It’s shocking that a 32-year-old man, no matter how drunk he is, would unzip his pants and flash his manhood while cell phones recorded his actions for the world to see, but it is just as shocking that anything is considered obscene on Bourbon Street.
Like Brian Downing, who allegedly taunted a passed-out LSU fan with his private parts, I have been drunk in the French Quarter after a ballgame. Hasn’t everybody? But not everyone has ruined their lives in a place that serves little square hamburgers.
People are laughing at Alabama fans in particular and the South in general. A year after Harvey Updyke allegedly admitted on a radio show that he poisoned the oak trees at Auburn, another Bama booster celebrates the Crimson Tide’s national championship by allegedly committing debauchery in a Krystal on Bourbon Street.
We’re talking a street where the lines of propriety are blurred and a neighborhood where the men are men -- and so are many of the women. We’re talking about a place where women flash parts of their bodies for beads, where you can visit a voodoo priestess and listen to old men play Dixieland.
We’re also talking about college football, a game that makes grown men and genteel women do things they wouldn’t want their Mama to know about, a sport that makes educated people call the hogs and sing “Rocky Top” until they can’t sing no more.
Unfortunately, drinking and college football go together like Jack and Coke, whether you’re on the railroad tracks in Athens, watching the eagle fly in Auburn, wearing a Houndstooth hat in Tuscaloosa or spending Saturday night in Baton Rouge.
Fans like Updyke and Downing have become symbols of all that is bad in a game I love. But their school colors just happen to be Crimson and White. Stupidity is not reserved for a single state.
I’m reminded of that great Cajun general, Russel Honore, who during the cleanup in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, reminded us to not get stuck on stupid.
We’ve done that since Downing turned himself in. Capstonereport.com sums up the atmosphere nicely: “The same type mob that’s ready to see Harvey swing from any tree in Lee County is ready to hang this guy from the nearest moss covered tree in Baton Rouge, and not by his neck.”
Joe Bross, a longtime Columbus tire dealer, is a 1967 Alabama graduate and a former team manager. He thinks this is just one of those things that happens on Bourbon Street.
“It’s stupid. But we’re not by ourselves with having people who do stupid things. The actions of one person should not reflect on the university,” Bross says. “You go to a college football game … You see all of these people who are painted up, jacked up drinking. That’s not the way it should be, but it’s the way it is.”
That it is.
Immature fans, full of booze and bravado, have been hanging out together on Bourbon Street since before Paul Bryant wrestled a bear and long before people made obligatory phone calls to Paul Finebaum to tell their story.
Only this world is different. I’m reminded of the words of country music poet Brad Paisley, who said of alcohol: “You had some of the best times you’ll never remember with me.”
Brian Downing will remember. He will forever be on video doing his unspeakable deed.
Richard Hyatt is an independent correspondent. He is also found at www.richardhyattcolumbus.com.
