HISTORY OF THE RIOT SQUAD Continued

March 23, 2002. Jeff “Section 18 Hooligan” Skinner, Tommy Mack, and Eddie Garcia, nicknamed “Gunner,” spend the previous months organizing, planning, plotting and scheming. Tommy made up the name “Riot Squad,” after Jeff insisted on something absolutely unrelated to “Galaxy” – he’d never liked the team name. The logo would be of Gunner’s design – simply a man in a gas mask. Was he meant to represent fascist oppression of free thought? Or was he the last line of defense against terrorists and hippies? Like all great art, that was left to the viewer to decide.

It was the last season at the Rose Bowl. Tailgating was legal back then. This was the year of quality grilling and quality beverages. The Squad sang as they entered the stadium, the voices booming and echoing off the Rose Bowl tunnels. It was Section 2 that year – usually the first five rows or so. Customers in rows six and above were shown to better seats.

The Galaxy won, in overtime, thanks to a game-winning goal by Carlos Ruiz. It was the beginning of a long and beautiful friendship.

April 13, 2002. Tommy Mack wears his Dallas shirt to the game against the Burn. He has yet to live that down. “If it’s not gonorrhea, it’s the Burn” debuts, and is still around despite its out-of-dateitutde.

April 27, 2002. The Galaxy had never lost with the Riot Squad in attendance until this day, a 1-0 overtime loss to Colorado. Once and future lower division player Rick Titus celebrated in front of the Squad, pointing to his crotch and the back of his jersey. ESPN2 caught the Riot Squad reaction – a hailstorm of middle fingers. From that day to this, the Riot Squad would only appear on television in extreme circumstances.

June 22, 2002. The Galaxy beat Dallas 3-0. Tommy Mack burns his Dallas shirt. Alanis Morissette stops by and asks how one would describe burning a shirt that had “Burn” on it, but none of us have any idea, so she wanders away muttering about spoons and a wedding day.

July 4, 2002. One of the legendary tailgates. Tommy Mack, still trying to regain points lost at the above-mentioned Burn game, brought a DJ set up on the 4th of July and was bumpin’ a few tunes put together by our own Stopper. Not just one Elvis impersonator, but four, were leading the chants. The party went on well into the night until the Pasadena police made Tommy pull the plug.

Even more legendary was the poster that Section18Hooligan made for the game. The Earthquakes were in town, so S18H mocked up a giant version of the infamous photo of Landon Donovan at the water fountain, with the huge caption “Money shot.” Even San Jose players thought it was funny – well, all but one.

It was a huge hit, of course, as was the accompanying chant. Based on the Korea chant that we’d already adopted with considerable success, “Oooh, Money Shot!” rang with pride throughout the Rose Bowl.

Thanks to the schedule, the sign would haunt Donovan the rest of the year. It would appear that following Sunday at San Jose (a proto-Booze Bus Galaxy visit), and thanks to Tommy Mack it would be brought to Dallas the next week for the Earthquakes game there. The hate affair between Landon Donovan and the Riot Squad had gotten off to a roaring start.

July 7, 2002: Gunner and Sidio broke their piggy banks to make this trip over two months before Booze Bus 1. It was a small band of warriors (Gunner, Darmstadt, Gift of Gab, Sidio and his brother, Gooner all went) in a 15 passenger van. Gunner and Darmstadt split the driving and the rest of us got sick in the back playing Driver on the Playstation in a moving vehicle. We overestimated traffic and ended up with 3 and a half hours to kill in the slum surroundings of Spartan. This was accomplished by a raid of the local liquor store and Big K (where Gunner was heard to say “How can you drive so far North and feel like you have gone so far South?”) and playing footie. We definitely resembled a small cluster of drunks yelling obscenities much more than a practiced group of supporters chanting for their team. The G’s lost 2-1, but from this great things were born...

September 3, 2002: US Open Cup semifinal in Fullerton against Dallas. Galaxy 4, Burn 1. The cries of “So fucking easy! This is so fucking easy!” earned us a middle finger from future friend Ryan Suarez.

September 21-22, 2002. The Booze Bus.

Now, a quick word to our younger and more impressionable viewers. Drinking to excess, simply for the sake of drinking to excess, isn’t cool. Alcohol, like any other drug, should be used with care and caution. The Riot Squad talk about beer a lot, and why not. Beer is fun. It is a useful means to lower inhibitions and thus facilitate enjoyment. But you can get beer anywhere. The Riot Squad is about the fun and the soccer.

