Originally written by Jimthaniel Hawthorne, this movie investigates the torrid tale of seduction and chronicles the tawdry disgusting secret affair between beautiful Hester Sabprynne and crusty Malarthur Dimmesmoore; their forbidden romance produced a bastard child named Tyde Bryant, who would grow up and use his extra digits to great effect. The tale explores the relationship between temptation and money and deceit and lies and narcissism and manipulation and fabrication and schlock. It's pretty gross.     Self-published for a special class! Handed out to Alabama football players everywhere! Genuine cutout inside holds up to 100 bills coupons! Bye, bye week! What a wonderful brief sabbatical...after last contest, where the football gods were kind enough to leave :01 on the clock, it's clear they felt a respite was needed to calm the palpitations. We are so glad that they were pleased with our previous offering; 'twas a Nick Saban book about excellence or personal goals or attainment or some hackneyed crap. It worked because they got suckered. We knew better. Anyway, they were so inspired by this wonderfully spun yarn of "integrity," they knew how to reward us: by taking the pumps from full cool to blowing the needle right off the tachometer! Hello, hell week! The football gods are surely sitting cross-legged, bouncing up and down and clapping as they see the pieces on the game board unfold for this week's skirmish. Hat vs. Panama Jack Hat...Miles vs. Lies...Beer vs. Bear...it's finally here. The statement game. The "I will not be the next coach at Alabama oh will you look at that I must have tripped onto this charter plane" game. The "it's not about me, but keep asking me, so I can keep saying it's not about me" game. The game where Les gets to hoist his boulders high once more in triumph. Let's get right to it. Just like in past years, we take the opportunity to sit down with the Spirit of Bama (hereafter, "S.O.B"), to get his thoughts on his new deity coach and how the program has changed and how awesome Saban is and man everywhere he goes people just report smelling roses or cookies. Too much dallying. Let's light this candle. We got still more Miles to go to Atlanta. TROUGH: Welcome! SOB: Aww yeah! Hell yeah! WOOOO! WOOOOOO! Rowuhl Tahd! TROUGH: Wow, this is the most exciting interview! What happened? Did they snip the webbing from your digits this week? SOB: I AM A MEMBER OF SABANATION! TROUGH: Oh - is that what you went dressed as for Halloween? SOB: No! I went as Bear Bryant! TROUGH: A skeleton? That sucks. SOB: SHUT UP WE HAVE SABAN I'M IN SABANATION. TROUGH: Wow, you do look shorter. And more tanned. Also, you smell like...ham...pork...maybe some pickle? Have you been eating a Cuban sandwich or something? SOB: I DON'T EAT ANYMORE! WOOOO! SPRING GAME! TROUGH: Ah, I know what it is...it's some stale Miami stink. Your Nickotine addiction is really getting pretty bad. SOB: Nothing you can say will bring me down! It's awesome days at the Capstone because we GOT SABAN WE GOT HIM WOOOO! SPRING GAME!! TROUGH: Yeah, that's pretty wild, huh? 60,000 people, huh? SOB: You idiot - it was over 92,000. TROUGH: Oh, sorry. I was using the Bama National Championship Counting Methodology. SOB: Whatever. You're just jealous of OUR NICK! TROUGH: Well, there's surely a lot of love lost there, but he left us for NFL dreams. He wanted to roll around in sweet, sweet Huizengabucks. He wanted to say, "Culpeper." He was in a hurry for that orange and teal dream; heck, he left so fast he forgot to call a prevent defense. SOB: But he left to come back to ALABAMA! TROUGH: Well, I'd say he was "baited." Gold is shiny and catches the eye of many a fish, even dolphins. He'll be "baited" again soon enough, so for now, we'll just say he'll be Tigah Bait. SOB: Houndstooth, man...just, SABAN. He has this whole thing mapped out... TROUGH: Yes, THE PROCESS™. We know it well. Step 1: say how excited you are to be somewhere. Step 2: talk about how wonderful the fans are, how fine the tradition is, and you love the state and playing for the people. Step 3: have your agent floating your name for jobs and flirt, and then say, "I'm not going anywhere." Step 4: Lie, profit and leave. It's a very impressive THE PROCESS©, I have to tell you. Tony Robbins looks at Saban and is like, "DAMN, I WISH THAT DUDE PUT OUT DVDs!" SOB: No, no, no. This is a process for excellence. TROUGH: Yes, it's called "bet-hedging." Can't whip you muties into a fever too fast...you'll get all frothy and start molting early. Heck, if you get really fired up, you'll start mating and sporing, and no recruit wants to be humped when he visits. Slow and steady it is. So when you heard the news, who did you make out with first, Mom or Sister? Or could you still taste sis' crimson sour cherry lipstick on the dog's mouth? SOB: My mom was wearing a "Got Saban?" shirt and... TROUGH: Wait! Let me call it. Your whole family was running around in the yard like a bunch of bumper cars. Sis was drooling so much that Mom slipped in the slick and punctured one of her caudal fins on the wooden Bear Bryant carving you have out in the yard. You had to take her to hospital; thankfully, the ER had corralled some photos of Saban and when a photo was rubbed on the wound, it just healed up right away. I mean, her webbing got all ashy, but she was ok otherwise. Then you cried for a few hours, got out my Masters of the Croyliverse doll, said the Bryant's Creed, and then licked the media guide for about 3 hours. Then Uncle Grandma came and took you to the airport to see if you could see the charter plane. SOB: You don't know anything at all. First, she has a dorsal fin. Second, Uncle Grandma wasn't there at the end - he got tooked away by the cops. TROUGH: Because he tried to flash Saban with his new implants, right? One of them is tattooed with "Bear" because