Saints 38 Patriots 17

Could this be the impossible dream?

A Monday Night Measuring Stick

Everyone is all excited about this game tonight. Some fans are acting like it’s the Super Bowl already. I am excited about it but my reasons are long term. Tonight is the night we get a chance to see if our team has what it takes to really go all the way.

New England is the measuring stick for every franchise in the NFL. The only teams close to running a championship operation they do is the Colts and the Steelers. Two years ago they had an undefeated regular season. They lost in the championship game to the Giants who they also played the last game of the season to complete the 16-0 season. The thing I remember about watching that game was that even though the Giants lost the game during the season, they gained so much confidence from the fact that they were able to match New England’s intensity that it carried them through three road playoff victories and defeating the undefeated Patriots in the Super Bowl. The Patriots do everything aggressively. They play with championship intensity and leave no doubt that they are trying to beat the crap out of you. If you want to beat them you have to step up and earn it. They don’t care what the Saints record is. They want to destroy us and they are supposed to. That's what championship teams do.

Tonight’s game is all about whether or not our home team can step up and match their intensity. A victory tonight means that they were able to do that because it’s the only way New England loses this late in the season. A tough loss in a close game would be a stomach punch but just like the Giants it won’t kill us as long as we give them our total effort. I’m going to go ahead and predict this game and call the score: Saints 35 Patriots 27. I think the home crowd makes the difference eventually although some parts of the game may get kind of rough. I want to win this game really bad because I want to be just like the team we are playing.

It’s a nice holiday weekend full of spirits, food, friends, and football. You can’t really beat that. A day or two to sleep would be nice though. It really makes no sense to drag through the first day of work after the holiday like I will be doing tomorrow. I hope everyone that is reading this had a good time. I am writing this while watching the Soul Train Music Awards which means I am assured of a Michael Jackson tribute as well as all the positive black commercials ad companies have saved will run tonight. I feel good about that. I wonder why Soul Train doesn’t give a lifetime achievement award to the Asian sister with the long hair weave and the spandex dresses. She was on Soul Train at least 20 years. That’s got to be worth something. I guess its back to work in the morning for some minimal money making. I can’t wait. We have a big game tomorrow night so the anticipation for that should get me through the day.

Some of these New Orleans bloggers have this tradition of posting some of the worst Christmas videos they can find. I participated a little last year but I said I wasn’t because watching some of this stuff is too painful to make it all the way through the end of the videos to see if they are bad enough to make a splash. Well, I thought about it long and hard and decided that I am not a party pooper. Here’s my first entry………

Happy Thanksgiving From The Crib

I would like to send my love and give thanks to all my family and friends. I especially want to give a special shout out to all the people who stuck around when I didn’t like any of you. I would name you all but I might forget somebody or one of you could have an attachment for traffic tickets and I may help the police find you. We have come a long way in the last few years. I stopped getting overly emotional on the blog but things can change so fast that you have to try and appreciate good times when they come. That’s what gives you some balance when the drama comes and Lord knows we have our fair share of drama. It’s alright though because like Big Cliff says if you can wake up from it you can deal with it. I am sure we can all find something to be thankful for even if it’s for something that really has no bearing on your life like the Saints being 10-0. Have a great Thanksgiving and don’t burn anything.

Homework Has Changed

It’s the week of Thanksgiving and my baby is still in school. Add this to the list of things that are different about school these days. I never went to school on the week of Thanksgiving in New Orleans. I guess the school has to squeeze in as many days of learning as they can. I know the parents are ready for a few days of break time from getting up earlier and doing that complicated first grade homework. First grade homework has really advanced. I know that not every school in the city is working with the same standards so I don’t know if it’s like this all the way around but this homework trips me out. Some of the homework they have now is things we didn’t see until the 6th grade. I wasn’t joking about that either. When I left first grade we were just getting to simple addition and basic reading. These kids have math problems that look like Algebra. They have word problems. They have to write stories. I’m so jealous. I could have been so much smarter a lot earlier in life had we had this kind of work although there would have been serious discussions with my classmates about whether we should go home and never come back.

