T1B

Just got back late last night from my little vacation to Looziana; specifically, N'Awlins and Baton Rouge. While in Baton Rouge I went to the LSU-'Bama game at Tiger Stadium...

-Still shocked at what I saw when I visited the 9th Ward in New Orleans. Even above and beyond the still palpable devastation from Katrina, christ, how on earth did a third world slum like that ever come to exist in modern day America?? That place was fucking embarrassing. I can't believe that was America. Man...

-French Quarter: uniformally great gumbo, hit and miss jambalaya and while beignets are good and all they are in the end just heavy-ish powdered donuts. Nothing too spectacular, but I'm glad to've finally tried 'em. Great atmosphere at Cafe Du Monde. The guitar players in the bars almost universally sucked, or were average at best, which shocked me in a town built on jazz and blues traditions. There was only one good player and a half dozen hacks. Never woulda thunkit but San Francisco and even the Sacramento Delta region completely blow away New Orleans for blues guitarists.

-New Orleans had more than its fair share of morbidly obese black women, which was to be expected. Also to be expected then was the additional fact that I probably saw more insanely hot black women there than I've ever seen anywhere else. Fuck but there were some major league nubian bodies running around in those cafes. Yow.

-Surprisingly little football presence to be felt in New Orleans. Besides the one Reggie Bush billboard off of I-10 near the Superdome there was next to no NFL presence there. Even the LSU presence was fairly low key, with more 'Bama fans trolling Bourbon St than overtly visible LSU fans. Basically, if you weren't looking for it, you might not've ever known you were in a supposed football town.

-Things began to change though once we headed north on I-10 towards Baton Rouge...

-Jeebus but Louisiana is one mostly deserted state! Man, even between two of the state's biggest cities there were stretches of uninterrupted interstate that seemed to go on forever with nary an exit to...anything! Just nothing but one asphalt ribbon snaking its way through swampland forest, for as far as the eye can see. No truck stops, no Wal-Marts, no strip malls, no brothels...nothing. No freeway exits. None. Just keep goin', junior...

-Baton Rouge....Umm, it is the state's capital, right? You'd never know it. If one didn't know any better one would assume LSU is the state capital and Tiger Stadium is the capitol. That entire city is completely wrapped up in LSU football. There is nothing like it on the west coast. Every third vehicle is flying an LSU flag or three. Every building, every billboard, every everything...purple and yellow, with a growling tiger. Young people, AARP members, blue collar workers, whatever...Geaux Tigers!! Just unbelievable to see an entire metropolis devoted to a group of 20-ish year old amatuer football players who've won only two national titles in the program's entire existence, with one of 'em being back in the '50s.

-As grimy, grim and decadent as New Orleans is Baton Rouge is charming, gawdawful conservative and "Old South" beautiful. What a gorgeous city, in terms of the neighborhoods, the flora and fauna and how well maintained everything is there.

-Shit is ENTIRELY closed down on Sundays, and most early evenings every night. I'm talking just about everything. I'm from California. Shit is supposed to be open all night, every night. Fuck!! Shoneys and the ubiquitous Waffle Houses being our only open restaurants at 10:00pm in Baton Rouge is well below average. Is this Baton Rouge, or Mayberry?? Wtf??

-Tailgating at an LSU game...NOT what I expected. It was a 150,000 strong (the crowd guesstimate given by the locals) family picnic. That was easily the most peaceful and pleasant gathering I've ever experienced. Ned Flanders would've been proud. Didn't see one sloppy drunk, though there was lots of drinking. Didn't see one ugly confrontation with visiting 'Bama Fan, though I saw endless instances where LSU Crowd invited visiting 'Bama Fan into LSU Tailgatin' Tent to join in the food and tv watchin'. (Everybody was freaking out over the Georgia-Auburn and S. Carolina-Florida games.) Nobody cusses. Nobody has an unkind word to say about anything. It was like a giant Mormon gathering.

-Speaking of which, I've never seen so many white people in one place in all my life. I'm talking screamingly white, Dockers commercial white, and nothing but white. In California when one thinks of a major university the first thing that comes to mind is...Asians. Might as well call those baby blue pussies in Westwood U.C.R.A., for example. Loads of Asians, and a decent smattering of Latins and blacks. Get off campus and then it's minorities everywhere, to the point where whites in California are literally now a minority.

