One of the quirks of this small town is the music I sometimes hear in the local grocery store. We don’t get the usual boring muzak that was screened by some beancounter to maximize inoffensiveness — I was quite charmed the first time I went shopping there, and instead of boring old 1001 Strings soft-soaping pop, I actually heard them playing Patti Smith belting out “Gloria”. Now it usually isn’t so transcendently magnificent — in fact, it’s still usually the kind of thing you might hear on a soft-rock or easy-listening or country station — but at least now and then you get to hear something with character.
Which isn’t always good.
So this afternoon I zipped over to pick up some fresh tomatoes and provolone for dinner, step in the door, and hear this horrible adenoidal voice with a Minnesota accent singing this:
Beating on the cheeseHEADS!
Beating on the cheeseHEADS!
We are all rejoicing
Beating on the cheeseHEADS!
Not just once, not twice, but over and over again, for the entire duration of my visit (which was short: there may be something to this idea that background music can influence market behavior.) It was incredibly annoying, but everyone else in the store was going about their business in a perfectly normal fashion. Weird.
I guess there is some football game tonight that has the region riled up. There’s nothing quite like bizarre, understated Minnesota patriotism to highlight some of the strangeness of local culture.
And you were not, by appearances?
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
it may make me (even more) horribly unpopular, but i feel about football the way most posters here feel about religion: the less i have to see it, hear about it, have my life impacted by it, or devote thought toward it, the better
For your enjoyment, you may find that bit here;
http://rapidshare.com/files/143720634/KQRS_-_Cheezheads.mp3
(I had a recording of it from some time ago.)
Yeah and in Wisconsin the song isn’t about Minnesota, its usually, “The Bears still suck, the Bears still suck ….” ad nauseum.This is spoken by a guy who has gone to Packer games for 30 years, but doesn’t listen to anything about them that he can avoid. I just watch.
I enjoy watching football, but I’ve decided that this year I’m going to retire from making fun of the Packers.
No, I changed my mind, I’m not retiring.
I changed it again, I am retiring.
I changed it again, I’m not retiring.
Somehow, I managed to grow up in Alabama without ever learning the rules of football. I’ve never even watched the entirety of any sporting event on TV. Hooray for asportuality!
skyotter,
I’m with you on that one. but it’s not just football, it’s every sport. I just can’t get into them. They seem like such a waste of energy; I’m always amazed at the people who can recite stats for that past five seasons off the top of their heads because they are usually the ones (at least from my own experience) who are most likely to revel in anti-intellectualism, and yet they have a tremendous ability to retain information and extrapolate odds from it. Such a waste.
I guess there is some football game tonight that has the region riled up.
Apparently so. Count your lucky stars Howard Cosell isn’t part of the background mix.
Lets go pack, eh, oh, tear down that Humpty-dump while you’re at it! If the Gophers get a new stadium, the Vikes deserve one, too.
Give me a faux Viking helmet over a chunk of cheese on my head anyday.
PZ, you’d probably look impressively Nordic in one of them.
We hate the Dakotas (especially North Dakota) when it comes to hockey and the Fighting Sioux take on the Minnesota Gophers. So, this loathing of Wisconsin may be seasonal.
” Posted by: Blake Stacey | September 8, 2008 5:56 PM
Somehow, I managed to grow up in Alabama without ever learning the rules of football. I’ve never even watched the entirety of any sporting event on TV. Hooray for asportuality!”
INFIDEL! Burn!
/grew up and lives in Mobile, AL. roll tide
I’m with skyotter@2. I keep meaning to buy The Onion’s t-shirt that says “The sports team from my area is superior to the sports team from your area.”
http://www.themusichutch.com/listen.php?songid=38494
Badgers-Gophers > Packers-Vikings
@ # 11
When I discuss my beloved Gophers with the friends I have from Fargo, I call their team the Biting Sioux, which goes over rather poorly, so I’ll keep doing it. We dislike the Badgers just as much, though – “Badgers? We don’t need no stinking Badgers!”… ;-)
I suspect that football is the true American religion, even though more people give lip service to Christianity. Gridiron fervor is much more intense than religious ecstasy.
I, for my part, am a militant unbeliever. I’ve never even seen a football game on TV. Ever.
Pro sports doesn’t bug me anywhere near as much as public funding of pro sports. If I lived in Minneapolis, I’d be really upset about the way things went for the new baseball stadium.
And within earshot of the construction site, a bridge collapses because it’s just old. Older even that the baseball stadium being replaced. For which they raised taxes. Without a vote.
