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REGULAR FEATURES
The Epicure's Thanksgiving
A Lizard Diary, Part IX
by A S H Smyth
Friday, December 21, 2007
Saturday, November 24th, 2007
The ninth day.
We must have got back to Chinatown last night, but I have no recollection of
it.
We refuel at The Pork Store on Haight. The portions defeat me and the coffee
is bottomless: the day begins.
My learning curve viz. football has been steeper than Adam Sandler’s in The
Waterboy (albeit I didn’t have to endure Henry Winkler’s tattooed arse at any
stage in proceedings). But here we are, in Palo Alto,* for the Standford vs.
Notre Dame game.
The obvious reason to attend this game is that it’s local, Palo Alto being more-
or-less on the Bay, at the top end of Silicon Valley, only a little over half way
down the San Jose road. Geography be damned, though: yesterday we flew
through three states to watch football! No, the real reason is that my
attorney is an alumnus of the University of Notre Dame. Or – as he likes to
put it – ‘Irish’.
Feeling my own Irishness is under attack here, I naturally demand an
explanation.
The Story of Notre Dame
There was this school, right, outside of Chicago, and it was run by French
Catholic priests (not Irish). The Bishop of Vincennes had given them the land
on which the university stood – ‘524 snow-covered acres’ of it, in fact. Now, I’
m not accusing the good bishop of giving away what was not rightfully his;
but I do feel inclined to point out that he was not Irish, either.
In fact, the only credible sign of Irishness I could find in Notre Dame’s entire
history was founder Father Sorin’s response to the terrible fire which
destroyed the university in 1879:
“I came here as a young man and dreamed of building a great university in
honor of Our Lady,”he said. “But I built it too small, and she had to burn it to
the ground to make the point.”
The school is still renowned for its theological expertise.
The ‘Fighting Irish’ sporting nickname comes from a rag-tag of associations
with NYC’s Irish Brigade in the Civil War (the American one, not – obviously –
the Irish one); from the deeply Irish credentials of Knute Rockne, their famous
coach back in the ’20s; and from the fact that one of their own alumni – with
classic Irish ingenuity, I grant you – repeatedly used the moniker in his New
York Daily News columns, until everyone thought it was true.
All of which makes Notre Dame types think they’re Irish, and use this moron
as their mascot.
None of which impresses me in the least, of course. Not only was my great-
grandmother married to the first President of Ireland, but my great-
grandfather (a different bloke) played for Ireland and the proto-Lions, and
was once described, in a try-scoring episode against England, as ‘crossing
the line, festooned with Saxons.’ Also, I read Yeats and drink Guinness.
That’s not to say I don’t hanker after a pair of ND emerald-green shorts with
‘Irish’ across the arse, though.
We have great seats, right in the end-zone of the brand spanking new
(Stanford) Cardinals stadium. Or, at least, I think they’re great until I take a
closer look at the ticket in my hand. I know I’ve not had much sleep of late,
but something doesn’t seem quite right: Section 121 Row 4 Seat 17.
This all seems very familiar. I dig out yesterday’s Colorado ticket and check:
Section 121 Row D Seat 15.
Yesterday my attorney was to my left; today he is to my right. That puts him
in seat 16 of the fourth row of the same section of the stadium on both days.
Since I’m sure my attorney doesn’t regularly travel to Colorado for the snow-
bound games, and doesn’t have a regular booking for this fixture either
(these games, unlike in the Premiership, are not played with annual
regularity), there are only three possibilities:
I order a ‘Small’ beverage from a passing vendor, pull up a chair, and work
out a way to see the pitch past a bucket of Coke which is, by charming
mathematical felicity, exactly 3.14 times the size of my head.
Effort of this kind is never rewarded. The only people on the pitch are the
Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band.
Perhaps you recall the Freshers Week scene in Chariots of Fire – with the sing-
along at the piano by the Cambridge University Gilbert and Sullivan
Society?** Perhaps you’ve sat through it, as I have, and thought, ‘No wonder
foreigners think we Brits are weird.’ No? Well then use your imagination, and
be sympathetic to the ordinary decent students and alumni of Stanford
University who have to be embarrassed by the association with the massed
ranks of the LSJUMB, the members of which could charitably be referred to as
‘mavericks’. Or, less charitably perhaps, as ‘a bunch of twats’.***
Maybe it is because Brits just aren’t good at laughing at effortful slapstick
(and no, Monty Python doesn’t count: they made a fortune); maybe it’s
because the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band’s attempts at
satire would have shamed a junior school revue. Why don’t you decide?
Watch this, keeping in mind that this is LSJUMB’s own promotional video (and
that it is made by a man called Al Ponce).
