Dormancy over
All right so I apologize for not writing in forever. The mundanity (a word?) of everyday life I guess became pervasive in a Kafka Metamorphosis way so that i couldn't even bring myself to make snotty allusions to Kafka. Anyway I am starting this blog up again, without as much (any?) travel adventures and more boring musings, so I am accordingly doing it for myself.
Anyway, enough about that. Something that just randomly popped into my head - and of no relevance whatsoever to anything printed so far, and basically just being written down so that I don't lose the thought - was an old memory of a football game I went to. It was, I believe, about 1985, the year after the then-Los Angeles (nee Oakland and since re-nee'd as Oakland) Raiders won the Super Bowl. I went to an NFL game between my since mort Houston Oilers at the Eighth Wonder of the World, the Houston Astrodome - since downgraded to about the 1,536,905th wonder of the world, somewhere between that Japanese eating champion guy Kobayashi and the fact that the city of Miami has not self-imploded. Now, the Oilers back then were an awful, sad sack franchise, saddled with ugly uniforms and a general malaise that would make Gregor Samsa himself cringe. Turning into giant human insects would have been an improvement. Nonetheless, I was a fledgling 9 or 10 year old fan at the time and thought they were sweet. As for the Raiders, they were silver and black demigods who lived only on the airwaves (how pathetic is it that 'airwaves' is now a dated term? awful).
As the Oilers were horrifically bad at playing football back then, tickets were rather easy to come by. My father, doing the kinds of things that good fathers do, I believe arbitraily decided one Sunday in the fall that he should take me to the game, on the morning of. (at the time, I believe it was my second ever NFL game, with the first being an inglorious Oiler loss to a powerhouse Dolphins team led by a young Dan Marino). As the Oilers were awful back then, like I said, tickets were easy to come by, specifically, tickets in the Temporary Bleachers section.
Surprisingly, these tickets consisted of temporary bleachers, set up in what would have been the centerfield area of the Astrodome in baseball configuration [aside- back in the old days in the multipurpose stadia (yes we are going latinate with our noun forms this evening), they used the same Astroturf (tm) for baseball and football, so accordingly one could see Earl Campbell run into the faded paint outline of foul territory, or see Jose Cruz field a fly on the ghostly specter of the 20 yard line]. The best par was that they were literally right on the field and very cheap (though uncomfortable, but really who cares).
As I recall it was a decent game, insofar as the hapless Oilers stayed relatively close to the Raiders before losing by a TD or two (i could look it up now but am too lazy and too into a narrative mode). The crux of the story occurs at postgame. The great part about the temp bleachers was that the area behind them was literally the passage to the visiting locker room, which both fans and, obviously, the visiting team, used for ingress and egress procedures (a cop term I learned in a differnt life). Anyway, as a wide eyed 10=year old, I remember after the game, my dad and I were walking out to the Astrodome parking lot (quite literally a whole 'nother story in itself).
Our progress was halted when a makeshift array of cops (or cop) halted us prior to crossing around the concourse to the exit. As we were in the temp bleachers, we had to circumvent the tunnel into the visiting team locker room, which is where we were stopped. So we had to wait, like at a railroad crossing, for the L.A. Raiders to go by.
Now for me this was unprecedented. The Raiders at that point were nothing short of televised Olympian figures who I had no business being on the same astral plane as, much less being mildly inconvenienced by as they strode back to the locker room. So needless to say, for me at the time the experience was incredibly memorable. Being in the presence of a bunch of giants (overall and to a 10-year old) wearing the formidable silver and black of the Raiders was, well, awesome. I vivdly remember them emerging from the tunnel from between the stands into the dark smelly concourse area, it was like a clown car, but with awesome intimidating dudes instead of awful clowns (who are also intimidating in their own way, but again- that's a whole other ramble).
A few guys in particular stood out. The concourse at this point was full of whooping and whollering (sic) Raider fans, which I decided to temporarily belong to at that point as I honestly had no other option. Anyway, the guys I recall were Marcus Allen (literally probably the best player at the world at that point) who simply ran past us alll, no desire to gladhandle or high five (or in my 4 foot tall case, low five), though I think I grabbed his elbow as he jogged past. A bit of a disappointment as he was my favorite Raider easily for his incomprehensible skill, obvious even to a youngster. Sean Jones (later an Oiler, and then, if I recall correctly, recently convicted of some form of fraud stemming from his career as a sports agent), all 6 foot 7 of him, with huge forearm pads, being incredibly intimidating so much to the point where I was scared to extend him the hand of recognition. The best by far was future Hall-of-Famer Howie Long, who took the time to take his helmet off and shake my hand, or so I imagined, maybe it was just a grasp, but anyway number 74 has always gotten free pass from me becasue of that, even for his short lived and awful movie career.
