NEW ORLEANS MICROLOGUE: OHIO STATE FANS ARE INTENSE
by Orson on Jan 9, 2008 3:34 PM EST
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PrintEight moments from four days in New Orleans.
Watching the game with Ohio State fans was anti-fun from the start. I've never seen more joyless bunch of college football fans--this was an extension of work and a moment of extreme seriousness from start to finish, at least for the fans at Cafe Ernst. Tension seeped from their pores: whenever anyone the fans did not like appeared on screen, fifteen to twenty fans saluted the television with their middle finger and chants of "FUCK YOU (NAME GOES HERE)." I don't want to say it looked precisely like the congressional scenes in Idiocracy, but it looked precisely like the congressional scenes in Idiocracy.
(We're not making any of this up. Older OSU fans were quite nice, and we met nice younger ones, too, and even wrote earlier in the week about how pleasant OSU fans were as a whole...which still remains true. But when the game came on, the vibe turned poisonous, and only got worse as the game went on. They're still the best road presence of any fans I've ever seen, but saying that watching the game with them was "fun" would be "a total fucking lie.")
The opposite of fun: intensity and building anger at the Cafe Ernst.
The worst moment came when Craig Steltz injured his shoulder and left the game with an injury. Hands shot up with the index finger and middle finger bent into an oval shape not unlike the mouth of a vagina. Just to clarify, I asked what it meant, but didn't even get to finish the question before the fan next to me stuck his finger through it phallically and confirmed that they were calling Steltz a pussy.
An Ohio State fan with a bullhorn shows up on Bourbon Street. He's standing on the sidewalk with three other Buckeye fans, and is screaming at an LSU fan in a purple Les-ticles t-shirt with the thing at full volume. Making out anything in the roar is difficult: static static fag static static homo static static suck. Repeat this for three minutes and you have the mantra.
It looked like a fight in the embryonic stages, but the LSU fan seemed beyond happy to stand there with ginormous drink in hand, taking the punishment and screaming "GEAUX TAAAIGAAAAHS!" at the assembled crowd. This went on for something like ten minutes, with other Ohio State fans joining in behind the guy holding the bullhorn; one even seemed to cower behind the owner of the horn, yelling the word "fag" at him while the owner nervously focused on the hands of the LSU fan and fear grinned madly. The LSU fan, so drunk he was communicating with his dancing body from somewhere in the Van Allen Belt, kept up the hollerin', either deafened and not hearing the barrage, or simply so festive he couldn't care less.
A dealer at the Harrah's downtown hands me my chips from winning another hand at roulette. Normally, roulette bleeds me dry in three spins or so, but for some reason tonight I'm hitting everything I put down. An economist in town for the convention behind me looks on. "You know there's really no way you can win at this, right?" he asks. I look back and answer,"That's an attitude for losers." I then proceed to lose my next three spins and take all of my winnings back down to par with smirky economist guy looking on behind me. That's why I'm a blogger, and he's a pedophiliac loser. I mean, economist.
Overheard dialogue on Bourbon Street:
"Oh, God. What did he do then?"
"He took it out. The bleeding wasn't so bad."
"He's in the hospital, right? I mean, you have to go to the--"
"No, no. He's down the street at a bar. Wanna go talk to him?"
I went to dinner with SMQ and a friend of his, a local who we'll call by the name of Johnny Mack. Johnny Mack has two unusual passions: cooking, and firearms. It's probably best he never attempts to combine these.
Johnny Mack and I got to talking about one of my favorite topics, automatic weapons. "I'm getting my AK next week," he says, sipping on a beer at a bar we went to after dinner. The bar's obviously a scenester place, since everyone looks at us when we walk in, searching for a name in the database they will not find simply because we aren't there every other night like everyone else in the bar. It's awkward. We huddle by the bar.
Johnny Mack: "I'm thinking of making my own suppressor when I get a Mack-10."
SMQ: "Isn't that ...hard?"
Johnny Mack: "No, man. There's directions on the internet and everything."
Orson: "There's directions on the internet for making a nuke. Doesn't mean it's a good idea."
Johnny Mack: "No, man, it's cool. I can make it. You just have to do it right, or the bullet flies all over the inside and bounces around."
Orson: "Thus turning it into an exploding frag grenade on the end of your gun?"
