Cal v. Maryland Photo Essay
by TwistNHook on Sep 9, 2009 8:46 PM PDT
in Football
42 comments
Well, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I'm back for another season of Cal football, snapping away. And away. And away. The bad news is that I'm a mediocre photographer. Our truly great photographers, TheNick and TrisWeb, both moved away from the Bay Area. So, I'll do my best to help give a better feel for what the Cal gameday experience was, but I fear that I will not be able to provide as solid game action photos as TrisWeb and TheNick can. I'm always working on getting the best quality photos for you, the readers (save for rollonubears, who I hate...), so if you are an aspiring game action photographer interested in gaining the exposure that the 3rd best Cal sports blog has to offer, don't hesitate to email us at the contact email.
Of course, even if I can't offer the highest quality photos, I still take my job very seriously. Taking our jobs seriously is something important to ALL Cal fans, whether it's taking photos, rooting on our teams, or preparing an alcoholic beverage to be explosively shotgunned down ones throat.
Yes, we take it all very seriously:
But perhaps I should back up. All weekend long I was getting good feelings about this game. Positive omens were popping up everywhere. Like getting a chance to walk behind a taller, thinner, blonder version of Steve Levy!
Even the stores were broadcasting their allegiance to us.
But enough about the pre-pre-game action, let's talk more about the pre-game action. Of course, the pre-game action at Cal starts hours beforehand. Game started at 7, but by 2 PM, the BART trains were packed. By 3, the tailgates were going off. You always want to have a filling meal beforehand, so you will have the energy to put your hands up on 3rd down. Tedford forbid we have poor fundamentals due to a sugar low.
That worked out quite well in this case, because not only is important to get the right pre-game foods, but it's also very important, as Yellow Fever can attest, to EAT THE ENEMY.
Next week, we face off against the Eastern Washington Eagles. Anybody got any good Eagle recipes?
So, fun times were had at the tailgates. Eating food. Booing random Maryland fans aimlessly wandering by. Calumbus Bear was in town and had emailed me asking requesting that he be within honking radius of me. So, he and his lovely wife came by. They seemed, more than anything, happy to be out of the great state of Ohio. I can't disagree. A chance to leave Ohio and go straight to a Cal game? That's like going from Holmoe to Tedford!
I think if there is one thing we can take away from the tailgating experience, whether you are at a frat party or on memorial glade or in a parking lot or just meandering through the streets of Berkeley, it's that the desire to consume alcohol and steaming meat brings people together in ways no political leader or organized religion ever can. Yes, from now on, I renounce my Judaism and will be forever part of a ethnicity/religion for which this is our slogan:
We even have our own national sport!
After all the tailgating fun, we went up on the long trek to to the peak of Mt. Berkeley, Memorial Stadium. But finally after our long trek, we got down into the stadium. It was a mad house entering the stadium, because they funneled everybody through the North tunnel entrance. They had some sort of special entrance for people, not sure who. Nobody would give me a straight answer on that. But I need to figure out how to get through this special entrance and dodge the crowds.
We got into the stadium and came down right by the North Tunnel. Jamal Boykin was there and now looking at this photo again, I see that Coach Boyle was there, too. Perhaps hosting recruits:
The players were warming up and came together for what I can only assume was a motivation koan. Or, potentially, series of koans.
Jahvid Best was strolling the end zone, working on his moves.
Trevor Guyton and Co. were practicing on the left, getting ready to crush that Turner kid.
And then who should emerge but Sandy B and her entourage. I wonder which one is her Johnny Drama!
The QBs were throwing the ball around:
And at least two Tedfords were getting ready to go:
The band was getting prepared the only way it knows how, by having two of its members run maniacally towards each other hoping four inches of metal hanging off their chest manage to touch:
They managed to pull that amazing feat off and Drum Major David Nagle was a happy camper:
SydQuan was out and about:
And D'Amato was practicing for his first ever game:
Soon, the practice was over and it was time to come in. All the players come running in and I discovered an unfortunate situation with my camera. It was just dark enough that taking photos without the flash would lead to blur. And with the quick movement of the players, many non-flash photos would come out blurry. But using the flash would have been useless, because you only have a few seconds. This is a lesson you'll see over and over today.
But I got a few solid shots:
I am not sure if people could read what the Rally Commers were spelling out with body paint. It was the entire Bear Will Not Quit line:
If it was too difficult to read, maybe they should stick to shorter things like "GOBEARS!" or "WINNINGISNOTEVERYTHING;ITISFARBETTERTOPLAYTHEGAMESQUARELYANDLOSETHANTOWINATTHESACRIFICEOFANIDEAL."
So, anyway, ya, that's a solid start. In part 2, we'll look at some blurry game action shots that were really awesome in person. And their even better in night snapshot form! GO BEARS!
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(save for rollonubears, who I hate…)
Its reached the point where I no longer think you are kidding.
All aboard the Jahvid Best rickshaw!
I did use ellipses afterall. And I did give you the flu.