But, if you are going to get plastered, you might as well do it in a controlled environment, surrounded by friends doing the exact same thing, and have the consequences play out far away from where you live, better still in a place you care absolutely nothing about.

Here’s the plot of every Booze Bus: Riot Squad member organizes buses, or vans, or limousine. Squad meets in the Rose Bowl, or a parking lot in Burbank, or a studio in Van Nuys. Six hours of non-stop drinking is broken up by the kind of events you get when you drink for six hours on a moving vehicle. The Squad stumbles into the Spartan Stadium parking lot, absolutely wasted. Once in the stadium, the Squad gives just about their worst performance of the year – which is still better than what San Jose fans had been doing all season. After the game, win or lose, the Squad has crashed like the Hindenburg. If the Squad is extremely fortunate, they sleep on the way back to Los Angeles. Riot Squad member who organized the transportation ends up taking a financial bath, and vows never to it again. Repeat in six months.

The original Booze Bus was a genuine bus, two of them, actually, organized by Brad Sidio. It was nearly over before it started, as Gunner tried to cover the bus with Riot Squad and Galaxy slogans, only to be accused by the driver of vandalism.

Booze Buses usually ended up as bladder endurance rallies at some point, and that tradition started early. Shooter managed the feat of passing out while standing up in the bus bathroom, which put an end to non-rest stop relief for that bus.

So the buses pull into Spartan Stadium. And we’re talking right into Spartan Stadium, immediately behind the locker rooms. Two busloads of Riot Squaders pile out into solid ground, and if you’ve ever seen two busloads of soccer fans exit a bus after a six hour trip, you’ll know solid ground was doing a number on our heroes.

The guards, though, had apparently never seen such a thing before. Jay aka RazovMustDie was one of the more upright personnel, and so the guards asked him if we were the Galaxy. By the way, the Galaxy were in first place at the time, with the overall best record in the league. At least the guard had the sense to ask, rather than assuming we were the team and showing us to our locker rooms. But still, there was enough lingering doubt for the guard to ask Jay if we were the team or not. This guard was clearly not one to judge books by covers. For all he knew, our staggering bodies belied mad skillz.

Jay, of course, replied “No, we’re not the team.” In vino veritas, or in this case, in beer veritas. It was probably the dumbest question Jay had heard in his entire life.

So the Riot Squad were herded back onto the buses, and driven to a different parking lot – one for customers. Jay was right not to lie, of course, but some of us still wonder what would have happened if he had said “Yeah – where do we warm up?”

Considering what future years would bring, there was surprisingly little conflict. San Jose fans simply looked at us like they had never seen such a thing before in their minute and tedious little lives, which was probably the case. In future years Earthquake fans would answer the call to some extent, but that wasn’t the case this year. And keep in mind they were defending champions. Krazy George had been tortured to death by this point, I believe, but they were still trying the “Earth! Quakes!” stuff they did back in the Ford Administration. Outraged, the Riot Squad sang, to the tune of “Guantanamera,” “Cheer when you’re told to! You only cheer when you’re told to!” Don Jaime would later claim that the Riot Squad had hundreds of chants to the tune of “Guantanamera,” but that was one of the better ones.

The game turned out happily for us. One-nil to the Galaxy. In the first half, Kevin Hartman stopped a Ronnie Ekelund penalty, and you knew right then and there the Earthquakes were cold meat. Ruiz ended the season as he began it, with an overtime penalty kick for the win. Clinched the division and the Supporters Shield. That would show Frank Yallop and Landon Donovan. It would be a long time before they’d show their faces in LA soccer circles.

(The Shield would be held hostage for some months by bitter Miami Fusion fans. When it came their turn, to their credit, Earthquakes fans were much classier about it.)

Aglow with triumph, the Riot Squad marched – well, walked – okay, staggered back to the buses, and were out like bell-bottoms. I think some of the group didn’t wake up until Tuesday.

October 5, 2002. The Galaxy beat Colorado 4-0 in the playoffs. Alexi Lalas named LARS Player of the Year by one vote over Carlos Ruiz. Fish would have to settle for the actual league MVP, as well as the MLS Cup MVP. I wonder if he’s over it. Picking Lalas was definitely the right call, though, as the future general manager sent yummy Patron tequila to our tailgate in gratitude.

