Welcome to Bevo’s Fake Nuts, our weekly-ish column on all things Texas Longhorns. The name? Well, some folks on and off want to put neuticles on a certain steer, and, well, that just reminds us of an overarching theme here in Austin.
Well, well, well, if it isn’t Greg Abbott using state institutions to further his own reelection chances. Color me shocked.
If you missed it, Gregory Wayne promoted a video of an interview yesterday with an organization whose chairman-at-the-time once called it “the platform for the alt-right” and whose former editor-at-large once criticized the site for openly embracing white supremacism. The location of that interview? The 50-yard line of Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.
There are a lot of things to think about this, and two I’d like to call us back to are 1) the importance of freedom of the press and 2) the reasonableness of citizen access to taxpayer-funded institutions. When you consider these things, and when you further consider that just as cities exist at the pleasure of the state, all institutions in Texas—public and private alike—exist in order to further Governor Abbott’s odds of continuing as governor following the 2022 election, why, of course they got to do the interview on the sideline. This is what politics is all about, right? Providing the external validation necessary for sad human beings to continue avoiding going to therapy and/or handing the quite-limited keys to people hubristic enough to think they can fix everything in the world? I pay my taxes so King Gregory can feel whatever passes in his tortured mind for a shred of self-worth. Please, use my sideline, you child crying for help.
Really, I don’t have a problem with the interview location. If it doesn’t interfere with practice or a game, by all means, let the guy use the field. But by that same token…
You better give me a press pass, Texas.
I better get every press pass I ask for from here on out.
I’m going to keep living in Austin, and Texas is going to be in the NIT picture, and I’m going to want a ticket to the most mediocre basketball game you can imagine in that sparkling new arena. I’m going to keep living in Austin, and I’m going to be bored, and I’m going to want to ask Logan Eggleston if she receives federal defense funding for the work she does at the net. I’m going to keep living in Austin, and Iowa State’s going to come to town next fall, and I’m going to claim my dad is Joe Stunardi so he and I can sit in the press box together and get kicked out for cheering loudly for the visitors.
And if you guys say no, I’m going to ask what happens if I promise to use my platform to help the case of a man who’d gladly risk others’ lives if it helped his chances of continuing to be a governor. Because by the looks of it, that doesn’t only guarantee me press access.
It gets me a ticket on the sideline.
