The New Jersey Jets

In the art of the post-event running diary, perfected by Danny, I'll recall my weekend trip to the Jets.

6pm - Come to pick up Mike to go on our way. While taking out an air conditoner this morning, Mike puts his hand through the window. Apparently he went to the hospital and got all kinds of shots and stitches, but tells me, "oh yea, I'm still cool to go." Man, that's devotion. Anyway, get his place and he's got to get his stuff together, I gave him a little grace that he wasn't already packed, I guess he was at the hospital or something. So I watch Rutgers play.
6:30: Man their defense is fast. This poor little quarterback is getting punished. I guess the score doesn't show it, but I don't think Rutgers was in any real threat of losing.
7, sometime: Rutgers continues doing what it does best, and I want to go to Friendlys. Man, I love Friendlys, right down to their cheesy commercials. It's kind of like this whole urban hipster joke, and I'm the only one who finds it funny. Come on, wouldn't it be cool if we all go to Friendlys all the time? Bunch of twenty something, hanging out, eat that clown sundae. Someone else has to be amused by this.
8: No! You're closed. Oh, Watertown Friendlys, of all weekends to rennovate. And why are you rennovating a Friendlys? Were the caramel stains too thick?
8:10: Introduce Mike to my new mix cd, Amerika the album. I kind of envisioned it as this exploration of the american pysche in our cultural moment, like the whole rampant patriotism and left wing anger, a mix of toby keith and bob dylan.
8:50: I don't think Mike understands what I was going for. Really, maybe needs a little tinkering.
9ish: Talk to my dad about Rutgers. Man he's giddy. Every article he's written in the past week has been Rutgers. I just want you guys to understand how much he's been following this team. As a kid, he would always take me to these Rutgers games all over the place, and they would always lose. I would walk away in shame with my little rutgers t-shirt, wondering why I couldn't be like everyone else who was happy. When rutgers first went division 1, my dad followed them around to every away game, and they lost every single one of them. At the UT Austin game he bought me a longhorns shirt, and maybe that should've been it. Then every year after that, it was always going to be the year, the year rutgers finally breaks through and gets that bowl game. Well, i do believe in miracles now.
9ish, little later: Boston market is out of sweet potatoes, I no longer believe.
10ish: Hey, Mike's really letting me listen to country, way to go Mike.
I dunno, like midnight: Well, we finally pull into Greg's place. I'm not really sure why we always mix the exit, it's like he lives in brigadoon.
8:00 am: Well, we are on our way. A quick stop at the closest dunkin doughnuts, about 100 feet from greg's place, and at cvs. For some reason the only water they had at cvs was specially formatted for babies. I felt kind of weird about buying a gallon of water with a picture of a baby on it. Just kind of odd.
8ish, later: Hey, alright, it's gospel blue-grass hour on xm. I'm telling you, this xm radio thing is addictive.
9:00: You know, most of these old blue grass songs are about death. I guess there has been a shift in modern worship music, I'd love someone these days to come out with a blaring pop version on jordan's stormy banks I stand.
9ish: I think I've realized that I could never live in the South. I have such this idylic picture of it, like an andy griffith episode, but with roaming bluegrass bands and barbeque. If I actually live there, it's gonna kill the dream. It's probably like the rest of America, but with a higher walmart/target ratio.
10:00 I'm pretty sure the gospel hour is over, I haven't heard anyone mentioning Jesus in awhile, and this song is about someone killing themself for love.
10:00 Did you know the jersey turnpike rest stop bathrooms have flowers in them, I'm just saying. It's like a french garden, but with a cinabon.
10:30ish I think: Hey, the first proof that there was a threat to this game: pulling into the parking lot we are greeted by a line of state troopers. I'm not sure how effective this is, I'm in a car, they're just kind of standing there. Maybe they'd take my tires out, I dunno, but I could probably still get pretty close to the stadium. But what are the chances, I pick one nfl game to go to, and it's the one with a terrorist threat.
Later: Wake up mike just in time to see the stadium, he likes it. I mean, for a stadium built in the 70s or something, it's not bad looking. I expect when they build the new one it'll be big and brick looking. The dream is they'll do what they do with stadiums these days, and put in aspects of its home, new jersey. Like, a big cooling tower behind the end zone.
11ish: Warming, warming coals. I've pretty much given up on keeping my hands clean, I hope mike is not worried about germs. But he has root beer, so he's not paying attention.
later: Heh, the zip car is definately gonna have a smoky smell for awhile. I know zip car has rules about keeping the car clean, but I don't know if they have rules abour the smell.
12: Mike asks if I brought ketchup. Nope, just beef, he's lucky I brought buns.