As well he might have. Gunner designed one of the great trophies in sports – a silver keg.

October 20, 2002. October 20 had not been a good day in Galaxy history, as we have seen. Nor had MLS Cups in Foxboro been auspicious. And, as other MLS fans were helpfully pointing out, we did the J-O-B on A-B-C three times already.

But that was before the Riot Squad, wasn’t it?

A week before, Gunner is at the UCLA football game watching Cobi Jones inducted into the UCLA Hall of Fame. Gunner tells Cobi to bring the trophy to the Galaxy fan section after they win.

So Providence is the host city for this year’s MLS Cup, and that means the Supporters Bash is in this little bar downtown. In the front of the bar are the Riot Squad – about five or six, quietly drinking by themselves. No sign of other supporters. Did they leave? No, they were in the back room, where the actual Supporters Bash was. The Riot Squad didn’t really want to hang out with them. Let’s recap that. The Riot Squad traveled over three thousand miles by air, bus and automobile to end up in the very same bar in Providence, Rhode Island as the Supporters Bash, but didn’t necessarily want to be in the same room with them. It was as beautiful as the songs of holy angels.

Magpie and Gooner brought the face paint to Gillette. For some reason it didn’t catch on, but for this game we painted our faces, “Braveheart” style, in green and yellow paint. The Galaxy weren’t green and yellow yet – this was the last year in teal – but the Riot Squad had already proven they were In The Know. The Riot Squad had previously broken the news that the new stadium would be named The Home Depot Center, after all.

Before the game, the MLS Best XI (minus those playing in the game, naturally) were introduced to the crowd. Girl In The Dirty Shirt yells out, “Hey, Landon!” in the high-pitched squeal of one of his typical fans. Donovan looks, and then Dirty Shirt yells out “FUCK YOU!” with both middle fingers flying.

So this complete and utter fucking douchebag ass-spelunker in a Patriots sweatshirt gets Random Mayhem (and himself) tossed out of the game, for no real reason other than his utter fucking douchebaggedness. Emerald City Gazette photographer Andy Mead took a picture of this guy – a fat fuck in a miserable excuse for a mustache that would embarrass a teenager. Random Mayhem has gotten and will get himself thrown out of better joints than Gillette Stadium, but for once he was more sinned against than sinning. He had to enjoy the game, which ended up being the peak of the Galaxy’s existence to that point, from the Foxborough parking lot. The fat fuck later died of AIDS. Mega-super-jumbo AIDS.

The other great chant from Gillette was because the security guard told us that we couldn’t sing “You’re shit and you know you are.” Since we had already seen Mayhem tossed we bowed to his authority - thus the only known Riot Squad use of “You’re poop and you know you are!” We were heckled throughout the game by the “neutral” fans seated to our left, but they finally came over at the end of regulation and told us that our team should be proud of us.

Carlos Ruiz scores on Adin Brown. Ecstasy. Sixty thousand fans are silenced, and a hundred or so fans in the corner start jumping around flailing like demented dolphins. The team begins a victory lap. Then Cobi, true to his word to Gunner, runs straight towards the Los Angeles fans. You’ve never seen such freaking joy, and most of all relief. The Galaxy had bungled MLS Cup three times before this, twice in Foxboro. The evil monkey was off the team’s back, and in Chris Griffin’s Quahog closet where it belonged. Cobi got his ring. Cienfuegos got his ring. Hartman got his ring. Sigi got his ring. Carlos Ruiz got his ring, undoubtedly the first of many he would get with the Galaxy.

Back in Los Angeles, ten thousand Galaxy fans showed up at the Staples Center to celebrate the victory. Try holding and posing with the Stanley Cup or the World Series trophy – but we got to pose with MLS Cup, just like we would do in 2005. Shame the trophy looks like a penis.

April 26, 2003. Booze Bus II. Sidio fronts the money again, regrets it again. We learn that it gets cold, and I mean ASS cold, in San Jose in the evenings, and we really shouldn’t leave our sweaters and stuff on the buses during the game, no matter how convenient that seems. The Galaxy fail to win on the road. They would go the entire year without winning on the road. Basically, this trip was a flawless stroll compared to what we’d deal with later.

