But I was There: When in Buffalo, Roam as the Buffalo Do

Exhibit A. It's Sometimes Sunny in Buffalo

Dear Reader, I am no longer a virgin.

It was my first NFL game and associated tailgate. This weekend I attended the Buffalo Bills–New England Patriots game with none other than…my Dad. It was everything I thought it would be, and something I would do at least once a year. Though this father-son moment is something most boys do with somewhere around the age of six, thirty seems about right. I won’t bore you with the details of the game other than to say that I saw two of my top ten all time favourite athletes connect on a touchdown (Brady to Moss), but (and cue the music) more importantly, I connected with one of my top ten all time favourite parents.

Here are the highlights.

8AM – woke up in Burlington at my Uncle's house. He is an awesome football fan and an actual University coach (like Craig T. Nelson, but real). I drank a delicious glass of orange juice and pa and me b-lined it to the Tim Horton’s for what would have been a lovely little commercial.

9AM – Driving through St. Catherines, I had the following exchange with my Dad (married 35 years to Ma), which is definitely, a top 5 all time for me:
Me: All my friends seem to be married now. How do you decide to finally do it?
Dad: If you think maybe you should marry the person you’re with, that’s a no. If you think yes, then get married.

9:30AM – We cross the border. I realize how much I’m like my Dad when I notice how panicked he gets around border guards. Border guards are pricks. There, I said it. I know this is part of the uniform they need to wear to catch Osama, but I actually think they will probably do more to increase terrorism than prevent it if they aren’t nicer to people: I should sell that to the government “Kindness: one weapon against terror.” When we handed him our passports, the border guard ordered us to hand them to him open as though he were ordering us to put all hands on the wall for a cavity search. I stuttered when he asked us our seats numbers and then laughed at how ridiculous a vetting question that is.

9:43 AM - Buffalo is a shithole. It looks like Hamilton except the billboards are for beer brands we don’t have.

10:00 AM – We arrive in Buffalo and pull into a parking lot. We pay someone in a yellow vest $25 dollars and park between two trucks. On our left, a group of guys bbq’ing chili. On our right, the same thing. In fact, everyone had chili on the go. My Dad and I feel slightly left out, so we go over to the KK Convenience Mart and pick up 18 Miller Lite and a bag of plain chips. We’re ready to roll.

Exhibit B. Friendly People

10: 15AM – We open the back of the Hyundai Santa Fe (painfully close to a Mom SUV) and sit on the bumper. It’s -5, there are drunk Americans everywhere, yet I feel like the Buddha must have felt sitting under the lotus tree for the first time.

10:20AM – I put on my New England patriots toque. Instantly, Bills' fans start yelling at me (e.g. “New England sucks!”), and Patriots' fans start offering me their first born.

10:26AM – A father and son selling pie to fundraise for their church tug on my and my father's collective heartstrings. We buy a peach and apple for 5 bucks each. They're not bad, more tarts than pies, but I guess their father son moment is a good cause; I have no idea what the church was: it sounded made up to be honest. 20 minutes later, high school cheerleaders come by and try to sell us peanuts. Though they'd go much better with the beer, I feel like I'm being pandered to and we reject. I'm glad we bought the cult-pies.

10:30AM – The first Miller Lite is going through me like water. My Dad and I start getting really folksy and I say something like “You don’t buy it, you rent it.”

10:32AM – I return from the portable toilet at the far end of the parking lot and warn my Dad that if he can avoid using them, to do so (then again, are they ever Shangri-la?). I should sell that name to a portable toilet company: Shangri-La Septic. My Dad tells me the second hand story he just heard from the group to our left of a guy who randomly had sex with some girl in a bar bathroom last night. When we’re kids, our parents try to protect us from these stories; I wish I were there to protect my dad from that one.

11:40AM - We get into an excellent conversation with the car to other side of us (I feel like we knew everything we needed to about the group to right). They are a group of Mormons (lapsed) from Erie. At first we talk about how my Patriots toque sucks “giant ass”, but then get into talking about the economy and careers. We offer career advice to a welder to look into the Alberta oil fields. It’s a completely asinine conversation to be having when 20m in the distance, I think I just saw someone throw up and urinate at the same time.

Noon – The game starts at one, so we decide to start making our way to the field. I see one guy so drunk, I wonder how (or why) he will get into the stadium. He’s doing that sideways walk thing, where the feet seem to be pointing to the side, but the legs and body continue to move forward. If he gets into the game, at least he can say, “I was there.”

1:00PM – The game starts. I scream like a little girl when Randy Moss and Tom Brady run onto the field. I take my hat off when the National Anthem begins (which you should do, even in a country where the border guards are dicks).

1:10PM – One row in front of us, this:

Exhibit C. The Worst Nap In Buffalo History

Now, I know what I paid for my tickets, and in this economy, I just can't believe this can happen. This lovely couple probably had a great Sunday morning, but they are to tailgating what the hare is to a race against a tortoise; furthermore, this kind of thing probably provides a lot of ammunition to people who try to argue that soccer is the better game than football (Let’s face it, Euro football vs. American football debaters: they are both boring. In fact, at some point, all sports (and sport blogs) can be boring if you aren't moderately drunk. But I think I’ll take the puking America tailgater stereotype over the murderous soccer hooligan stereotype for the simple reason that I can clean vomit from my clothes, but I can’t clean a knife from my chest).

