Sun-dappled and flavored in barbecue smoke, a tailgate to remember
Floating around somewhere is a video of me performing an Australian party game at Saturday’s tailgate, which turned into a lollapalooza of laughter and leftovers.
Afterward, we packed a friend’s Expedition with all the food and drinks we couldn’t crush down our middle-aged gullets. The big SUV looked like a sarcophagus of party remnants — knives, tongs, gin, corkscrews, tables. Once home, we vowed to unload it later, by the light of day, when the impossible seems doable.
As I mentioned last week, I am devoting this fall — possibly my last — to zany and irreverent friends. Fortunately, L.A. breeds them like chickens. Saturday’s tailgate drew old friends, new friends, friends of friends, idiots who pretended to be friends. I organized the darn thing and didn’t recognize half the chickens.
The lovely and patient older daughter was there with her boyfriend and a scrum of her buddies, who all happen to be male. I’m proud to have raised a daughter who doesn’t hold maleness against a person.
Her wiseguy friends say her boyfriend reminds them of me, then they chuckle. The joke, I suppose, is that she — my fiercest critic — is the last woman in the world who would be attracted to someone like her father. Irony, like sarcasm and freckled knees, is a family trait.
The best part of the tailgate? Tough to say. My buddy Verge brought subs from Bay Cities deli, one of the few sandwiches in Los Angeles worth eating. L.A. is not a sandwich town; it’s a sushi town. Which is nice until you want to nosh a transcendent Italian sub.
“Never been to a tailgate,” admits the outgoing Verge, which is like Santa saying he’s never seen a blizzard.
I grill up four briskets, all the size of a fullback’s thigh. Burned them on purpose, coating them in crunch and giving them a touch of evil. Properly barbecued, a tri-tip is black as Satan’s cape.
Though he couldn’t attend, Bittner sent a pony keg, which Miller then expertly packed, slathering it in ice like a giant halibut.
But that wasn’t the best part. As I told my buddy Gary later, the best part was having dozens of the kids around. Mostly college-age now, or slightly older, it’s inexplicable that our sons and daughters still want to hang with their parents on an autumn day.
Till the kids showed up, we had a nice little party, though it resembled old-growth forest, a graying crowd that still prefers Beach Boys over Beyonce and can’t quite work their phones. Then the kids arrived, having slept till noon or so, and the energy level immediately spiked.
“No, sweetie, I don’t think they’ll let you take your bong into the stadium,” one dad says to his daughter.
I’m not sure why they show up, except all the UCLA kids love Bay Cities sandwiches. … The bread is a mitzvah, a Mardi Gras in the mouth. Sometimes, I chew it in my sleep.
So, to sum up, we had everything a dad or mom could ever want — wings, barbecue, beverages, zany friends, grateful sons and daughters, not to mention those smushy little cream-cheese apps Rhonda always brings.
After democracy, a good tailgate may be America’s greatest gift. Boomers have accomplished a lot, including the computer age, the end of the Cold War, the collapse of communism, the advent of big-screen TVs and implants of every shape. But mostly we should be remembered for bringing the world epic tailgates like this.
“If you can’t be happy here, you can’t be happy,” I say, my Rose Bowl mantra.
You know, the older I get, the more I realize that life is good stories, that life is kinship.
“If my wife asks, tell her I brought the cheap wine,” Miller tells us.
“You did?”
“Of course not. Are you kidding me?”
My buddy Ortiz tells me that his son just pledged one of the Jewish fraternities, though that is not his heritage, proving such things don’t necessarily define you. In this country, bloodlines are merely touchstones, reference points, a line on your résumé.
Lord, I love this nation.
By the way, if you come across the video of the Australian party game, please note that I don’t play that many silly games.
Also note that I bull’s-eyed the coin into the red Solo cup, a perfect drop shot on a perfect day.
Pling. Splash. Touchdown.
Twitter: @erskinetimes
