This is primarily a Tulane football blog, although I do occasionally comment on all matters Tulane that may or may not be any of my business. I love following Tulane Greenwave football, zing-zang Bloody Marys, hostessing cute tailgating parties, and life in New Orleans. It's fabulous. oh and I adore Mr. Hullabaloo. PS This blog is not affiliated in any way "officially" with Tulane University or Tulane Athletics. It is purely the crazy antics and obsessions of Mr. and Mrs. Hullabaloo who love them some greenwave (I say tee-ay (!) y'all).

Sunday, September 20, 2015

Bragging Rights

> > > > WE BEAT AN FCS OPPONENT!! < < < <

photo by Nola Dave of wavefootball.com)



-> Cut to Rick Dickson doing a Tebow in the Glazer Club (and Imagining the possibilities if we play an entire FCS schedule, or at least maybe reconsider to go get back in CUSA where we are most "similar".) TPTB SO be all Oprah on us if they figure out how to get us in the FCS: Wins for you! and you! Wins for errbody!

Ha Ha, I know. I know. I'm the fan of the worst kind. The kind with high expectations.

I'll tell you things I liked. I did really like this intro that ESPN did for the televised game. They showed Mr. and Mrs. Greenwave Mobile's wheels too!



I loved the little Boy Scouts with the big ole flag for The Anthem. Especially the little ones that got caught up in the undertow during the unfurling and were later seen crawling out underneath. So Cute!

Coach Hullabaloo was mightily perturbed about the student behavior during The Anthem at the first home game and went over to stand in the student section yesterday to monitor the signing of The Anthem as his civic duty. Once a Marine, Always a Marine.

And then I was also very impressed with Sherman Badie. Photo by Nola Dave of wavefootball.com)


Anyways, despite the score we still needed to remind everyone that this is still Tulane here we are talking about, ha ha! and so we had some signature touches in effect at the game.

First off, some pretty horrid officials (what is up with that?! are we like a magnet for sketchy officials?!) That was NOT a touchdown on the opening possession, and that Maine returner DID have contact with the ball! The officials were wretched! And then as a last minute finale, we also had us a botched play fumble something or another in the 4th quarter.

Ta Da!

Am I over the start to the season? Um, hell to the no. Never. I plan to annoy everyone with my opinions til the end. or until my team gets its act together.

So.......lemme tell you: in addition to getting a bunch of compliments about my super cah-ute top by Lo+Jo Bands (see, how cute!)


I also got an EARFUL from all across the spectrum of Greenwave Nation. Some were "Thank you for that letter you sent to President Fitts, I hope they hear you" (yeah right after this glorious win over Maine, all is considered right according to plan by TPTB). But THEN I also got the skinny from some flies on the wall with big ole ears in the locker room. Let me just say this: I worked in Washington DC and I am not naive to how the backroom deals work. The backroom is in full effect at the Tulane University Greenwave. Oh yes.

Sigh.....

Anyways, another annoyance was that apparently our University's public relations image would be lagging if Rick Dickson did not do yet another Katrina segment during his halftime interview on ESPN. Yes during a game about Military Appreciation wherein he did not say a word about thanking the military or even Tulane ROTC. Major Eyeroll. I'm presuming he's getting in some practice time to polish off his stump speech for the 11th Anniversary of Katrina.

During the interview he quoted his statistics he's spinning to the Board at this moment to show our marked improvement. We've tripled the number of televised games under his tenure! Isn't that Fantastique? Well, how about these statistics: since joining the AAC and being blamed for the implosion of the Big East, Tulane’s record against FBS opponents is 2 wins, 11 losses. That's after our miracle final season in CUSA when a corner turning had been declared.

So today I am sure that TPTB had them some celebratory oysters at Clancy's.

Listen, I am positively thrilled that Fitts got to savor a victory hullabaloo in a Tulane locker room. He looks happy and the team looks happy. And that makes me happy.



But I won't stop hoping, praying, and prodding that Fitts gets to like post-game wins enough, being as that there have been exactly 3 during his two year tenure, that he up and starts asking questions about how this college football thing works. Let's get us some more victory locker room moments worthy of Vince Gibson or Bennie Ellender's memory. Against real opponents.

