The Cougar Lounge - Out Of The Woodwork

"My name's Matt, I'm a junior and I'm a $47,000-a-year donor."

- USC student, Matthew Barrett, in a public meeting with USC administrators, spotlighting his annual tuition to the administration who sold out then bum-rushed 4000 students to give their football game seating to measly $25,000-a-year donors.

"If I was the guy who found out something sneaky about Bush, I don't think I'd break that story. Why bring the story out? What's the point? It goes on every day at every major college."

- Former Washington player D'Marco Farr who speaks from experience – he was suspended by the NCAA during his time as a Husky – and is now a radio and television sports analyst…unfurling some nice, large red flags that any future employers might want to see from across the continent.

"I felt like I was mistakenly put on an all-star team and everyone's fouled out and they're like, 'Ferrell, you're in. Just don't throw the ball out of bounds.'"

- Actor and USC-alum Will Ferrell, talking about acting besides Hollywood heavyweights Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman.

Vehicles, or as we here in the Lounge like to call them "vee-hickles," are intended for human transportation. Well, mostly. Some vee-hickles are beet haulers and others are clearly testosterone rockets. A few select members of the Lounge clientele scurried down to the Bay Area to check out all the hype they were hearing about this new gold-encrusted stadium they have at Stanford and we needed the fastest way we could get there before all the Wagyu beef hot dogs [made from cattle that were given daily hoof massages], Peruvian chipotle-aioli-infused garlic fries, truffle waffle cones and '69 Dom Perignon slushies were all gone. So we brought the Lotus Flower jalopy that does 390 mph in first gear and made sure we gave it a eucalyptus leave pre-rubdown so none of those trees in the surrounding groves would feel bad if we did not allow their leaves to fall on the Flower Power.

Inevitably, we arrived at the gold-and-diamond-encrusted [new update…] stadium and tried to keep a straight face [we knew the Stanford administration preferred it that way so as to avoid any hint of impropriety like tapping your foot to a peppy tune or eating your food with your hands – proper university-approved utensils only, please]. But how could the Lounge clientele not crack at least a tiny smile when we arrive at PA [as we cool, hip cats call Palo Alto – and certainly not to be confused with Port Angeles – we shudder in hippy cattiness at the mere thought of such a preposterous comparison], only to be met with a clear, sunny 80-degree day instead of the customary three-mile thick summer afternoon fog bank requiring a machete to make your way from the front door to the local Starbucks. The Lounge scouted out the seating area and found that each gold, diamond and sapphire-encrusted [new update…] row had its own personal concession waitress…or so we were told by the drunken guy in section 108. The large, imposing usher was not laughing but we understand that they have great senses of humor at Stanford – except when it comes to the Tree and the band. Then the jokes are only funny if they are the ones telling them. So when they recently made a funny about putting the band on "indefinite provisional status" or "double secret probation" as those no-good troublemakers were prostituting it – they were rolling in their paper clips laughing so hard that one of the clips caught on the ream of paper containing Form SG-701 and Bob thought he would bust a gut because that was the requisition form for more office supplies – hahaha!

Needless to say, the Stanford administration had to find a way to replace both the Tree and the band to entertain the 819 Stanford fans who were there to watch the game in the gold, diamond, sapphire and ruby-encrusted [new update…] stadium. So they rolled out three consecutive a capella groups that absolutely whipped the place into such a seething hive of frothy and frenzied indifference that it was hard to tell if the fire department was going to allow a football game to still go on. But evidently they relented and somebody even tossed in a few pyrotechnic firework-firing machines to frighten the national anthem singer. It is at this point the Lounge would like to point out that the field at Stanford's gold, diamond, sapphire, ruby and emerald-encrusted [one of the alums got a good deal…] is natural grass instead of that synthetic tripe they make from inner tubes, shoes and who knows what else. We knew this because of the tiny wisps of white smoke emanating from the bits of firework shrapnel that were landing in nearby blades as well as bouncing off shoes.

As the game approached, the crowd was clearly in a quivering state of nonchalance with a heightened sense of tentativeness weaving in and out of the sections with people sitting in them and those disguised as one big, red fez minus the cool tassle. In fact, the crowd was murmuring in their daze, almost fearful that a football game might actually be forthcoming – and a Pac-10 one at that! At least there were certainly intermittent yelps of noises to indicate that such a thing was possible – but, then again, they were mostly coming from small group of boisterous college-types who seemed to be strongly attached to something called a "Wazzu".

In lieu of any noticeable waves of ambient energy to which they could easily attach themselves and body surf, the pent-up and flustered student body clearly needed an emotional outlet. With no semblance of a football team seemingly materializing by halftime, it was up to the plastic bubble races to do the trick. Once the bubble races were over and it was apparent that the administration was going to go ahead and stubbornly cling to their outdated ideas and allow the football game to continue unabated, the students chose to resume their battle with catatonia.