Not so, at LSU. Among those bazillion or so tailgaters I saw precisely ZERO Asians, Latinos or blacks. I saw two blacks, total, and they were both scalping tickets. Zero Asians or Latinos. At a major university. I was absolutely gobsmacked. After a couple hours of tailgatin' I finally mentioned this phenomenon to my buddy, an LSU alum, and he just sorta thought about it for a moment and then said, "You know, I'd never thought about that before. Now that you mention it though I guess it is pretty much all whites who tail gate."

He guessed that the LSU student population was 90% white, with the few minorities mostly being blacks. Very few Asians ("They're in the sciences, and they don't follow football...") and fewer Latinos.

Once we moved into the stadium for the game I did see two black students. Two. The following day on campus I did see one Asian student riding her bicycle across campus.

Incredible.

-The LSU Sports Complex is pretty remarkable. Man but those people luvs them some LSU teams. That is one impressive group of facilities and the football program (and all its attendant buildings) strides like a colossus across everything. Most every building he showed me, yep, it was a football building...

"The old football weight room. They don't use it any more."

"The new football weight room. It's football players only. Saban insisted on it, as part of his contract."

"The football players academic tutoring facility."

"That's the indoor practice facility."

"That's one of the outdoor practice fields."

"This is their old meeting/film room. It's mostly abandoned now by the football program. Disregard all the football helmets on the walls."

"Those are the new football dorms."

"This is the football history room." (This room was VERY cool. Among all sorts of other football related items it also had all 32 NFL helmets on display with a plaque beneath each helmet listing all current and fomer LSU players for each NFL team.)

"These used to be student dorms, inside the stadium. Huey Long had the stadium built atop the dorms as a means of getting around the rules..."

"Here's Mike's (the LSU tiger mascot) new habitat. (This thing was awesome. They went ahead and built a San Diego Wild Animal Park sized natural habitat for Mike V, their bitchin' tiger, right across the street from the stadium. It's got a pool with flowing water, large climbing posts, heated enclosures...the works. It's got a giant tent shaped net surrounding it, like one of those amusement park batting cages.)

Just so many football related facilites, and that's not even counting all the non football athletic facilities. I highly doubt that too many local recruits ever escape LSU's clutches. It's a whole orgiastic world dedicated to making living deities out of mush brained twenty year old kids. Damn.

-Tiger Stadium is a work in continual progress. Currently it comprises four separate eras of construction. Anyway, once inside the stadium, it doesn't seem as big as the similar seating capacity L.A. Coliseum or Rose Bowl, both of which seem to be far larger and far grander buildings.

-From all accounts this wasn't the greatest of nights to catch the "Tiger Stadium Experience". All the people there kept telling me that it can get so much louder and rowdier than it was for this 'Bama game. As it was, the stadium was about 90% full on a cool, windy night. It was about 50 degrees and most of the locals (and my wife) were about dying from the "cold". (I just kept imagining a December evening game in Camp Randall Stadium or maybe Soldier Field...) The crowd was, again, incredibly well behaved. They have all sorts of choreographed cheers they do for specific things that occur on the field. For example, they all do the Wayne's World "We're Not Worthy!" bow any time their D forces a change of possession.

-In terms of fight songs LSU's are horrible. Utterly lacking in anything resembling an inspirational tone, utterly forgettable.

"Gooooooo Tigers! Gooooooo Tigers! Gooooo Tigers! L...S...U...!"

"Conquest", or "Hail To The Victors"...it ain't.

-Once and for all I can now put to rest the bullshit people have been saying about how badass and downright vicious an SEC crowd can be towards "the enemy". When I told my LSU hosts about how I was warned by the people of this board not to wear any "USC" or especially any "USC: 2003 National Champions" gear they just laughed and said that's just a bunch of nonsense put out by people trying to make 'em sound bad.

I could've ridden in on a white horse while wearing Tommy Trojan's gear and the worst I would've gotten would've been some good natured chants of "Tiger Bait! Tiger Bait!" from the enormous Gathering Of Osmonds. 'Bama fans sporting full 'Bama regalia were literally getting backslaps and even hugs from LSU fans. There were 'Bama fans sprinkled all throughout the stadium (in addition to their one area reserved for them next to their band) and they'd stand up and wave their pom poms and do their 'Bama cheers right in the midst of hordes of LSU fans and nobody'd do anything more than laugh and give 'em some good natured ribbing.

