Which brings me to the purpose of this e-mail. It has come to the attention of the UAEDFL that a rogue league, the UAEDCFL, has been defacing our fair 15th Street/Queen City Ave Park with their wide receivers in motion before the snap and their general kindness and appreciation for the sport and each other. Do they not understand
our power? Do they not comprehend that it is better to be a Temporarily Liberated British Colony than a British Colony? Their arrogance makes me feel ill, like most David Cronenberg films and/or Drake.
And so, with great pride, I announce that the UAEDCFL's emergence has failed miserably and the league has folded. Why one would start such an endeavor after the failure of the CFL USA (go Birmingham Barracudas!) is beyond my comprehension, but I'm sure that Commissioner Pacman Jones had his reasons. As is the humanitarian way
of the UAEDFL, Commissioner Jones and I, over drinks, decided that the UAEDFL would absorb the UAEDCFL, as there seemed to be some inkling of talent in last week's exhibition, especially from rookie Juan Reyes, who could be the next Raghib "Rocket" Ismail (without the faulty investments into calligraphy shops and oxygen absorbing cosmetics procedures), or at the very least, Billy Joe Tolliver.
Please come join us:
DIMANCHE AT 10AM AT QUEEN CITY/15TH STREET PARK
The lesson here? What happens in Canada better fucking stay in Canada or we will shoot you with our guns.
Je ne me souviens pas,
The Commissioner
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