Game Time: Road Trip Edition, The Middle And The End

(Cue cheesy announcer voice:) “When we last left our our venerable 1560 The Game crew of Pendergast, Nuno
and Ramzanali, they were checking into the Norman, Oklahoma Days Inn at 2:30 in
the morning, readying themselves for three days of free continental
breakfast and lumpy mattresses. To read about the trip up to Norman, click
here.
We press on…”

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13: As I mentioned in the blog post about our trip up to Norman, this trip was
one of those combination business-pleasure type trips, whereby we would be
“working” on Friday and then enjoying the sights, sounds, and smells of
Norman, Oklahoma on a college football afternoon on Saturday. And yes,
“working” is in quotes because I feel stupid calling what we do “work”
sometimes. A lot of the time actually.

Anyway, when you’re paying $55 a night for a hotel room at the Days Inn, you
sure as hell want to suck every penny of value from the room, so naturally
Raheel, Nuno, and myself took advantage of the free continental breakfast.
Now, sometimes hotels will try and slip one past you and pass off
pre-packaged pastry and some ripe-three-weeks-ago bananas as “continental
breakfast”, but credit where credit is due — the Days Inn actually had hot
food (biscuits and gravy, Belgian waffles!).

Not just that, but somehow,
even with the paltry $55/night room rate, they managed to have someone on
staff who actually poured the waffle batter onto the waffle maker for you!
He was a crusty, 70-something old man who Raheel named “Belgia the Belgian
Waffle Maker”…and wow, did he make a mean waffle! And like any great
artist, he took pride in his work, so much so that he nearly slugged Raheel
in the face when Raheel tried to pour his own waffle batter. (I’d like to
think this is how Picasso would have reacted had you tried to grab his
brush.)

(Note: Sunday morning, we figured out how the Days Inn was able to “afford”
Belgia’s otherworldly waffle-batter-pouring services, when we saw him
picking up cigarette butts in the parking lot. Yes, the same guy whose
hands were on or near everyone’s breakfast was cleaning up debris from the
parking lot piece by piece. Even now, I still don’t know whether to call
the Health Department or nominate the Days Inn for an award for creating the
position of “Custodial Culinary Engineer”.)

With the nourishment of generic biscuits and Belgia’s Cigarette Butt
Surprise Waffle fresh in our bellies, we headed to the venue for our show —
JR’s Family Bar-B-Q, which is owned by WWE Hall of Fame
announcer and perhaps the most famous Sooner fan on the planet, Jim Ross.
The goal of our show on Friday was to have a celebration of college football
with a Sooner flavor to it, and Jim Ross had us booked wire to wire on the
show with a fantastic list of guests that read like a
who’s who in Sooner history and even mixed in a couple of my favorites from
the world of pro wrestling (John “Bradshaw” Layfield and “The Nature Boy”
Ric Flair, who dropped his signature “WOOOOOOOOO!!!” on us at the end of the
interview, which from a euphoria standpoint felt like getting mobbed at home
plate after a walk-off home run.)

All in all, in one day, JR’s guest list included nearly twenty World Title
reigns, multiple All Big XII selections, several national championships,
several thousand rushing yards, multiple All Americans, two Butkus Awards
and a Heisman Trophy. Almost sounds like a “12 Days of Christmas,” Sooner
style. In short, it was one of the single most fun days John Harris and I
have had on the air.

Oh by the way, if you are in Norman and go to JR’s
Family Bar-B-Q (which is a must), I highly recommend the Slobberknocker
Platter. Carve out some nap time afterwards, too.

The four of us (John Harris now added to the mix as he flew into Oklahoma
City Friday morning) capped off Friday by heading to Bricktown, which is
Oklahoma City’s kitschy, chachy downtown section that seemingly every city
except Houston has. I will say that the “chach factor” in Oklahoma City was
much higher than I would have predicted. Put it this way — If BCS bids
were based on Affliction t-shirts, crucifix tattoos, and hair gel, then
Oklahoma City would have locked up a Rose Bowl bid already.

