| Page 4 of 5 < > |
United Force
(Toni L. Sandys - The Washington Post)
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
* * *
The tailgate starts five hours before the game. Scruggs arrives first, icing the four kegs, erecting the canopies, firing up the grills.
The remote corner of Lot 8, down by the Anacostia River, fills with a milling, sprawling, communal fiesta that can look a little bit outlaw. That's one effect of all the black fashion statements, the team's home jersey colors customized with the Barra Brava's skull-and-crossbones logo and the motto "muerte o gloria" -- death or glory.
But everyone is welcome (except the guy in the Beckham jersey, who is pelted with a construction cone). The Barra Brava encampment is more like a temporary village that reappears every week or so, with rituals and regular characters fulfilling particular roles.
The ethos is "do what you can, when you can," says Mike "Duffman" Easby, 30, an Ashburn accountant sometimes costumed as "The Simpsons" superhero. Today he's wearing a shirt that says, "If Found, Please Return to Section 135."
Duffman shoots pictures for the Barra Brava Web site and also commissioned the Barra Brava traffic sign posted at most tailgates, a yellow-and-black silhouette of a person holding a bottle, and the message, "Barra Brava Crossing." The sign was created by the Barra Brava's resident artist, Mike Terry, 39, an architect whose day job is designing downtown condo projects.
Today Duffman and a friend brought a generator and an industrial blender to dispense spiked smoothies.
"What flavor is it?" asks a woman.
"It's a fruit blend," says Duffman.
"I didn't get any of the fruit," says the woman, "but I definitely got the Bacardi."
On his iPhone, Duffman keeps pictures of his mother, Pauline, at a couple of games. She died of breast cancer three years ago. In his absence at the next tailgate, Barra Brava members lined up behind a long banner that said, "We Love You Duffman," and the group raised $4,000 for breast cancer research.
Stationed at the communal grills is Faulkner, the bass drummer, a.k.a. GrillMaster. Gray-bearded, with an American flag bandanna covering his head, he gives his age as over 50, and he, too, is an accountant. He lights his cigar and starts slicing 72 pounds of beef round tip.
