Post by TheShadow on Nov 29, 2003 18:16:36 GMT -5
www.oaklandtribune.com
From Gladi-Raider to Goth, these clothes make the fan
By Angela Hill
STAFF WRITER
OAKLAND -- WHERE HAVE ALL the pirates gone?
Remember the old days when the most-costumed Oakland Raiders fan wore a
simple black shirt and an eye patch? Maybe that style didn't hold water up
in the Mount Davis nosebleed section where it's tough to spy the plays as it
is, much less with one eye covered and beer foam in the other. Argh.
Whatever the reason, you don't need much magnification to see that the look
of hard-core Raiders fans has evolved. Boy has it evolved. Some might
suggest it has de-evolved.
"The way they dress now, they scare the hell out of me," said old-time
Raiders fan George Speer, who had season tickets from 1960 to 1981 but
refuses to attend a game now. "They look like ghouls. Something from a
nightmare. It's just odd."
Indeed, you still see the occasional eye patch in the stands, but now it's
probably for real -- from standing too close to one of the guys in the Black
Hole with 6-inch spikes on his shoulders.
Today's extreme Raiders fan has style, to be sure. But this is style with a
vengeance, baby. A commitment to irreverence. Outfits that suggest these
people were involved in some secret war where everything was destroyed and
they were forced to make clothing out of engine parts.
It's practically a costume contest out there now. And a rather recent
phenomenon.
Long ago, nobody used to dress up at all. Then in the '80s -- when the team
was away in that foreign city that shall remain unnamed -- one guy started
dressing as Darth Raider. One guy. Then we started seeing a handful of
fellas self-dubbed The Violator, Spike and Skull Man, who are still around
and ever refining their costumes.
But in the last season or so, it has exploded with even more weirdness.
There's Gladi-Raider. There's a whole Goth scene with one guy -- Goth
Raider -- who comes complete with white face, black fingernails and
custom-made fangs. There are Grim Reapers galore. And then there's this
silver-and-black King Tut-type guy running around and getting on all the TV
shows. What's up with that? Tomb Raider, perhaps?
Even the guys who are out of control say it's out of control. In a good way,
of course.
"I totally encourage people dressing up in any outfit to show support, but I
do wonder where some of these costumes come from," said the king of costumed
Raiders fans, Mark "Spike" Shadinger, 36, of Antelope.
"That one Egyptian-dressed guy calls himself Raider Tut. We have not really
figured that one out yet as to how it relates to the Raiders," Spike said.
"He sits next to Gladi-Raider. And the Goth guy? I have no idea what vampire
teeth have to do with the Raiders, but that's cool."
This from a guy with skulls on his shoulders and covered with fake (we hope)
grenades and ammunition. "Well, I may be extreme, but I think I still look
like a warrior. A Raider," Spike added. "Not really a pirate, but along
those lines."
Back in the old days, fans in the stands didn't even wear many Raiders
shirts, let alone skulls. Let's fire up the Way Back Machine:
First off, just be glad the team didn't stick with its original name in
1960 -- the Oakland Senors.
True story. The colors were orange and black. The name was chosen by one of
the owners, Y. Chet Soda, who was known for going around calling everybody
"senor," instead of "buddy" or "pal."
Apparently the sombrero market didn't have the potential of eye patches, and
the team soon became the Raiders.
Anyway, back in the '60s and '70s, old-time fans say people wore street
clothes -- street clothes for gawd's sake -- to all the games, and the most
outrageous thing they used to do was everybody would bring black ribbons or
hankies to wave in the stands, Speer said. Woo hoo.
"It's kind of funny," said Steve "Raider Mort" Mortara, 52, of Los Gatos.
"In the old days, the players were the renegades and there was a family
atmosphere in the stands. Now, the fans are the renegades and the players
are nice. I've been around to watch the whole evolution, and it tickles me."
(Just so you know, it may not be a good idea to go around tickling Raider
Mort, as he's currently the chairman of the board of the extreme fans called
Raider Nation, and has lots of scary looking goons, I mean friends.)
In the 1980s came the (shhhhh) L.A. years. That's when the original Darth
Raider emerged, thanks to the "Star Wars" influence. "But he quit dressing
up 'cause he got so (mad) at all the copycats," Spike said. And they say
these guys are tough.