So, you are wondering, who was this Leland Stanford then?
The Story of Leland Stanford Junior University
When the only child of horse-rancher Leland Stanford died, in 1884, of
typhoid, old man Leland and his wife Jane decided to endow some kind of
educational institution, in the name of their deceased son, Leland Jr. Since
imaginative nomenclature didn’t run in the Stanford line, they decided they
wanted to call whateveritwas The Leland Junior whateveritwouldbe. ‘School’,
one might have thought.
They went to Harvard, apropos of nothing much, and asked the senior
honchos there how many spuds it cost to build a museum, or a library, or a
wing, or a leg, or a Gherkin or something.
‘Oh, my dear decent, simple, honest, gingham-clad farm folks (with a fringe on
top),’ said the Dean or whoever: ‘Lots and lots of spuds. I’m afraid your
endowing anything worthwhile at Harvard is quite out of the question. Also,
would you mind awfully sitting on the newspaper? Only you’re getting dirt on
the Persian rug and that will distress the Fellows.’
‘Like how many spuds?’ persisted old farmer Stanford. ‘Just out of curiosity.’
‘Give or take… let’s say five-hundred-thousand.’****
‘Gracias and Danke,’ said Stanford, and then promptly whipped off his salt-of-
the-earth disguise, revealing himself – lo! – to be none other than the former
Governor of California, who was stinking rich and just happened to own a farm.
Even better, what with the difference in land prices between the East Coast
and California (where until recently estate agents had been forging adverts
for ‘Orange’ County by sticking oranges – which didn’t grow there – on cacti,
rightly assuming that no-one would know better), former Governor Stanford
realised he could afford to built not just a museum or a library, but an entire
university from scratch. And that is the story of Leland Stanford Junior
University.
It is, of course, not true; but, much like Thanksgiving, this doesn’t stop it
being a great cause for celebration. (The much-less-interesting version can
be found on Stanford’s own History page.
Some things which are true, though:
Anyway, Notre Dame win the game (narrowly), much to the delight of my
attorney, who struts from the stadium like a prize peacock, waving his green
credentials hither and yon. Mostly yon.
Rather than risk a monster traffic jam, we stroll a half-mile or so into ‘town’,
to one of those cleverly-named bars that imply they brew their own beer, and
get away with it because they have shiny brass pipes everywhere. I think
this one was called The Beer Factory, but nomatter. I had Guinness…
surrounded by all my Irish brothers.
Here we catch up again with Cousin Mike – whom I have met before – in
town with some fellow alumni of San Diego University. They are a
representative crowd: which is to say that some are cool, and some are
dickheads.
Actually, only one is a real dickhead, but he is such a dickhead that he
significantly lowers the standing of the entire group. In fact, Ryan (we’ll call
him Ryan) pisses me off so much that when I get home I run his name
through Hotmail and find this: ‘the douche bag in the tight shirt who thinks
he's funny and that everyone loves him, but who could really do with being
beat down instead of being tolerated.’
You might think that. I couldn’t possibly comment (since 9 days out of 10,
most of that applies to me). Always thought ‘douche bag’ had a hyphen,
though.
Back to SF, for pre-dinner port, before heading out to King of Thai Noodle
House (in Richmond – the other Chinatown) with Dave and Nika, and Scott.
My attorney – of whose culinary persuasions I am by now rightly suspicious –
promptly orders one of those vicious-looking dishes with a name like Sol Derd
Rin’g Pees. I order a round of jugs of water, while he dishes out the food with
an evil glint in his eye.
More drinking, more South Park, more sleep.
Issue of the Day
LSJUMB or cheerleaders in short skirts? Hm… it’s tricky. Unless you’ve
watched the clip, that is.
---
* ‘Upper Stick’ (I’m assured) for those of you with no Spanish.
** It’s a bore to recite these things in full, but the acronyms can be a lot
worse. Just ask any member of the Cambridge University Music Society. Not
to mention the Cambridge University Knights Templar Society (‘Crusading
against the silent K’).
*** In their defence, their home page is rather witty: [LINK - http://www.
stanford.edu/group/lsjumb/home.html ]
**** In times gone by, everyone spoke numbers in full, like so. Arabic
numerals were considered fancy and arriviste.
A Lizard Diary, Part IX
by A S H Smyth
Friday, December 21, 2007
Saturday, November 24th, 2007
The ninth day.
We must have got back to Chinatown last night, but I have no recollection of
it.
We refuel at The Pork Store on Haight. The portions defeat me and the coffee
is bottomless: the day begins.
My learning curve viz. football has been steeper than Adam Sandler’s in The
Waterboy (albeit I didn’t have to endure Henry Winkler’s tattooed arse at any
stage in proceedings). But here we are, in Palo Alto,* for the Standford vs.