ALL HAIL SUPREME LEADER AVINASH!
www.CaliforniaGoldenBlogs.com
Pac-10 Player o' the Week
Props to Kevin Riley for earning the first Player of the Week award of the season. Why isn’t that on the Cal Football page????
I'd like to smell the Roses before I die.
Twist
I declare you Blount for using that enormous knife on that poor, defenseless beer can.
dboneisloose
Bud light doesn’t deserve to live.
I am a horrible bruin-bear crossbreed.
by GBB4188 on Sep 10, 2009 1:19 AM PDT up reply actions 3 recs
If I were ever going to be one of those shirtless guys in a massive spell-out, I would hope I got to be the guy with a giant semi-colon painted on my chest.
So, basically, you gotta Go Bears!
Good call. Not often you get to show school and punctuational spirit while collectively encouraging good sportsmanship.
Dibs on that period, which’ll have to reach all the way around to the heart of the alumni section.
We’ll just need to persuade one row of our normally impeccably-dressed band to sport the “ARBETTERTOPLAYT” portion. TwistNHook, it’s up to you.
by Tweedledamn on Sep 10, 2009 10:03 AM PDT up reply actions 1 recs
Tweedledamn, your posts on the marching band last week got me thinking about the aesthetic that the Cal marching band strives for in comparison to the Stanford band, et al. I think I will put together a post on this for say the bye week coming up soon. I know you took a lot of heat for it and I disagreed wholeheartedly with your criticisms (as I will explain further), but thank you for making me reconsider some bedrock assumptions I had. Thank you for making me look at the band in a new light.
ALL HAIL SUPREME LEADER AVINASH!
www.CaliforniaGoldenBlogs.com
Don’t worry. I still love the band. Just not enough to go to Alumni Band Day cough cough.
ALL HAIL SUPREME LEADER AVINASH!
www.CaliforniaGoldenBlogs.com
Go ahead, rub it in. I’m doing it cause I made a promise. A promise I’m trying to think of a way to weasel out of now.
by CalBandGreat on Sep 10, 2009 11:39 AM PDT up reply actions
I am not sure if people could read what the Rally Commers were spelling out with body paint.
When will they learn that yellow paint on white chests is impossible to decipher from across the stadium?
by RemorsefulBruinBabe on Sep 10, 2009 12:14 PM PDT reply actions
TwistNHook: you are, admirably, a gentleman/gentlewoman. Clearly you’re more thoughtfully even-keeled than I, and your graciousness is genuinely appreciated.
Just be careful you don’t give any posts of mine more credit or thought than they merit. Mostly, as far as I can tell, so far I’ve managed to produce here what amounts to incomprehensible jumbles of ribbing, opinions, fun, half-baked thought, (dead metaphors,) ill-advised fulminating, and unnecessarily ambiguous tongue-in-cheek nonsense.
You were totally right that I had no idea how dearly the band was held in this corner of the blogosphere. Had I, last week’s try at reconciling my schizoid dual-infatuation with Cal football and Berkeley’s potential as an institution probably would have taken another tack. But now the band is on the table, I suppose. And still it’s no less true that during half-time of every Big Game, within the hearts of most discerning Cal fans – inside that dark little place where secret satisfaction is kept – it’s the unkempt Stanford band who comes marching in.
That being said, there should always be hope for improvement. I’d call it a step in the right direction if this Saturday’s chili pepper was marred by just a little chest paint. And I’d take almost all of it back if that chili pepper next morphed into a gym-socked penis. Now, I, and those in whose company I usually watch the games, may be more atypical college football fans even than I think. It’s definitely a possibility that inside Memorial mine is a minority opinion. (I should also note that I can’t tell a treble clef from a semi quaver.) But consider the RHCP’s themselves – at one time a group who put out a milestone sound in the history of objectively good music. It’s them to whom presumably-earnest homage was just paid on Saturday, even if that tribute was an appropriation tamed of what made the original expression cool. And which band would they, the Chili Peppers themeselves, doubtlessly prefer (besides neither)? Well, yeah, not ours.
Maybe the real question is how do you do something that doesn’t move beyond aping convention by just aping Stanford, but in fact out-does them? That’s a tough one. But I’ll say this: actually pulling off a ninety-six-person instance of ambiguously self-effacing, convention-subverting irony like spelling out “WINNINGISNOTEVERYTHING;ITISFARBETTERTOPLAYTHEGAMESQUARELYANDLOSETHANTOWINATTHESACRIFICEOFANIDEAL” would be awesome, to say the least. That, actually, was a really good idea. And with this blog, dude, you might even be able to put it, or something like it, together.
Y’know, I appreciate what the Stanfurd Banned is trying to do, with their irreverence and lack of respect for long-standing institutions and willingness to poke fun at anyone and everything that is the least bit full of themselves. I get that, I do.
However, even as they may aim for flash-mob-as-satire, a sort of comedy troupe writ large (with instruments! and fake cheerleaders! and a dancing tree!), the final product on the field inevitably comes off as poorly rehearsed, dull-witted, and often incomprehensible to the minority of the crowd even interested in trying to get the joke. Too often it appears that the band is more interested in entertaining themselves than in entertaining the audience, and while the_idea_ of the Banned may seem hilarious to those who prize intellectual irreverence, the implementation, sadly, is not.