Johnny Mack: "Well, sure. That's if you do it wrong."
An LSU fan stands next to me at the Allstate Fan Fair Flag Football Game. He's tall, really black, and smells like bourbon. He's got the puffy warm-up LSU jacket and some straight-leg jeans on, and a ball cap reading "LSU National Champions." He leans over to me and says, "Now watch while I go start some shit."
He went over to some Ohio State fans, who bantered very politely with him while he tried to rile them up. They were too busy basking in the sheer mass of Eddie George, who even in retirement looks like he's made of lumps of stone soldered together with baling wire. He's just a massive human being. He's also married to one of the women from SWV, which makes him seven times cooler, since we had the cassingle of "Love Will Be Right Here" and thought it was the best use of a "Human Nature" sample ever.
I've made a mental note to follow the lead of the LSU fan. Before starting shit, announce that you are indeed going to start some shit. It's only fair.
At an extremely low-budge strip club, a stripper stands up and begins her act. She's smiling, but her mouth is moving the whole time as she screams out "YOU MOTHERFUCKERS ARE SO CHEAP I DON'T CLIMB THE POLE FOR FOUR MOTHERFUCKING DOLLARS." I throw her a few bucks just to see if this helps prevent an angry stripper attack-dive from the stage, and I'm not alone: four or five other guys chip in to keep her from diving in and burying her nails into somebody's tender retinas. She climbs the pole, and a crisis is averted...temporarily, we're guessing.
I'm in a bar with Ragin' Cajun Rebel and others after the game, and someone says "HEY! He'll take the hat." A female LSU fan comes over, kisses me on the cheek, and plants a feathered purple hat on my head. I wear this had for twenty minutes until a huge six-foot plus LSU fan snatches it off my head and says, "AH NEED YOUR HAT." I let him keep the hat because the NOPD carries heavy nightsticks on big horses, and mercifully I was not drunk on brown liquor and fully aware of both my size, fitness level, and complete inability to fight properly.
Sadly, it did lead to one of the gayest, fuzziest phone pictures we've ever taken.
Cajuns. They'll happen.
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I’m just glad we got to spend time around them while they were still happy and cocky…not after a year of building up a slowly simmering resentment. Major buzzkill.
by zzgator on Jan 9, 2008 3:51 PM EST reply actions
So what you’re saying Orson is that you watched the game with a room full of guys like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viSJgjoqLFs
I would love to watch a game with 500 or so of these guys.
Seriously, I hate that you didn’t have a good experience watching the game with the buckeye fans…you should come to Columbus and take in the atmosphere…you’ll have a better time.
by The Artist Formerly Known as tOSUBuckeyes on Jan 9, 2008 3:52 PM EST reply actions
TAFKAOSUB—
Am trying to do so this coming season, since the ’Shoe is on the list of essentials.
by Orson Swindle on Jan 9, 2008 3:56 PM EST reply actions
Wow. Good thing those fans were in NOLA with you, and not at home, or there would be nothing left of tOSU’s campus.
by NRBQ on Jan 9, 2008 3:58 PM EST reply actions
Wayne is real. Perhaps not in a technical, corporeal sense, but Wayne is more real than even Swindle ever imagined.
by DevilGrad on Jan 9, 2008 4:05 PM EST reply actions
stuff like this makes me sad to hear. I swear we’re not all like that.
by osujeff on Jan 9, 2008 4:05 PM EST reply actions
Give us our pluralis majestatis back now kthxbai.
by PeteJayhawk on Jan 9, 2008 4:09 PM EST reply actions
- Don’t forget taking crap for a whole year over a championship game blowout and realizing what is ahead if it happens again. And then they got to watch it happen again.
Orson at #4. I say wait till 2009 when USC visits the ’shoe. That will be epic.
by oc phil on Jan 9, 2008 4:10 PM EST reply actions
I still want to know what “he” had to take out. Or maybe I don’t.
by Chilltown on Jan 9, 2008 4:11 PM EST reply actions
I’m at the 1989 Mich-OSU game in A2, Bo’s last game. Some DB got jacked up and was laying on the field while the trainers were working on him, crowd goes pretty quiet.
Next thing we know, TOSU fan stand up in the middle of the student section and starts screaming obscenities about Michigan. Of course, garbage rained down on the guy, and from about 20 rows up a pizza box is thrown and hits the guy right in the side of the head.