Notre Dame game.
The obvious reason to attend this game is that it’s local, Palo Alto being more-
or-less on the Bay, at the top end of Silicon Valley, only a little over half way
down the San Jose road. Geography be damned, though: yesterday we flew
through three states to watch football! No, the real reason is that my
attorney is an alumnus of the University of Notre Dame. Or – as he likes to
put it – ‘Irish’.
Feeling my own Irishness is under attack here, I naturally demand an
explanation.
The Story of Notre Dame
There was this school, right, outside of Chicago, and it was run by French
Catholic priests (not Irish). The Bishop of Vincennes had given them the land
on which the university stood – ‘524 snow-covered acres’ of it, in fact. Now, I’
m not accusing the good bishop of giving away what was not rightfully his;
but I do feel inclined to point out that he was not Irish, either.
In fact, the only credible sign of Irishness I could find in Notre Dame’s entire
history was founder Father Sorin’s response to the terrible fire which
destroyed the university in 1879:
“I came here as a young man and dreamed of building a great university in
honor of Our Lady,”he said. “But I built it too small, and she had to burn it to
the ground to make the point.”
The school is still renowned for its theological expertise.
The ‘Fighting Irish’ sporting nickname comes from a rag-tag of associations
with NYC’s Irish Brigade in the Civil War (the American one, not – obviously –
the Irish one); from the deeply Irish credentials of Knute Rockne, their famous
coach back in the ’20s; and from the fact that one of their own alumni – with
classic Irish ingenuity, I grant you – repeatedly used the moniker in his New
York Daily News columns, until everyone thought it was true.
All of which makes Notre Dame types think they’re Irish, and use this moron
as their mascot.
None of which impresses me in the least, of course. Not only was my great-
grandmother married to the first President of Ireland, but my great-
grandfather (a different bloke) played for Ireland and the proto-Lions, and
was once described, in a try-scoring episode against England, as ‘crossing
the line, festooned with Saxons.’ Also, I read Yeats and drink Guinness.
That’s not to say I don’t hanker after a pair of ND emerald-green shorts with
‘Irish’ across the arse, though.
We have great seats, right in the end-zone of the brand spanking new
(Stanford) Cardinals stadium. Or, at least, I think they’re great until I take a
closer look at the ticket in my hand. I know I’ve not had much sleep of late,
but something doesn’t seem quite right: Section 121 Row 4 Seat 17.
This all seems very familiar. I dig out yesterday’s Colorado ticket and check:
Section 121 Row D Seat 15.
Yesterday my attorney was to my left; today he is to my right. That puts him
in seat 16 of the fourth row of the same section of the stadium on both days.
Since I’m sure my attorney doesn’t regularly travel to Colorado for the snow-
bound games, and doesn’t have a regular booking for this fixture either
(these games, unlike in the Premiership, are not played with annual
regularity), there are only three possibilities:
- He did this just to freak me out (which begs questions about how
obvious it is that I am the kind of person who pays careful attention to
seat numbers…); - He is genuinely – and disturbingly – superstitious;
- He is CIA, and they dish out the block-booked tickets on some sort of
office lottery.
I order a ‘Small’ beverage from a passing vendor, pull up a chair, and work
out a way to see the pitch past a bucket of Coke which is, by charming
mathematical felicity, exactly 3.14 times the size of my head.
Effort of this kind is never rewarded. The only people on the pitch are the
Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band.
Perhaps you recall the Freshers Week scene in Chariots of Fire – with the sing-
along at the piano by the Cambridge University Gilbert and Sullivan
Society?** Perhaps you’ve sat through it, as I have, and thought, ‘No wonder
foreigners think we Brits are weird.’ No? Well then use your imagination, and
be sympathetic to the ordinary decent students and alumni of Stanford
University who have to be embarrassed by the association with the massed
ranks of the LSJUMB, the members of which could charitably be referred to as
‘mavericks’. Or, less charitably perhaps, as ‘a bunch of twats’.***
Maybe it is because Brits just aren’t good at laughing at effortful slapstick
(and no, Monty Python doesn’t count: they made a fortune); maybe it’s
because the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band’s attempts at
satire would have shamed a junior school revue. Why don’t you decide?
Watch this, keeping in mind that this is LSJUMB’s own promotional video (and
that it is made by a man called Al Ponce).
So, you are wondering, who was this Leland Stanford then?
The Story of Leland Stanford Junior University
When the only child of horse-rancher Leland Stanford died, in 1884, of
typhoid, old man Leland and his wife Jane decided to endow some kind of
educational institution, in the name of their deceased son, Leland Jr. Since
imaginative nomenclature didn’t run in the Stanford line, they decided they
wanted to call whateveritwas The Leland Junior whateveritwouldbe. ‘School’,
one might have thought.
