Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaiders! Part 1

Joe and I were lucky enough to receive tickets to the Raider/Charger game last Sunday. I've only ever been to one (Charger) pro football game. Mostly I remember drinking beer and laughing a lot. Joe has been to a few more, and has actually been to a Raider game. He has learned the art of going as a Charger fan incognito as a Raider fan. It is a survival skill at a Raider game.

We BARTed over to Oaktown Sunday morning in order to hang out at my bros tailgate party. My brother and sister in law have five (!) season tickets for every home Raider game. They are serious fans. They even pay extra to park in a part of the lot that leaves more space for tailgate parties. All the rest of the parking lot is a bunch of smooshed tailgate parties.

I don't know if I can fully do justice to our experience that day. My brother and sister in law (K&N) had a barbecue going, and a table with a full bar. I mean 15 -20 bottles of good booze with mixers. She makes drinks for all her friends (and you can bet there are a LOT of friends that come by) and charges strangers $5 for a drink. She keeps the money in her more than ample cleavage.

So we started out drinking. I think it was about 10:30am. My bro introduced us to a bunch of his friends. One guy had a Raider Nation - Represent t-shirt on and a black skullcap with a silver FU symbol on it. He was black and solid. When we admired the tatoo on his arms he told us it was his fighting name. "Oh," I thought, "maybe he flew in the airforce and that was the name of his jet." WRONG! It was his cage fighting name. Cage fighting? What is that? Well, we got a lengthy dissertation on the subject while he shared his "special" brownies with us and others. Turns out he has a cage fighting school. He's huge in Japan. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/03/10/sports/s232306S95.DTL

OK..........

We met many interesting and, well, wild people at the party. Most of their friends were black and from OakTOWN. For me, it was like being dropped into a foreign culture. I kept hearing Wierd Al's "White and Nerdy" http://revver.com/video/65860/white-nerdy/ in my head. That was me. I was sooooo white. I was sooooo straight. I was soooooo nerdy! I kept thinking, "Just don't make a fool of yourself" but I don't think I could help it. I was not hip to the jive! I couldn't keep up.

Imagine hundreds of people in Raider gear strolling around with drinks and smokes and partying and harrassing anyone in Charger gear. I think Joe, me and K&N were the only white people in the vicinity. One woman even came up and felt my hair. She said it was "f&^%*cking perfect!" I liked her.

Another lady told me about her secret boyfriend and how she had "other men". A few minutes later when I stupidly said,

"So, you have other men???" she hissed,

"Shut up! Shut up! Man what you doin telling everyone..."

Oops.

Another lady jumped on my brother and made indecent motions. She also commented on my sister in laws beautiful........bosoms. Nasty, indecent things were said. It was just plain WILD! The men mostly bragged about how great and experienced or rich or whatever they were. I just tried to pretend that I didn't have a neon sign over my head flashing "White and Nerdy". Joe tried to not get beat up by my bros' friends who knew he was really a Charger fan. As we were leaving to go into the game, my bro said to Joe,

"If the Chargers win on the last play of the game, you probably won't want to come back here." And he meant it nicely.

This will give you a small and not near as rowdy taste of the scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iNF1iOp4Lw

Part 2: Inside the stadium......coming soon