flattery

Posted on June 29, 2008 by Hoover Dam

Wells Thompson’s Facebook status page, as of time of posting:

Things like this are the highest compliment I could get.

Thanks to Tedski for the screencap and Jon for the tipoff

Posted in revs, why we do this |

something about apples and trees

Posted on June 21, 2008 by Hoover Dam

My mom came into town from NC this week, so we took her to the Revs-NY tilt. Afterwards, Matt Reis hung around for a bit and signed autographs, so Mom held out her program for him to sign.
“I didn’t want your signature,” she said when he handed it back,” “I wanted your phone number.”

Posted in goofy, revs |

more banners for other teams

Posted on June 16, 2008 by Hoover Dam

A recent conversation with a buddy of mine who’s a Wizards fan:

“Hey, can I get your current mailing address?”
“Sure, what’s up?”
“It’s a surprise. Just ask yourself this: Why’s a Rev fan buying KC paint?”

That’s why. The slightly more detailed explanation is that when a player asks me to make a banner, even if he’s kinda joking, I’ll do it. I just couldn’t very well send it to the player himself, but rather, off to some pal in the stands who’ll give it a good home. Too bad it made its debut at such a rotten game.

Posted in finished projects, goofy |

I’m on TV again

Posted on June 11, 2008 by Hoover Dam

Not embeddable, so go here and watch me try to explain banners during a Revs halftime segment.

Posted in goofy, revs |

dale, dale, dale Naruto

Posted on June 2, 2008 by Hoover Dam

Sometimes, we’ll do projects for other teams. Not just other teams we follow outside of MLS, but other teams within the league. Why? Because we have buddies in whichever location. Also, it’s fun. I realize this concept is mind-blowing to a lot of fans, but these guys are my friends, and sometimes you just get an idea in your head that wouldn’t quite work for your own team.

This is one such idea, and honestly, it requires so much setup to explain the joke it’s bordering on “if you have to ask” territory. The short version is that my pals in Houston are kinda cut from the same nerd fabric as I am. And there’s a popular cartoon where the characters run around in goofy looking headbands, which, in turn, inspires a lot of kids who’re into such things to run around with goofy looking headbands. Mostly this is limited to anime conventions, but I’ve spotted this stuff in the wild on occasion. Anyway, one of my Houston pals is a fan of the show, and one day it occurred to me that it’d be really easy to adapt Naruto headbands into stupid soccer fan gimmicks.

Using some aluminum flashing, laser toner transfer, scrapbooking brads, and a couple dollars worth of broadcloth, I ran up a dozen of these, slapped “BELIEVE IT” (the show’s slogan) on a banner made from some leftover canvas, boxed ’em all up, enclosed a note that said “WAIBEL MORE LIKE KAWAIIBEL AM I RITE?” and shipped ’em out. Then I spent a week issuing vague threats to the recipient, promising that every photo he took of an actual Dynamo player wearing whatever it was in the box was redeemable for a drink when next we ran into each other.

What I didn’t count on was that my buddy Devin would get the package mere hours before going to a team appearance featuring none other than Waibel himself.

And this, right here, is why it is rad to be an American soccer fan.

Posted in finished projects, goofy, I can't believe we pulled this off, why we do this |

why we do this, vol. 3

Posted on May 30, 2008 by Hoover Dam

When Kheli Dube got the tying goal in last night’s DC-NE tilt, he jumped the signboards and ran over to the section adjacent to the Fort to do his goalscoring dance. What you didn’t see on TV was that he did so in front of this:

which we decided to put together in response to some nitwit in Columbus last week deciding racial slurs were just the thing the league needs for atmosphere.

Posted in finished projects, revs, why we do this |

more words

Posted on May 17, 2008 by Hoover Dam

Two things we thought would happen did, indeed, happen after the debut of this year’s banners: We had to retire one (see ya, Joey) and create new ones for a few of the guys who dropped right into the lineup like they’d been there for years. Given the squad rotation and upcoming fixture congestion, I suspect I’ll be adding others as the season progresses. These four, however, I knew I wanted to do about three games into the season, although they had to wait for the May 17th home game to debut, because real life (moving house) interfered.

iggy
Amaechi Igwe, “BOLD”: I think he’s my new favorite on the squad. I had to replace the Revs-specific paint in order to do this round of banners, and, unlike as advertised on TV, he was not just hanging around the paint counter at Home Depot.

castro
Mauricio Castro, “TOUGH”: The guy just can’t be knocked off the ball.

mansally
Kenny Mansally, “KEEN”: The words we picked, we picked based on multiple potential meanings, and this one has so many that apply here–“cool,” “sharp,” “smart,” “skilled,” “eager.”

nyassi
Sainey Nyassi, “SWIFT”: It’s almost too easy to use words related to “speed,” but after seeing him zip around the field, what else could we do?

Posted in finished projects, revs, words |

sometimes we do things that aren’t banners

Posted on April 7, 2008 by Hoover Dam

Such as half-assed attempts to start internet memes.

Posted in finished projects, goofy, revs |

words

Posted on March 29, 2008 by Hoover Dam

For the 2008 season, it was clear we had to make some new banners. The ones we did for 2005 held up remarkably well, but it was time to retire most of them, as they referenced players no longer on the team, like Noonan. (Exception: We decided to keep the huge blue graffiti style one, because even though one of the taggers is wearing a Dempsey shirt, the banner’s huge and dramatic, and anyway fans are gonna be wearing Dempsey shirts to Revs games forever; we could’ve depicted a Moore shirt for the same reason).

This left us with a big question: What to do? We weren’t feeling as inspired as the 04-05 offseason; we had some banner blanks, plenty of leftover paint, and an offer of angel funding for more fabric, but no real compelling ideas were coming to light. We knew we didn’t want to do banners that were goofy pop culture references or obscure in-jokes that would go stale before the All-Star Game, and, much as we might like to push the envelope a bit with scarves or one-shot paper banners, they had to be general audience themed, something the kids in the midfield would dig as much as the clowns in the Fort. Magpie mentioned how much he loved how the Joe-Max Moore tribute banner turned out, and then, one day while at the gym, it hit me.

“FIERCE”

“Hey, can you get me a photo of Shalrie where he looks really intense, like he’s gonna rip someone’s head off?”

Magpie sent the photo, and I got to work. “What do you think?” I asked.
“I fucking love it.”

Continue reading →

Posted in finished projects, melonhead, revs, words |

Opening week

Posted on March 25, 2008 by Hoover Dam

progress2.jpg

7:03 am, 3/25/08. The unusually early season start means all the banners this year (there are fourteen of them) had to be done indoors.

Posted in goofy, revs, works in progress |