I was there!!!!!

Ok, time for the latest round of Where’s Waldo. Kim and I are somewhere in that picture. I think. Things are a little blurry as you might expect.

A few of you are probably wondering why there has been a lack of posts the past few nights. The reason is rather simple: Kim and I decided to spend the weekend in New Orleans. How we happened to get caught up in the greatest party in the history of mankind is slightly more difficult to explain.

As I have mentioned before, Kim and I had our first date on Valentine’s Day in the French Quarter. She had never been to New Orleans and it is my favorite city so we felt that it would be a perfect first date destination. If it worked out well then we would have the greatest story ever and if it didn’t, well, at least we could drink beer on the street. What we really loved about that weekend, which is the weekend before Mardi Gras weekend, is that there is the Krewe of Barkus parade. A parade in which all of the residents of New Orleans dress their dogs up in costume and parade them through the French Quarter. It is hysterical and joyous and we immediately decided that we would be at the parade every year from that point on.

So a few months ago I booked our hotel and flights for our return trip. A few days later I realized that it was Super Bowl weekend. A few days after that I realized that the Saints had a legitimate chance to be in the Super Bowl. Two weeks ago I realized that we were in for the biggest time of our lives.

I’ve been going to New Orleans for about fifteen years now and I have never seen the city like this. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was wearing black and gold. The streets were filled more than I had ever seen them before and outside of Mardi Gras and the Sugar Bowl I have been down there for the busiest days of the year. It was wild but in a completely joyful way. I don’t recall seeing any fights or arguments or anything outside of the normal lunacy found in the French Quarter. It was days and nights of people drinking and celebrating and screaming “Who dat!” at the top of their lungs. And this was before the game even started.

You could feel the roars in the French Quarter as the game went on. The entire place would shake after a good play. And after the game it was just bedlam. I’ve been in Chicago for the Bulls championships and nothing could compare. As we left today we saw Bourbon Street as they were trying to clean it and you couldn’t believe what it looked like. It was like a war zone if the war only took place inside a brewery. And no one had a care in the world about it.

Many more stories to come. Until then, here is the song (specifically starting at the 3:34 mark) that almost brought me to tears before the game even started.

The five random CDs for the week:

1) Loreena McKennitt "The Visit"

2) R.E.M. "Reconstruction of the Fables"

3) Ryan Adams "Gold"

4) The Sundays "Static and Silence"

5) R.E.M. "Document"

The best game I never saw

Anyone who knows me knows about my love for New Orleans. It is simply my favorite city in the country and probably the world (though Dublin can make quite an argument.) There are very few cities that feel like home to me even after I spend years living there. New Orleans is just a place that makes me feel like I am always at home there and typically I head down there once a year just to reconnect.

Obviously this means that I follow the Saints with interest and consider them to be my second favorite team after the Bears, whose most recent season is not worth discussing. Or at least I can’t discuss it without sobbing uncontrollably. I like the team and the fans and the fact that despite a history of failure everyone keeps on trying to do their best in the hope that this time would be different.

So I was extremely happy to see that my Saints were in the NFC Championship game tonight. However, in continuing with my “never be home” schedule I was stuck on a plane for the entire game. Took off when the game started and got into my car right as the fourth quarter ended. This meant that I was able to listen to the New Orleans announcers call the overtime with the game ending just as I pulled into my garage. One of the most exciting drives of my life.

I can’t tell you if the calls were good or bad. I don’t know if those interference calls were crap or that it wasn’t a catch. I can’t even say if the NFL overtime rules are fair or that Minnesota had enough chances to win the game and just blew it. All I know is that once the kick went through I have never heard such a scream of joy come from announcers. It was just like my reaction when the White Sox made the World Series; just a sudden outburst of hysterical laughter. One of the announcers yelled “Pigs have flown, hell has frozen over, the Saints are in the Super Bowl!” The joy in his voice was contagious.

You are going to hear a lot of talk about how the team has helped New Orleans post Katrina. It is very easy to be cynical about it. I mean, what does a football team have to do with getting a major city to recover from a natural disaster? But I have met a lot of people from New Orleans in my life and they truly have used the Saints as their rallying point. The team was their escape from the challenge of rebuilding and a point of pride for the city. It was why there was a focus on rebuilding the Superdome in that first year. The city needed to point to something and say that we are back. We were knocked down but we got back up. That is what this game means to the city. We are back. We have rebuilt. And I couldn’t be happier.

The five random CDs for the week:
1) The Freddy Jones Band “The Freddy Jones Band”
2) Rhett Miller “The Believer”
3) Jack Johnson “In Between Dreams”
4) The Jayhawks “Tomorrow the Green Grass”
5) Robbie Fulks “Revenge”