12:45 ish: Ah, and here we go. The seats are pretty good, in the lower deck and kind of near the 10. I love talking to Jets fans. Sure, they're negative and self-deprecating, and will always think the jets are going nowhere, but they're really prideful. I'm not sure how you do that.
1:10: And we start.
1:12: Hey, a first down after two penalties. Way to find a way to win, jets. If this was the pats, a commentator would throw in some quib about this is how the pats play football, let the other team makes mistakes, and I'm not joking.
1:20: Alright, staying with the no-huddle. I mean, I know the jets aren't good, but with a smart and level-headed quarterback with pennington, we can do wacky things like keep it in a no huddle.
1:30: Hey...touchdown that's nice.
1:40: And the jets come out and stuff detroit. This is turning out to be a nice game.
1:45: Alright, so here's the deal, the jets do not officially have cheerleaders. However, they do have 4 girls, in complete sweatsuits, who run around with big jets flags, and they occasionally use pom poms. So, are they cheerleaders? I'm going with no...they are completely covered, and most of the game they stand by themselves. They don't dance, they just kind of stand there. I'm gonna go with, glorified hospitality ladies.
1:50: And we score again, man, you can't stop the jets. Actually, this is pretty rare. Going into this game, I think the jets were being outscored in the first quarter something like 3 to 300. I think it's all part of the game plan, like giving up a safety to get field position.
2:00: A 15 yard penatly on Bullocks; so of course I yell out, "this penalty is Bullocks!" I think it's lost on the crowd.
2:15ish: Hey, they play springsteen, took them long enough.
halftime: 21 to 7 going into the half. Not bad, as long as we keep up that 4th quarter play. Mike goes to the bathroom, he's gonna miss the real action. At halftime, they throw out a few pee-wee football teams to run through a few plays. We all appreciate it, it's cute. Although this blue team is having a really pourose defense, the linebackers could use a little discipline. The best part of watching pee-wee football is that the kids don't go down, they just run into each other. It's like electronic football.
Beginning of the third quarter: Firemen Ed is going overboard on spelling "jets" over and over again. It's like once every ten minutes. Man this guy's excited.
Third quarter, later: Okay, now the jets play sweet caroline as well. This is weird, O've heard this song at a red sox game, a rutgers game, and now at a jets game. People just love this song, i think it's that ba-ba-ba part.
End of the third: Detroit goes up to 10. Whatever, good teams rally, and detroit is not a good team. The jets can let up a score or two, but to rally to have to score twice in a row.
Later: See, there ya go, score that field goal. There are actually detroit fans here. I really hope they didn't come all this way for a jets game. And the prize in mike's cracker jacks box was a sticker of elanor roosevelt. I'm not sure what I should do with this.
4th: Game over, Jets win. For some reason they play that weird "heidi heidi heido ho" song at the end of the game. I'm not sure where that tradition comes from. I suppose that's really what's lacking in pro sports, these odd manufactured traditions. Shouldn't we all gather in the end zone and sing the alma mater, or tear down the goal posts or something? Nah, let's just all fight to get out of the parking lot quickly.
Later that night: Well, any trip to New Jersey needs a stopover in a white castle, right? Sure, the rest of the country may have character and open spaces, but for some reason new jersey has a white castle on every block. This is a particularly strange one. There's seating for about 5 people, with little tables huddled into a corner, but a really wide line area. Unfortunately, the fire code says we could only have 6 people in the white castle, and it looks like there was about 7 people on staff. Mike makes the comment that this may not be the most efficient way to do things, I remind him that it is in fact a white castle.
1st White Castle Burger: Ah, the wonder of this place, little hamburgers in little cardboard boxes. Mike loves the first burger, it's cause they steam in the flavor. And little pieces of onions.
2nd White Castle Burger: Mike doesn't like it as much. Hehe, yea, that's the way it goes.
3rd and 4th White Castle Burger: These were particularly good for me, maybe it was the peak foliage of I-80, or the sunset over the applachians, or perhaps the fresh jersey air, wafting as if from vahlahala, but it's magical.
Almost New York: We really enjoying this XM radio, I think we've found two bon jovi songs and one springsteen song by this point. Maybe they taylor it to wherever you are, who knows. Like down south it's only lynard syknard, or in california it's only jack johnson, I'm not sure. And so we leave the state. Ah, it was nice while it lasted.
Remainder of Trip: Mike is pretty much asleep the rest of the way home, I suppose he lost alot of blood so it's reasonable. The rest of the time I just leave the radio sitting on a country station. The thing about country music is, for about half the songs, you can close your eyes and picture yourself at a cheesy wedding. I mean man, I must've heard like 3 songs written about a father at his daughter's wedding, like remember a few years ago when everyone liked butterfly kisses? Oh man, good times, good times. And so we close this little episode, I guess the journal got a little quick there at the end, but I'm kinda tired from remembering all this.