In Sacramento, where we actually got to vote (wow, what a concept!) on a new arena, it failed by an 80-20 vote. Had it passed, I would have shrugged and said, “Well, democracy won, I guess.” (But, true to form, now they’re trying for public funding again, only this time, we won’t really get a chance to vote on it. Can’t let the voters keep having a say if all they say is “HELL NO!”, right?)
But you in Minneapolis didn’t even get a chance to vote.
Appalling.
That’s not surprising, since real football is Canadian.
Having lobbed that one, I’d have to throw myself with the rest of the asportualists (even though as a youngster I’d had a hand in creating three entirely new sports: Mishnev, Blommage, and the fast-paced and utterly bewildering Loft ‘N’ Scüp.)
Pardon a non-US person… Can someone tell me why they’re are called Cheeseheads?
Wisconsin: America’s Dairyland.
and cocktail lounge.
I like American football. The violence part isn’t what turns me on to it though. It’s the fact that I really like playing chess, and football being a turn-based sort of game, there’s a lot of strategy involved.
I’m so, so ashamed that I know this, but Laura Branigan, not Patty Smith, is the artist you’re thinking of.
This squeaky clean 80’s pop number is not to be confused with Van Morrison’s “Gloria”– especially not Jim Morrison’s lascivious interpretation thereof.
@#20
Wisconsin is famous for producing cheese.
I, too, grew up not knowing anything about Football, despite living in the Panhandle of Florida. Now, I happen to work at a store that sells sports memorabilia, and has sports on TV all the time, so I’ve picked up a little understanding of the game, as well as of basketball. I can see some attraction to the game, especially in the strategic elements, but over all, I don’t think I’ll ever understand the obsession many have with it.
Give me Go any day of the week! :-)
@ #20
Well Graeme, Wisconsin is famous for its dairy industry, and for cheese in particular – their fans wear wedge-shaped cheese hats.
An old joke goes something like this – why do Packer fans have sex doggie-style?
That way, they can both watch the game, and the guy has someplace to put the pretzel dish.
/me ducks
The actual cheeses are fantastic – and that goes for their brats and sausages, too. In fact, they have some pretty good beers, and some of the countryside is breathtakingly beautiful, as are many of their lovely ladies.
/why do I dislike them, again?
/Oh yeah – Favre sucks!
(I know he’s gone, and he’s a certain first vote Hall of Famer, but it’s still fun to say it.)
All I know is that my hopes for humanity were largely dashed when I ended up in South Carolina and saw my first Jesus + football billboard, extolling the virtues of the local high school team.
Or perhaps it was the Citadel, which was nearby. That would make sense, for Jesus would clearly prefer them to other Southern Christian military academies.
Plus they deep fry *everything.
Sorry Danio, but Patti Smith also recorded “Gloria.”
(I too thought of the Laura Branigan song, but that’s because I have a soft spot for 80’s pop.)
Obligatory FUCK THE VIKINGS/GOPHERS!
But the Badgers beat the crap out of the Packers any day.
I just listened to the song… I found the accent somewhat entertaining at first, but if I had to deal with that all the time I would… well, I guess I would just move.
Anyways, I’m curious if PZ has this unfortunate accent…
I can only assume you are not referring to The Beer that Made Milwaukee Famous.
Or to PBR, for that matter.
Q: Why did they install artificial turf in Camp Randall Stadium?
A: To keep the Badger cheerleaders from grazing during halftime.
;-)
She was the one who added the “Jesus died for somebody’s sins / but not mine” part, wasn’t she?
Badgers don’t graze. :D However, I hear you Gophers are a bit long in the tooth.
One of my father’s most intense disappointments in life was my manifest lack of interest or ability in sport of any kind. The only sport I’ve ever been able to watch is men’s gymnastics, no small part of that interest being entirely prurient. (At least until even gymnasts started to become steroid-y grotesques.) My life is currently sufficiently hermetic that I hardly ever have to deal with sport-intrusion.
@ 31
NOOO!!! Those are disgusting swill! Truth be told, Ol’ Mill is a good, cheap beer for playing quarters – so I’m told…
I was thinking more on the lines of Leinenkugel… Leinie’s Red… mmm… even a straight-up Leinie’s is very refreshing on a summer day.
(But I’m having a Newcastle Brown Ale at the moment – yum!)
Now, let’s hear some Gophers jokes. Here’s one…
Clem Haskins!
If you never played sports and you never grew up watching sports, I could see how you’d feel this way. I love to watch sports I’ve actually participated in at a reasonably competitive level because I identify with the activity and can therefore enjoy it vicariously through others. Sports I’ve never played (football) or never really enjoyed (baseball, soccer) leave me cold. Mostly, I’ve just never understood sports where they don’t give you a stick to hit someone with when the referee isn’t looking.
