Hog Maws and Loathing in North Carolina

College Basketball Times sent me on location to go up to the Sportsbook at the casino in Murphy, North Carolina and cover the first two days of March Madness.  This plum assignment initially appeared like it might be just what I was looking for to lift the pall of doom that comes over me at the end of my four-month long obsession with college hoops.  My boss Dave had originally mentioned sending me to San Antonio to do live coverage of the Final Four, but somehow, the assignment kept shrinking in significance each time I asked.  The ever-dwindling shoestring budget of websites being what it is in post-literate America, it was starting to seem like the only on location reporting I would be doing was from be from the sleeping bag in the trunk of my wood panelled 1984 Chevy Caprice station wagon from out in front of the Ford Arena in Evansville, Indiana for the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament.  

In the middle of last week, our finance guy Mulvahill managed to sweet talk me into two nights staying in the lovely Valley River Casino’s brand new tower.  It was not open to the public yet, but the management needed someone to “try one of the rooms out”, in spite of the minor inconvenience of having wires hanging down from the ceiling, temperatures that regularly alternated between 90 and 14 for no reason in particular and the lingering sensation of asbestos in the air.  What did it matter? I was on assignment and living the dream!

Thursday and Friday in a sportsbook amongst a throng of the North Carolina mountain people skipping work and getting souced at 1 in the afternoon watching two days of endless college basketball.  My mission was to fully experience the vibe of the place and report back to the eager hordes of college basketball fanatics who regularly pester our editorial staff with nonstop emails to the effect of “Midmajers Suck!!” 

Personally, I’m not a drinker or interested in the use of narcotics, so the whole party vibe of the experience was going to be slightly wasted on me.  I do have one weakness though and I decided this was the perfect time to re-engage with it.

Anyone who has spent significant time deep in the American South understands what signs that say “Hog Maws” actually mean.  Most reputable hog maws shops carry the standard hog related meat items, but there are a few very special places in the mountains of North Georgia and Western Carolina where you might be lucky enough to get summoned by the owner of one of these shops to the back in order to check out some of the more “rare” hog offerings. 

One of the best kept secrets in this great land of ours is the power and psychedelic potency of hog thyroid glands.  About every six months or so, I stop by my personal favorite Hog Maw shop (the owner declined to be mentioned in this story) and grab an eighth of hog thyroids.  Oddly, in spite of the growing popularity of “hogbasing”, as the locals call it, hog thyroids are not illegal in any of the 50 states at the time of writing this. 

If you have ever snorted properly treated hog thyroid powder, you have felt the magical, euphoric delusions that dance through your mind hours after the stuff really starts to kick in.  I had procured enough to make the two-day experience a complete blur of incomprehensible sights and sounds more akin to a Pink Floyd laser light show, than a festival of post-adolescent basketball prowess.

Twenty minutes after doing my first rail of the stuff, I was starting to worry that I had gotten a hold of a lousy batch.  Everything felt dull.  Then, as if shot through a time portal, I was standing in the middle of the Lowe’s down the street from the casino.  I’m not sure how I had gotten there, but I was entirely convinced I was on the set of a reality television version of Wes Craven’s “The Hills Have Eyes”.  

Random ghoulish creatures roamed around the tile section arguing in some sort of incoherent dialect.  One of them walked over with its fangs splayed out of its face and seemed to be shouting at me.  I ran screaming into the plumbing aisle.  I grabbed some PVC pipe and was trying to fight off a nine armed creature who had an employee ID tag on its chest with random Sanskrit lettering on it.  It was around that time that I came to understand that I was in the grip of a massive and horrible hog thyroid trip.

The last time I had the stuff turn on me this hard, I ended chained to a wall in the basement of a shack in the marshland near Tunica, Mississippi with no idea how to get out or how I got there. Since then, I’ve always gone hogbasing with bail money in my sock and the number of someone nearby who can help me in case I get in over my head.  

After ten minutes of trying to figure out how my cell phone worked, I managed to call a local friend of mine to come pick me up and bring me back to the casino for the games.  I hid under a rack of gladiolas until my friend Squanto showed up and shepherded me into the car.  Squanto, who I consider to be my spiritual advisor, has spent years turning his brain into a chemistry set in the hopes of finding his way out of this strange and mysterious illusion we are all trapped in. 

I don’t even think his name is Squanto, it’s something like Russell, but everyone has called him Squanto as long as I’ve known him.  He is a fellow traveller on the road to psychological oblivion.  He was a veteran hogbaser and the ideal person to help me get through this freakout.  We listened to Enya’s “Only Time” on repeat in his Buick Roadmaster until I was composed enough to get myself into the sportsbook and actually watch the games so I would have something to write about.