1:20PM – A woman in her mid-50s sitting in front of me is offended by my Patriots toque. She takes a pink Buffalo Bills cap, puts it on my head, and takes my picture. If we were both half our age plus seven, we'd have exchanged facebook names and I'd be able to get a looksee how this picture of me turned out. Alas, not. Somewhere in Buffalo, my picture is on a her computer; I wonder what she’ll do with it. I worry that with the Pats toque under the Bills hat, I will someday be used for anti-Patriots propaganda, possibly with Perez Hilton style graffiti over my picture claiming that I am a "douchebag."

2:45PM – I brave the washrooms at Ralph Wilson Stadium. It's packed with men, of which I am one: when in traffic, don't complain, because you're a car too. If hell exists, it is found in a men’s washroom at a sporting event. All the senses are assaulted. I realize I'm growing up when the first thought that comes to my mind is whether or not the fire department would have a problem with all the people in this bathroom. A Bills' fan is banging on a stall door wondering what the person 'in there' is doing. A few minutes later, we all find out, when the guy who was in the stall exits, a fresh sheen of vomit down the front of his Terrell Owens jersey. But he was there. At least he was there.

4:15PM – The game ends and the Bills lose (see, I told you I wouldn’t bore you with the details). I take one last look back to see Randy Moss, and my Dad catches me. I quickly say something about girls.

4:40PM – We arrive back at the Hyundai Santa Fe and most people are on their way out except one group of Ontarians who can’t start their car. We give them a boost, talk about football, drink a beer and swear probably 30 times each. We wear the uniform of a tailgater to the bitter end.

5:35 PM – At the Niagara Falls border, the Customs officer wants to know why we both have suitcases if we were just in town for the Bills' game. We tell her the completely true story, that because of our nervousness sounds made up, about sleeping the night in Burlington at my Uncle's, a football coach, like Craig T. Nelson, only real...etc.

What I really wanted to do was to tell her to read my blog today—both to get her answer and to up the number of hits on my counter…just so she could prove, that yes, she was here.

Exhibit D. When in Buffalo, Roam as the Buffalo Do

On Disappointment: The Two Tigers

For a while, Chris Henry was one of my favourite NFL wide receivers. I’m not really sure why. He played on the Cincinnati Bengals which doesn’t really arouse anything in me, and he wasn’t even the best (or second best) on the team. He was fast and athletic: all the things you probably should be if on career day, the guidance counsellor says you should be an NFL football player. Chris Henry looked weird (my girlfriend recently called him “alien-like”), which was actually bonus, and I was pretty sure that by liking him, I would be alone, fulfilling the need that some of us have to like things that others don’t in order to seem indie or unique or ironic (other examples: Steely Dan, Raspberry ginger ale, not having a cell phone).

If you’re not up to speed on this, here are the basics (or reported basics as this story is less than a day old) regarding the recent death of NFL wide receiver Chris Henry. From espn.com:
“Police said a dispute began at a home … and Henry jumped into the bed of the pickup truck as his fiancée was driving away from the residence. Police said at some point when she was driving, Henry came out of the back of the vehicle."

There will be some speculation about what happened before Chris Henry fell out of the pickup truck (although much less than that surrounding the Tiger Woods vehicular-domestic dispute) and sadly, in a week, Chris Henry’s death will likely be forgotten or chalked up as inevitable given his history. Unlike Tiger Woods, Chris Henry had a pretty public spotty past: the almost cliché case of someone with all the talent in the world constantly disappointing those who took a chance on him. Since this is not setting out to be a tribute or obituary, I won’t shy away from some of those dirty bits. Since 2004, Henry had been charged or accused with the following: DUI, supplying underage girls with alcohol (though come on, they were 20), drug possession, gun possession, and assault (not against women), not to mention some pretty ridiculous on-the-field conduct where coaches referred to him as an embarrassment to the game. Note this is a game where Plaxico Burress goes to jail for shooting himself yet Ray Lewis stabs a woman, and wins a Super Bowl MVP the following year. Chris Henry’s crimes were largely the stuff of college movies and 1970s porn scenarios.

But this year, Chris Henry was moving on/growing up. The Bengals gave him a second (or tenth) chance, and at only 26, he was finally getting on with it. Sometimes it takes the first 26 years to sort your shit out (or if you’re Italian, 42). Chris Henry benefited from being not quite famous enough, which allowed him these under the radar chances, unlike say, Tiger Woods, who will, with little professional consequence, be just fine, despite the next few years of being asked about his “transgression.”

The next few days of Chris Henry stories will all be the same. They will mention his checkered past, his attempt at redemption, and perhaps the astute attempts will recognize that he was just a kid. Unlike Tiger Woods, nothing much was expected from Chris Henry. Within 20 minutes of the news that Chris Henry died from his injuries, the news that Elin wanted to divorce Tiger Woods had already taken over the top story. Between you and me reader, I don’t give a sweet fuck. Elin will still be rich and hot; Tiger Woods will still be rich and have his pick of cocktail waitresses or celebrities who have recently broken up with A-Rod or Tony Romo. Their kids will be fucked, but there is a chance that is going to happen regardless when your Dad is the athlete of the century.

But back to Chris Henry: as Jerry Reed (another thing to like if you want to seem unique) said, “He who don’t expect much, ain’t gonna be disappointed.” So 650 words to get to my point: despite his rather cliché athlete existence, despite my constant vigilance to try (and fail) to not care about celebrity lives, and despite those low expectations, Chris Henry’s death disappoints me, not simply because he was young, but because he wasn't getting any younger.