Put it this way: Raider Fan or Coliseum Fan is FAR more vicious to opposing fans than anything that's likely to ever occur at Tiger Stadium, either inside or outside the stadium. LSU fans were the nicest and classiest group of people you'd ever wanna meet. Very much like Nebraksa Fan, from everything I've heard of Corn Fan. These people really give a major crap about having character and behaving with respect and dignity.

I was almost pissed that I didn't see one stereotypical drunken cajun. I was promised I would, too, but none showed themselves.

Didn't get to see any Jessica Simpson/Daisy Dukes either, and goddammit I was really looking forward to seeing scads of scantilly clad SEC coeds doing their FSU Cowgirls thang. Nope, instead, due to the cool weather I'm told, all I got were seas and seas of...chicks in jeans. Now, don't get me wrong, there was a lot of serious coed talent there, with the usual emphasis on bared midriffs and navel piercings, and there was also a wholly refereshing LACK of tats and facial piercings, but all in all the women there were entirely too Ned Flanders wholesome and not nearly SoCal Coed Slutty enough for me.

Yes, I felt a bit cheated. Altogether the weather, the opponent being in the midst of a down year and LSU's self admitted "spoiled by success" fan base conspired to rob me of much of the T&A and the legendary Tiger Stadium Fervor I'd heard about for so long...

I could sure see though where that whole world there must seem like heaven on earth to any kid who gets to live right in the middle of it throughout their college years. No way you'd ever shake that era from your mental landscape.

All of it, that whole beautiful world there in Baton Rouge...all that reflected glory, all that passion, all that architectural granduer...all built on the love of kids playing amatuer football.

Ancient Rome, in the 21st Century.

If your average Asian was 6'5" 250lbs, and ran a 4.50 forty, UCLA would dominate.....


Too bad you didn't sample some oysters, you'd still be on antibiotics.....

We avoided the oysters this go around...

UCLA's cheerleading squads always crack me up with the way they try to be so genuinely integrated! They've always got a couple of token blacks and far more than the usual amount of Asians. Meanwhile, just across town, at a school that ALSO has more than its fair share of Asian coeds, there's the USC Song Girls...

...all golden Hollywood Starlet blondes and luxurious, exotic looking eastern Euro brunettes...

Weird thing about UCLA's cheerleaders. Most all of us would agree that Asian coeds can be ridiculously hot. That being the case, how is it that UCLA always seems to litter their squads with Plain Jane Asian chicks? Why can't they get the full on porn looking jizz buckets that are fairly teeming on the Westwood campus??

Then again, we've got the Trojan Warrior on a great white steed and you've got Ma & Pa Kettle in Chuck E Cheese bear costumes, so there ya' go.

Great post, Van.

-I lived in Nawlins for 8 months, and I don't think I ever met an 'Aints fan. Of course, those were the days of the Bagheads...

-There's good music in New Orleans, but it's really hidden away in the neighborhood bars, not in the areas that are accessible to tourists. I used to see Kermit Ruffins play at Vaughn's in the 9th Ward, right by the canal that failed. He was an incredible trumpet player, and he always had a great band playing with him. We used to go to this gumbo shack called Little Peoples, and on Saturday mornings high school kids from the neighborhood would come and play instruments...unfailingly great. One of the better bands I saw regularly was the New Orleans Klezmer all-stars in the Marigny. They had some good players...but they also had Willie Green, the drummer for the Neville Brothers Band - and easily one of the best drummers I've ever seen play.

-The 9th Ward is a vast area, comprising some gentrified arty neighborhoods, acres of run-down shotgun shacks, and Desire Project, where the police feared to patrol and dudes walked around with automatic weapons in their hands. The Lower 9th Ward is the area across the canal from where I lived, I guess they got the worst of the flooding. I'd be interested to hear what part you visited...did you go to the Saturn Bar? That was our haunt.

PSU, I couldn't really say. I just asked our concierge for directions to the 9th Ward. We were told to head east on I-10 and then get off at Louisa St and then head south.