"There were so many mistakes in the first half, I thought it was freak time!" says Counterfeit Bill, who does not remember that day in 1967 when he got his first piggy bank.

Oh, you mean you want to talk about the game and not the gold, diamond, sapphire, ruby, emerald and beluga caviar-encrusted [Russian mobsters wanted a piece of the action…] stadium? Or the Tree? Or the band? Boooring. Okay, well, in the first quarter, both teams took turns doing their best re-enactments of their favorite Three Stooges' bits. But the two offenses kept repeating the skits from the Three Little Pigskins where everybody chases the ball around the field and bumps heads and after the awhile, the Cougar defense and special teams were getting tired and just decided to put the ball in the end zone so they could score some points and rest on the benches with the therapeutic aloe vera misters. The Stanford students did not like this ugly development one little bit and began taunting the Cougars with chants of "Go, go milk your cow!" Meanwhile, the Cougars slowly staggered their way to a 36-10 win and while Trees' quarterback Trent Edwards made a secret pact with Wazzu defensive lineman Mkristo Bruce that reportedly was "you got my back."

"It isn't going to be a cakewalk like this against USC, you know!" says Lounge newcomer John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmitty who likes that three-name deal that USC quarterback John David Booty has going on and decided to swing for the fences and go for the grand slam of monikers.

Are you kidding, Schmitty? Playing Stanford and then playing USC is going to be like, uh, let's see, like uh, having only 20 Starbucks in your neighborhood instead of the customary 2,000. Yeah, like that. Or it might be like sharing some Top Ramen with Reggie Bush at his parents' house one day and then the next day going to price double-decker swimming pools with them. Or probably more like tailgating with some hot dogs and potato salad from Safeway one week, then oogling the exotic dancers at the $15,000 rented spot the next week.

"Do you think USC is worried that Wazzu might try to steal their offensive signals after Brent Musburger gave them away two weeks ago?" asks Norman S. Fairweather, who says he is going to this game now that the Cougars have won three of their first four games – but he's only going because it's USC.

We promised not to tell anyone this but since USC alum Will Ferrell went against his word when he promised us he was not going to make another movie after Kicking and Screaming, we are now forced to divulge that Booty's secret sign this week, replacing the "hang loose" sign he used to use – is the Madonna-inspired crotch-grab. Hollywood fashionistas insisted to Booty's handlers that this was back in vogue – let your body go with the flow, you're a superstar! Yes, that's what you are, strike a pose, there's nothing to it! Hitler, uh, we mean Greta Garbo, Dietrich and DiMaggio did it – all the biggies.

Unfortunately for everybody that breathlessly follows the Trojans around everywhere they go [the deli, the laundromat, the bathroom, the library…oh that's right, they're not usually there] was hoping there might be a juicy, scandalous quarterback controversy. But it turns out WSU is the team with that and now all the Trojan fans have to do something else instead of picking between "Dirty Sanchez" and "Bootylicious" like Boi From Troy was ready to do - and make some money on the side. Damn. But those sound like good Spanish soap opera character names – maybe there is still something that can be done. It is Hollywood after all.

Finally, the Lounge Scientists discovered a way to improve football play-calling among elderly people – feed them curry. Tons of it! Possibly with forklifts. That is, if the news coming out of Singapore last month is to be believed. Scientists there found that elderly Asians unaffected by Alzheimer's disease performed better on mental tests when they ate curry – and they did not even need to eat it at a three-gallon-per-sitting rate like sometimes happens in those scientific labs when they get the munchies.

"What is remarkable is that apparently one needs only to consume curry once in awhile for the better cognitive performance to be evidenced," says Lounge Scientist #14 Tze-Pin Ng, a scientist at National University of Singapore, who reputedly makes little figurine animal menageries out of curry.

Next week in the Lounge – all-curry buffet for everyone!

+++++++sponsored by Clark's Restaurant+++++++++

Attention COUGAR Fans! Autumn is here! Time to feed that appetite. How can you afford to go one day further without some tasty morsels from Clark's Restaurant in Grays Harbor – home of the Best Hamburger in Twin Harbors for seven consecutive years? Come in for the burger, fresh homemade fries and milkshakes concocted from homemade ice cream. Go ahead, we dare you to try and pass up more than 12 varieties of hamburgers to choose from, full dinners, lunch and full breakfast served daily. Clark's Restaurant 360.538.1487. Seven miles south of Aberdeen, Washington on Highway 101. Proud supporter of CougZone. Mention this ad for a free small ice cream.