June 7, 2003. The Home Depot Center opens. The Riot Squad is assigned Section 138. Someone realizes that The Misfits have written a song in our honor, “We Are 138.” We attempt to sing the song. It flops. It’s such a simple song, though, that we’re bound to get it eventually. After well over a hundred Galaxy games, the Riot Squad has never gotten close to a decent rendition of this song. We may be the greatest fan group in the world, but we never said we were the smartest.

In honor of Hong Myung-Bo, the inaugural game of the Home Depot Center included around two hundred Korean national team fans. We would never see them again. Hong Myung-Bo drinks the blood of the innocent.

Carlos Ruiz scores twice to beat the Rapids. The new stadium looks fantastic, and I mean fantastic. The hyperbole about the place is true – there is simply no bad seat in the place, and the roof would make even so-so Riot Squad nights seem big and bold. Shame about the field, but once the grass takes root the pitch is sure to be the best in the league. Dave Matthews, Green Day, and the X-Games who?

July 9, 2003. The Galaxy had not lost a home game since April 27 of the previous year, to Colorado. They had never lost in the Home Depot Center. John Spencer put an end to that on this day, but he also passed into legend.

Spencer is taking a corner kick, and someone tosses a pretzel at him. Now, the pretzel did not come from 138 – more like Section 136. So whoever is responsible was probably not in the Riot Squad. Certainly no one has come forward and admitted to having thrown the fateful projectile.

Nevertheless. Spencer is about to take the corner kick, sees the pretzel. He picks it up. He takes a bite. He makes a face which says “It’s all right, but I’ve had better.” He throws the rest of the pretzel aside, and takes the corner kick.

There’s like this half-second pause, as the Riot Squad gasps with wonder and amazement. Then we start cheering for what, after all, was like the greatest and most awesome thing ever in the history of mankind. When the Riot Squad Hall of Fame is finally built, Spencer will be the first non-Galaxy player inducted, probably on a unanimous vote.

August 6, 2003. The Fresno Fuego come to town for the US Open Cup match. They even took a 1-0 lead. Delighting their 400 fans who made the trip down the 91 – they did a terrific job of supporting their team. And then the Galaxy took over. Poor guys. But the chants were pretty awesome. “Got your hopes up!” once the Galaxy scored. “You’re going home on a combine harvester!” when one of their players hit the deck. What a classic.

August 9, 2003. The Galaxy beat the Crew, hurray. And Carlos Ruiz scores the best goal for far in the history of the stadium – a bicycle kick Michelangelo could have sculpted. The reaction from 138 was instantaneous, heartfelt, and reminiscent of ECW. As one, the Riot Squad began to chant, “Holy fucking shit! Holy fucking shit!”

September 3, 2003. The Galaxy scheduled a friendly against the People’s Republic of China. The Riot Squad has a banner day – highlighted by Shooter wearing a Tibet National Team jersey, personalized to read “Pimp” in Mandarin. Instant classic chants: “Shitty wall, shitty wall, shitty wall” and “We all cheer for basic human rights, basic human rights, basic human rights.”

The game was one of the worst ever played by adult human beings, though. It was so bad, that those who attended decided to report back on the boards that, despite the 0-0 score, it was one of the most amazing games in history. A merry time was had, lying about the near-misses and astounding saves, until someone read an actual news report.

October 16, 2003. Tommy Mack interviewed by LA City Beat about the Riot Squad. Alexi Lalas is also interviewed – “You’ve got to love people like the Riot Squad” – but since the team won’t allow any of their logos to be used, Tommy ends up on the cover. Amazingly, LA City Beat does not immediately go out of business.

November 9, 2003. Booze Bus III – vans this time, so Sidio wouldn’t lose as much money. The Squad meets in front of what we believe to be a porn studio. It probably wasn’t, but it makes a much better story.

The theme for this trip was “urine.” For you see, the vans did not come equipped with the bathrooms that coach buses had. Nor were we supplied with drivers who timed regular stops. So Riot Squaders were at the mercy of drivers who, invariably, did not have to go when everyone else on the van did. So there was some, how can we say this delicately, improvisation. Basically, if you’re ever driving with Stopper or RobertTheBruce, and they want to pull over to a gas station or a rest area? They’re serious.

