We'll Always Remember the Titans (Game)

Before I begin what is sure to be the longest post in Bucky Channel history, I believe some introductions are in order. That's Bear and I standing in front of LP Field on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Nashville, Tennessee. I am the one on your left, wearing the Nick Barnett jersey and the obnoxious straw hat that I wore for much of the weekend. On your right is my friend Bear, who really needs to invest in a new, larger Reggie White jersey.

The two of us were part of a group of eleven who decided to make the trip from various parts of Wisconsin and Illinois down to Nashville. The idea of this annual Packer road trip started last year, when we decided to hit up a Decemeber Packers/Rams game in St. Louis because of how bad the Rams were. This year was a different scenario, with the Titans coming into the game with an undefeated 7-0 record.

We arrived in Nashville at about 3 pm on Saturday, and tried to get our bearings straight as we got familiar with our new surroundings. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express just on the edge of the downtown, and I want to give our compliments to their staff right away. Having eleven drunks in two rooms for 48 hours can make for some pretty rancid rooms, and their staff did an excellent job making us feel welcome. I'm still waiting to see if there are any extra charges on my bill, however, and then I'll see how welcome we really were.
Once the 7pm hour hit, we decided to finally venture out of the Holiday Inn Express and see what the Nashville night life was all about. When we do these trips, we never go in with a game plan, and we just kind of see what we see. We did have one destination to go to, which was the event hosted by the Nashville Packer Backers. They had two separate bars downtown that were offering $1 brats, $1 Miller Lites, and $1 Leinies. To find a deal like that in Nashville is pretty phenomenal, as we would later find out.

One of the bars we were at, Buffalo Billiards, also provided us with the entertainment of an 80's band, named "The 80's Team". They were a good cover band, but didn't really know any of the insanely obscure selections we suggested to them. Can't really blame them for that though.


They still had plenty of good music to dance to, and as you could tell by the picture above, I was able to really get in a groove. However, I did have a massive fail when it came to the band's trivia contest. I was a contestant, but all the trivia questions were about the Karate Kid, which I have never seen. Just another reason why I'm not like Bill Simmons, even if this column will end up being similar in tone to his Super Bowl trip review columns.

We hit up a few other bars on Saturday night as well. Me and my friend Udes found a great little hole in the wall called Piranha's. My other friends spent a lot of their time at Coyote Ugly, a bar named after the movie. I have mixed feelings about this bar, which features the lady bartenders dancing on the bar and being real aggressive towards the patrons. Many of my buddies loved this atmosphere, and why wouldn't you? Chicks dancing on the bar while you get drunk. Sounds like a great time, right?
It was, but you have to be in the mood for it, and I was being a Debbie Downer. I was mad about this because here I am, in Nashville, at a bar where I should just be having a good time. But then I look around and see these 50 year old guys that just order one Jack and Coke and stand at the back of the bar and ogle the girls. If you want to do that in your own home, that's fine with me, but I don't like it when people are "public pervs". It's the same reason I hate going to Hooters. I know sex sells, but I guess I was just more in the mood to experience true Nashville bars, rather than hit up a tourist hot spot.

So that's why Bear never contributes to this site anymore...

Kruegs, get out of the way!



So the party life is fun, but the main reason we take these trips is to go to the game. We spent a couple more hours at Coyote Ugly, as they were serving their "Kegs and Eggs" breakfast buffet. Not bad. This is a view from the back entrance of the bar, which sits right on the Cumberland river. There she is folks, LP Field.


This is the view from just right of the stadium, looking south down the Cumberland River. The bridge you see is the pedestrian bridge we took a trolley over for the game. It proved to be the site of a tragedy later in the day as someone jumped off the bridge walking back from the stadium. Apparently, it wasn't ruled a suicide, but rather occurred after two friends were debating how deep the river was. I just typed five different sentences here before deleting them, and in the interest of not offending anyone, let's just move on to the next picture.

