Better to Reign in Hell

by Jim Miller

  On issues of class the virtual Raider Nation is uniformly anti-elitist, but the forms of populism that inhabit Silver and Black cyberspace range from traditional blue-collar hostility to snotty rich guys (frequently from the more chic city across the bay) to what Thomas Frank has called “backlash populism.” For the old school populists, economics still matter and it is bosses and corporations and the affectations of wealth that get skewered. For the backlashers, on the other hand, as Frank tells us, “It is primarily a matter of authenticity, that most valuable cultural commodity. Class is about what one drives and where one shops and how one prays, and only secondarily about the work one does or the income one makes.” Thus the right and left wings of Raider Nation can unite in their hatred of the 49ers and their fans. The rightwing Raiders fans can hate them because they drink French wine, drive BMWs, and vote for tax-raising liberals, and the leftwing Raiders fans can hate them because they are the rich yuppie scum who are busting the unions and gentrifying every inch of the Bay Area. In either case, they are the enemies of regular folk variously defined.5

  Divisions in the imagined community of Raider Nation also emerge during times of war or political conflict. In the wake of 9/11, many websites sprouted flags and earnest tributes to the fallen heroes of that day, but this unanimity did not hold as time passed. While our unscientific survey of the virtual Raider Nation leads us to conclude that many fans seemed to support the war in Iraq, others debated with them, and eloquent posts about the loss of civil liberties under the Bush administration were published as well. On one site, Raiders fans groused about CNN as the “Communist News Network” and slammed war protesters, while another site posted a link that led fellow fans to Vote to Impeach, a website devoted to ending George W. Bush’s tenure as commander-in-chief. A Raider web surfer can find other political debates about the Supreme Court ruling on the presidential election in Florida, economics and class, affirmative action, police policy, and, of course, Oakland Raiders v. Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. As opposed to the stereotype of all football fans as bigoted Neanderthals, the range of opinion in the virtual Raider Nation is far more diverse. Rightwing macho mingles with angry progressivism. In sum, the politics of Raider Nation are hard to gauge, but a heavy streak of anarchic libertarianism seems to unite posters from the Left and the Right. Whatever you do, just leave Raider Nation alone. This sentiment, and the love of Raiderdom, manages to hold everyone together. Football may not be outside history, but nobody checks your party affiliation at the tailgate. In Raider Nation, July 4 is Al Davis’s birthday. Really.

  Raiderhed

  Every Track I Sizzle

  Time to paint the whole world silver and black

  Just like a freight train never looking back.

  “Raider Nation” from Waste of Life by Dead River

  When not tuned in to Raider Fan Radio, Raiders fans like to rock out, and the virtual Raider Nation is also home to a number of Raiders bands. The Slackenloader website introduces the visitor to a self-described “hard rock/metal/alternative” band, which plays at the Black Hole tailgate party in the Coliseum parking lot, the Raider Rooter Booster Club in Tracy, and American Cycles in Hayward. These gigs are supplemented by others at the Barbell Lounge, Vinni’s Sports Bar, and Bob Dorn Harley-Davidson in Livermore. Slackenloader is joined by Raiderhed in the Oakland Coliseum parking lot battle of the bands as well as by My Hairy Brother, Ryan Roxie and the Silver and Blackouts, and Dead River. While Slackenloader plays mostly non-Raider metal covers, My Hairy Brother (which also has a website) transforms songs such as “My Sharona” by The Knack into a chronicle of the trials and triumphs of Al Davis entitled “Mister Davis,” and the Beastie Boys’ classic “Fight for Your Right (to Party)” into “Scream for Your Team.” They have also created some topical tunes to celebrate various moments in a Raiders season. For example, in honor of last year’s Super Bowl, My Hairy Brother changed Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” into “Sweet Home San Diego,” and for the 2000 divisional playoff versus Miami they performed “Dolphin Killers,” which parodied the Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer.” Finally, on their latest album, Rock Hard, Throw Deep (which also includes “Scream for Your Team” and “Mister Davis”), they created the immortal songs “Holy Roller,” sung to the tune of “Rawhide,” which documents the 1978 game in San Diego that forever changed the forward-fumble rules in the NFL, and “They All Stink,” a trash-talking song dedicated to “our” AFC West rivals all done à la J. Geils Band’s “Love Stinks.”

