Go Irish! Be Violent!

Gerry's Corner: I willed myself out of bed yesterday, a Saturday, at 7 in the morning. Yuck! Our dear family friend, Cat (a pseudonym), had invited us with her to the Notre Dame campus. Now, the idea was that we'd follow her around as she reconnected with friends from her undergrad years while we stole beer from their coolers, and then we'd find a television somewhere to watch the game against Penn State. I was surprised that she'd want to travel all that way and not even end up in the stadium, but I didn't have anything else to do besides boring ex-presidential reading, so we all hopped in the motorcade (I still get a small one) and headed on across to South Bend, Indiana. Cat had told us that the trip would take about two hours, but it was really about three hours. We also got a little turned around once we finally got off the highway, due perhaps to the fact that Cat doesn't keep any maps in her car. My cartographer badge from Eagle Scouts instilled in me a love of direction at an early age, and I have to admit to a little - what's the word? Hang on, let me look it up...incredulity at the absence of such a useful tool in her glove compartment or something. And I might I add here, all those people who exclusively use their Mapquest or their fancy GPS doo-hickey? I feel bad for you, blindly depending on someone else's directions instead of charting your own journey.

Anyway, when we arrived, we went on an even longer trek to find all of Cat's friends. It reminded me of one of my favorite comic strips, The Family Circus:



Let's just say that Cat's not all about the most direct route, and what with my advanced age, I was exhausted by the time we arrived, after brief stops at eight or nine tailgates, at the in-dorm domicile of Cat's favorite priest, Father Billy (again, a pseudonym). Well, he quickly became my favorite priest, too, because he had two extra tickets to the Notre Dame-Penn State game! I hadn't been inside Notre Dame's stadium in years, if ever, and so I jumped at the chance to go alongside Nate, my Secret Service detail (and an avid Nittany Lion fan).

The setting was amazing, sort of like a Roman coliseum - waves of fans swooped in clean lines from the top rim of the structure right down to the field. Nate and I sat even with the back of one end zone, ten rows behind where the Notre Dame band sat in the corner, playing the same three or four songs over and over. I liked their rendition of 'Crazy Train,' but honestly, don't they get tired of playing the same snippets of the same songs over and over again? And don't even get me started on their uniforms: polyester, totally sweaty and ill-fitting - ugh!

The student section was very impressive, too - they were able to do lots of things in unison, like waving their arms (from the elbow) in circles and 'whooping' all together. After each Notre Dame score, dozens of students would get lifted horizontally and bench-pressed by the other students around them. If nothing else, the students are aware of the aesthetic power of the visual image (my daughter, Susan, a photographer, told me to write that - thanks, Susan!). They also did this chant where they'd say, "Gooooooooooooooo Irish! Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeee violent!" I found out later that the second part of that chant is actually "Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeat Lions!" But I like it better the way I heard it - fans encouraging their football heroes to not only win, but be violent in the process, is ballsy and ruthless.

One issue was the problem of sitting or standing: I wanted to see the game no matter what, but there were old people behind us who wanted to see it while sitting, and any time someone got up in front of us, we had to stand up, too, and they'd yell at us. "But I'm the former president!" I pleaded, trying to guilt them into letting me stand up without shouting at me.

"Sit your ass down, you clown!" one retorted. Boy, have I heard that a lot in my life, especially during those summers in high school when I worked as a circus clown. I ended up trying to only stand when it was necessary to see something crucial, and then hunching over as much as possible. After decades of service, I find it my duty to be selfless.

If the setting was amazing, the game itself was not. Penn State made lots of mistakes and they fell behind 41-3 before scrounging up two late touchdowns to make the game seem closer than it was. Nate was disappointed but I think we were both just happy to be there. Thanks, Cat!

Reviews: The first movie I saw since un-suspending my Netflix account was Saint Ralph. It was excellent; a little film that I don't think did much business, but I'm a sucker for inspiring sports movies (what American public figure would say otherwise? Though I guess since this is my blog, I can write things without being concerned about who's reading it). Ralph is a young rapscallion who keeps getting in trouble at his Catholic school while his mother is in the hospital, dying of cancer. Ralph learns that only a miracle will save her, so he decides to try and win the Boston Marathon (this is back in the 1940s, when all the good marathoners will in World War II, so the competition was a little thinner, full of children and deserters). The scenes during the race, when everyone has become galvanized by his heart and pluck instead of annoyed by him, made me want to cry. You know those times when you really want to cry but you're not really close to tears? That's how I felt - I actually flexed my face muscles a few times trying to squeeze out some 'eye juice', but to no avail. Anyway, the movie was really good, even if it's about a Canadian kid - I guess our neighbors to the north can still move me.

Front Page: Finally, let me conclude with a shout-out to Storm Large, who was cruelly and unjustly voted off of Rockstar: Supernova this week. Storm is the daughter of a good friend of mine, a history teacher at a boarding school in Massachusetts - - and as far as I'm concerned, she was the most talented musician in any of these music-related reality shows. American Idol, of course, has nothing, and those dancing shows are all crap. And I really thought that, after Dave Navarro opted to jam with her on her cover of 'Suffragette City,' she'd be a lock to stay through the finale. Fortunately, Storm handled her ouster like a champ - rock on, Stormy Storm!

All right - I have to get back to reading the stuff that ex-presidents end up feeling a certain obligation to read; I woke up a little late today after yesterday's long hours, so I've got a lot to catch up on.

There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe,
Gerry