We made it into our seats just before kickoff, and we sat up in the 300 level. The stadium is built almost straight up, rather than like the bowl that is Lambeau Field. So even though we were quite high, the seats weren't bad at all. I don't think I zoomed in too much to take this picture.

There were definitely a lot of Packers fans that made the trip. If I had to guess I would say it was about 10-15% Packers fans. Not enough to take over the Titans fans by any means, but there were more fans of an opposing team than Titans fans had ever seen before, at least according to the people next to me. These were the most obnoxious fans in my section, and of course, they were Packer fans. I'm also proud to say that they are part of our group.

When you are drinking, you are emotions are usually at a bit of a heightened state. That has to explain why I was going crazy when Lee Greenwood appeared at halftime to sing "Proud to be an American".
When Rob Bironas's attempt for a game winning field goal hit the goalpost at the end of regulation, I immediately hugged my buddy next to me. That was followed by plenty of business trip handshakes and high fives with the Packer fans next week. Sadly, it was all for naught, as the Titans drove down the Packers' throats and hit the field goal anyway.

After the game, I was mildly surprised as to how little the Titans fans cocked off after the victory. There were a few scant chants of "8-0!" and "Smells like bad cheese!", but that was pretty much get. That's really the only thing that they made fun of Packers fans for, was that we love cheese.

How can that even be offensive? I love cheese so much. I got a hot dog and passed up condiments so that I could dip it in cheese. When I went home, I had five pieces of string cheese before I went to bed. I can't remember the last day that went by where I haven't eaten any cheese whatsoever. Unless I'm just blind here, I'm not offended one bit.

After the game, it was back to Coyote Ugly. This bartender is in the process of giving a body shot, and this is the portion where she teases you with a lime. I'm pretty sure this bartender was the main reason I couldn't handle this bar for more than 30 minutes. She would only talk to you if you referred to her as "Disney" or "Princess", because apparently she works part-time as a Disney Princess. Sweet.

But she has a great body, so I'll share that with you.

And another one for you.

But after a tough Packers loss I wasn't in the mood to be taken advantage by chicks whose main goal was to squeeze huge tips out of you. Which reminds me, we sat down next to a guy who spent $256 in about 1/2 hour. I'd first like to take this opportunity to thank him for the 2 rounds of shots and Miller Lites. I'd secondly like to take this opportunity to berate him for tipping 100 bucks to Princess.

Now after that, I needed to regroup at the hotel and get some food in me. That's where things really started getting interesting. First, me and my buddy Udes inexplicably watched the SNL Digital Short "Space Olympics" for like an hour. Not really sure how that came about.

We were then ready to head back out and hit the downtown, which features statue upon statue of Elvis. I wanted to get a picture with one of these statues, but was rudely interrupted by this guy on the left. As you can tell, I am not very pleased about this.

We then went to a bar named the "The Stage", which was apparently the stage where Johnny Cash perfected his craft. One thing I will say about Nashville on a Sunday night is that it rocks just as hard as Nashville on a Saturday night. You couldn't tell the work week was about to begin, because once again there were people everywhere.

You can't beat the Southern Hospitality either, as made evident by the random girl I made out with for a good hour or so. We made out like it was 9th grade, but unfortunately I never got more than her name. Liz, if you are out there, will you call me?

My buddy, however, topped me by getting to know a girl really well in the stairwell of our hotel. This begs the question, because we plan on doing this trip for a long time, and are currently at the ages of 24 and 25 right now. How long until hooking up with randoms no longer becomes cool and hilarious? 28? 30? Never? Please chime in on this, I'm interesting to know.

The Packers lost the game, 19-16. They are 4-4, and really need to get it together if they are going to make the playoffs. But I'm so proud to be a fan of a team that travels so well. I'm also so gracious to another city letting us in and tear up their town. And I'm thankful to Liz, my Southern Belle who I may never see again.

See you next year, Phoenix (?)