By 12:20, I was clutching a bottle of water seated next to Squanto in a giant green barcalounger looking up at a Jumbotron beaming out enormous Creighton basketball players.   I knew Ryan Kalkenbrenner was huge, but on a gigantic screen, he looks like one of the creatures that fought Godzilla in the later end of that franchise’s run in the late 60s.  My brain was metastasizing into a furious whirl of unspeakable terror.  

I started recovering my powers of speech and my sense of smell sometime late in the first half.  It was one of those three’s by Creighton’s Jackson McAndrew that brought me back into quasi-human form.  Creighton was running Louisville out of the gym with a blitzkrieg of three pointers that would have rattled Winston Churchill.  I looked at the older gentleman sitting in a checkered shirt and bib overalls to the right of me and uttered, in a forced and unstable tone, unsure if the words would come out correctly…"do you think the Jays are going to go to the high pick and roll a little more now that they are up 20 on Louisville?  Maybe run a few lob plays to Kalk on the inside?  Or post him up and clear out to let him go to work?”

The elderly man next to me was clearly startled.  He initially considered ignoring me, but then burst out the words “YOU CAN’T SEE CALIFORNIA WITH MARLON BRANDO’S EYES!!!!” 

I was horrified.  I had no idea what that meant.  I looked searchingly at Squanto with the word “help” practically written on my face.  Squanto understood immediately and translated “the man said that he feels like Louisville isn’t switching enough in man and it’s opening up all sorts of holes."

I nodded.  I said back to the man, “So…should they go to a zone?  Typically, it would seem like a bad idea to switch out of man with the team hitting so many threes.”

He responded “The sky is turning RED!  Return to Power draws NEAR!  Fall into me, the sky’s crimson TEARS, abolish the rules made of STONE!”

I turned nervously to Squanto.  “He said maybe they could go to a matchup zone for a few possessions.  Just something to the Blue Jays out of rhythm.  Maybe switch against the screens and drop Kalk’s defender to the basket.”

I had delved about as far into conversation as I was capable so I nodded and let my eyes wander to the Purdue-High Point game, where Purdue seemed to be doing its best to not pull away from an inferior team, setting up your standard white-knuckle Purdue tournament ending where almost any nightmare is possible.  Wisconsin had started up against a terribly overmatched Montana team, who just seemed happy to have a chance to visit a city for once.  Alabama State was preparing to take the full blunt force trauma of an Auburn team that seemed filled with malevolent glee.  

I started staring intently at the Creighton-Louisville game.  I spent fifteen minutes trying to mentally control the game like I was some dime store, half-in-the-bag Jedi.  I kept thinking really hard about how I wanted the play to go and was convinced if I thought hard enough about it, I could make the game move with my thoughts.  I was in a virtual trance.  

The camera lingered on Louisville coach Pat Kelsey, who was frothing at the mouth and howling at the officials like Old Yeller right before they took him behind the barn.  They gave him a tech and suddenly I thought of the word “water bottle”.  Seconds later, a water bottle flew out of the crowd onto the floor.  I did it!  It was me!  The announcers were saying they couldn’t find the fan who threw it.  They had no idea that I had just pulled off one of the greatest telekinetic stunts of the century.  I was that kid in Firestarter.  I was Uri Geller.  I bent the universe to my mental will. Jung was right!

I spaced out again.  The crowd, which was pretty raucous early on, had settled into day drinking and staring blankly.  Nothing all that exciting happened for the next few hours.  It was that strange part of the day when all the enthusiasm of the first hour faded and there was nothing but teenagers firing an endless stream of basketballs at an endless stream of rims. I had behaved well enough where Squanto felt safe leaving me alone for a few minutes and grab some Mongolian beef from the Food Court next door.  I was starting to lose my hog gland buzz.  I needed another fix.

I snuck into the men’s bathroom.  I laid out a line of hog gland powder next to the sink and quickly snorted it just as a guy with a “Drink Wisconsinably:  Go Badgers” shirt wandered in.  I waved and smiled.  He awkwardly tiptoed past me with a horrified expression on his face.  I think I had the remnants of the substance on the tip of my nose, but I played it cool.  I imagined hearing him on the phone with his wife later, “Yeah…they just snort hog parts down here, Barb!  Ground them up and snort them!  Right there in the bathroom!  Disgusting!  These people are animals!”

I wandered back into the sports book and found my E. Howard Hunt styled trilby in my chair where I had left it so no one would take my spot.  Some yokel had spilled booze in my seat and my twelve dollar Walmart imitation Hawaiian shirt stank of liquor the moment I sat down. The jackals were lurking.  I knew if I got up again, one of these degenerates would shank me in the neck with a fork for my seat.