  Another fun staple of the Raider tailgate scene is Raiderhed, the pride of Knumbskull Records. As their website explains:Raiderhed was the brain-child of one Van Dammit. A man for many years who has been a season ticket holder and fan of the Raiders through the good and bad. Inspired by last years AFC successes [in 2002], Van wondered how he could pay tribute to such a great team. Being a songwriter and musician it came to him one night watching replays from last season . . . a band completely devoted to the Raiders. Finding talented and versatile musicians, insisting that they be Raiders fans, Van was able to record the CD with the help of Dynomut and StonerDude.

  In addition to the aforementioned three (the first two on vocals, Stoner–Dude on drums), the band also includes RaiderMace on guitar and Higher 1 on bass. Raiderhed, and its side-project, Bong, whose Tokes is also on Knumbskull Records, describes its music as a fusion of funk, jazz, hard rock, and punk. Admirers of Fishbone, Bad Brains, P-Funk, Primus, Motown, and more, Raiderhed and Bong are more than just metal bands. Along with gigs at Ricky’s, Raiderhed plays the South Shield’s tailgate bash before every home game with plenty of energy and a good sense of humor and irony.6

  Ryan Roxie and his fellow band members in the Silver and Blackouts have all adopted Raideresque stage names with Snake Davis (for Ken Stabler and Al Davis) on lead vocals, Johnnie Ottomatic (for Hall of Fame center Jim Otto) on guitar, Marc Stickum (for the hand goo worn by Lester Hayes and Fred Biletnikoff in the seventies) on drums, Dr. Assassin (in honor of Jack Tatum) on keyboards and “Smirk” (perhaps ex-coach Gruden?) on bass guitar. Front and center in the Silver and Blackout’s repertoire is the theme song “C’mon Raiders,” which announces proudly “I’ve got a commitment to/the animals at the Oakland Zoo/I’ve got a commitment to Excellence . . . Oi, Oi, Oi . . . Hey Raiders! You a fan? You better be . . . Cause they’re the team the world loves to hate/You represent, the California State!” All of this is punctuated, of course, with searing guitar riffs suitable for head banging. For a listen of your own, dear reader, just stop by their website.7

  The new kid on the block when it comes to the Raiders music scene is Dead River. Promoted as “Hardcore Rapcore Extreme Sports Music,” Rude, Germ, Krank, and Ben Stone open their latest CD, Waste of Life, with “Raider Nation.” “Just like the hounds of hell we’re on your trail,” they warn anyone who’ll listen. “Try to stop us and we’ll make you pay!” Rude growls into the microphone as Ben, Germ, and Krank grind out their best death-metal noise between verses. “Whatchu gonna be? Whatchu gonna be?,” Rude asks menacingly. “Gonna be, gonna be, a Raider Nation!” comes the answer. While the response in the virtual Raider Nation was lukewarm at best, Rude and the boys have gotten airplay at 98 Rock in Sacramento and 101.7 Fox in Santa Rosa.8

  By far the most famous and original piece of Raiders music apart from “The Autumn Wind” is “Oakland Raiders” by the Oakland rap duo The Luniz. The song is featured on the 2002 CD Silver and Black, whose cover features Yukmouth and Numskull sitting on the hoods of two separate Cadillac Escalades, one silver and one black, sporting Raiders and Oaktown jerseys. Behind the two of them and their Escalades is a mock Raiders shield painted on a brick wall with a sneering condom head wearing an eye patch standing in for the familiar pirate. As Yukmouth’s “Smoke-A-Lot Records” website bio informs us:Yukmouth is from Oakland CA. He started rapping in Jr. High School with rap partner Numskull and the group brothas with potential in West Lake Jr. High School in Oakland. Yukmouth being caught up with
the streets was a hustler that stayed in and out of jail so eventually he stayed in jail for a yr, then he started getting serious with his rappin ability cuzz he was tired of slanging crack and going 2 jail [sic].9

  Eventually the duo “turned the dope deal into a record deal” and put out The Luniz album Operation Stackola, which went gold in 1995. “Oakland Raiders” is “town shit” (Oakland rap) that maps and describes the tough flatlands of Oakland as the song begins:Yo, yo I’m from da land of the playa, slick talkas, and colla poppas

  Narcotics, and boss ballas, pit bulls and rot weillers

  Niggas wit gold teeth, old schools on gold feet, killas, and O.G.’s

  Task postil da police

  Mac Arth to foothill, East 14th

  Sobrante park, woodfield, Plymouth, and walnut street

  From the ville to seminary to the rollin 20’s.