While there were plenty of local bars to go to in Bricktown, seeing as we
were just looking for food and the Dynamo game on television, we went with
the tried and true formula of “Hooters”. Essentially, none of us could find
anything wrong with chicks in tight orange shorts shoveling chicken wings in
front of us, and really what says “road trip” more than going to a bar of
which there are about 15 in your hometown metro area?

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14 – GAME DAY Saturday morning started with the routine run to the Days Inn lobby to go
see Belgia about whipping up some of his specialty. (At this point, we were
still unaware of the dual life he was leading as Cigarette Butt Picker
Upper.) On this particular morning, it was John Harris who incurred
Belgia’s wrath by unintentionally trying to steal his gig by pouring his own
waffle. After nearly drawing back a bloody nub when Belgia snatched the
picher of waffle batter from him, we calmed Johnny down by explaining
Belgia’s passion for this lost art.

After breakfast, we headed back to the scene of our parade of interviews
from Friday, JR’s Family Bar-B-Q to meet JR for lunch. We walked in and
were greeted by a handful of 1560 listeners (Aggie fans, no less!) who had
made the trip to Norman and got to meet good ol’ JR. They were blown away
by the hospitality that JR and his staff showed them, and equally impressed
by the grub! We sat down at a table, and I promptly went with the
Slobberknocker Platter again. (When I find something that works, I stick
with it!)

The four of us watched UT take Baylor out to the woodshed and JR
came and sat with us for a couple hours, talking football, talking
wrestling, talking about Oklahoma, talking about pretty much everything.

I will say right now, this for me was my favorite part of the trip.

The best
way for me to illustrate why that is may be to use my co-host John Harris as
an example. We get to meet a lot of cool people and do a lot of cool things
in this job. To this day, I think one of Johnny’s best days was when OU
football coach Bob Stoops was at the 1560 studios on a trip to Houston and
he spent a few minutes with Johnny drawing up defenses on the white board in
our office.

You see, John Harris is a former football coach (I say “former”
but Harris would tell you, and it’s true, once a coach always a coach), and
for him drawing up a defense with Bob Stoops was the “doesn’t get much
cooler than this” moment in the job. (Like a musician sitting down and
playing “Let It Be” with Paul McCartney, a baseball player taking BP off of
Nolan Ryan, or a belligerent drunk getting into a bar fight with Tom Cable.)

For me, I grew up a wrestling fan and to this day I still watch wrestling
and go to a handful of WWE events each year. Most of the great moments of
my fandom over the last couple decades have been described to me by Jim Ross
and punctuated with one of his famous metaphors or catchphrases. Just
sitting down and talking about football or having him personally take us
around his restaurant and explain the stories behind all of the memoribilia
gracing the walls (wrestling, Sooner football, and Mickey Mantle being the
top three categories) was an experience that can’t be duplicated. It was
just cool.

On top of that, JR was generous enough to let the four of us use his season
tickets to go to the OU-A&M game that night. JR is a fixture on the OU
sidelines at games, so when I asked him when was the last time he used his
seats, he gave it the trademark JR “Aw hell, I don’t know, four or five
years ago?”

So with tickets in hand, and our sincere thanks to JR conveyed,
it was onto the Owen Field, Home of the OU Sooners.

People everywhere have preferences as to what makes a “perfect” college
football Saturday. Me, mine goes like this

WEATHER: Overcast, mid 50’s; windbreaker and long sleeve shirt is
enough to be comfortable
KICK OFF TIME: Mid to late afternoon; no early wake up call, no
rushing around, enough time to tailgate before and then go out after
ATMOSPHERE: Festive, barbecue smells, music, people handing strangers
beers when they walk by
SCENERY: Stadium within eyeshot of tailgate; chicks in tight college
gear

With a 6:00 p.m. kickoff time and a cool breeze, Norman, OK did not disappoint in
terms of hitting the Pendergast Game Day Superfecta. We strolled around the
tailgate parties along Lindsey Street for a while, ran into a few 1560
listeners who did the honorable thing and paid their “1560 tax” (That’s code
for “They gave me a few free beers for being such a kick-ass radio host.
And for me being so humble, too.”), and took in all of the sights and
sounds. Of particular interest was along a street called Asp Street where
on one side of the street you had what appeared to be fairly wealthy OU
folks having their tailgate parties, complete with BBQ smokers, flat screen
TV’s and high-tech tent setups. On the other side of the street was what
appeared to be a much more downtrodden crew of OU fans in front of a gas
station, literally carrying open cases of beer in one hand, drinking with
the other and listening to some country metal type band that was literally
set up in front of a handful of gas pumps.