There's lore of another guy back then who would go to the games on stilts,
but apparently that didn't go over too well because nobody wanted to sit
behind him.
Raider-wear took on another image during that era too -- the gang banger
look. "I was a little scared of it myself," said Spike. That's saying a lot.
Street gangs all over the country started wearing the tough-and-mean-looking
silver-and-black Raiders jackets. Team officials weren't too happy with the
image of the Raiders, killing thugs dead.
They did like the style of those such as Wayne "The Violator" Mabry of
Rancho Cucamonga, however, a 44-year-old construction worker who has his own
clothing line and describes his costume as "something from hell" -- war gear
with a bad attitude. He and Skull Man got their costumes going in L.A., and
still wear them up here.
But even when the team first returned to Oakland in 1995, those two guys
were the main dressers. Then came Spike, an artist when he's not driving a
truck. Even he started small, with a mere helmet, heavy boots and a Stabler
jersey.
"Then I got some shoulder pads, mounted some foam skulls on them," he said.
"Violator had inch-long spikes, so I made 'em more extreme and went with 6
inches."
He found a costume designer/Harley rider in Sacramento to do all his leather
work, and now has $2,000 leather boots with spurs and chains. It takes him a
good half-hour to put all this stuff on, and it requires constant
maintenance, he said. "When I get back from a game, I lay it all out
carefully, put ointment on the leather -- like where I sat in some beer or
something. Paint up the shoulder pads where they've gotten scratched. It
takes care."
Raider Mort said a lot of the fans have a "heavy metal rock concert" look,
"with a little 'Road Warrior' and biker stuff thrown in."
"Whatever people wear, it's great to see the enthusiasm," Raider Mort said,
adding -- with a rather disgusting analogy -- that this winning Raiders team
has finally brought out more spectators and filled the Coliseum, wiping away
all the rancor fans have had with the team.
"The Clearasil for this pimple on prom night was to win football games,"
Mort said. Thank you, Mort.
"Raiders fans are louder, more intense and dressed up better than any team
in the NFL," he said. "I mean, you've the Dog Pound in Cleveland, and the
Steeler fans, and the Cheese Heads. A lot of enthusiasm out there.
"But they don't have as much style."
From Gladi-Raider to Goth, these clothes make the fan
By Angela Hill
STAFF WRITER
OAKLAND -- WHERE HAVE ALL the pirates gone?
Remember the old days when the most-costumed Oakland Raiders fan wore a
simple black shirt and an eye patch? Maybe that style didn't hold water up
in the Mount Davis nosebleed section where it's tough to spy the plays as it
is, much less with one eye covered and beer foam in the other. Argh.
Whatever the reason, you don't need much magnification to see that the look
of hard-core Raiders fans has evolved. Boy has it evolved. Some might
suggest it has de-evolved.
"The way they dress now, they scare the hell out of me," said old-time
Raiders fan George Speer, who had season tickets from 1960 to 1981 but
refuses to attend a game now. "They look like ghouls. Something from a
nightmare. It's just odd."
Indeed, you still see the occasional eye patch in the stands, but now it's
probably for real -- from standing too close to one of the guys in the Black
Hole with 6-inch spikes on his shoulders.
Today's extreme Raiders fan has style, to be sure. But this is style with a
vengeance, baby. A commitment to irreverence. Outfits that suggest these
people were involved in some secret war where everything was destroyed and
they were forced to make clothing out of engine parts.
It's practically a costume contest out there now. And a rather recent
phenomenon.
Long ago, nobody used to dress up at all. Then in the '80s -- when the team
was away in that foreign city that shall remain unnamed -- one guy started
dressing as Darth Raider. One guy. Then we started seeing a handful of
fellas self-dubbed The Violator, Spike and Skull Man, who are still around
and ever refining their costumes.
But in the last season or so, it has exploded with even more weirdness.
There's Gladi-Raider. There's a whole Goth scene with one guy -- Goth
Raider -- who comes complete with white face, black fingernails and
custom-made fangs. There are Grim Reapers galore. And then there's this
silver-and-black King Tut-type guy running around and getting on all the TV
shows. What's up with that? Tomb Raider, perhaps?
Even the guys who are out of control say it's out of control. In a good way,
of course.
