Cambodian Football Fans Riot, Burn Thai Embassy

ost-Super Bowl rioting continued in Cambodia, reaching its pinnacle with the torching of the Thai Embassy Wednesday. Several stores and businesses, predominately Thai-owned, were also vandalized and set afire by distraught Raiders fans.

Political pundits, whatever those are, speculate that the Cambodian people live in stressful times and frequently find their only release in American football, particularly the Oakland Raiders. For a people already hit on hard times, especially with escalating ill will between themselves and neighbors Thailand, the loss of the favored Raiders was the last straw.

Sports pundits, if any such people exist, could not be found because once we said it no one in the office could stop laughing long enough to find some.

Expert sports follower Ray "Sport" William, a sports follower for 34 years and frequenter of the bar across the street from the commune offices, could sympathize with the disgusted Cambodian citizens.

"It's a damn shame, a'course," said Sport. "What you have is a real awkward situation 'cause shoddy reporting and populist politics are preying upon a people who are struggling to join a world market.

"With elections coming up in July, the Hu Sen government is whipping up nationalist frenzy to keep attention off domestic problems, including a border treaty with Vietnam that's still not signed yet. What's the best way to get a population furiously patriotic? Give them an enemy, and in this case, Thailand makes a convenient target. Now anything and everything that comes out of Thailand can be misconstrued by journalists who jump on the bandwagon, like alleged comments by some Thai actress that the Angkor Wat national monument really belonged to Thailand."

Sport could not see any immediate relief for the frenzied football fans.

"There's no hope on the horizon, I'd say. At least not until the elections have come and gone and the government is either comfortably in place and can turn the focus away from Thailand, or Sam Rainsy campaigners succeed in turning the eye back on domestic issues and unseat the Hu Sen government."

Or, as Professor of Asiatic Politics at Columbia University Dom Jutney said, "There's always next year. You can't keep Oakland down. This year Tampa Bay wanted it more. Next year it's all Raiders, baby."

The Thai Embassy in America, while not currently in flames, could not be reached for comment. Which is a polite way of saying they hung up on us repeatedly, which was really pretty thoughtless considering we were calling long distance and they charge us for the first minute whether we speak for a minute or ten seconds. A second call to determine if they would pay the charges for the first call was not received any better, which leaves us with two unpaid long distance calls.

The Cambodian Embassy was more receptive, leading us to believe they can't be all bad.

"The riots are terrible. It is sad that a collection of outraged individuals are representing Cambodia to the world in their violence, especially in this time of potential war and political difficulties in other areas of the world. It weighs heavy on this country's heart. If only Jerry Rice had succeeded on those two-point conversions."

ooling a number of coaches, commentators and even full football teams since early September, the senile gang of Geritol-guzzlers known as the Oakland Raiders were finally unmasked and had their walkers pulled out from under them by a lightning-swift squad of relentless assassins that call themselves the Tampa Bay Buccaneers here Sunday in Super Bowl XXXVII.

The hapless Raiders turned off their hearing aids, took out their dentures, curled up and lay down together on the 50-yard line, happily playing Roman-era Christians to the Bucs' roaring lions. When the final gun sounded, the sky was rent, the sun became as sackcloth, and lo, the moon became as Al Davis' pompadoured head. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth among the Raiders' fans, and much cheering and ritual spilling of virgin blood from the fans of the Buccaneers. The final score was 487 to 13, but it wasn't really as close as all that.

Quarterback Brad Johnson, 12 and-a-half-year-old leader of the Tampa Bay eleven, completed over 800 passes, while 9-year-old wunderkicker Martin Gramatica booted so many field goals that the officials simply lost count and awarded the team a collective 212 additional points in the fourth quarter.

Commented 96-year-old wide receiver Jerry Rice, "What did you say? Did I take my medicine today? My granddaughter brings that fool-ass boyfriend of hers—he steals my stuff out of the garage. Huh? Who are you, anyway?"

Rice, who scored the only Raider touchdown on a 48-yard pass in the third quarter, became the oldest man to ever score a touchdown in a football game, let alone a Super Bowl. He was able to get open when two Tampa Bay defensive backs were caught out of position while giving the business to three of the "really cute" cheerleaders in the parking lot outside Qualcomm Stadium. Rice said he would have joined the defensive backs if only he'd seen the cheerleaders as well, but "I didn't have my distance glasses with me today. Besides, at my age, I need to tie a popsicle stick to it to get it to work anyway. Wait—who are you again?"

Wide receiver Tim Brown, a comparative youngster at age 88, and only slightly more lucid, added, "You know, we play them one game at a time. It's all right, we'll win next week." Reminded that the Super Bowl marks the end of football season, Brown responded, "The what? No, no, we play the Baltimore Colts next week, I'm sure of it. That Unitas fella, he's a tough bird. Did I take my medicine today?"

Ninety-three-year-old quarterback Rich Gannon: "We got jobbed by the refs on the coin toss. Did you see it? Everybody hates the Raiders, son. Everybody. Anyway, aren't we playing Sid Gillman's squad next week? We got to start planning for that game soon." Gannon set a record by having 37 passes intercepted and run back for touchdowns, 26 in the first half alone, and 16 other passes intercepted and mailed directly to various Tampa players' homes to be auctioned off for top dollar on eBay sometime in the next month.