Oh, and if you ever are offered to sample vintage California wine grown in spring 2004, consider extremely carefully. We didn’t always stop at rest areas. Some poor vintner got a little extra zip in his grape crop that season.

Dude Love thought it would be funny to make a sign that read “We Are Scott, You Are Laci.” Oddly enough, the locals were something less than extremely amused.

This was the playoffs, and therein hangs a sad, sad tale. For you see, this was the worst day in the history of the human race. This was the second game of the playoffs, and the fourth consecutive time the Galaxy were playing the Earthquakes. Since San Jose had locked up the division, and the Galaxy had bumbled into fourth place, the series had been set far enough in advance to plan the Booze Bus for the playoff game instead of the regular season game. So far, so good.

The Galaxy ended up rolling the Earthquakes in the first game, 2-0. Carlos Ruiz and Troy Dayak fought at halftime of that game, and Ruiz responded with two goals. With Pescadito raging, the Galaxy were the best team in the world, everyone knew that. San Jose’s regular season success was meaningless. The defending champions had seemingly overcome their complacency, and were turning it on when it counted. So far, so better.

So in the first half of the return game in San Jose, the Galaxy added two more goals. So far, perfect. The Earthquakes were done. Done like dinner.

And then the Galaxy performed the biggest choke in the history of association football.

You can look it up. No team has ever blown a four-goal advantage in a two-game series. Even Liverpool, when they won the Champions League a few years ago, only spotted AC Milan three goals.

The whole park could feel the game slipping away. Everyone except Sigi Schmid, who kept Hong Myung-Bo in the game despite his doing a perfect impersonation of a doorman, while Alexi Lalas languished on the bench. The Quakes made it 2-2 by halftime, and 3-2 very early in the second half. Then, in the ninetieth minute, the Quakes forced the tying goal – Chris Roner, whose MLS career was about as long as this sentence, and who had been in the game for all of a freaking minute. Oh, and every Quake goal was pretty much taken from six to ten yards away, something that didn’t happen back when we had central defenders who didn’t turn their back on oncoming forwards.

They won in overtime, of course. Then it started to rain, because even God was sad for us.

Revenge and then some for the Supporters Shield from the year before. It would, amazingly, impossibly, astoundingly, get even worse for the Riot Squad in San Jose. In the meantime, we consoled ourselves with the comforting thought that Sigi Schmid would be fired, and replaced with the very best coach available.

November 23, 2003. MLS Cup at the Home Depot Center. San Jose Earthquakes against the Chicago Fire. As you can imagine, the Riot Squad was about as up for this game as the decaying corpse of Karen Carpenter. Debut of the heartfelt chant, “We don’t give a fuck who wins, doo dah, doo dah,” which would come in handy a year later.

So we’re trashing players pretty much at random, the Riot Squad being rage and bitterness in human shapes at this point. Chicago Fire defender Jim Curtin is a target. We get some sharp glares from Section 136, and see a couple roughly in their forties, the blonde wearing a Fire jersey with Curtin’s name and number. We conclude, correctly, that these were Jim Curtin’s parents. We do the Korea cheer, only with “Curtin’s mom” in place of “Galaxy.” Mr. Curtin was proud, Mrs. Curtin flattered but embarrassed.

Naturally, the fucking Quakes won. Even seeing Ante Razov gag like a maggot on a penalty kick fails to cheer us up.

One positive note, though. The Chicago Fire fans came storming into the north end of the Home Depot Center complete with flags, which had been banned all year by the front office. “Hey, wha?” we asked. Peter Wilt, then the Fire GM, was the man who made it happen, insisting that Galaxy manager Doug Hamilton was responsive to fan wishes as well as being a terrific human being. Hamilton really detested us, though, and the following year it would get even worse. It would take a truly detestable enemy to unite us.

April 3, 2004. Opening day featured a tribute to Austrian legend Andreas Herzog. Specifically, the section was full of plastic Alpine hats. Except for Shooter, never one for half-measures – he went and bought a real one.

Some were shocked that Herzog was given the number 10 of Mauricio Cienfuegos, but someone had to have it. Herzog earned the number not simply with sweet free kicks and assists, but also by charging something like forty yards down the field to get in the middle of a brawl. Steve Sampson would later bench him for no particularly good reason, but he was a legend for half a season.