As for strange music heard in grocery stores, my wife recently came home from the store to report that they had been playing Closer by Nine Inch Nails. It didn’t bother her, but she was surprised that no one else seemed to notice — especially the shoppers with small children. I hastened to point out that, to the careless listener, it sounds like the song is about animals. Kids love animals!
—they have some pretty good beers
—-I can only assume you are not referring to The Beer that Made Milwaukee Famous. Or to PBR, for that matter.
Head across the state to Chippewa Falls and try a Lienenkugel’s.
For cheese, try the shop in Rudolph, about 10 miles north of Wis. Rapids. Outstanding Gouda for under $4/lb. My dad gets the fresh curds. (Don’t refrigerate curds or they won’t squeak.) And for all Favre’s faults at least he was better than Lynn Dickey.
Being a science nerd and being a sports fan don’t have to be mutually exclusive, althoug it does seems like (i’m generalizing here based on personal experience) intellectuals are less likely to be interested in sports, and there’s nothing wrong with that but no need to talk down to us mouth breathers who enjoy a good ballgame now and again. We know you’re really smart and have evolved beyond the barbaric male bonding rituals of us simpletons, so go read some science journals if that floats your boat but i’ve got a ballgame to watch.
I almost walked out of the local Safeway affiliate, here it’s called Dominick’s, because of their crappy music. The worst offender was “Faith of the Heart”. Not the horrid theme from “Enterprise” but the original version of it from “Patch Adams”, sung but the incomparable Rod Stewart. There are also the Huey Lewis and the News songs that they seem to like to play. Who picks this stuff, arg!
As of asportuality, I fall into that too. Apparently the Cubs and White Sox have been doing well this year, and a couple years ago the White Sox won the World Series. Who knew?
Ah, indeed she did. How stupid of me not to have googled this before posting. Suddenly PZ’s positive response to this tune makes a lot more sense :)
I still think The Doors’ smutty version is hard to beat, though.
I enjoy watching football (certainly college games), but I can’t get excited about who actually wins. I just want to see a good, well-played game. The color commentary, on the other hand, is so inane that I have to watch with the sound turned way down, particularly on Monday Night Football. Even so, the wife and daughter go screaming into the other room, thereby guaranteeing that I have about three hours of uninterrupted work time. Glance up every 5-10 minutes to check on the game, then go back to programming. Some of my best code gets cut that way, but only in the Fall. Even I can’t watch basketball or hockey.
“As for strange music heard in grocery stores, my wife recently came home from the store to report that they had been playing Closer by Nine Inch Nails. ”
That is pretty strange. Now there are two versions of that song, the album version and the radio edit with the “f” words cleanly excised, but even so, that song has too much of a strip club sound to be suitable for grocery stores. Although perhaps it would be funny if people only heard the “You get me closer to God” part and concluded that the song was religious.
Store sound systems are one of the biggest reasons that I’m glad I don’t count inventory anymore. All of them suck to some degree, except maybe the grocery store that played “Dare” by Gorillaz that one time (of course I was in the frozen food section and could barely hear it). Fred Meyer, a nice and popular department store in the Northwest, has the worst by leaps and bounds. I never hear Michael Bolton in public anywhere else but Freddie’s.
Just so you know, the usual background music is not programed just to be inoffensive but to nudge you to buy more (surprise, surprise).
The tactic is to program half hour sets of music that start of mellow then build to frenzied crescendo. Why this makes shoppers buy more, I do not know. Maybe the ploy just make shop owners buy more Muzak.
Forty-Niner Faithful here. You may all kiss our five rings.
I love sports, and science, and heavy metal music, and science fiction. I call it being open to new things.
Back when I drive an airport shuttle van, I carried vanloads of cheeseheads on several occasions when Green Bay played the Niners. Best people ever. Partisan as hell about their team, but they were polite, loved coming to SF, and if they lost, they accepted it. The complete opposite of Cowboys fans.
Except us unsuspecting U of Mn TC student have a “stadium fee” on our bill: $25 a year. Not horrible, by I will probably never set foot inside it.
As someone who has never been “OMG SCHOOL SPIRIT YAY!!!”, especially when it comes to sports, I’m more than a little peeved that the U has no less than 10 different sports buildings, while they couldn’t spare a penny for the Equine Center and won’t pay for extra stalls so, I don’t know, they could actually use the place to what it was built for: helping horses.
