The Copelands and The Kaplans

Bear with me here. I’m a Newcomb alumna. It is impossible to not be “brainy” about mundane activities. Even when blogging about TULANE GREENWAVE BEATS THE BEEF PEOPLE!

Al Copeland, our beloved New Orleans icon, was flamboyant, brash, over the top, an exclamation point in celebration and life. In the words of my favorite Times Picayune columnist Chris Rose (not to be confused with Tammy Nunez who pens elaborate romance novels, tripping over herself in an effort to publicize her lust and devotion of every Tulane opponent), said of Copeland: “I'm a big fan of over-the-top. A big fan of celebration. A big fan of lust for life. A big fan of Big Fun. Copeland epitomized these things. He was one more guy who put his life on display for all to see, another example of talking too much, living too large and laughing too loud -- those New Orleans attributes that sometimes make folks elsewhere a little leery of this place.”

We in New Orleans Love Fun! We like being irreverent. We talk too much, we laugh too loud, we want to pull you into our spirit and might give you too many hugs, we might welcome you with a kiss on the cheek and invade your personal space. All you unfun people: if you don’t enjoy these activities, we suggest you find somewhere else to sit. Especially if you aren’t even sitting in your own seats.

All week long, The RV Brigade had been predicting a win. Vegas had us a 4 pt underdog. Louisiana Sportswriters actually put pen to paper on this. I bet their crow cereal and ass+u+me juice was delish on Sunday morning.

116 years of football history. Let me repeat that: 116 years of football.

Max McGhee, Clark Shaughnessy, Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, SEC champions, Undefeated 98 Season, Matt Forte and you stinkers thought we we're gonna let McNeese and their RV Brigade just waltz on into our house?

Did y’all honestly think that Bob Toledo was going to allow a loss and forever be known as The Tulane Football Coach to Drop a Game against a 2AA program? He might as well have just fallen on a sword and not even shown up at the dome. But McNeese beat Appalachian State (!). They’re bringing 10,000 people (!) – is that like all of Lake Charles or what? They have RV’s (!).

I knew things were starting off on the right foot because Mr. and Mrs. Hullabaloo prepped tailgating grub, packed up the car, and set up at the dome without a single argument. Mr. Hullabaloo even found the game tickets without having to make a terse and false accusation that I had moved them from the spot he’d put them so as not to forget where he put them.

So we were off to the dome, and passed all manner of blue and yellow RV Brigadeers enjoying our fine city. and Spending Money. Yay!

There was a little bit of a drizzle, we saw dark clouds on the horizon, a slightly stronger drizzle nipped right by us and then we were in the clear for a steamy afternoon of tailgating.

I made stuffed artichokes, which if I do say so myself, I am becoming quite adept at. Stuffed artichokes are the perfect cocktail nibble food that hostesses can provide. Savory, tasty, can eat with your hands, filing, and easy.

Nawlins Stuffed Artichokes
a plump artichoke or two
can of progresso bread crumbs (what Just Joe uses)
very generous douses of garlic powder (I suggest this)
chopped parsley (fresh or dried)
bunches and bunches parmesan cheese (grate your own or KRAFT. Just Joe recommends Kraft)EVOO – bout half a cup
lemon zest and/or fresh lemon juicesome
shake, shake shakes of salt n peppa

Cut the bottom stem of the artichoke off so that it’s completely stemless and flat. Pluck off all the little bitty stems that might be left. You can’t stuff those little buggers, so just toss ‘em. Rub the open wound where the stem used to be with a slice of lemon so that the juice keeps the artichoke from browning. Cut the 1/3 off the top of the artichoke, and then take some kitchen scissors to square off the ends of the remaining leaves so that there’s no pointiness. Squeeze some lemon over the cut leaves. Mix breadcrumbs, garlic, parm, parsley, lemon zest or squeezes of lemon juice, salt and pepper, drizzles of evoo so that the mixture is clumpy and sticks together.

Take a spoon and stab the middle of your choke and start swirling it around to open up the core. Pull out the really spiney purple leaves if you can get to them. Swirl open each subsequent layer of leaves to loosen them up from the inside out. Spoon generous heaps of the breadcrumb mixture into each layer of leaves from the inside out. Your artichoke should be busting about twice its original size. Don’t miss any layer, each leaf should have fabulous amounts of bread crumbing. Keep stuffing her and stuffing her until she just can’t take it anymore.

Fill a stock pot with about an inch or two of water. Put in the chokes, make sure that they are standing up, drizzle the rest of your evoo over the breading in the chokes. Simmer/Boil the artichokes for an hour or so until the leaves pull right off and the breading is a dark brown. Refill water as needed. Take out of pot, but don’t pack up until the chokes have stopped steaming. Otherwise they’ll be watery with the steam that collects in a container. And then bring them to momma cause I will just gobble them up.

So while we’re tailgating we notice this LSU bum hovering around and Peggy yells out “HEY BARNEY!” and the weirdo actually stops and looks at us like WE were weird. So then Peggy yells “Are You Lost? This isn’t Starkville.” And he’s still just looking at Peggy like he’s trying to figure out what language Peggy is speaking. So Peggy calls out to his friend and says “Hey, your friend here. He’s lost, please show him the right exit on the interstate for Starkville.” Us Hullabaloo Huddlers were rolling in laughter.

And I found a lucky penny!

I put that right into Peggy’s pocket for safe keeping. Koozie brought a horn he’d taken to the 2007 LSU game that worked so well. We had all our voodoo in place. And then during the first quarter I was powdering my nose when McNeese laid an egg on a drive (fumbling, etc.) and had to punt. So it was decided that I had bathroom mojo duty during McNeese’s possessions. In the third quarter during a McNeese possession, I wandered up to the Claiborne Club and they were tossing balloon bouquets from the pre-game party. So I snatched up a set, sprouted horns and knew nothing good was going to come of it.

