Apocalypse Sunday:
Tailgating in Buffalo
By Christopher Schobert
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The post-tailgate action at Rich Stadium.
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My own first time was relatively recent, as I went quite a few years between attending regular season Bills games. Believe it or not, I actually enjoy watching them on television, and I’ve always hated the fact that it basically becomes an all-day event. Anyway, this Sunday saw the first cans of cheap beer being cracked at about 8:45 in the morning, some type of personal record for me, but business as usual for many of the Bills fans wandering the parking lot and tossing around footballs. By 11 o’clock I was in a state of intense nausea, exhaustion, and some mild form of happiness, and at about 11:45 it occurred to me that there was still a game to slog through. The Bills won that day, I think, and we went home with dopey grins plastered on our faces, even if 6 p.m. felt like midnight.
Another Bills season is set to begin on September 12 against the New England Patriots (Great!) in Foxboro (Even better!). The first home game, and the real start of the tailgating campaign, is September 24 against the New York Jets. And I can make one prediction with complete certainty: it’s going to be a doozy. Jets games are crazy enough, since Bills and Jets fans have developed a mutual hostility dating back to the 1960s that often results in fisticuffs or mooning. Since both teams are coming of two of their worst seasons in recent memory, the real excitement may come in the parking lot, since that’s where the tailgating occurs. This is a combination of food, alcohol, camaraderie, sweaty, hairy, shirtless lugs, booze-hags, face-painted freaks, and a few wide-eyed folks who have actually come to watch football. Tailgating is a Buffalo event, but the city cannot claim to have invented or even perfected it. No, this is a nation-wide pastime, and to my mind, something curiously and disturbingly American.
In the U.S.A. tailgating has almost become a religion. There are websites devoted to it, such as Tailgating America (www.tailgating.com), which actually features a commissioner of tailgating (a cheerful-looking bearded fellow named Joe Cahn). There are recipes for tailgating treats, everything from “beer-boiled shrimp” to “egg in a bag” and some indigestion-inducing concoction simply dubbed “mess.” There are tailgating supplies: grill paraphernalia, umbrellas, even books. Plus, there is beer. And beer. And more beer. If tailgating is a religion, beer is the blood of Christ, and I suppose hot dogs are the body. (Does this make Joe Cahn God?) And the stories … Oh my, the stories. My guess is that many of you reading this piece are thinking right now of tailgating stories you’ve heard, or maybe witnessed or experienced. I’ve heard of fights, and guns pulled, and breasts bared. Of theft, and argument, and destruction. I’ve heard a million stories, and I’ve laughed at them all.
Actually, tailgating has much in common with an annual September event: Curtain Up! The traditional opening kick-off of the Queen City’s fall theater season is being held this year on September 29 in the heart of the Theater District, but how many attendees are really there for the theater? In fact, how many will attend even one play during the entire year? Some will, to be sure. After all, numerous locals buy Shea’s and Studio Arena season tickets every year. But like a lot of tailgaters, it always seems there are folks at Curtain Up! (notice the unnecessary exclamation point) who have come to booze it up, gab, throw on a tux or evening gown, and generally use the event as an excuse to wander down Main Street with a wicked buzz.
And I don’t blame them a bit. But let’s not forget the ostensible reasons everyone has come together for Curtain Up!, and for Bills games: to support local theater, and to support the team, respectively. I’m always stunned when friends tell me stories of completely missing games due to intoxication, or winding up on the side of the road with nary a memory of how they came to lose a sneaker. I love those stories, but I’m also scared by them. It’s certainly no shocker that tailgating is as popular as it is—lately I’ve even seen it before Sabres and Bisons games, and before concerts—and it seems to be gaining in popularity. Ever since the depressing end to last season, I’ve been asking my season ticket-holder friends if they’re going to re-up again, and I don’t think anyone has said no. You can’t trace this to optimism for the future, and you definitely can’t trace it to confidence with free agent signings or draft choices. (This is another discussion topic in itself.) I think you can trace it to tailgating, the most insane, lovable, screwed-up communal activity in Buffalo. It’s messy and painful, way too hot in September and downright freezing in December, but more than anything else, it’s fun.
Even if the team is playing badly, there is tailgating to look forward to, and at least eight times a year, there is an excuse to completely—and I mean completely—let go. By the way, I haven’t even brought up night games. That’s when things really get wild. If you can imagine that.
Christopher Schobert is an assistant editor at Buffalo Spree.
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