Cocktail Party This Weekend: ClayNation Archive, the 2007 Cocktail Party
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
I'm open to your suggestions about what I should do. For the record, I'll be covering the atmosphere of the game. The goal is to not write a word about the actual game. We'll see how that goes. Feel free to hit me up at clay.travis@gmail.com with suggestions. In the meantime, here is my story of the 2007 Cocktail Party. Above is the video from our seat, we were directly behind the UGA tubas.
As an added benefit, I think this column marked the debut of the BGID phenomenon.
...
Let me just say this before you start drowning in the details: Go to the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party before you die. I personally guarantee that you will have a great time. Even if you don't care who wins between Florida and Georgia.
Even if you hate both Florida and Georgia, you don't actually like football, or sports or end up going into the stadium (although you should go); being in Jacksonville for this weekend is completely worth it. Even if, you know, you're staying in a Red Roof Inn somewhere on the outskirts of Jacksonville.
Since the Dixieland Delight book has been released, several readers have e-mailed to ask why I didn't go to this game last year. The answer was because I wanted to see a game on each campus during the DDT and didn't have time to see a neutral-site game. That was a legitimate reason for purposes of the book, but based on everything I've heard from readers, I couldn't wait to get here and see the Cocktail Party in person for the first time. Accompanying me for the weekend was UK grad Tardio, also a Cocktail Party first-timer.
So here we go DDT style for the Cocktail Party:
1. Every cab driver, baggage handler, and police officer in Jacksonville is sex-crazed when it comes to Cocktail Party weekend. This manifests itself early, when the one-eyed baggage guy near our rental car bids us adieu: "Go get you some playas," he says. Then he offers me a fist pound.
2. Our hotel, The Red Roof Inn, is undergoing a re-branding. Evidently some people think that the Red Roof Inn is not that nice of a hotel. Imagine that. We arrive at around 9 to check in and immediately the front desk man harangues me because I don't know the license plate number for our car. The RRI has hundreds more parking spaces than it needs and we are nowhere near anything that someone not staying at the hotel might want to park near. "I'll get back to you on that," I say, because Tardio has left in the car to go get beer.
3. We're staying at the Red Roof Inn because the downtown Wyndham is the only downtown hotel that has rooms available. And their rate for Friday and Saturday night is $582 a night. Seriously, $582 a night. And it doesn't even include a Georgia coed.
4. While we wait to take our cab to Jacksonville Landing, Tardio buys candy from the vending machine. He returns to inform me that the vending machine in our lobby sells Snickers alongside condoms. Yep, condoms in the vending machine at the RRI. That's class.
5. For the entire ride to Jacksonville Landing, our cab driver talks about all the freaky things he's done with girls visiting town for the Cocktail Party. It's like Taxicab Confessions in reverse. This conversation will play itself out in repeat on every one of our cab rides for the rest of our stay.
6. Thursday night at Jacksonville Landing is kind of quiet. It's raining and every bar/club is trying to attract patrons by using flashing strobe lights.
Remember back in seventh grade when the guy who had the strobe light would bring it to the party and everyone went crazy because the strobe light was there? Sometimes the guy with the strobe light would get invited to parties solely because he had the strobe light.
Then this guy would inevitably get caught smoking behind his shed and his mom would threaten to make him take the strobe light back to Spencer's Gifts and everyone would get really nervous that the party wasn't going to be cool at all. But then the guy with the strobe light always made a play and showed up.
Basically this guy has grown up and is still popular at the Cocktail Party. Strobe lights are everywhere. As a result it's almost impossible to see inside any club.
7. It's almost entirely Georgia fans at Jacksonville Landing on Thursday night. Worst look: The Georgia Bulldog beret. Seriously, who buys this? You can't have a single friend on Earth if they let you wear this. Fortunately self-made T-shirts are gaining in popularity. The best of the night? "Hey Timmy, Knowshon doesn't cry."