"Pretty much, anywhere you go 'round there, that's all the 9th Ward. You cain't rightly miss it, it's all destroyed, evur'where you go!"

So, we just drove, 'round and 'round, all over the grid. We never stopped and got out and there were NO occupied buildings. There was certainly nothing like a still open for business Saturn Bar. If that bar was in that area then that bar is now a former bar.

Where we were, there wasn't a living soul except for a few milling around construction workers and contractors. There were a few FEMA trailers parked here and there and that was it and even they looked deserted.

It was a ghost town and most of the buildings were well beyond repair. Most of 'em were vacant husks in utter shambles.

As for the musicians, yeah, we saw plenty of good musicians in N.O. and in and around Bourbon St, all over the French Quarter. What we didn't see though were good guitar players. That's always going to be what I come to see and there was a distinct lack there. We found one really good cover band player, a dude who made no bones about being bored out of his skull playing classic rock covers for drunken middle aged realtors on vacation. Other than that, man, the players we saw ranged from competent but uninspiring to downright sloppy and remedial.

We saw this one guy sitting in with a really great blues band fronted by this 500 lb Jabba The Hut black dude with a jherri curl 'do, a guy called Big Al Carson. Apparently he's a bit of a New Orleans legend. Dude was great. He could barely walk but he was still a great blues singer. Buddy Guy meets Robert Cray meets Krispy Kreme. Problem was, his "legendary" guitarist who was sitting in that night was downright horrible. I don't mean horrible in a not-Steve-Vai-level-of-technical-brilliance kinda way. No, I mean he was hacking, painfully.

He was literally making me wince.

Oh well, no biggie. We did see some killer bands and some truly excellent vocalists.

Van wrote:-Still shocked at what I saw when I visited the 9th Ward in New Orleans. Even above and beyond the still palpable devastation from Katrina, christ, how on earth did a third world slum like that ever come to exist in modern day America?? That place was fucking embarrassing. I can't believe that was America. Man...

. . .

-New Orleans had more than its fair share of morbidly obese black women, which was to be expected. Also to be expected then was the additional fact that I probably saw more insanely hot black women there than I've ever seen anywhere else. Fuck but there were some major league nubian bodies running around in those cafes. Yow.

Oh no you di'n't. If there's any chance of an Annie reinstatement, you just know she'll have something to say about the above.

-Shit is ENTIRELY closed down on Sundays, and most early evenings every night. I'm talking just about everything. I'm from California. Shit is supposed to be open all night, every night. Fuck!! Shoneys and the ubiquitous Waffle Houses being our only open restaurants at 10:00pm in Baton Rouge is well below average. Is this Baton Rouge, or Mayberry?? Wtf??

Welcome to the South. I lived in Jacksonville for 3 1/2 years while I was in the Navy, and it was the same thing there. In fact, I had just decided that I was tired of living on the ship, got my own apartment and had just moved in over the weekend. It was a Sunday, the NFL playoffs were underway, and I decided I'd stop to pick up a 6-pack of beer before the games started. What do you mean I can't buy beer on Sunday?

-Speaking of which, I've never seen so many white people in one place in all my life. I'm talking screamingly white, Dockers commercial white, and nothing but white. In California when one thinks of a major university the first thing that comes to mind is...Asians. Might as well call those baby blue pussies in Westwood U.C.R.A., for example. Loads of Asians, and a decent smattering of Latins and blacks. Get off campus and then it's minorities everywhere, to the point where whites in California are literally now a minority.

Not so, at LSU. Among those bazillion or so tailgaters I saw precisely ZERO Asians, Latinos or blacks. I saw two blacks, total, and they were both scalping tickets. Zero Asians or Latinos. At a major university. I was absolutely gobsmacked. After a couple hours of tailgatin' I finally mentioned this phenomenon to my buddy, an LSU alum, and he just sorta thought about it for a moment and then said, "You know, I'd never thought about that before. Now that you mention it though I guess it is pretty much all whites who tail gate."

He guessed that the LSU student population was 90% white, with the few minorities mostly being blacks. Very few Asians ("They're in the sciences, and they don't follow football...") and fewer Latinos.