It was like the gods drew a line
and that line was Asp Street, and they said “rich Sooner fans over here”,
“less fortunate Sooner fans (gods would be politically correct) over here”.
Just a strange, startling dynamic.

As for the game, well, the final score was 65-10 and it wasn’t as close as
that score would indicate. 65 points felt like 165 points. But for me, the
reason for being there wasn’t to see a classic nailbiter. I wanted to see
the Sooner Schooner, see the band spell out OU on the field, watch the teams
run out of the tunnels, hear the guns fire off when the ball is kicked,
scream whatever people scream at OU games. I’m there to take it all in, if
the game were close, it would have been a bonus. (I wish I could say the
same for Nuno. A diehard Aggie, he looked like someone told him that his
$200 jeans were stolen from about the first quarter on.)

We finished up the night at Louie’s, a great bar/restaurant named after Bob
Stoops’ dog (in case you ever get that in Trivial Pursuit). Stoops himself
actually showed up at the bar later that night, and we were introduced by JR
to Kevin Wilson, OU’s offensive coordinator. Wilson was great. His
analysis of the game was about what you’d expect from a coach; in short,
you’d think OU *lost *65-10.

He also thanked us for carrying the OU games
in Houston and told a funny story about Coogs head coach (and former OU
assistant coach) Kevin Sumlin prank-calling Wilson’s radio show when he
heard it on 1560. Kevin Sumlin channeling his inner Jerky Boys made our
night.

So with food in belly, brain cells killed, and a hearty goodbye to our
friend JR, we headed back to the Days Inn one final time.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15 Before taking off for the final leg of our journey, we partook in Belgia’s
culinary delights one more time. As he poured the batter over the waffle
maker, tears in our eyes, we told him this was our final morning at the Days
Inn to which he replied in some inaudible grunt and proceeded to give John
Harris an evil look, clearly remembering Harris inadvertent attempt to hone
in on his territory the previous morning. It was after this breakfast that
the dual life of Belgia came to light, and as we saw him picking up garbage
in the parking lot, the four of us wondered if it was too late to vomit food
that had been eaten two days ago.

We thought it best just to hightail it out of town as fast as we could and
never mention Belgia’s name ever again….and by never mention it, I mean it
was all we talked about for the next two hours.

Our final leg of the trip took us to Dallas for a viewing of the
Packers-Cowboys game at a bar in north Dallas called Vernon’s, which is
widely known around the Dallas area for being the best place to watch Green
Bay Packer games. This was going to be a very special visit for us because
we, of course, were going to be showing up in a Packer bar with the Vince
Lombardi Award trophy with us. We walked into the bar and it was like
Indiana Jones wheeling in the ark of the covenant; we were greeted as
conquering heroes!

The general manager of Vernon’s, Gary Kirlin, was kind
enough to feed us as Packer fans of every generation, gender, height, and
weight took their picture with the Lombardi Award.

Now, Packer fans are a different breed. All you need to do is hear the
Lombardi stories of people who grew up in Green Bay in the` 50’s or see the
kid in his early 20’s who has Lambeau Field tattooed on his arm. Crazy,
crazy stuff.

And
when a cute, blonde Packer fan in an AJ Hawk jersey named
“Lauren” or “Laura” (can’t remember, but she was cute) proceeded to
rattle
off the list of Packer offensive linemen out with injuries, it was all
I
could do to keep from telling the rest of the boys to head back to
Houston
without me.
But then what would Houston do? Where would all of you be without my
inane
rants and 3,000-word blog posts? Unfulfilled, right? So yes, I came
back
for all of you. I clubbed down my Packer jello shots at halftime, said
goodbye to our green-and-gold clad friends, and drove off
into the sunset….with Raheel, Nuno, and John Harris. Back to Houston.
Road trip complete.
Boomer Sooner, go Pack go, good night now….