They went to Harvard, apropos of nothing much, and asked the senior
honchos there how many spuds it cost to build a museum, or a library, or a
wing, or a leg, or a Gherkin or something.
‘Oh, my dear decent, simple, honest, gingham-clad farm folks (with a fringe on
top),’ said the Dean or whoever: ‘Lots and lots of spuds. I’m afraid your
endowing anything worthwhile at Harvard is quite out of the question. Also,
would you mind awfully sitting on the newspaper? Only you’re getting dirt on
the Persian rug and that will distress the Fellows.’
‘Like how many spuds?’ persisted old farmer Stanford. ‘Just out of curiosity.’
‘Give or take… let’s say five-hundred-thousand.’****
‘Gracias and Danke,’ said Stanford, and then promptly whipped off his salt-of-
the-earth disguise, revealing himself – lo! – to be none other than the former
Governor of California, who was stinking rich and just happened to own a farm.
Even better, what with the difference in land prices between the East Coast
and California (where until recently estate agents had been forging adverts
for ‘Orange’ County by sticking oranges – which didn’t grow there – on cacti,
rightly assuming that no-one would know better), former Governor Stanford
realised he could afford to built not just a museum or a library, but an entire
university from scratch. And that is the story of Leland Stanford Junior
University.
It is, of course, not true; but, much like Thanksgiving, this doesn’t stop it
being a great cause for celebration. (The much-less-interesting version can
be found on Stanford’s own History page.
Some things which are true, though:
- Stanford is about a private as private universities get, what with being
built exclusively by one dude. And yet when it opened, tuition was free.
- The library was devastated by the 1906 earthquake. No comments
were made attributing blame to the BVM.
- Students refer to Stanford as ‘The Farm’, in deference to old
farmer/Governor Stanford’s ranch which once occupied the site. One
wonders how many Stanford alumni also apply to join the CIA.
- Unlike at Notre Dame, Stanford’s careful regulation of the female intake
was not motivated by fears of what the boys might get up to at night
(an interesting and perhaps counterproductive point of view when you
consider what they would get up to if there were no women around at
all), but rather because Mrs S thought the girls would soon take over
the place, and that a college with no boys in it wasn’t exactly a fitting
tribute to her son. Smart lady, Mrs Stanford.
Anyway, Notre Dame win the game (narrowly), much to the delight of my
attorney, who struts from the stadium like a prize peacock, waving his green
credentials hither and yon. Mostly yon.
Rather than risk a monster traffic jam, we stroll a half-mile or so into ‘town’,
to one of those cleverly-named bars that imply they brew their own beer, and
get away with it because they have shiny brass pipes everywhere. I think
this one was called The Beer Factory, but nomatter. I had Guinness…
surrounded by all my Irish brothers.
Here we catch up again with Cousin Mike – whom I have met before – in
town with some fellow alumni of San Diego University. They are a
representative crowd: which is to say that some are cool, and some are
dickheads.
Actually, only one is a real dickhead, but he is such a dickhead that he
significantly lowers the standing of the entire group. In fact, Ryan (we’ll call
him Ryan) pisses me off so much that when I get home I run his name
through Hotmail and find this: ‘the douche bag in the tight shirt who thinks
he's funny and that everyone loves him, but who could really do with being
beat down instead of being tolerated.’
You might think that. I couldn’t possibly comment (since 9 days out of 10,
most of that applies to me). Always thought ‘douche bag’ had a hyphen,
though.
Back to SF, for pre-dinner port, before heading out to King of Thai Noodle
House (in Richmond – the other Chinatown) with Dave and Nika, and Scott.
My attorney – of whose culinary persuasions I am by now rightly suspicious –
promptly orders one of those vicious-looking dishes with a name like Sol Derd
Rin’g Pees. I order a round of jugs of water, while he dishes out the food with
an evil glint in his eye.
More drinking, more South Park, more sleep.
Issue of the Day
LSJUMB or cheerleaders in short skirts? Hm… it’s tricky. Unless you’ve
watched the clip, that is.
---
* ‘Upper Stick’ (I’m assured) for those of you with no Spanish.
** It’s a bore to recite these things in full, but the acronyms can be a lot
worse. Just ask any member of the Cambridge University Music Society. Not
to mention the Cambridge University Knights Templar Society (‘Crusading
against the silent K’).
*** In their defence, their home page is rather witty: [LINK - http://www.
stanford.edu/group/lsjumb/home.html ]
**** In times gone by, everyone spoke numbers in full, like so. Arabic
numerals were considered fancy and arriviste.