it's all wrinkly and the other says "Bryant" on the top. So when he puts them together... SOB: Yes, looks just like the Bear. I cry every time. TROUGH: We do this thing with pipe cleaner and some Glad Press 'n Seal; we call it the "Gene Stallings." You truly do belong among the elite. SOB: I KNOW. This is our time. When he got out of the charter plane we felt this wonderful wind... TROUGH: Like a strong Brees? SOB: Yeah, and it smelled like oatmeal, and people started weeping and a bunch of people got pregnant, even some dudes, and we weren't anywhere near Bear's grave. And I knew finally that it was our time to ascend to our rightful place atop the SEC (slowly rubbing nipples in circles). TROUGH: Um, yeah...you do know that there really isn't a throne, right? I mean, if you were to convert Saban's salary into Sacagawea dollars, you'd have enough to build yourself a sweet little throne and probably a parking garage, too. The best part is that your halfbreed drool - with its crystalline matrix, high smoking point, and viscosity - would make a perfect adhesive for all of those coins. It's a really great resource - just hang some pictures of the Spring Game over some buckets and invite a bunch of Tide fans over. SOB: You are SO jealous of our Saban (whispering "Spring Game" to no one in particular). TROUGH: Honestly, not really. A lot of people would say that Saban could burn in hell, but he kinda read their minds and moved to Tuscaloosa. As for the burning, I don't know...maybe we could find something that could start a fire? Oooh! Like Ricky Williams! Or, better yet, like a dragon! SOB: A dragon? Isn't that UAB's mascot? TROUGH: ... SOB: Whatever. This is OUR time. You are just jealous because our coach is better!! Miles is just winning with Saban's players. TROUGH: Absolutely. I think it's pretty generous of Les to show Nick how to win more games with them, too. Les is that kind of guy. Things certainly seem like they're on the uptick for you. Finding out about the gill slits, getting to see your dog do that raccoon, watching the raccoon return the favor, patching up that bullet hole in your son's bedroom after he ticked you off during that game, getting by Ole Miss and Houston...it's been a banner year for you. That's really making a statement that you're ready to move forward in THE PROCESS©™. SOB: Every little step counts. TROUGH: Hahaha! I get it! Saban has little feet! SOB: What? TROUGH: It makes it hard for him to run from places as fast as he does. SOB: No way. He would never leave the Capstone. NEVER. He loves us. I just got a tattoo of his face. TROUGH: So what? Every LSU fan has a tattoo of Saban. SOB: Really? TROUGH: Yup. In the back. Down below. On the backside. In the middle. SOB: I get it. TROUGH: Best part? After Auburn beats you too, you can take the toilet paper rolls from your Tide boxes and give them to the Aubies, and they can roll away. Might be your one chance this year to "get clean" before next year's Spring Game. If that doesn't work, just head down to the corner of the endzone of Bryan Dennehy when we score. Then, when people chunk drinks and bottles onto the field, and you can scrub off. SOB: You don't show a lot of respect for the most elite program in the SEC! You could never be a member of Sabanation! TROUGH: Is that like being a member of your alumni association, where you use the Skil-Crane to get the decal? I know it gives you all kinds of discounts and special keepsakes, like a genuine unused copy of the NCAA rulebook and an Albert Means jersey. SOB: This game is all about Saban and he will win. He invented the blitz, you know. TROUGH: I hope this game is about Saban, actually. Then the whipping will be there in full display for the world to see...a swift kick in the boodiggities and a cheap chop block to THE PROCESS™©™ and all of its cheesy platitudes. Then the Capstone can be pulled out, and all will see the swarms of Crimson-clad halftards hanging their houndstooth hats on halcyon days, looking for clues to some faux "rightful place amongst the elite" status. The whole college football world can finally see "Sabanation" in all of its glory - a sad display of creepy reverence to a self-centered, obnoxious, oleaginous charlatan. Here's hoping that he actually stays at Alabama; it'll be fun to wail on him for awhile. I think it's a great fit, actually - he uses a lot of "relatives" in his sentences, and you use a lot of "relatives" for pleasure. Plus, if you have to exercise the buyout clause on his contract, you won't have any money at all for any players or coaches or even referees. Nope, you get what you pay for, and in this case, it's a fickle angry fella who complained about the flames of the media circus he himself stoked. The good news is that his slimy departure from Miami ensures that he won't be courted any time soon, so there won't be any of the flirting. There's always your family reunions for that. SOB: You... TROUGH: I can hear it now...I can hear the sideline reporter: "Coach Miles, how do you think your players were able to not only destroy this Alabama team but also knock Coach Saban out with a well-timed out route? Was it neat to see all of that money flying out when Saban got hit? How would you describe your team's performance?" MILES: "Textbook." Hat on boulders: 31, Scowls & lies: 7 Welcome to The Trough, a place that really gets to the meat of LSU's opponents. Ok, not so much the meat, but the sinewy gristle and thick connective tissue. We then feed these funbits through a grinder to get a coarse meaty bounty, and that's what is on display here. It should be a given that while The Trough is loosely related to LSUChicageaux.com, it's more like a Baton Rouge uncle than a Tuscaloosa cousin. In other words, what's in The Trough is obviously not endorsed by any official LSU entity. They've got better sense than that.