Warming Up the Brain Farm by Lo Fidelity Allstars

It was the fall of 1999.  It was my first Cal football season as an alum, but I didn't have season tickets.  Kat R. had received some tickets from someone or maybe we bought them, but she and I decided to go to the game.  I took BART from San Francisco to Rockridge and walked up to her apartment on Broadway.  It wasn't until years later that I realized what an awesome neighborhood she lived in during those first few years after college.  I had fallen victim to San Francisco snobbery shortly after moving into a flat in the Mission District.  I didn't notice that she was within walking distance of Zachary's or that years later, I would spend many an afternoon window shopping, brunching, and hanging out in her neighborhood.  Of course, she no longer lived there by then, making it slightly less fun. 

Kat was living with her boyfriend and I was, quite honestly, pretty envious.  She got to decorate the apartment however she wished (I had a horrible roommate at the time) and she had this really cool boyfriend.  I know that this particular morning it was just the two of us.  I think her boyfriend was still in college, still in the Cal Band.  Kat is really a blast, full of fun ideas, adventure, trying new things, going new places.  We were just hanging out, taking our time, we no longer needed to be at the field, instruments in hand, just after dawn, hours and hours before the football game.  She showed me around the apartment and played some new music for me.  The song was Warming Up the Brain Farm and it was totally weird, but I loved it.  I didn't know at the time that I actually knew another song by Lo Fi (Battle Flag), but once I bought the CD, I realized it, making the purchase all that more satisfying.  Kat is like that - always showing you something new and cool.

We were really late to the game, we might've even stopped for a beer or some other refreshment along the way.  We took the 51 bus up College Ave, all the way to campus.  We enjoyed the game, we cheered for the Bears, we visited our friends who were still in the band.  It was the perfect way to return to Cal Football and helped me feel less nostalgic and sad about being a graduate and no longer a living piece of Cal history.  I was now merely history, but making new memories that would become a part of history.