Also, a lot of them suck at playing their instruments, and you often can’t hear anything over the percussion playing too loud. “All Right Now” is a pretty fun celebration song, however, and a snide response to every other marching band’s turn-of-the-century-style march, some with lyrics that are so arcane that they’re now almost silly.
So, basically, you gotta Go Bears!
by ragnarok on Sep 10, 2009 4:54 PM PDT up reply actions 3 recs
the final product on the field inevitably comes off as poorly rehearsed, dull-witted, and often incomprehensible to the minority of the crowd even interested in trying to get the joke. Too often it appears that the band is more interested in entertaining themselves than in entertaining the audience, and while the_idea_ of the Banned may seem hilarious to those who prize intellectual irreverence, the implementation, sadly, is not.
This X 1,000,000
Also, a lot of them suck at playing their instruments
Some sort of distant friend of a friend of a friend is in the ‘furd band, and I was told they just joined for the hell of it, got handed a keg, and were told to vaguely bang against it in time with the music. I don’t think the decision to have that level of musicianship adds anything to any attempted humor…so what’s the point?
The #1 greatest threat to America: BEARS
norcalnick, on the other hand, you have to get the Uncle Gustave award for the evening. Did you really go to Berkeley? That argument resonates about as well as the keg in your fantastical anecdote. If, as ol’ Flaubert has it, “language” is indeed, “a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to,” well, some kettles must be more cracked than others. It’s a good thing you’ve got whatever instrument you play; I’m sure you’re able to inspire bears to dance, and express yourself, much better with it.
by Tweedledamn on Sep 10, 2009 11:53 PM PDT up reply actions
wat
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. What happens in California makes the world go round.
by Spazzy Mcgee on Sep 10, 2009 11:55 PM PDT up reply actions
For what it’s worth, I play the piano and guitar. I’m not sure what that has to do with anything. I also did go to Berkeley, which oddly enough has something to do with my preference for Cal’s band.
fantastical anecdote.
I believe that’s a keg on the lower left…so if you didn’t believe me there’s the proof
The #1 greatest threat to America: BEARS
ragnarok, you’re a saint for humoring me like this. You and TwistNHook both. Though I’d say that being poorly rehearsed and even unseriously dull-witted is a big part of the idea itself, and that intellectual irreverence is different than intellectualizing irreverence, I think you make a really good point that even good concepts, when serialized and spread too thin, inevitably start to fall flat. (Not bad for a statistician, even one who I’ll say kicks some seriously impressive statistical ass.) Outside of football stadiums, Stanford’s band certainly isn’t ever going to win any awards for music, or satire, or brilliance.
But most of all you guys have completely proven that this blog is far from the typical ra-ra, knee-jerk, I-hate-the-rival fan club; and I can keep happily reading. Really, you’ve gone above and beyond, especially in the face of someone taking potshots at something that’s important and meaningful to you all. If someone approached me frothing at the mouth and arguing that, say, Joan Didion, was an inferior writer and thinker to, say, Bill Kristol, I’m sure I’d show far less restraint and consideration. So, thanks.
by Tweedledamn on Sep 10, 2009 11:45 PM PDT up reply actions 2 recs
Mental Note: Delete “Fuck you Joan Didion, You’re No Bill Kristol” post scheduled for early next week.
ALL HAIL SUPREME LEADER AVINASH!
www.CaliforniaGoldenBlogs.com
by TwistNHook on Sep 11, 2009 7:47 AM PDT up reply actions 2 recs
Has CGB had trolls before? Because tweedledamn is looking more and more like this
All aboard the Jahvid Best rickshaw!
by rollonubears on Sep 11, 2009 9:02 AM PDT up reply actions
Hey now, we don’t want to alienate the only Stanford fan that we’ve ever seen on the internet. No, seriously, I think Tweedledam might be the only one. There are no Stanford blogs out there, you know?
No longer wanting an interview with Ryan Anderson.
by yellow fever on Sep 11, 2009 9:58 AM PDT up reply actions
In response to an olive-branch posting? Ouch. But cute. Thanks at least for taking that eraser out of my ass, it was really irking me.
Speaking of removal, thinking it’s probably time to take the bands off the table and get back to the business of less sensitive subjects, like Indians, or health care. Or maybe even football. This is like trying to talk about politics at Thanksgiving – you learn it’s best just not to go there and instead just chew your . . . what’s on the menu this week? Eagles? Hmm. Maybe better at home than going out for gopher casserole, midwestern style. But I’m still looking forward to duck.
Viva La Revolución; Viva Los Osos.
by Tweedledamn on Sep 11, 2009 11:06 AM PDT up reply actions
Speaking of removal, thinking it’s probably time to take the bands off the table and get back to the business of less sensitive subjects, like Indians, or health care.
We’re going to scalp you, Stanfurd. We’re going to scalp you blue.
by Yes We Cannon on Sep 13, 2009 2:45 PM PDT up reply actions
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