110,000 fans go wild!
by Twisted Martini on Jan 9, 2008 4:13 PM EST reply actions
buckeye fans need to come to Tuscaloosa to learn about class
by mp on Jan 9, 2008 4:15 PM EST reply actions
I disagree, NRBQ.
There would be plenty of coolers full of shit. Although said coolers would be intact, with the Buckeyes masses being too distruaght, thereby sapping any remaining strength for any kind of displays typical tOSU fan behavior..
by Scalz1 on Jan 9, 2008 4:15 PM EST reply actions
I have to confess, I watched the 2007 UF-OSU game in a bar in Gainesville and spent the entire pregame show cursing at Eddie George. I was even yelling for Fox to stop showing pudgy Florida girls.
by mlmintampa on Jan 9, 2008 4:18 PM EST reply actions
The OSU fan “fear grinned”, eh? I always thought some of those Buckeye fans were a lower order of primate. It really explains all the throwing of feces.
by Cat on Jan 9, 2008 4:23 PM EST reply actions
umm…its ernst cafe, not cafe ernst…just sayin’
by gerry dorsey on Jan 9, 2008 4:24 PM EST reply actions
you have to promise me to post the story of johnny mack blowing his own face off in a couple months.
by gerry dorsey on Jan 9, 2008 4:34 PM EST reply actions
You should have heard the shit OSU fans were talking pre-game in Glendale last year. You couldn’t shut them up.
After the game was Priceless. I kept chanting, in that Dante from Clerks way, “And we weren’t even supposed to BE in this game!”
by MAB on Jan 9, 2008 4:36 PM EST reply actions
Scalz1 @ 14:
I was thinking more of the 12 fires set and the 15 arrests for disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and arson
The Buckeyes played hard, if not intelligently. I don’t understand trying to burn down your own house.
by NRBQ on Jan 9, 2008 4:37 PM EST reply actions
4 – The Shoe? Please, the Rent is where is at.
(that’s what we call UConn’s stadium. Stop laughing. Okay, continue, it’s pretty funny.)
by Edsall is God on Jan 9, 2008 4:38 PM EST reply actions
You go to great lengths to be kind. Born and raised in Ohio – I can tell you that most OSU fans are assholes. Not unlike UK basketball fans.
by OhioDawg on Jan 9, 2008 4:41 PM EST reply actions
Orson,
Talking about funny hats…….last time I was in NOLA,
me and my wife were in one of those hat/costume shops, and accidentally bumped into the biggest, widest black man I have ever met trying on a Cat in tha Hat style jumbo hat…….that man——-
Suge Knight, with trademark cigar in hand…..
nice guy, took a pic with us,……when he isnt jackin sucka’s for their record contract…..and ironically, this was 2 weeks after sitting next to Robb"Vanilla Ice"Van Winkle on a flight from Ft Lauderdale to ATL….he had won some sort of dirt bike race and hand carried a race muffler on the plane…….of course I didnt bring that up to Suge…..
by Mr Pelican Pants on Jan 9, 2008 4:46 PM EST reply actions
It’s also worth mentioning that I’ve been to a lot of games at Ohio Stadium and will go to a lot more. It should be on the Orson’s list.
OSU is one of the top 5 all time programs in the country. It just happens to have a very high percentage of assholes in the fanbase.
by OhioDawg on Jan 9, 2008 4:50 PM EST reply actions
So all OSU fans aspire to go to law school at Costco?
by Will (the other one) on Jan 9, 2008 4:52 PM EST reply actions
But Orson, with that hat, you look like
The Reverend Deacon Dr. Swindle, or
find your real pimp name here….
http://www.playerappreciate.com/pimphandle.asp
by Mr Pelican Pants on Jan 9, 2008 4:52 PM EST reply actions
When you add the success(barring last 2 BCS champ. games) that OSU has had over the recent years with a large population of people that have had very little other sports success, very little sunlight and are land locked you get a recipe for craziness and disaster… Also the majority of Ohioans’ are of English and German decent, not stereotype but we are on a blog after all, Krauts and Brits tend to be a little crazy about sport and nationalism.