8. We head into Adrenaline Night Club. Their slogan is, and I'm not making this up, "The Party Is Here." While the party may be there, hardly anyone else is. Fortunately they do have a full VIP section (we really wanted to know what you had to pony up to be VIP. Our guess was $10 and a package of glow worms) and a rocking strobe light.
9. I go into the bathroom, see a bathroom attendant standing around by himself, and give him $2. The attendant insists that I take something, so I take a blow-pop. When I come back out Tardio just says, "Where in the hell did you get a blow-pop?" Later, I go back to the bathroom and the attendant treats me like Kanye. When I tell him I'm not washing my hands this time, the attendant looks physically pained.
10. Eventually we leave because Tardio says, "Man, everybody in there was going low." To reiterate, Tardio can't stomach any men dancing until their butts almost touch the floor. He's a beaten man by the time we leave. When we get back to the RRI at 3 a.m., the guy at the front desk says, "I need your license plate number."
11. We burn off our hangover Friday by golfing in a rainstorm at the break of dawn. We're playing the Sawgrass Championship Course on Sunday and we decide that we need to get some practice in. This round does nothing to instill confidence in someone about to play on the Player's Championship course.
12. By the time Friday night arrives, I ask Tardio whether he is going to talk to any girls. He assures me that he is. We arrive at Jacksonville Landing by 8 p.m., spend $10 each to enter, $5 for each beer thereafter, and spend the next seven hours in the midst of a huge drunken party. During this time, in the midst of a party that is unrivaled this side of Cancun's spring break in its scope, immensity, drunken revelry, and abundance of hot women, Tardio neither talks to nor attempts to talk to a single girl. Not one.
13. The MC on the stage spends seven consecutive hours asking people whether they are Georgia fans or Florida fans and instructing these fans to cheer at his direction. Each time he does this the crowd goes crazy. Also, he asks who let the dogs out approximately 14 times. If you were a Georgia fan, wouldn't you get tired of hearing guys with mikes asking who the let the dogs out? You'd think so, right? But you'd be wrong. Every time the guy with the mike asks this question Georgia fans react as if Herschel Walker has just been granted an additional year of eligibility.
14. Point of note: If you have designs shaved into your beards, gelled hair, are wearing a jersey or wristbands, then there's a 100 percent chance you're a Florida fan.
15. While Florida and Georgia fans cheer wildly, I take turns pointing out men with beards who are with attractive women. There's a beard kinship among the bearded (like bald men) and Tardio has been making fun of my beard for five years since the halcyon days of 2002 when it debuted. For a time I would say, "Beard, getting it done," whenever I saw other men making plays with beards. Now, I merely point and say, "Bgid." This drives Tardio crazy.
16. While we are on different sides of the great beard divide, we do reach agreement that while Florida might have beaten Georgia on the field in 15 of the past 17 Cocktail Parties, Georgia women are undefeated off the field. The women between these two schools are not even close. Not that Tardio talked to any of them, but still, in Civil War terms Georgia women are the Pat Cleburnes and Florida women are the Braxton Braggs. At least if Braxton Bragg had fat arms.
17. But finally at 3 a.m. at the Whattaburger in the middle-of-nowhere Jacksonville suburbs, Tardio decides to talk to girls. And not just one girl, but five of the best-looking Florida girls in the city of Jacksonville. Believe it or not Tardio engages these girls in conversation, is on fire with his material, has just turned the fact that one girl used the word "conundrum" in a Whattaburger conversation into huge laughs, when, out of nowhere, a fat girl from Florida shows up and is best friends with one of the hot girls. Much hugging and squealing ensues and Tardio is forgotten. "What are the odds," he asks, "that the only fat girl on Earth that the hot girls know, shows up at three in the morning at Whattaburger and destroys my game?"
18. Saturday doesn't get any better for Tardio. We spend the morning watching Kentucky fall behind Mississippi State. Then we travel to the Cocktail Party, park approximately two miles away from the stadium, and walk forever to the stadium. During our walk we are the only people on the street and multiple people pull up beside us and ask if we're walking to the game. We knew it was a bad sign when the guy whose yard we parked in said, "You only need to walk five blocks and then you can ride the trolley."
