… this IS the absolute oddest column I have ever written… out of over 1,000 by the way… I started seven years ago with three column ideas and like that little boy in King Jimmy’s Good Book whose bread and fishes fed the multitudes, I just keep pulling a few more flounders and biscuits out of somewhere and you guys hang around to see what’s next…. Beats me! It was time for a few changes and we’ve made them. Today we explain’em. And in Part Two below I share a few thoughts that even Mizzus said goes into Ol’ Bob’s Hall of Fame on the first ballot. She’s NEVER said THAT before about anything I’ve written … even Treehouses just got an it’s pretty good.
Just BobLee with an upper case “L“
… … Whoa, step back off that ledge. I didn’t say BobLee had changed, just his name has. I’m still the same cantankerous irreverent roguish sumbitch I’ve always been, maybe even more so … but its just BobLee. with an upper case “L“. I’ll still be writing goofy satire that some of you will take too literally … and serious heavy stuff that some of you will take too frivolously.
SwaggerSays.com is now BobLeeSays.com. Look up in the upper left hand corner. See it’s changed. If it hasn’t changed … Hit Refresh. There, now you see it.
BobLee Swagger is now just BobLee. One word, upper-case L. Just BobLee.
Before I explain the whys of all this … go up and bookmark the revised URL. If you don’t, its OK. The world’s greatest webmasters at Point&Shop have arranged for all swaggersay.com click-ons to be redirected to BobLeeSays.com for the next six months.
Prince Albert, just call me and I’ll walk you thru it.
Change me in your Contact lists. Its now [email protected] or [email protected]. But I’ll still get your e-mails at the old swaggersays.com address for many months. My pals at Webmail.us have taken care of that.
HOW COME? Two primary reasons
- I’ve given over 120 public appearances at civic clubs, country clubs, corporate shindigs, and trade association whingdings. I always give my introducer a short written introduction to simply read. Just READ IT … no need to adlib … just READ IT. Sounds simple, huh? Of those 120+, I finally hit #50 where the introducer felt compelled to say Reverend Bobby Lee SWAGGERT. ?!?!? It’s a freakin’ curse. I said at about the 30th time that if it ever reaches 50 I’m giving up. It did and I am. Just BobLee … one word with a upper case “L”.
- This coming March a movie will hit your neighborhood cinema called The Shooter. It stars Mark Wahlberg as Bob Lee Swagger a reclusive Rambo-esque character created by author Stephen Hunter. Stephen is my 2nd cousin on the Mizzus’ side. He’s written 6-8 action-adventure stories about the fictional former Marine sniper and his Daddy, Earl Swagger. I’ve read’em all. They are rip-roaring page turners … just like most of just BobLee’s commentaries. My commentaries are a tad more violent and my body count is higher than Hunter’s but his yarns are mighty fine. I recommend’em HIGHLY. I’ve known the movie was due out for about a year.
With the timing of the movie’s debut and the 50th Rev Swaggert The Almighty was tr
ying to tell me something. Yo boy, time to drop The Swagger. The ethereal vision of a giant cauldron of Brunswick stew being stirred by two Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders and Jennifer The Meat Girl kinda added to the whole spectacle. I got His Message … drop the Swagger.
It’ll take the nation’s Waffle House waitresses AT LEAST a year to get the news so I’ll still answer to Yo Swagger or Swaggs or Hey Good Lookin but from this moment forward it’s just BobLee, one word with an upper case “L”.
Go on … bookmark it … highlight that “http:// …… thing” up at the top and click on that Bookmark icon. Got it? OK, now lets get back to kickin’ bad guy butt.
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WE ARE ……..
A disaster strikes a university … the institution and the community are stunned … it’s horrible … WHY … WHY … an entire nation looks on thinking suppose that happened to our school? … strident voices within the university call for radical action … most voices are silent … the top administrator is overwhelmed by the enormity of the circumstance … angry voices emerge to dominate the discourse … those angry voices are about to get their way. And then …
… a single student asks to be heard. A single student who will not be denied … A single student and he recruits another and another and another and he stands before the angry, defeatist administration and he says it’s not just me … it’s all of them and he points out the window to the campus and TO THE STUDENTS … At the core of every university, isn’t it THE STUDENTS … and those Students Shout WE ARE MARSHALL… The tide turns. The university and the community unite and begin together down the long healing road.
Just a movie. Just a movie about a tragic event and its lasting effect on an institution and on a community.
Where is that student at the core of Duke? Where is that mainstream core among the students, the faculty, the staff, the administration …?