by Jumbo Peters on Jan 9, 2008 5:00 PM EST reply actions
I was sitting deep in the heart of the buckeye nation at the game, having a great time jawing back & forth with them. However, late in the 3rd qtr the attacks became personal with lots of middle fingers flying everywhere. I just chalked it up to having a lack of good smack to talk due to the results playing out on the field below! All in all they were fun to hang out with before & after the game. Geaux Tigers!!!!!
by TigerPimp on Jan 9, 2008 5:02 PM EST reply actions
Yes, #25, there are assholes in this world and their numbers increase the further you get from Tiger Stadium.
by Murphy on Jan 9, 2008 5:05 PM EST reply actions
I like the happy drunks on Bourbon Street….much more fun than the drunks in New Orleans you see on COPS……LSU fans were probaly more forgiving since they knew that tOSU was gonna get blasted, and afterwards felt sorry for them since BNS..(Before Nick Saban), LSU fans were used to the same treatment the tOSU fans have been getting from the SEC these past 2 years, but for longer periods of time….especially with DiNardo….until Nick put them on the map, instilled a work ethic and sense of worth, and built on the talent he had, and got more…..no wonder LSU fans
kinda still like him…if LSU would have lost that game, wonder what would have happened to Miles…..or Saban..thank God Lsu won
by Mr Pelican Pants on Jan 9, 2008 5:06 PM EST reply actions
Haha, loved the gun story. Auto weapons and suppressors are pretty tightly controlled by the feds. Orson, did Johnny Mack seem like the type that gives a shit about nonsense like that? Hehe.
by Tim on Jan 9, 2008 5:37 PM EST reply actions
Orson, that guy behind you looks like Stephen Cobert, or am I into my drink early tonight?
by Sundawg on Jan 9, 2008 5:42 PM EST reply actions
You’re into drink early. That’s Ragin’ Cajun Rebel.
by Orson Swindle on Jan 9, 2008 5:51 PM EST reply actions
I have to say, that pic looks like Orson is giving RCR a hell of lap dance…..
by Mr Pelican Pants on Jan 9, 2008 6:04 PM EST reply actions
“now watch while i go start some shit”
people make me smile
by SEC! SEC! SEC! on Jan 9, 2008 6:15 PM EST reply actions
You should include that pic in your apology to Shreveport. That’ll salve a lot of hurt.
by NRBQ on Jan 9, 2008 6:29 PM EST reply actions
I would hate to be in NOLA if LSU ever lost a national title game in the Superdome with a controverial ending, like the Miami-TOSU Fiesta Bowl.
That being said, Delaney has posted a follow up letter http://landthieves.blogspot.com/2008/01/to-fans-of-big-10-conference-and.html
by HeadThief on Jan 9, 2008 6:59 PM EST reply actions
Man, Michigan needs to play in a Sugar Bowl sometime soon. That looks fun. And hey! We can even beat the occasional SEC team, too!
by Flop on Jan 9, 2008 8:43 PM EST reply actions
Hence, the reason Michigan doesn’t get to play in the Sugar Bowl…….
by CLTDawg on Jan 9, 2008 10:16 PM EST reply actions
I feel your pain Orson, and I am an OSU fan. I was at Ohio Stadium last season for the Cincinnati game. OSU had a huge lead, and I had 4 fans behind me that were unreal. If OSU didn’t throw an 80 yard touchdown bomb to Ginn every first down, they bitched. If Cincinnati gained 1 yard of rushing on offense, they screamed at Tressel to “get it together.” (Mind you were are in the upper deck and are closer to the sun than we are to Tressel, but they screamed anyway). It was obnoxious and annoying. FIgure out the intricacies of the game or STFU.
If anyone can find a YouTube clip of Beanie Wells on the rushing play where he stiff armed the LSU defender and pushed him down into the ground, and could post it, I would be grateful. I need strength and that clip could provide it.
Let us know if you make it to the ’shoe Orson so we can show you some hospitality.
by bnb614 on Jan 9, 2008 10:16 PM EST reply actions
Orson,
You just like that SWV video because they’re wearing jean shorts in it.
Typical Gator.
by Texas_Dawg on Jan 10, 2008 12:25 AM EST reply actions
And fwiw, this was the EDSBS comment of the year for 2007:
by Texas_Dawg on Jan 10, 2008 12:30 AM EST reply actions
#45, I am sure you all really think that. To look at it another way, I’d take the Hammer of Thor over a seemingly insufferable fratboy wannabe any day of the week.
by Irwin Fletcher on Jan 10, 2008 7:52 AM EST reply actions
Martini @ 12 -
The player was Vada Murray, he was a safety who jumped a route across the middle and wound up whacking his skull off of the receiver/cover corner and then off of the turf. He was OK, but out for the game.