I'll even take some ponderings on how Tulane can make ourselves more "similar" to average FBS opponents. So when the "similar to us" excuse comes up again we are talking about what our team and fans deserve.

So speaking of celebratory food, Coach and Mrs. Hullabaloo got to go to Glazer Club. Yes! they actually let us in and we didn't get bounced!


After the start of the season went the way it went, comp tickets were available in droves. So we scored some and I got to see what all the fuss was about.


I'm not so much into the Glazer Club, no. It's totally not conducive to actually paying attention to a football game and what is happening beyond the sound proof windows. It's all about the socializing. No wonder those Board people don't give a flip if we play like crud.

There are a bunch of buffets and bars set up everywhere and big screens. But no desserts! Since I don't eat a lot of junk so I can save room for the important stuff, the only thing I was able to nibble on were the wings. And they were cold and not as good as my favorites from Five Happiness.


Coach Hullabaloo said the cochon de lait sandwiches were comme ci comme ca, but that the hot dogs looked scary (and he loves him some hot dogs). He did enjoy the free beer, and I enjoyed the A/C AND using a little girls room that had proper lighting - which is unlike the ground level powder rooms that have like one naked light bulb so that you are in the stall tinkling in the dark.

Anyways, so back we went up to Westfeldt Terrace where my favorite Cookie Monster ice cream purvyed by Creole Creamery can be purchased. Access to the Creole Creamery stand is worth the $500 TAF donation IMO we made to get tickets in Westfeldt.

I did enjoy shopping the souvenir shop inside Glazer and picked up this new cap that my manpie Marine Coach Hullabaloo needed for his collection of Tulane baseball caps.


And then earlier in the day we had a blast at tailgating with our krewe of peeps. Our theme was Maine food, and we had "Poutine" which is a tradition from Maine. It's basically potato chip nachos with roast beef n gravy with cheese. Except we also offered shredded duck, in addition to roast beef and with assorted toppings.


And to round things out (you know me, all about the themes) I ordered these "whoopie pies" from Wicked Whoopies of Maine. They were absolutely delicious.

Whoopie Pies are basically moon pies, but better. I will knock over children to grab moon pies at Mardi Gras.


Also in the photo was this blueberry beer from a Maine brewery called Sea Dog that was at Fresh Market. Coach Hullabaloo loves Tin Roof Brewery and so we decided to give this Gameday IPA a try since it was in a green can. And it is delicious and perfect for for our Skip&GoNaked recipe which is always a hit.

I also made a lobster dip, brussel sprout slaw, and a maple onion jelly using products by Stonewall Kitchens which is from Maine (ah! Themes!). Preparations are below (I can't call it recipes, because total cheating and shortcuts happened here).

LOBSTER DIP
Can of Lobster Bisque from Fauchon (a fancy schmancy store in Paris)
Stick of room temperature cream cheese
handful of ground parmesan cheese
Finely chopped half a red bell pepper
Finely chopped white part of Green onions (to taste)
a smidge of finely chopped red onion
a few dunks of Worcestershire sauce
Salt

Mush everything together and serve with Ritz Crackers, or another type of butter cracker. Also good with fresh red bell pepper strips.

BRUSSEL SPROUT SLAW
half of a bag of brussel sprouts finely chopped
couple green onion spears chopped
quarter red onion chopped
handful chopped pecans (roasted or not, no matter)
quarter chopped green apple (chopped)
salt and peper to taste
half a dunk of Stonewall Kitchens Maple Balsamic vinaigrette
tablespoon whomp of Stonewall Kitchens Maple Bacon aioli

chop up the veg, whomp the wet ingredients, sprinkle seasonings. lovingly toss together. and voila!

MAPLE ONION JELLY DIP
Half a portion of Stonewall Kitchens Onion Garlic jam
Equal half a portion of Stonewall Kitchens Maple Bacon aioli

Swirl it all together, serve with pretzel sticks in a cute bowl.

Now, my Greenwave friends. One word of wisdom. Don't go dropping your corndogs like Lil'General did. Coach Hullabaloo caught Lil'General taking corndogs out of Glazer Club and warned her about me finding out. He made her laugh so hard, that plop the corndog went on the floor.


WTH is Glazer serving Corndogs for anyways? I had no idea the money peeps ate Corndogs.

