Do you know why I’m proud to call the south my home? I’ll tell you why. Because only the manliest of men come from the south. You haven’t seen cool; you haven’t seen macho until you’ve stepped foot in the south. Don’t believe me? Okay, I’ll give you an example. Take my good friend Troy Gentry.

Do you know Troy Gentry? No? He’s the better half of the country music group Montgomery Gentry. Troy’s the guy with the extra white teeth. The other guy, Eddie Montgomery, can be recognized by his abnormally large hat. Remember Lester Young and those porkpie hats he used to wear? Well, Eddie’s hats kind of look like those, except they are much bigger. He’s a manly man and real men where big hats. Who cares if it looks like a U.F.O. landed on top of his head? Anyway, Troy doesn’t wear big hats. He just has unnaturally white teeth and the eyes of a sex offender.

Troy is the coolest of the cool. On my coolness scale - ranked from one to ten — he gets a ten. You know why? Because he killed a bear! And only the manliest of men can kill wild bears. That’s a definite ten on my scale.

Of course…the bear’s name was Cubby. Hm. Kind of a cute name for a wild bear. I mean, the only bear names cuter than Cubby are Snuggles and BooBoo. So…maybe I need to drop the coolness factor down to about an eight. I mean, it’s still very cool to kill a wild bear. But if the bear’s name had been Rifkin or Dahmer that would have been a bit cooler. Nobody would have sympathy for a wild bear named after a serial killer.

Come to think of it, how many wild bears have names? Hm. You know what? Cubby wasn’t wild at all. He was a tame little feller from what I’ve heard. So, I guess I need to subtract two more cool points since killing a tame bear is nowhere near as cool as killing a wild bear. And killing a tame bear named Cubby. Well…no one would mistake that for manly, would they? Still, my boy Troy bagged a bear. Tame or not, hunting down a bear in the wilderness is an admirable feat.

Wait…it says here the bear was in a cage when Troy bagged him. Gotta take two points away for that. And…uh…says here Troy paid a guy for the bear before he took out his bow and arrow and shot little Cubbence. You paid to shoot a tame bear named Cubby in a cage. What the hell, Troy? Two more points .

And…say what? You videotaped the killing then edited it to make it look like you killed the Cubbster while he was out in the wild. Geez, Troy. You’re really making it hard for me. I mean, I will only take one point away since you DID show off some rather impressive editing skills. But still…that’s kinda lame, you know? Little Cubby deserved more than that, don’t you think?

So…maybe I’m not so proud to be a southerner right about now. A good old boy pays a man for a tame bear named Cubby who resides peacefully in his little cage. Then, the aforementioned boy of goodness shoots said bear with a bow and arrow while taping it then editing it to make it LOOK like it was a cool kill. And on a personal note, I think killing animals for kicks is about a notch above mugging old ladies for their social security money. Half a point for that. Looks like you’re only left with one half of a cool point there, buddy. Pretty, pretty lame.

My girlfriend always said that Troy looked like a rapist what with the crazy eye thing going on. Troy’s no rapist, honey. He’s a cubby killer. My girl can rest easy tonight.

Of course, Winnie the Pooh better watch his back.