Remarable thing about Vada, he and Tripp Welbourne blocked something like 3XP and 5FG that year – they were sick.
by Cock D on Jan 10, 2008 8:07 AM EST reply actions
#45
You’re more than welcome to your gritty Texas kid. Maybe this summer, in between rainbow-shitting sessions of course, TT will allow him to come over and bask in the blinding glow from his trophy case.
by NativeSon on Jan 10, 2008 8:39 AM EST reply actions
Or put yet another way, I’d rather have a drop-back passer for my pro-style offense than a kid who’s almost never taken a snap from under center.
by Biggus Rickus on Jan 10, 2008 8:48 AM EST reply actions
- Maybe while they’re visiting, Stafford can give TT some insight into how to win a big game as a starter.
by Noonan on Jan 10, 2008 8:59 AM EST reply actions
#45
I’m pretty sure Tim Tebow could lift TWO kegs,full, over his head, one in each hand…..and dont make them get into a posedown, Tebow wins that by default….
by Mr Pelican Pants on Jan 10, 2008 9:49 AM EST reply actions
#48
Doesn’t he have to actually not get sacked in order to do so?
by Jmac on Jan 10, 2008 9:53 AM EST reply actions
osu fans are the absolute worst
avoid at all costs
by bsb on Jan 10, 2008 10:36 AM EST reply actions
- - based on the direction the number of wins is going under Tebow, maybe he can become the second player to win the Heisman on a losing team next year. The other was (slurp) not surprisingly (slurp) from Notre Dame.
I’m half joking, of course, because Tebow did put up great numbers, but you’d have to be more than just the ordinary rabid fan not to notice the yearlong slurping of Tebow.
by OhioDawg on Jan 10, 2008 10:38 AM EST reply actions
#3: Ah yes, the “it’s ok because it happens at other schools” defense. How pathetically predictable.
No, he won’t have a better time in Columbus. The fires and arrests double when they lose at home. Or win at home. Columbus has a problem that most other college towns don’t have, and that none should have.
by Jeremy on Jan 10, 2008 10:46 AM EST reply actions
- here is your youtube clip of that beanie wells stiff arm. the video is crappy (someone with a camcorder on their tv) and the sound sucks, but the stiff arm is sick. he just threw that bastard to the floor…
by teaspoon7 on Jan 10, 2008 10:50 AM EST reply actions
Hot off the wire……OSU has hired Lloyd Carr as an Assistant. Seems they want some coaching experience beating SEC teams in bowl games.
by Mgo on Jan 10, 2008 11:15 AM EST reply actions
Trojan Buckeye Dept:
oc phil: As a graduate of both USC and The Ohio State University, which one do you prefer to win?
If it is USC, would you wear USC gear at the USC- tOSU game in Columbus, Ohio in 2009?
Or something dastardly, like a USC shirt and tOSU cap? That would be like Joker in Full Metal Jacket having the peace sign on his helmet.
by Stacy Keibler Luvs Me on Jan 10, 2008 2:13 PM EST reply actions
I must say that I received a lot of hand shakes and “good games/congrats” from several not happy OSU fans while walking around the Quarter afterwards. There were more good OSU fans than bad…just like at every program not named “Auburn.”
by Yeaux Yeaux Ma on Jan 10, 2008 3:30 PM EST reply actions
You can go ahead and say it—OSU fans are CRAZY, not “intense.” As a Michigan fan-student, I have seen it. I mean, we have a rivalry and all, but, still…any time your “jokes” about your rival involve running their fans down with your car and hanging them…you’re SICK FREAKS. Michigan jokes about OSU tend to run along the lines of us being more intelligent than them…which…USNews and employers agree with us there in pretty much every category, so it’s not just used maliciously.
Oh, and…how much of a fan are you of SWV, really? The song is called “Right Here (Human Nature),” not “Love Will Be Right Here.”
But good on ya, bringing OSU’s psychoticness up. It’s about time someone pointed it out.
by nunya on Jan 10, 2008 8:01 PM EST reply actions
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