This picture is what was left of the balloon bouquet at the post-game at Henry's bar.

Somehow some very “unfun” peeps sat themselves in front of us during the game. and it wasn’t even their seats! And they had the nerve to get aggravated with us!

McNeese’s half time performance was the “Beef! It’s What’s For Dinner” song. Which is actually called “Rodeo” by a composer of the name Aaron Copeland.

Aaron Copeland was born Aaron Kaplan. A Lithuanian Jew that grew up in Brooklyn. And as you know, we at Tulane love our jewish heritage, especially all our New Yorkers. So a jewish composer serendipitously takes the name of one of our most favorite and famous New Orleans characters, created the Cowboy tune and McNeese performed it at a Tulane game. Thank you!

Anyways, Peggy, Koozie and I just hooted with laughter making silly comments such as McNeese: The Beef People! Beef! It’s What’s For Dinner!

Listen, we don’t hold back. Even when talking about our own. The only defense that Tulane had the entire game were turnovers. Cause they were scoring on every drive and so were we. So turnovers saved our game. At one point, Koozie yells out about our defense "That Looks Like a Second Line!" behind McNeese. Snicker!

If you are offended by what we say and how we amuse ourselves at a game, then don’t sit in section 110 during baseball or 143 at the dome. I have to say, however, that we are not like the idiots at 3rd base in Pete’s Trailer Park in Hattiesburg who have zero class. They are complete redneck idiots. We prefer to call ourselves “Witty.”

So a lady with a blind hair colorist sitting in front of us is not amused. If I had paid for a cut and color and ended up with “Morgus Loses at Paintball,” I would have had a chip on my shoulder too. I wasn’t sure if that was an early nod to Halloween or what, but I let Morgus be throughout the first half.

Well Koozie’s horn rolled over to her row in the middle of the Beef Song, and that was it. Morgus had had enough! So Morgus threw the horn at Peggy! Peggy tells her not to throw it at her and so Morgus goes GHETTO like she’s about to ask Peggy to take it outside and initiate a throw down. I was completely aghast.

Peggy points out that she’s sitting in our seats. I tell Morgus that we’ve let her be and she needs to let us be. Morgus continues to stand, but she was blocking Mr. Hullabaloo’s view of the band so he axes her to sit down. Mr. Hullabaloo has that ear to just tune Peggy and I out when we get on a roll being silly, but now Morgus was interrupting his view. Morgus mouths off to Mr. Hullabaloo that we’re not even watching, we’re just making fun of it and Mr. Hullabaloo repeats his request that she sit down.

Apparently Morgus was the guest of an imposter Tulane fan, cause Mr. Imposter did not do a SINGLE hullabaloo, he didn’t clap, he sat with his arms folded the ENTIRE first half. At first I thought he was a blind mute. We decided earlier on that they must have gotten lost on their way to the ballet. Because all that was left for them was to doze off and snore.

Tulane Nation has had a drought of 366 days since our last victory in football and you’re gonna sit there in a Tulane shirt in silence and be ANNOYED with the Hullabaloo?

Well Mr. Hullabaloo's request that Morgus catch some seat did not go over well, because Mr. Imposter opens up his mouth for the first time and says something to Mr. Hullabaloo. All of a sudden it was an uh-oh no she di-nt moment! After a momentary staredown between our row and theirs, Morgus and Imposter decided that their defiance strategy would be to continue sitting like mannequins in their stolen seats and roll their eyes each and every time we belted out The Hullabaloo.

So in the 3rd quarter I got the balloon bouquet and we liberated one of the white balloons and left the green and baby blue ones in place. The green and blue balloons were christened as our Lucky Nuts (will fill you in on that during baseball season).

Peggy and I took turns sucking on the helium and belting out things like “Hullabaloo!” “Roll Wave!” “The Beef People” and then Peggy’s Piece De Resistance: “Beef! It’s What’s For Dinner!” We were laughing uncontrollably like silly teenagers. We were immature. It was great!

Morgus and Imposter remained super glued to the back of their seats the entire rest of the game and turned their noses up at us on their way out. They even dissed poor sweet adorable Priscilla who had missed the whole encounter because she was busy chatting adorably like she always does. Priscilla was just thoroughly confused if they were for McNeese or what their deal was. Well, Buh-bye!

So the clock ticks down and OMG: This One Belongs to the Wave! We all ran down to the sideline and high fived the team. (pic from wavefootball.com)
I told Travis Burks to go kick some Army butt next week. And then we busted out with a final round of “Hullabaloo” with the football team. It was a moment to remember!!!

Almost as memorable as when we beat SMU in overtime in Dallas in 2007. Reggie Scott sacked SMU's QB who fumbled the ball. Green Wave defensive tackle Avery Williams, 288 lbs, recovers the fumble and starts running, but it’s done, the game's over. Mid-race Avery realizes he can stop, but he keeps running in a circle back to the original line of scrimmage where everyone is celebrating. He is exhausted from running in circles and falls to the ground on his back like a cockroach and wiggles his arms and legs in the air laughing. It was almost as memorable as the roar after The Greatest Play Never Made.

I hope that Peggy and I are like the mythological Sirens, Aglaopheme and Thelxiepeia: so that Morgus and Imposter have Hullabaloo ringing in their ears and that they keep hearing it repeating in their head all night long. I'd hate to see their reaction when Tulane has a winning season, they'd probably hold a funeral.

Anyways, on to West Point for the revege game against those weanies!