Pax Nortona – A Blog by Joel Sax
From the Land of the Lost Blunderbuss
Rah rah! Cis-Boom-Baa!*
Posted on January 5, 2004 in Humor? Whimsies
Lynn likes to tell about how when Stanford abandoned the name “Indians” for its team, the students took a vote on a new name. The winner was “The Robber Barons” which, alas, the Alumni did not like in the least, because they thought it would reflect negatively on the school’s founder, $tealin’ £andford — oh, so sorry. I meant to say Leland Stanford. So they ended up with the present name which is the Stanford Cardinal (for the color, not for either the bird or the ecclesiast.) What they got for the mascot was the infamous Stanford Tree.
But who am I to ridicule this go-go dancing Hanukah Bush? After all, I come from a school whose brawny mascot is named Cecil Sagehen. You can rest assured that that puts a terror — er — terrible laughter in the bellies of our opponents.
The official school site says that compensation for the stigma of “a small, flightless bird that runs in circles when faced with imminent danger” explains the winning record of our athletic teams since 1917. I remember the mascot and how we chirped at the kickoff, but I do not remember the winning.
The story of a Muslim football league in Irvine inspired me to rethink a few team names:
- Washington Byzantines
- Orange County Philistines
- Sacramento Foolish Virgins**
- Texas Filisbusters
- Mississippi Night Riders
- Los Angeles Black Dalias
- Mecca*** Jihads
Perhaps you would like to add to the list?
*Once, when he was doing Karnak the Magnificent, Johnny Carson predicted that the content of the envelope would contain “the sound of an exploding sheep”: cis-boom-baa.
*The Foolish Virgins were the girls who, in the parable, failed to have enough lamp oil on hand in anticipation of the arrival of the bridegroom. (Matthew 25:1-13) The name is apt given California energy politics of the last twenty years.
***That’s Mecca, California. It’s near Thermal.
If you are hungry for even more absurdity, check this Salon feature that tells about the Capture of Osama Bin Laden.