Anyway, enough about that. Something that just randomly popped into my head - and of no relevance whatsoever to anything printed so far, and basically just being written down so that I don't lose the thought - was an old memory of a football game I went to. It was, I believe, about 1985, the year after the then-Los Angeles (nee Oakland and since re-nee'd as Oakland) Raiders won the Super Bowl. I went to an NFL game between my since mort Houston Oilers at the Eighth Wonder of the World, the Houston Astrodome - since downgraded to about the 1,536,905th wonder of the world, somewhere between that Japanese eating champion guy Kobayashi and the fact that the city of Miami has not self-imploded. Now, the Oilers back then were an awful, sad sack franchise, saddled with ugly uniforms and a general malaise that would make Gregor Samsa himself cringe. Turning into giant human insects would have been an improvement. Nonetheless, I was a fledgling 9 or 10 year old fan at the time and thought they were sweet. As for the Raiders, they were silver and black demigods who lived only on the airwaves (how pathetic is it that 'airwaves' is now a dated term? awful).
As the Oilers were horrifically bad at playing football back then, tickets were rather easy to come by. My father, doing the kinds of things that good fathers do, I believe arbitraily decided one Sunday in the fall that he should take me to the game, on the morning of. (at the time, I believe it was my second ever NFL game, with the first being an inglorious Oiler loss to a powerhouse Dolphins team led by a young Dan Marino). As the Oilers were awful back then, like I said, tickets were easy to come by, specifically, tickets in the Temporary Bleachers section.
Surprisingly, these tickets consisted of temporary bleachers, set up in what would have been the centerfield area of the Astrodome in baseball configuration [aside- back in the old days in the multipurpose stadia (yes we are going latinate with our noun forms this evening), they used the same Astroturf (tm) for baseball and football, so accordingly one could see Earl Campbell run into the faded paint outline of foul territory, or see Jose Cruz field a fly on the ghostly specter of the 20 yard line]. The best par was that they were literally right on the field and very cheap (though uncomfortable, but really who cares).
As I recall it was a decent game, insofar as the hapless Oilers stayed relatively close to the Raiders before losing by a TD or two (i could look it up now but am too lazy and too into a narrative mode). The crux of the story occurs at postgame. The great part about the temp bleachers was that the area behind them was literally the passage to the visiting locker room, which both fans and, obviously, the visiting team, used for ingress and egress procedures (a cop term I learned in a differnt life). Anyway, as a wide eyed 10=year old, I remember after the game, my dad and I were walking out to the Astrodome parking lot (quite literally a whole 'nother story in itself).
Our progress was halted when a makeshift array of cops (or cop) halted us prior to crossing around the concourse to the exit. As we were in the temp bleachers, we had to circumvent the tunnel into the visiting team locker room, which is where we were stopped. So we had to wait, like at a railroad crossing, for the L.A. Raiders to go by.
Now for me this was unprecedented. The Raiders at that point were nothing short of televised Olympian figures who I had no business being on the same astral plane as, much less being mildly inconvenienced by as they strode back to the locker room. So needless to say, for me at the time the experience was incredibly memorable. Being in the presence of a bunch of giants (overall and to a 10-year old) wearing the formidable silver and black of the Raiders was, well, awesome. I vivdly remember them emerging from the tunnel from between the stands into the dark smelly concourse area, it was like a clown car, but with awesome intimidating dudes instead of awful clowns (who are also intimidating in their own way, but again- that's a whole other ramble).
A few guys in particular stood out. The concourse at this point was full of whooping and whollering (sic) Raider fans, which I decided to temporarily belong to at that point as I honestly had no other option. Anyway, the guys I recall were Marcus Allen (literally probably the best player at the world at that point) who simply ran past us alll, no desire to gladhandle or high five (or in my 4 foot tall case, low five), though I think I grabbed his elbow as he jogged past. A bit of a disappointment as he was my favorite Raider easily for his incomprehensible skill, obvious even to a youngster. Sean Jones (later an Oiler, and then, if I recall correctly, recently convicted of some form of fraud stemming from his career as a sports agent), all 6 foot 7 of him, with huge forearm pads, being incredibly intimidating so much to the point where I was scared to extend him the hand of recognition. The best by far was future Hall-of-Famer Howie Long, who took the time to take his helmet off and shake my hand, or so I imagined, maybe it was just a grasp, but anyway number 74 has always gotten free pass from me becasue of that, even for his short lived and awful movie career.
posted by Miguel V | 9:17 AM
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