"Huh? Maybe I'll bid on one of those," said Gannon, before he walked off the field aimlessly and was finally picked up in a bad neighborhood in Chula Vista, where he had been asking residents if they had seen his pajamas and whether or not he had taken his medicine that morning.

Defensive lineman Warren Sapp, a grizzled Buccaneer veteran at 16, had an amazing 73 sacks, 326 tackles and two hurries. He is known to his Tampa Bay teammates as "that raging fucking lunatic, watch out he doesn't get too close to you, he'll break both your legs and shatter a kneecap just as soon as look at you." When asked for a post-game comment, he began screaming gutturally and waving his helmet around him in a wide circle for close to twenty minutes, his eyes nearly bugging out of his head the whole time.

"Agga-ragga-wompona-wooo-hooo-haaa!! Whooo-ooo-eeeee sumbitch mothafuckin' sheeee-it bitch and a bastard god-DAYUM fuckin' ay!" he finally concluded. Asked for his assessment of the defensive plan, Sapp just muttered, "Fuck that, man, I'm dizzy," then said something completely unintelligible and threw up on NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue's tassled loafers.

Teammate Ronde Barber, a defensive back who will turn 14 next month, just shook his head at Sapp's antics and murmured, "At least he ain't got the rattlesnakes in his hands and his mouth this time. That's when he's really scary."

Asked if he could sum up the Bucs' strategy going into the game, Barber concurred with 11-year-old linebacker Derrick Brooks and head coach Jon Gruden, 20, that "The main thing was knees in the nuts from the word go, man, then slappin' them on they liver spots and talkin' shit about they grandchildren."

Exuberant salutations, commune Clubbers! Founder, President, and Acting-Motivational Speaker Emil Zender present and accounted for. Where are you?
I could not be happier to deliver the minutes from the long-awaited first meeting of the commune Enthusiasts Club, even if we didn't get the turn out we had originally hoped for. To be completely blunt, me and Vice-President Sandy were more than a little disappointed in the number of people who showed up. It doesn't take a mathematical genius to figure out that if 36 people say they're going to show up and only 2 of those 36 people actually do show up, 1 of whom is yourself… well, that's just lousy, mathematically-speaking.
What happened to everyone? I assured you membership dues could be paid later in the year, completely refundable if the Club was not to your liking, and everybody seemed perfectly happy with that. I gave everyone the commune website address. Did you not check it out? Sure, some potential commune-istas didn't seem as sincere when they said they'd show up, but a few of you sure had me fooled. Those two giggling teen-age girls, now that I think about it, they didn't land on the sincere side.
Just to clarify, we'll be meeting at the number 4 gazebo in Pawtucket Park in Shanesly, Vermont, next Sunday. We'll wait for at least four hours, so if you're late, don't sweat it. And again, we realize that not everyone can make it to Vermont if you don't live in the area, but please e-mail me at Zenderphenia@hotmail.com if you want to become a "Friends & Family" commune Club member. And please, fellas, let's lay off the offers for pornographic video and pictures, there are ladies accessing the account, too.
Well, without further delay, I present the minutes from the first meeting, edited for space concerns. With your support I'm sure the next round will be even better.
Emil Zender: commune Club Founder and Acting-President Emil Zender present and accounted for. Announcing the recording of the first Club meeting minutes. Please announce yourself for the sake of the minutes.
Sandy Meckler: *inaudible*.
EZ: I'm sorry, please repeat that louder, for the record?
SM: Sandy Meckler, Emil. You know who it is.
EZ: Then let the record show two present at the meeting's inception, at 4:05 p.m.
SM: You said more people were going to be here. I made sandwiches.
EZ: More people are coming. There were two girls I talked to yesterday who said they wouldn't miss it for the world. I told them there would be sandwiches.
SM: You're such a *expletive deleted*.
EZ: C'mon, there's no need for that. What if children access these minutes in the future?
SM: Why would anybody want to access these minutes? Nobody even wants to be in your stupid club, Emil.
EZ: That's not a very motivational attitude for our Motivational Speaker.
SM: *Expletive deleted* you, Emil. You can *expletive deleted* yourself until your *expletive deleted* explodes. Your club is stupid and you're a *expletive deleted* dip*expletive deleted*.
EZ: Let the record show by a vote of 1-1 Motivational Speaker Sandy Meckler is stripped of her Motivational Speaker status. So enacted by President, Founder, and Acting-Recorder Emil Zender.
SM: Well, I'm not going to be in your stupid communist club if you don't let me have a title. You said I could.
EZ: It would be gross negligence to let you serve in a capacity where you could damage morale. How about Vice-President?
SM: Is that higher?
EZ: You'd be second only to the President, myself.
SM: I'm that anyway. It's only us, you *expletive deleted*. Whatever. I don't care anymore.
As you can see, a lot of details will have to be worked out at the next meeting. We've already hit some rough spots, but even America had to fight a revolution before they could become the country they did. Keep high hopes for the next commune Club meeting!

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