/end rant
Humbug for the Packers. I’m pissed about Farve. >:(
The first two lines of my post are a quote from Dustin @ #9. Apparently, “preview” can lie to you.
Beer! Forget Miller and PBR, even Leinie’s.
Spotted Cow, Totally Naked and all the other New Glarus brews are the best Wisconsin has to offer (although Sprecher’s not bad).
College team mascots! At least Badgers are mean. What are Golden Gophers? Owl food?
Professional FB teams! The Packers are too much like a religion around here and my atheism runs deep.
To sum up: Great beer from the micros. A reasonably intimidating college mascot. A religion to keep yahoos occupied and out of trouble on Sunday afternoons. The Kettle Moraine hills, through which wind some of the most beautiful cycling roads on the planet.
Wisconsin’s all right.
Final
Wearers of plastic cheeseHEADS: 24
Actual Smahalove eaters: 19
http://photos5.flickr.com/10638530_345980f996_m.jpg
Blake Stacey:
1. Eat steroids
2. Damage other people.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Damn dyslexia. “Smalahove eaters.”
Brownian, OM:
But did you ever play 43-man Squamish?
The Pavillions I shop at now and then has an odd tune (for a grocery store). Off the top of my head I can recall some Genesis tracks:
– “Mama” (complete with Ha ha HAAAAA!)
– “Abacab” including the extended instrumental ending.
– “No Son Of Mine”
And a friend of mine swears he heard “Supper’s Ready”, but I totally called bullshit on that.
A month later I *nearly* convinced him that I heard “Zero The Hero” by Black Sabbath in a Target.
I’m pissed about Farve.
Is he still crying like a 5 year old with a skinned knee?
I’ll never understand people who love live theatre, etc. and hate sports and visa-versa. They’re both the same thing. Incredibly talented people who’ve honed their craft and who can do things most of us can only dream of. They’re both live, anything can, and eventually will, happen. Both need an audience to complete them. Both can be transformable events that you’ll never forget… or, more often, ones that you’ll never recall.
This is something I’ve fretted about over the years. I know most of the people here are more science than art based, but can anyone give me a good reason why so many people can’t seem to find room in their life for both sports and art?
Packers once again beat the Vikings (24-19). Being a science geek (or nerd) and a organized sports fan are not mutually exclusive. It doesn’t hurt having been born 40 miles from Lambeau Field during the “Glory Years” though.
Yep, my Packers beat the crappy Vikes. Nice 1st start for Rodgers. Oh how happy are we.
A slight change of direction here….
Am I the only one who thinks that politics in this country has become too close to sports in the sense that people root for their party the way they root for their teams?
In other words, what matters is that the party wins not because it has better policies or smarter individuals running it. The party wins because the fan wants it to win; the fan identifies with it more; it is closer to the fan’s heart. It is not a question of what is best for the country but of how nasty the fan can be to the fans of some other team.
The fact that some of the players are evil hypocrites is of no matter. The fact that some of them are as dumb as a bag of hammers and should not be let anywhere near a position of power is irrelevant. It’s the fan’s the party and it should win to validate the party members existence.
If the party does not win, it is because the other party cheated or the refs (the media) were bribed or blew a call. The party should never lose because it is the fan’s party and the source of all goodness and light.
At both of the party conventions recently, did you notice how many people were running around in stupid hats and costumes that make both the Packer and Viking uniforms look sedate? Did you like the obnoxious chanting that imitated the cheers found in college stadiums?
I am beginning to rethink my position on sports. I have always enjoyed it but when the sports fans take over politics, as I think they have, then I think I can’t enjoy games anymore.
#49: Spotted Cow–Yes!!! My favorite beer of all time. Did you ever notice how much better it tastes on tap? The bottled version is great, of course, but if you can find it on tap, heavenly. My husband and I have been known to choose restaurants more for Spotted Cow on tap than for food!
And how about that Aaron Rodgers? I am pleasantly surprised…
Easy to say why, at least for this art based person, although I can’t speak for anyone else here of course. I hate the group competitiveness of sports, and I loathe the entire concept of teaming, as it has become defined in both sports and the corporate world. It’s nationalism and exceptionalism in microcosm. I’m not against people being cooperative and working together to build or create something, but doing so in order to demolish the competition – I just can’t see that as a positive.
I don’t hate all sports: I like tennis, swimming, track, bicycling, all the sports it is possible to do by one’s self. But large groups of people all shouting about their “team?” It’s alien to me, and a little frightening at times.