It's the same way here. Once you get outside the city limits of the major cities in this area (Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse) it's easily upwards of 90% white here. And virtually everyone else is black -- really no Latinos or Asians to speak of.

If anything, it was even worse in these parts when I was a kid. When I got to Notre Dame (which at the time was 93% white enrollment), I was actually astounded by the diversity there.

Van wrote:
Then again, we've got the Trojan Warrior on a great white steed

You're gay, huh.....

So Van, now that UCONN has a conference win over a bowl-bound Pitt team, and the Cuse is still winless, are you gonna consider removing my comment from your sig?

Or are you trying to make yourself look like a fool?

If so, wonderful job of it.

MgoBlue-LightSpecial wrote:So Van, now that UCONN has a conference win over a bowl-bound Pitt team, and the Cuse is still winless, are you gonna consider removing my comment from your sig?

UConn is still very much in the hunt be become Bowl eligible. They play @ Syracuse this weekend and get Cincinnati at home next weekend before going to Louisville on 12/2. They could get the 2 wins they need to be Bowl eligible in the next 2 weeks.

Mgo, I take it then that you completely missed the whole point of my sig of yours.

Very unlike you, that.

Be that as it may, sure, I'll go ahead and delete it for ya'. Just make sure to grab PSU or Dins or B-t-H or somebody else who's routinely funny and between the lot of ya' hurry up and come up with another new quip that's equally funny and sig worthy.

'K?

Great to read you had a great time! Now get back to work so I can hear about it 1st hand.

And bring pics!

Didn't even bring a camera.

My LSU host just realized that last night, as a matter of fact...

"You didn't take a single picture while you were here, did you? Did you even bring a camera?"

"Nope, and nope. We almost never take pictures, anywhere we go."

"You're an idiot."

Glad to hear that you had a good time, Van. I knew that you would enjoy the experience. People around here pide themselves on the whole southern hospitality thing. I'm not much on Baton Rouge because it is so centered around LSU....that and politics. I prefer it here in Lafayette because there's much more flavor. This is the heart of cajun country.

The Seer wrote:If your average Asian was 6'5" 250lbs, and ran a 4.50 forty,

Then Portland State University would be getting ready to celebrate their 14th consecutive D1A championship.

Terry in Crapchester wrote:It's the same way here. Once you get outside the city limits of the major cities in this area (Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse) it's easily upwards of 90% white here.

Shit...our "ethnic neighborhoods" are probably pushing 90% white around these parts. Then again, I'm from a state that in its original state constitution, outlawed slavery...not on moral grounds, but because it would entail having blacks in the state.


Great travelogue-btw.

Dinsdale wrote:Shit...our "ethnic neighborhoods" are probably pushing 90% white around these parts. Then again, I'm from a state that in its original state constitution, outlawed slavery...not on moral grounds, but because it would entail having blacks in the state.

I hear ya.

Sin,
County I live in in the M&W

Baton Rouge has plenty of black people, they're just all over at the Southern game on Saturday....or in jail.

TTB, my LSU hosts said the exact same thing about Lafayette. Unfortunately we didn't have time to go there but I'd bet anything I would've loved the place.

I should also offer an apology to JSC, who graciously offered to meet us in N.O. for lunch. First off, I forgot to bring his contact info with me. Then, during the one free day he thought he might've had available, we were all over the place doing all sorts of perfectly stupid and useless stuff. Next thing we knew it was the evening and well past the time he thought he might be able to free up for lunch...

My apologies, JSC, but thank you anyway for the generous offer.

Not a lot of black guys go to the games I've seen. Mostly parents of players and a few students go to the games. Most of the black guys that I live with in my dorm work the games though.

The Seer wrote:...was 6'5" 250lbs, and ran a 4.50 forty,

Grandma?

Sincerely,

And, in regards to the topic, there IS a lot of great music and there are a lot of great musicians in NOLA. The problem that you're seeing is very likely this: All of the REALLY good musicians can't make any money down there right now, and they're good enough to go and make it elsewhere, so they have. That'd be my guess. I haven't been back since Katrina, and I'm not sure that I'm ready to see it yet, honestly. Was it clean down in the Quarter? As long as the food is still good, I'll find a way to handle everything else.