Oh Well, see y'all after the Bye!

Saturday, September 12, 2015

The Stinger Express


Oh my goodness!!! That was the FUNNEST ass kicking in the history of Coach and Mrs. Hullabaloo chronicling our following of Greenwave Football!

Seriously, we had the best time.


Coach and Mrs. Hullabaloo hit the road from New Orleans with a group of friends and fellow Greenwave fans on an RV to Hotlanta.

I am ever thankful that following Tulane Football has brought us so many great friends into our life.


This is a photeaux of our group in front of the Georgia Tech Wrambling Wreck. On the trip we laughed, we kareoke'd, we tore. it. up. So fun!

And to add to the merriment, I also met a bunch of former lettermen, see....This is me with Avery Johnson.


And this is Mrs. Hullabaloo with Gary Brown. He's showing off his Liberty Bowl ring.


It was awesome to see, especially being that bowl rings are so scarce and rare these days amongst our teams. Even if we do try to schedule teams like University of Guadalajara to attempt to become bowl eligible. hmmmmm, Le Sigh....

And this snapshot here - this was kinda like meeting a letterman here.


This is me with my girl I'm calling Queenie who was on TLC's "Say Yes To the Dress". I've been knowing Queenie for a few years (she has some pretty excellent taste in wedding stationers) and it turns out that Queenie has the Greenwave ALL going on in her life. Her daddy and her uncle both played for the Greenwave. Her cousin is Matt Forté (get out of town, right?!). AND she married a Greenie who played under Buddy Teevens and Tommy Bowden. Talk about Tulane pedigree.

So in order to avoid having my heart ripped to shreds watching the unwatchable, I went in to this season with zero expectation. This gameday I made my cute drink decorations and napkins, pulled out my cute gameday dress from the opening game last season. I just had me some fun shimmying to the marching band music and enjoying what turned out to be a beautiful day. Being that Tulane clearly has no interest in fielding a gameplan to like win any time soon. So I've checked out. When Eric Price announced this summer that they were trimming down the playbook again because players weren't grasping an already trimmed back playbook that hasn't worked a single season yet - I knew that this season was going to be a complete fracas.

Seriously. I am tempted to ask the band director to teach the band the Benny Hill theme song so that they can score our game vs. Uconn. Because that is going to be some kinda something that weekend

We did have a few bright spots:
(game photeauxs by Hyosub Shin for the Atlanta Journal Constitution)

Nico Marley, we are not worthy enough to deserve you.


Devon Breaux with another touchdown. I couldn't believe it when he came down with that catch. Holy Shizzles, it wasn't a shut out.


Amazing.

And we just love shockwave, they are so cute.


Anyways, lemme summarize our gameplan for Georgia Tech: Botched snap sailing over the punter's head: check, Give up a safety: check, Throw an interception: check, Fumble the ball inside the 10: check check, Catch a kick off in the endzone and run it to the 14 instead of kneeing it to start at the 25: yup, check that one off the list too. Oh, and continue to have 10 players on the field for plays. Oh ten man special, how we love you so. Except that this week it was a 9 man special. Yes, we had to call a time out because we only had 9 players on the field. #facepalm

Dear Tulane Alumni: if you left at the half and did not shoot off an angry tweet, email to President Fitts or tell Rick Dickson that the jig is up: You are Not Doing Your Part. You are feeding the machine which is Tulane Athletics which has been allowed to continue unfettered in the direction of complete disarray. We are What We Are, Because We Don't Do Anything to Stop It From Being So.

Anyways, I completely approve of playing at Georgia Tech again if they will have us.

I had a an absolute ball.

Their fans were delightful! Here is Coach Hullabaloo with his brothers he introduced himself to at the Georgia tech Delta Chi house.


The Georgia Tech stadium is so fun!


and I loved their traditions. This is the crowds parting the way for the drive of the Wrambling Wreck to the stadium


And this is the Yellow Jacket mascot crowd surfing in the student section. Loved this.


And on top of all this fabulosity: their lady fans dressed SO cute! The gameday fashions at Georgia Tech were completely opposite of some of the utterly cray outfits on display on the LBC quad. Hopefully hanging around what we should aspire to will rub off a little more. So please, please TPTB, please schedule Georgia Tech again


Thank you sir, may I have another!