  Then the Raiders are brought in as a symbol of street credibility and gangster rap bravado that stretches far beyond the Oakland flatlands: “Rock residential slang crack and pack pistols / Every track I sizzle / Cuz I’m Raider, Oakland Raider / From da bay to L.A. to Las Vegas / Cuz I’m a playa, a boss playa/and if you wit me pop ya colla shake dem hatas/I’m a Raider.”

  The song goes on to salute a litany of other rappers like Tupac Shakur as fellow “Raiders” and takes the listener on a tour of Oakland: “From the Lake on Sundays, to the five O/Now we to Eastmont wit the sideshows” because “it’s fun, and I’m famous, but I ain’t trying to die tho.” Survival is tough, because “I’m da city of dope, the town of the crack/I’m from the city of pimps, the town of the mac/East Oakland! . . . Where niggas get sideways/Shoot outs from the highways/Yo, East Oakland Bitch! I’m a Raider!”10

  A listen to the rest of Silver and Black with songs like “Street Money,” “Fuck You,” and “Fugitive (Armed and Dangerous)” will give any interested party an unapologetic tour of life in the underclass of the Oakland flatlands. Surely not a favorite of the Oakland Chamber of Commerce, Silver and Black embodies all that has come to be reviled about commodified “gangsta rap” by conservative culture warriors, Bill Cosby, and concerned parents alike. Without engaging the uninteresting debate about whether rap causes criminality, it is worth noting that “Oakland Raiders” does give the outside observer a glimpse into Oakland street culture and shows how the symbol of the Raiders pirate has itself been pirated by a whole generation of kids who don’t buy personal seat licenses but feel a strong sense of ownership over the Raiders image nonetheless. They uphold the debased underside of Oaktown as a banner of identity and neighborhood pride. If you don’t like it, too bad. Beyond Oakland, “from the Bay to L.A. to Las Vegas,” being a Raider has come to mean being a “playa” rather than the weak guy who ends up losing out. Other Raiders fans might be horrified by the news, but the kids at the sideshows in East Oakland imagine themselves as part of Raider Nation, too. We can’t say that Al Davis hasn’t cultivated the gangster image a bit himself in his own way. The kind of savvy underground entrepreneurial ethos one sees in much of hip-hop culture might easily be summarized with the phrase “Just Win, Baby.”

  Raider Empire

  Beyond sharing music, debating politics, and, of course, talking tons of football smack, the virtual Raider Nation is a way to bring together members of the Silver and Black legions separated by vast distances. What a lurker surveying the wealth of Raiders websites will also discover is that the Raider Nation does indeed include a national and global diaspora. As Jim Zamora notes, “Raiders fans want to rule the planet. And they already have an active column in 20 nations from Norway to New Zealand to Nicaragua—not to mention all 50 states.” During our research we interviewed fans from across the continental United States, Alaska, and Hawaii as well as Raider lovers in Italy, Australia, Poland, Mexico, Ecuador, Canada, England, Germany, Costa Rica, Scotland, and Spain. We also heard word of Raiders fan groups forming in South Africa, Belgium, Columbia, and Sweden.11

  The Oakland Raiders are the only professional football organization to officially recognize booster clubs, and there are fifty-nine listed on the team’s website, from the Raiders of the Far North in Anchorage, Alaska, to the South West Florida Silver and Black Attack. If the spine of Raider Nation is East 14th Street from downtown Oakland to Hayward and the heart is the Coliseum parking lot on game day, then Raiders fan groups at bars around the country constitute major arteries pumping Silver and Black lifeblood from west to east and north to south, sustaining the body of the Nation. Raiderheads gather at the Long Branch Saloon in Anchorage, Alaska; the Foundry in Aurora, Illinois; Brenn’s Pub in York, Pennsylvania; Uncle Jed’s Roadhouse in Bethesda, Maryland; and Hoots in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where they take over the bar on Sunday and grill in an enclosed patio area they have constructed specifically for that purpose.