19. Once we get close to the stadium, the jort insults are flying. Within a half-mile outside the stadium eight different Georgia fans accuse Florida fans of wearing jorts. Florida fans all respond with some variation of 15-2. It's possible I might have understated Georgia fans' obsession with accusing Florida fans of wearing jean shorts.
20. Georgia's recent futility against Florida is really without parallel in college football. No top 20 program owns another top 20 program like Florida has owned Georgia. What makes these losses so daunting is that the talent levels between these two teams have been relatively equal over the past 17 years. Yet season after season, year after year, Georgia has found a way to lose and Florida has found a way to win. And each year, no matter the outcome, the schools hate each other more than they did the year before.
21. In the parking lot by the stadium a Georgia girl is dancing. Out of nowhere a Florida girl shakes her beer and sprays it all over her. It's a war zone in Jacksonville. Tardio and I are in neutral colors and expect to be taunted by both sides. Many Georgia fans are leery of my attendance because in the past two years I've been present to see Georgia lose three games and win none. After my column about retiring from UT road games ran, several Georgia fans asked me to retire from their games as well. Unfortunately for them this game was already scheduled.
22. There is no doubt that Georgia and Florida fans hate each other. But they also seem to hate each other in the way political parties hate each other. Each fan base knows the insults that are forthcoming from the other and rapid-fire retorts spew forth. Florida fans bring up the 15-2 record in the past 17 years ... Georgia fans respond with the all-time record against Florida of 45-37. Georgia fans say they're going to Teabag Tebow, Florida fans make fun of Knowshon Moreno's name. Basically the only thing that unites the two teams is a love of cleavage.
23. Inside the stadium we are seated in the Gate 3 end zone with our Georgia friend Chad Crews. Chad has been to 10 Cocktail Parties before. "I'm 0-10," he says. "We've lost every game I've ever seen here."
4. Our seats are, and this is no exaggeration, directly behind the tuba section of the Georgia band. Every time the tuba players lift their instruments, we can't see the field at all. And the tuba players lift their instruments a lot more frequently than you think. Plus, they swivel and prance and dip and when they do so, the tubas come perilously close to nailing the people seated behind them in the head. This is ominous.
25. By kickoff, the stadium is a raucous collection of evenly split drunken bedlam. Hate bristles from every alcohol-secreting pore, from each snap of the Gator Chomp and from each Georgia Bulldog bark. I've been to lots of rivalry games, but I've never seen one where fans hate each other more. The hate is so palpable, it makes Alabama-Auburn seem like a friendly game between relatives.
26. On the Gators' first offensive series, Tim Tebow is sacked and the Georgia crowd goes crazy. Chad turns to me, "We gonna take that Heisman from Tebow today." The tubas sway in our direction and we spring backward to avoid being knocked out. Shortly thereafter, Florida's Kestahn Moore fumbles and Georgia recovers.
27. How is it possible that Florida has had such woeful talent at running back? Most other SEC teams can go three or four deep and have better results than Florida does with their first string. This is unbelievable. Especially when you consider how many other teams have players from the state of Florida at running back.
28. The tubas are so overwhelming that after Georgia's first touchdown, as the entire team rushes onto the field to celebrate, I can only see that the Georgia bench is empty. I think there must be a fight going on. Chad concurs. Later we hear what happened, that it was a team celebration instigated by Mark Richt.
29. I think the decision was a smart one. I've seen Georgia play already this year, against Tennessee, and in that game the Georgia football team didn't seem as if they cared at all. Worse for team morale, it didn't seem like the team was having much fun either. So congrats to Richt for being willing to try something new, even if it was potentially inflammatory.
All too often, football coaches treat their jobs as if they have been given the key to nuclear codes and have to protect the viability of the free world. In reality, college football coaches are just highly paid entertainers who are in charge of getting young guys to play a game well. Pretty basic. For once, after this score, Georgia seemed to genuinely enjoy playing football.
