SUBSTRATED

I had to rethink the Texas-OU rivalry as I sat on the sidewalk outside of a strip mall in Norman. Being in Oklahoma is bad enough, but if I had known I would be in the world’s saddest college town, the center of the Sooner nation, I would have worn some orange. It turned out well enough – the friend who picked me up still had her Texas plates, a sticker for the Austin Film Society on her bumper, and a big, orange steerhead on her back windshield. Good enough.

 But as we drove through the campus, one hand flipping an indignant bird, the other a righteously upraised “Hook ‘Em”, something began to sink in. OU really does suck. Not in a hilarious, competitive sort of way. No. It sucks in a flat, cultureless void sort of a way. Sure, OU is a big, successful school, but what’s the point if you have to live in a place that has less life in it than your Podunk hometown, and campus is a series of five-story brick squares? I was getting unnerved by the College Station-esque lameness of our “major” rivals. I needed a drink.

 That’s when it got worse. Or better, depending on how you look at it. The best thing to drink in Norman? Shiner Bock. It’s everywhere. But after my initial euphoria at finding Okies celebrating our beer (the finest in the world), that feeling of sadness hit again. The place is dead. No Sixth street, no Congress, no nothing. Not even their own beer. That’s quite a feat when you consider that drinking is Oklahoma’s principal (nay, it’s only) pastime. What is this? Don’t they have something with character? Don’t they have an iconic tower, or something? Don’t they have anything besides a football stadium? This place is our rival? I was getting nervous.

 We decided to go out with some new Sooner friends of our to see the, um, sights. The choices were less than overwhelming. There’s a chain buffalo wing place or a bar by the stadium. That’s pretty much it. No clubs. No live music. I’m not even sure they have a Chili’s. Maybe that’s a good thing. We settled on going to an Indian casino, which because of Byzantine federal-tribal arrangements are of ambiguous legal nature, leading me to assume it’s technically part of the tribal reservation and that, in the end, the only interesting thing in Oklahoma isn’t legally in Oklahoma. Or so I thought. The casino was a dark, smoky, grim picture of a society where the people throw their income around like its meaningless and there’s nothing to do past 8pm, when everything closes. It was like an aborted Aldous Huxley novel about a society run by Native Americans who keep people locked in bleak casinos, living out their lives in front to slot machines, fed through a tube.

But I digress. At any rate, Norman was a shock to the system. Picture nothing, and you’ve pretty much got it. From that frightening glimpse into a world without the Drag or Barton Spring or Mt. Bonnell, I came to a conclusion. It’s time for us to move on. To hell with the Big Twelve. We need rivals that are truly worthy, truly formidable. Bring on the Ohio States, bring on the USC and the Michigans. Bring on something that can motivate us.

Because picking on those poor Sooners is almost as sad as picking on Aggies.