Also, the black hotties would be a new fixture from the last time I visited. I need to go back. :D

the_ouskull

GeauxMT wrote:Most of the black guys that I live with in my dorm work the games though.

Sooooo many jokes here, but I'll leave it alone.

Dinsdale wrote:

GeauxMT wrote:Most of the black guys that I live with in my dorm work the games though.

Sooooo many jokes here, but I'll leave it alone.

Pussy. What, of all the people here, man, are you now becoming P.C. in your old age? Tell me it ain't so!! What's the world coming to!!??

Dunno, but I don't like it, not if it's going to water down our usually irreverently acidic Dins. The Dins I know would never pass up the opportunity to kill with the funnay.

Prime X would not approve, oh no, oh no...

the_ouskull, the French Quarter looked mostly normal to me and the people there told me that everything looks pretty back to normal to them too. There were a lot of boarded up windows off of Bourbon St but there on Bourbon St one would find it difficult to see any evidence of Katrina other than the ubiquitous "Katrina" books on display in the windows of every souvenir shop.

Seeing the occasional boarded up window dotting a lesser haunt of the French Quarter is apparently nothing unusual, even before Katrina.

As for the black hotties, well, I wouldn't say there were tons of 'em and I wouldn't say they made up anything like a high % of the overall black population there. On the whole, yeah, most of the black women there are still ridiculously obese. Those few amazing exceptions they did have though, woah, fuck me in the ear canal but those chicks had some smokin' hot bods and some seriously proper strut...

Best thing in the world, when a young woman knows she's hot and acts like she's hot, with no reservations whatsoever. Best shit on the planet, that...

Van wrote:Pussy. What, of all the people here, man, are you now becoming P.C. in your old age?

No. I just remembered this was the CFB forum, rather than Main Street/Cul De Smack.

Bah.

Well fine then.

GeauxMT wrote:Most of the black guys that I live with in my dorm work the games though.

They have dorms for the janitors?

GeauxMT wrote:Most of the black guys that I live with in my dorm work the games though.

Wallet patrol, eh?

GeauxMT wrote:Most of the black guys that I live with in my dorm work the games though.

The welfare office is at the stadium?

GeauxMT wrote:Most of the black guys that I live with in my dorm work the games though.

How do you hide a black guy's wallet?

Put it under his workboots.



How many you want, Van?

Check my sig, Dins.

You'll know. I'm counting on you, big time.

the_ouskull wrote:Was it clean down in the Quarter?

Its never been "clean" in the Quarter before or after the hurricane. Bourbon St always smells like shit, piss, puke, etc... The side streets aren't so bad.

That being said, the wife and I had a wonderful anniversary weekend there about a month ago. The people I came into contact were truly greatful to have us there spending our money in their bars, restaurants and so on... It's also the safest I've ever felt there! I would encourage everyone to go if you can. They need all the help they can get.

As for Van not seeing anything about the Saints, I was on Bourbon after the Saints beat TB in the Superdome and Reggie Bush had his first touchdown. Nothing but people in Saints jerseys cheering like mad down the street. It was awesome!

Van wrote:the funnay

Can be found here...

viewtopic.php?t=20558&start=50

About a 1/4 of the way down, and onward.

Van, glad you had a good time down south here. I'm a few hours away from Baton Rouge... while I'm on buisness.

Nice discription of your visit. It was enjoyable to read.

One thing that came across, was your nieveity of the south and the folkways of the people.

Is this the first time you've left Oklahoma/Sacratomato for the charms of the south?

Okay. Mgo, that was some good shit.

Patrick Bateman Troll in particular is excellent. That specific avatar picture used there which catches his joyously twisted expression as he swings his murderous axe is pure genius.

That's life...unfettered, as it should be.

a buddy of mine owns a couple clubs in Lafayette, I kind of prefer it to Baton Rouge which really wasnt much. I havent been to New Orleans since the July before Katrina and realized that I shouldnt take a blonde wife and 2 blonde kids to New orleans during something called the "Essence Festival"... had nothing to do with Emeril

SoCalTrjn wrote:a buddy of mine owns a couple clubs in Lafayette, I kind of prefer it to Baton Rouge which really wasnt much. I havent been to New Orleans since the July before Katrina and realized that I shouldnt take a blonde wife and 2 blonde kids to New orleans during something called the "Essence Festival"... had nothing to do with Emeril

... are you still bangin' that chick from Mississippi? Tammy or something.