And I’d just like to say, I would happily shop at any store that played NIN. That is too nifty neato spiffio for words! ;-)
We know you’re really smart and have evolved beyond the barbaric male bonding rituals of us simpletons, so go read some science journals if that floats your boat but i’ve got a ballgame to watch.
What really makes me laugh about the whole thing is the concept that sitting on your ass watching young, fit men run around in tight clothing is somehow 1) not homoerotic and 2) more athletic than, say, chasing angry turkeys over a mud slick. (An actual experiment to see what dinosaur tracks would look like in mud… apparently turkeys do not like running in mud, and neither do undergrads.)
Somewhere along the line the “Ug, tribe good” gene apparently left my gene pool, because I really can’t stand to watch team sports, most other sports, and those pastimes passing themselves off as sports (curling, golf, etc). I *play* some sports, but I feel no urge to spectate them. Your average sports fan is about as athletic as a block of lard, and should maybe shut the fuck up about us effete intellectuals who are actually doing things.
Graculus said:
May I register my surprise that the experiment remained as the undergrads chasing the turkeys for any length of time before the turkeys turned around and attacked the undergrads.
Large birds are generally not to be messed with in my experience, even chickens keep their inner veloceraptor uncomfortably close to the surface!
Lilly de Lure
I’m thinking that it wouldn’t have even gotten off the ground if they had used geese.
BTW can we get the terminology right, here? FOOTball is a game played by kicking the ball with the foot. Just like baseball is when you hit a ball and run round bases; basketball is where you try to get a ball into a basket and cricket is where you stand around on a grassy field and occasionally hop about for no discernible reason. The clue is in the name, see?
DaveH said:
OK, I admit it I did actually LOL at this one! BTW, what’s your explanation for Rugby based on this logic?
Rugby is, of course, a game played by men with funny-shaped balls.
Graculus said:
Agreed – Ethics Committees generally do not look favourably on experiments likely to cause undue suffering to innocent students!
BTW – did a paper ever come out as a result of this experiment and if so could you point me in the direction of an appropriate link?
Weirdly, with the emphasis you put on it, all I can think of is it being done in 70’s punk style. Not knowing what a minnesota accent sounds like, I’m stuck thinking of it being sung in a nasal London accent in the style of Sid Vicious in Anarchy in the UK.
Reminds me of:
Fishheads, fishheads,
Roly poly fishheads.
Fishheads, fishheads,
Eat them up, Yum!
The late Laura Branigan’s recording of “Gloria” is sublimely delicious inane pop. Believe me, in 1982, when “Gloria” came on, we RAN to the dance floor, every one of us. THAT was our religion.
Nursing a blind hatred of team sports means that you will be less likely to strike up a conversation with a stranger in a shop, on the bus, or in a picket line. And never to know the majesty of a walk-off homerun, or the daedal beauty of a box score. I weep.
There’s a pretty big goddamned between blind hate and indifference or bafflement. Haven’t heard many people on this thread expressing hate towards sports, just lack of caring.
And, btw, hating that one has to pay additional sales taxes to build a stadium for some sports team is also different than hating sports.
#65: Much as it’s fun to use that “clue is in the name” line on Americans when they say “football”, the earliest uses are apparently for any game with a ball played ON foot.
On the other hand the word”football” properly refers to association football (soccer) just because it bloody does.
You’re absolutely right, there is a big difference between blind hate and indifference – indifference hurts more, and is a meaner stance.
Bafflement is different, sure, but what’s so baffling?
You’re absolutely right, there is a big difference between blind hate and indifference – indifference hurts more, and is a meaner stance.
Bafflement is different, sure, but what’s so baffling?
I noticed this too when I was visiting my family in Minnesota. One store at Southdale was selling anti-Wisconsin t-shirts (alongside parallel Wisconsin-themed anti-Minnesota t-shirts…).
Fan of (American) football or not, you should watch this. Philosophy fans will enjoy it as well.
Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt!
I’m in NYC now, but I’m still a Chargers fan. Except….. we lost to Carolina in the last two. fracking. seconds. of play. Gyahhhhhhhh!
*stabbitystabbity*
Sorry, what? How does “I hate x” hurt less than “I don’t especially care about x?” That is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard.
I find some people’s obsession with sports baffling. Note that being a fan of a particular sport or sports in general is not the same as an obsession. I am baffled by people who sit in the pouring rain for hours to watch a baseball game. I am baffled by people who thought that a football game was more important than the RNC, considering that the latter will have a much greater effect on their day to day lives than the former. I am baffled by the existence of sports talk radio, as I cannot imagine how one can talk about sports for 24 hours a day.