I had to be smart….no mistakes from here on.  More basketball.  Alabama State was hanging in there against Auburn.  Impossible but true.  Purdue had pulled away from High Point.  Montana wilted.  Houston's Mercy Miller was stealing every pass thrown by the SIU Edwardsville guards, literally making them say "UGH!"  There is no limit to that kid's potential.  The afternoon had become a series of mostly obvious outcomes and potential, but unlikely intrigue. 

I couldn’t help but notice the large number of people with Georgia basketball jerseys around me.  Not actual players from University of Georgia, just folks who have kept the torch lit for their basketball team through the lean decades since the Harrick Criminal Empire was disbanded in Athens.  They were everywhere.  Clearly they weren’t players… unless Georgia has had a five foot six, three hundred pound bearded point guard with dagger neck tattoos that I don’t remember.  They had all of the UGA throwbacks on.   

I can understand Anthony Edwards or Dominique Wilkins, but these folks were clearly lifers.  A Vern Fleming jersey on a 23-year-old?!?! Both Jonas AND Jarvis Hayes jerseys!?!?!  An Alec Kessler????  No chance, right?  But, there it was. Lost souls stumbling around like an all-star team of long forgotten Bulldogs. 

So, when the Gonzaga-Georgia game tipped, the place was at a fever pitch.  The hog glands were starting to kick in hard and, instead of the delirious experience from earlier of the day, my mind was teeming with vengeance.  I became dead set on antagonizing the locals.  Gonzaga hit a shot.  I erupted violently cheering.  Then another.  I was pumping my fists with joy.  Then another.  I just started screaming the names of random Zags, because I couldn’t recall who was on the team by this point. “I love you, Casey Calvary!”  Another basket!  “Dan Dickau is a GOD!”  Another!  “Pangos is the MAN!!!!”  Another!  “Turiaf rules!!!!”

By this point, the mood of the room had turned ugly.  A mob of Georgia fans were firing a river of alcohol down their collective gullets.  At first, they politely ignored me.  But, as the game quickly devolved into a complete Gonzaga rout, the focus of the animosity was shifting from the screen to me.  

“Shut up, you idiot!” someone shouted at me during my full throated soliloquy about the greatness of Nigel Williams-Goss.  

The game cut to commercial.  Charles Barkley, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Samuel Jackson were arguing about ice cream.  The score was 27-3.  Georgia fans seemed to be boiling with rage.  Some were moving towards me.  I looked squarely into the mob.  “Hey…at least it’s not 28-3!  You remember that one right!!!”

I didn’t feel the first punch in my jaw until after I hit the carpet.  It stung.  I looked up bleary-eyed as I was being kicked by three Gen Z kids in Litterial Green, Jumane Jones and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope jerseys respectively.  Some older gentleman in what I believe was a Sundiata Gaines jersey hit me across the face with something metal.  It tasted metal anyway.  My body was racked with pain.

The next thing I know yellow-shirted security guards were pulling me away.  I was dizzy and confused.  Squanto was trying to get them off me, but they pushed him to the floor. Three of them dragged me out the backdoor of the casino into an empty parking lot.  They kept hitting me and yelling about how if I ever showed my face in the casino again, they’d feed me to bears. They left me in a bloody heap.  I screamed out to them “I even haven’t seen the Drake game!  They don’t play until 7!!!!  I’m a sports journalist!!!!”

My pleas were ignored.  I spit out a tooth.

Squnato had the wisdom to retrieve my suitcase from the room and hustled me into the back of his Buick.  He put a blanket over me and told me to stay under it until we got to the state line.  I passed out for what seemed like an hour.  We stopped off at a CVS to get an ice pack and some bandages for my face and went over to eat at the adjoining Waffle House.  As I gnawed on my waffle, I noticed a few more teeth missing.  I was unable to overpower the taste of blood with maple syrup and butter.  Squanto put the Drake game on his cellphone and I watched it for a bit.  They looked fabulous.  Bennett Stirtz was moving the ball around like a cyborg and they were entirely controlling the pace against a very good Missouri team. 

Somewhere early in the second half, I passed out again.  Drake had won by ten.  Colorado State had beaten Penny Hardaway and Memphis worse than the security guards beat me. Squanto helped me from the car and dropped me in front of an urgent care about a mile from my house.  

I never even got to watch any of the Friday games except for a brief moment of the Robert Morris-Alabama game.  I was in and out of consciousness.  I’m not sure this is the article that Dave, Mulvahill and the rest of the crew at College Basketball Times were looking for, but I can only report on what happened as it happened.  As I laid in a stupor in the bed and paged the nurse for an additional dose of pain medication, I tried to forget the wild and terrible memories of the dark side of March Madness.

Keith Spillett