"I totally encourage people dressing up in any outfit to show support, but I
do wonder where some of these costumes come from," said the king of costumed
Raiders fans, Mark "Spike" Shadinger, 36, of Antelope.
"That one Egyptian-dressed guy calls himself Raider Tut. We have not really
figured that one out yet as to how it relates to the Raiders," Spike said.
"He sits next to Gladi-Raider. And the Goth guy? I have no idea what vampire
teeth have to do with the Raiders, but that's cool."
This from a guy with skulls on his shoulders and covered with fake (we hope)
grenades and ammunition. "Well, I may be extreme, but I think I still look
like a warrior. A Raider," Spike added. "Not really a pirate, but along
those lines."
Back in the old days, fans in the stands didn't even wear many Raiders
shirts, let alone skulls. Let's fire up the Way Back Machine:
First off, just be glad the team didn't stick with its original name in
1960 -- the Oakland Senors.
True story. The colors were orange and black. The name was chosen by one of
the owners, Y. Chet Soda, who was known for going around calling everybody
"senor," instead of "buddy" or "pal."
Apparently the sombrero market didn't have the potential of eye patches, and
the team soon became the Raiders.
Anyway, back in the '60s and '70s, old-time fans say people wore street
clothes -- street clothes for gawd's sake -- to all the games, and the most
outrageous thing they used to do was everybody would bring black ribbons or
hankies to wave in the stands, Speer said. Woo hoo.
"It's kind of funny," said Steve "Raider Mort" Mortara, 52, of Los Gatos.
"In the old days, the players were the renegades and there was a family
atmosphere in the stands. Now, the fans are the renegades and the players
are nice. I've been around to watch the whole evolution, and it tickles me."
(Just so you know, it may not be a good idea to go around tickling Raider
Mort, as he's currently the chairman of the board of the extreme fans called
Raider Nation, and has lots of scary looking goons, I mean friends.)
In the 1980s came the (shhhhh) L.A. years. That's when the original Darth
Raider emerged, thanks to the "Star Wars" influence. "But he quit dressing
up 'cause he got so (mad) at all the copycats," Spike said. And they say
these guys are tough.
There's lore of another guy back then who would go to the games on stilts,
but apparently that didn't go over too well because nobody wanted to sit
behind him.
Raider-wear took on another image during that era too -- the gang banger
look. "I was a little scared of it myself," said Spike. That's saying a lot.
Street gangs all over the country started wearing the tough-and-mean-looking
silver-and-black Raiders jackets. Team officials weren't too happy with the
image of the Raiders, killing thugs dead.
They did like the style of those such as Wayne "The Violator" Mabry of
Rancho Cucamonga, however, a 44-year-old construction worker who has his own
clothing line and describes his costume as "something from hell" -- war gear
with a bad attitude. He and Skull Man got their costumes going in L.A., and
still wear them up here.
But even when the team first returned to Oakland in 1995, those two guys
were the main dressers. Then came Spike, an artist when he's not driving a
truck. Even he started small, with a mere helmet, heavy boots and a Stabler
jersey.
"Then I got some shoulder pads, mounted some foam skulls on them," he said.
"Violator had inch-long spikes, so I made 'em more extreme and went with 6
inches."
He found a costume designer/Harley rider in Sacramento to do all his leather
work, and now has $2,000 leather boots with spurs and chains. It takes him a
good half-hour to put all this stuff on, and it requires constant
maintenance, he said. "When I get back from a game, I lay it all out
carefully, put ointment on the leather -- like where I sat in some beer or
something. Paint up the shoulder pads where they've gotten scratched. It
takes care."
Raider Mort said a lot of the fans have a "heavy metal rock concert" look,
"with a little 'Road Warrior' and biker stuff thrown in."
"Whatever people wear, it's great to see the enthusiasm," Raider Mort said,
adding -- with a rather disgusting analogy -- that this winning Raiders team
has finally brought out more spectators and filled the Coliseum, wiping away
all the rancor fans have had with the team.
"The Clearasil for this pimple on prom night was to win football games,"
Mort said. Thank you, Mort.
"Raiders fans are louder, more intense and dressed up better than any team
in the NFL," he said. "I mean, you've the Dog Pound in Cleveland, and the
Steeler fans, and the Cheese Heads. A lot of enthusiasm out there.
"But they don't have as much style."