April 10, 2004. Freddy Adu comes to the Home Depot Center, and inspires, indirectly, the most notorious chant in Riot Squad history.

Adumania was in full swing at this point, and the place was packed with adoring kids. Young, impressionable kids. With parents who weren’t all that thrilled with some of the Riot Squad’s chants. A year of disappointment, followed by a cruel playoff exit, an intolerable MLS Cup, and a highly unhappy off-season, made the Squad a fairly salty place indeed, you see.

So one of the staff was dispatched to ask the Riot Squad to stop chants that contained the words “fuck,” “shit,” or “ass.” We nod politely, and the guy leaves.

The guy is barely on the stairs when Chalky suggests a new chant – “Fuck, shit, ass! Galaxy!” It proves an immediate, runaway hit.

Now, this chant is now Officially Frowned Upon, since it drove the front office absolutely bugfuck. It’s still a sentimental favorite, but let’s face it, it’s more trouble than it’s worth. We can’t keep throwing pretzels on the field hoping to recreate a John Spencer moment, and we can’t recreate the magic of saying “Fuck, shit, ass! Galaxy!” to a stadium full of shocked parents.

What also didn’t win the hearts and minds of parents was our reaction to the kids cheering Adu as he left the field. “You were adopted!” was the chant, which hey, at least was broadcastable.

April 24, 2004. Ryan Suarez clears a certain goal off the line, saving the day for the Galaxy. He would do this roughly a billion more times this year, on the way to winning LARS POTY.

May 22, 2004. Another Booze Bus. Wow, we were gluttons for punishment. By far the highlight of the game was when “Q,” the crappy-ass lame ball of balls mascot, decided to stroll through the Galaxy fan section. Shaggy and Twigg gave him a few vicious punches in the kidneys. Girl In the Dirty Shirt got a handful of the thing’s hair. Well, it was tinsel, but still, it was a trophy.

June 23, 2004. What kind of season was this? Metrostars 3, Galaxy 0. Made that China game look like the 1970 World Cup Final. This was the debut of the plaintive, sad, poignant, but funny, “Follow the sound of my voice!” chant.

June 27, 2004. So, Random Mayhem moves to Chicago, but he misses the Riot Squad. He gets the bright idea to have a road trip for the Fire game. Heck, he’d even put the guys up in his apartment.

The actual game was one of the hilarious classics in Galaxy history. Henry Ring charges out way too far for a clearance, it falls to Jovan Kirovski around the halfway line, and Kirovski lofts a rainbow something like sixty yards into the goal. 1-0 to the Galaxy.

This road trip was the Squad’s answer to Woodstock – if you can remember it, you weren’t there. Since the Earthquakes were even at this time a doubtful long-term proposition, Chicago became sort of the new official Riot Squad road trip.

The other highlight was the pickup game between the Riot Squad and Section 8. Depth pretty much decided this, since only eleven Squaders ended up making the trip.

The other other highlight was The Snow Beast on the el train, loudly talking about who his favorite Nazi was. It turned out to be Erwin Rommel, who was a fairly good choice. Tried to rebel against Hitler, forced to kill himself – wasn’t like The Snow Beast was talking up freaking Goering.

August 14, 2004. Sigi Schmid was finally awarded the Order of the Shitcan. The Galaxy were TECHNICALLY still in first place, but he’d clearly lost the team. The G’s had been useless and complacent for over a year now, and we needed a new direction. We were all looking forward to a new coach – a coach of respect and stature, who would lead our talented team to the glory it deserved.

Much, much sadder note. Chris Hinds, Riot Squad board nickname Whit-e, was killed that evening in a random shooting in a friend’s garage in Carson. Whit-e was a frequent and generous Riot Squad host, and in real life, he taught disabled kids. It was such a stupid, random, pointless thing that there’s no moral or lesson anyone can take away from it, except as a reminder to live a good life no matter what.

Stopper has done a lot to keep his memory alive, by sponsoring an annual golf tournament in his name to raise money for his children’s scholarships. As you’ve read so far, and will read onwards, we spend a lot of time on stuff that in the long run doesn’t matter, especially when you compare it to what a guy like Chris Hinds represented. But what the Riot Squad does is bring people together people and give them something to enjoy. If Whit-e had lived to see it, he would have been right along with us, screaming “Fire Sampson!”