  In addition to these “official” fan groups, there is an unofficial legion of Raiders fans online and in sports bars and living rooms across America and across the globe. In the process of our research we heard from fans in Miami, Florida; Spokane, Washington; Portland, Oregon; South Windsor, Connecticut; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Easton, Maryland; New Orleans, Louisiana; El Paso, Texas; St. Louis and Kansas City, Missouri; Denver, Colorado; Atlanta, Georgia; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Rapid City, South Dakota; and a long list of other cities and towns. From rural Kansas to the frigid plains of North Dakota, Raiders fans came out of the woodwork to tell their stories. From ex-Jets fans in New York City to those who have rejected the Steelers in Erie, Pennsylvania, the Raider Empire happily sprawls and proclaims its existence proudly. As Marc Gutierrez, a warehouse worker from El Paso, says, “We might live in Cowboy country, but we all live in Raider Nation.”

  Fans like Ron Snow of Colorado have found a bit of Raider Nation all around the country, “I have lived in five states and never been any place where there aren’t any Raiders fans.” His job on the rails has allowed him to spread a bit of Raiders spirit himself, “I do whatever the Union Pacific Railroad tells me to do . . . I have 34 years of railroading with 3 railroads.” Similarly, Raiders fan Jeff Childs of Nova Scotia worked as a long-haul trucker: “My truck used to have Raider plates on it, and a huge shield painted on the back of the cab . . . which incidentally got me a few strange looks as I was unloading at the new Mile High Stadium a few years ago.” On one trip to the West Coast Jeff remembers, “I joined up with the Imperial Valley Oakland Raiders Booster Club. [I am] member 175 . . . I still carry the card in my wallet!” In addition to rambling Raiders fans like Ron and Jeff, fans like Guadalupe Loera of New Mexico spread the word in other ways. Loera told us, “I own a Catholic book and gift store, I have never done drugs or been in jail. I am a normal guy” whose goal is to one day “go see the Raiders live.”

  Raider Nation includes single mother of two sons Amanda Briggs of York, Pennsylvania; Nancy Machiando of Aurora, Illinois, a currently unemployed former fund-raiser for Big Brothers and Big Sisters; Amin Badruddin, a systems administrator from Atlanta, Georgia; Dan Bartolomeo, a steel mill worker from Pittsburgh; and Clifford Bolden, an EMT from Springfield, Massachusetts. While many members of the Raider diaspora have made pilgrimages to Oakland, many others have never set foot in either Oakland or Los Angeles. Some tell harrowing tales of enduring abuse from angry home fans in Buffalo, Kansas City, Philadelphia, Boston, Denver, Baltimore, Seattle, and New York. Raiders fans told us of being drenched with beer in Buffalo, coldcocked in Baltimore, beaned with batteries and snowballs in Denver, threatened in Philadelphia, and verbally abused by hostile drunks in New York. Canadian fan “Bonesaw” tells of a game in Buffalo where “I must have had six beer cans thrown at me (empty) and my poor buddy got knocked right in the head.” Steven Clark of New York, who has attended many games at the Meadowlands and the old Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia, says, “I can’t imagine any crowd in L.A. or Oakland being any worse.” He recalls a game in New York where boisterous Raiders fans took over the stadium as the Raiders crushed the home team: “There was even a chant of ‘Let’s
go Raiders’ that was louder than the traditional J-E-T-S . . . JETS, JETS, JETS one that goes on every game. It was that night that I realized how the Raiders were truly a ‘national’ team, rather than a regional one. The fans come from far and wide and wear their pride on their sleeves.”

  Such “road warrior” tales are central to Raiders fan lore, and they make the Silver and Black legions the closest thing the NFL has to the Deadheads who followed Jerry Garcia and the boys from town to town as if on a vision quest. Some fans even collect and trade videotapes of old games as if they were bootleg CDs of rock shows. Raider webmaster “Peach,” who lives in Missouri and has been to only a couple of games in person, sees the Deadhead parallel himself:Like Dead Heads, Harley Riders or Police, we take what we do seriously and it pays off in friendships and family, not in beating others and burning cities—no matter what you read in the press. Are all Dead Heads jobless dopers? Are all Harley riders thugs? Are all police on the take? No, no, and NO . . . Live and breath the Raider Mystique and you’ll meet some very nice people. The Immaculate Deception, Holy Roller, Lytle Fumble, Sea of Hands, Heidi Game, and the Snow Job will all be a part of you. It’s awesome stuff, it’s all part of what being a Raiders fan is all about.