Did you know there are 1,595 tenured or tenured rank faculty at Duke? There are over 25,000 total employees at Duke University (including DMC). Did you think there were only 88 (now 87) faculty members at Duke. 87 constipated radical academic hooligans given an AMPLIFIED VOICE by a sympathe
tic cooperating media. 87 out of 1,595 … 87 out of 25,000 … that is 5% of the total faculty … that is 0.03% of total Duke employees. Did you know that? Has the local media put it in THAT perspective?
87 dysfunctional wacked-out radical misfits seized the vacuum of a crisis to advance their own radical socio-political ideology. 87 dysfunctional misfit trees fall in the deep woods (representing only 5% of all the trees in the Duke faculty forest) and nobody hears them UNLESS a sympathetic local media gives them an AMPLIFIED VOICE.
Unless a sympathetic cooperating media shares their knee-jerk perception of how it MUST have happened … how it must have happened in order to fit THEIR AGENDA. Our society has been soooo corrupted by the evil capitalists and the evil white heterosexual male dominated order. Yes, it MUST have happened that way …. Because we are 87 dysfunctional wacked-out radical misfits and WE WANT TO BE IN CHARGE and WE WANT TO REMAKE THIS WORLD TO OUR RADICAL AGENDA … Because … Because no one from the mainstream will step up, fill the vacuum, and Say NO! … WE ARE DUKE!
With their 5% little insignificant voice AMPLIFIED by a sympathetic cooperating media, they intimidate the administration … they intimidate their fellow faculty and staff … just NOBODIES made into SOMEBODIES by a sympathetic cooperative media.
Is this what Duke University truly has become? A once proud academic institution now quite effectively held hostage. Its world-wide image now crafted by 87 dysfunctional wacked-out radical misfits AMPLIFIED by a cooperative sympathetic local media.
Where are the voices of the Mainstream of Duke? The other 1,508 Duke Faculty? Where are THEIR signatures on letter/ads. The local media loves letter/ads. Give them 200, 500, 1,000, 1,508 signatures on a letter/ad saying WE ARE DUKE … NOT those 87 dysfunctional wacked-out radicals misfits.
Who is Duke? …. Is it Coach K & his basketball team? …. Is it a bunch of Yankees from New Jersey with Daddy’s credit card? …. Is it some of the best and the brightest young people from all over the country and the world? …. Is it a world-class medical complex and a world class Law and Business School?…. Is it the Chapel and distinctive Gothic architecture? …. Is it a proud global alumni representing some of the highest achievers on Wall Street, Medicine, Law, Politics, Business? ……… Or is it 87 dysfunctional wacked-out radical academic hooligans given an AMPLIFIED VOICE by a sympathetic cooperative local media?
WE ARE DUKE ….. Who is “WE”.
Hey, I’m a Tar Heel. How would I know?
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? Long before he was The Shooter,
How did Mark Wahlberg first achieve celebrity status ?
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Chub Sewell’s idea for fencing in Chapel Hill as NC’s Zoo lost out to Asheboro.
Chuck Amato rejoins Bobby Bowden in Tallahassee. No big surprise. He got his shot … it didn’t work out quite well enough. Everybody moves on … except the Shineolas, of course, who usually lag an average of 3-5 years behind reality.
NASCAR’s Benny Parsons died this week. Last time I was with Benny we were sharing an elevator to the press box at Bristol back in 2001. Benny was NASCAR’s “old school” … never outgrew his raisin’ … a good man … RIP Benny.
My personal Super Bowl choices are New Orleans vs Indianapolis unless that means Nawlins Mayor Chocolate Ray Nagin gets lots of undeserved camera time. He is a crook. I want Peyton to get a ring to shut up some Peyton-hatin’ Shineolas.
I’d appreciate it if you would copy that piece about WE ARE DUKE and send to every Duke-related person you know … every employee … every current and former faculty … every former Duke athlete … every Duke alum and every Duke fan … WE ARE DUKE – but Who is “we”. ….. if a mess like this happened in Chapel Hill or Raleigh or Austin or Lawrence or Hoo-ville or Hokie-Town or Klempsum (and it could), a similar gaggle of dysfunctional wacked-out radical misfits would quickly emerge to fill the void UNLESS a higher quality of mainstream folks cared enough to Say No! Would you care enough if it was your school under siege? … I’ve never asked you guys to RALLY before. RALLY for Duke … because it’s way more than Duke … It’s The American Mainstream thats under seige by dysfunctional wacked-out radical academic hooligans. RALLY!