30. Having said that, what if the Knowshon Moreno touchdown call gets reversed and Georgia then gets penalized 30 yards for the excessive celebration? Then suddenly Mark Richt is facing fourth-and-31 and a 48-yard field goal. Instead Georgia scores to go up 7-0. There's a fine line between profound brilliance and profound stupidity. Les Miles lives on this line.
31. Urban Meyer gathers the Florida team on the sideline around him and suddenly the crowd is feeding off the energy of the two dancing teams below. The excitement in the stadium has, unbelievably just been ratcheted up again.
32. Amazingly for Tardio's benefit, two of the best looking Georgia girls in the stadium are sitting beside him. One of them, Allyson Dunn, has brought more comfortable shoes to change into than the heels she was wearing earlier. What's the choice? Georgia Crocs of course. ClayNation Canon 137: If you put an SEC team's logo on any product, people will buy it.
33. Almost immediately, Tebow answers the Dawg score with a long touchdown pass to Louis Murphy and we're tied 7-7. The Georgia fans around me collectively groan. Georgia ground out their first touchdown and Florida's own response seemed effortless. Tardio says, "Ask Chad how he feels about that Heisman prediction now."
34. The team celebration seems to have fired up the supremely talented but occasionally disinterested Matthew Stafford. At least that's what it appears when Stafford goes deep for an 84-yard touchdown to Mohamed Massaquoi. The tuba players are coming undone. They're doing a hip-thrusting cheer that is considered obscene in 38 states.
35. But then, just as quickly, Matthew Stafford throws the easiest interception returned for a touchdown in the SEC season. Wondy Pierre-Louis, who sounds like he was the colonial governor of Louisiana under Napoleon, flips into the end zone and we're tied 14-14. Georgia fans sit down as one around me and Florida kicks a field goal to take a 17-14 lead. In the process the Georgia band files out of the seats to prepare for their performance on the field. Suddenly we can see the entire field.
36. But near the end of the first half it becomes clear that Florida can't stop Moreno. With only a couple minutes to play, Georgia reclaims the lead 21-17 and some of the more brazen Georgia fans have begun to do the Gator Chomp. "I love the derisive Gator Chomp," Tardio says. "It's the best anti-cheer in sports."
37. I ask Chad when the last time he remembers seeing a halftime lead against Florida in person. "Honestly, I can't remember it ever happening," he says. Then he leaves to smoke a cigarette because the nerves of the game are getting to him.
38. The band files back into the stands and one tuba guy gives another tuba guy a high five and says, "That show was badass."
39. The second half begins as the first ended, with New Jersey's finest Moreno gouging Florida's defense. Knowshon sprints 42 yards and a Georgia fan behind me begins screaming, "I love that Yankee." Georgia scores to go up 28-17 and Chad explodes in yelps beside me.
40. Until you stand directly behind the band you have no idea how many times they stand and sit during the course of a game or how often they play. For good plays and horrible plays, it doesn't really matter what happens on the field, the band is going to play. Loudly.
41. And during the second half they have a ton of reasons to be playing as Moreno immortalizes himself to Bulldog fans as the newest second coming of Herschel. Tebow can't get Florida closer than 28-24 and 35-30 and as each moment ticks away, Georgia fans become even more delirious with glee. By the time Moreno scores to put Georgia up 42-30, Dawg fans are climbing on seats, barking with glee, and doing the derisive Gator Chomp with reckless abandon.
42. Florida fans begin filing out of the stadium and for Georgia fans 3-15 has never felt better. Chad hugs me. "I'm going to start bringing you every year to this game. I'm 1-10," he screams. And in that exact same moment he begins to bark and his barking mingles with the tuba players' gyrating medley and the other Dawg fans barking and the sounds all climb into the rain-soaked air and for a blessedly long moment, the Georgia victory is so pure there are no memories of defeat.
Travis has become enamored of several objects, phrases or events which he frequenly references in the column. Among the most frequent:
'Bama Bangs - a term coined by Travis to refer to southern men's hairstyles that feature prominent bangs for no apparent reason. Brodie Croyle and John Parker Wilson are oft-cited violators of 'Bama Bangs rules.
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