M2, yep, not counting layovers in airports that was my first trip to anywhere in the South...

I could live there. I liked most of what I saw and without a doubt the people I saw all over Louisiana were generally friendlier and more open than most people in the big California or Euro cities. Susan and I both noticed it early on, and very often thereafter. It's not until one gets into the smaller towns of California where similarly friendly people tend to reside in similar majority numbers...

It's a weird dynamic though for me there, seeing latinos completely replaced by blacks in all the service industries, while basically seeing nearly no other minorities at all. I'm simply not used to seeing nearly entirely white cities of the size of Baton Rouge.

Literally, I saw far more minorities all throughout Italy, France and The Netherlands. If it weren't for New Orleans and their large black population it would've really been a Twilight Zone time machine type of racial experience for me...

I'm sure there are similarly homogenous cities all across America (especially in the midwest, the Plains States and in the extreme northeast) and in more rural towns everywhere but I just haven't traveled enough to've seen 'em firsthand.

Very nice places though, most of what I witnessed in Louisiana. I enjoyed it, and I'd like to do it again. In fact, according to practically everybody on the LSU boards who's read this thread I have to do it again, next year! Apparently, attending next year's Auburn game is the only way they'll be satisfied that I've really experienced the "real deal" atmosphere of LSU Football...

Really though, I think that's bulllshit. Of course the place will be fired up for Auburn. That's their biggest rival. Hell, anywhere in America rivalry games create total fanaticism. That wasn't supposed to be the case though with the vaunted SEC Experience. Those guys were supposed to be Mecca and Camelot and Knute Rockne all rolled into one...all the time, regardless of the season, regardless of the opponent.

"It's LSU Football, man, ain't nothing like it anywhere else! It's religion down here! You gotta see it!"

Well, yes, I saw it. It was great, really great. It wasn't entirely different though from any of countless other Game Day stadium scenes. More than likely the tail gating was done on a larger scale, but that's about it. Otherwise, yep, I'm reasonably sure that Game Day in Columbus, Ohio would see a very similar brand of city wide fanaticism and I'm 100% sure their similarly sized stadium would be completely full of equally zealous fans.

Make it this weekend, with Michigan in town? I'm sure the atmosphere in The Horseshoe will be every bit as intense as it gets anywhere in the SEC.

What I'm not sure about though is whether the fans at other venues across the nation would be as classy, friendly and well mannered as LSU's fans are on Game Day. I could be wrong here, most definitely, but I suspect that Ohio State's fans might exhibit a lot more Raider Fan behavior than LSU Fan ever would...

Just a hunch. One way or another though, I'd love to find out for myself.

Yep, the Bateman troll is spot-on. Wish I could say I had the keys to that one, but nope.

Van wrote:season, regardless of the opponent.

"It's LSU Football, man, ain't nothing like it anywhere else! It's religion down here! You gotta see it!"

Oh, I've seen it! The part of Texas I'm in has much more in common with Louisiana than it does Texas.

By the way... we're kicking the shit outta of you on TNT. We've put up 65 points in the first half alone.

P.S. This is the least shit talking I've seen from Cal and $C in the last 40 years.

Cal is one play from making this game a #3 v.#5.

Cal took the biggest fall of any team in the history of the polls... when the lost to Tennessee and went from #10 to #23 in the first weekend of the season. Then they had 3 TD's called back in the Arizona game and lost by a couple of points and went from #8 to #17????

At least the computers know what kinda game this is... as they have Cal is #5 in the country.

Thank god, for non-bias.

Are you ready for the deed done dirty down in LA???

Here we come!!!

SoCalTrjn wrote:a buddy of mine owns a couple clubs in Lafayette,

Oh yeah? Which ones?

m2= funny

funny=pathetic

pathetic=sad

sad=thetruth

IndyFrisco wrote:m2= funny

funny=pathetic

pathetic=sad

sad=thetruth

Easy Frisco...

... you live in Indiana.


the truth

Just remember, m2, there's this one little daunting detail...



...and we all know how Cal reacts to those scary looking things, now don't we?