We had a parent meeting and someone brought up the idea of having some kind of program to help the parents so they could help the kids with their homework. It didn’t seem to get a rousing response but the more I think about it the more I realize that programs like that may be the only way to insure that the kids make the proper progress. I’m looking at some of the Geometry homework she brings home and I am thinking what does the third grade and fourth grade homework look like. I think we need to admit that the New Orleans Public School did not adequately prepare a lot of these parents to assist with this type of homework. Many of these kids are going to know more in terms of school work than their parents will by the end of elementary school. We are sending these babies home with this complicated stuff and expect that the parents are going to reinforce what they have learned all day but in the neighborhood people learn to fear and have anger towards things that they were never taught. Those kids are going to come back to school with their homework wrong because they did it all on their own or they won’t do it at all because their mom won’t care if they do so she doesn’t have to deal with it.

The city used to have a superintendent named Anthony Amato. He was here for a short time before we ran him out of town. It appeared no one liked the man but he did have one really good idea. He tried to implement classes for parents who wanted to improve their knowledge so they could help their kids do better. Parents want their kids to do better but they need the confidence in themselves to help them. I know we couldn’t wait for Mr. Amato to leave but when he did we should have kept this idea and put more money behind it. This is one of those ideas I would like to see the mayor and city council get together and work on for the benefit of the city. We are talking about adult classes so they don’t have to hide behind the fact that they don’t really have anything to do with the school board. They could put this together and then work with the school board to register parents. That’s the kind of thing that would make me feel good about future and get me on board with the next administration. All the candidates running for office have my permission to steal that idea and pretend like they thought it up themselves.

10-0 and Ready For The Patriots

I have no clue what to do when my home team is 10-0. Am I supposed to feel over excited? Should I handle it like the team and take one game at a time? Should I rent the SUV to drive to Miami for the game I promised not to mention? Yesterday in the first half I was complaining to my boy about the passing game throwing all those short passes. When the score was 31-7 he sent me a text asking me was I still mad. My reply was that I never was mad. I just didn't like that. Everything else is sweet. When your team is 10-0 for the first time ever you have to be a real jerk to be upset. I'm just taking this new feeling of being undefeated in to see how it taste.

Next week on Monday night we get Patriots at home. It will be New Orleans' opportunity to show the entire country that we have the best fan base of any NFL team. I can assure you that there will not be another Monday Night game this year or next with the kind of energy in that dome for Tom Brady and Randy Moss. We have a few injuries but I have looked at our schedule and for the first time ever there isn't a game that really scares me. We might lose one of them but we might not either.

My Weekend Vibe : Soul Food

All I need this weekend is some rest and a morale booster. I am not doing too good on the rest so let's go for the morale booster and check out this clip from the Goodie Mob with The Roots on Jimmy Fallon's show. I am starting to like the fact he hired The Roots. They have some of the coolest musical performances.

Does He Have Your Beeping Attention Now!

Lately I have had the opportunity to display just how accurate some of my opinions have been. A few weeks ago I was trying to be funny and wrote the following paragraph while I was sitting on my porch.

Meanwhile James Perry is running and can’t get any media attention at all. He even tried filing an injunction against the mayor’s office and no one really cared. I have an idea for him out of the conservative talk show playbook. He needs to hold a press conference and accuse the local media of not covering his campaign because he’s white. That kind of stunt may confuse his family and friends as well as everyone in the city that knows him but I bet you people will want to know who he is after that. We live in an era of media stunts and twisted information so James might as well use it to his advantage.

I was kidding around about that but I did feel he needed to do something to get his name out there because it didn’t appear that the major players in the local media was giving him any real attention or taking his campaign seriously. Someone in his campaign saw this too and came up with this commercial. I’m not sure if it is mayoral quality but it is definitely entertaining. I have watched it over and over and it’s not getting old. This commercial is either going to make James a running joke (I may have left out the Eagle Scout line) or get enough people paying attention that he can explain what his plans are. Either way I think no one should accuse him of not being real about the attitudes of the public because this is just what people are thinking….”Are you sh@ting me?”

It got off to a slow start but the mayor’s race is about to get entertaining.

Cut The Check For The Lower Nine and St. Bernard

I just read that a judge ruled the Corps of Engineers negligent for flooding in Chalmette and The Lower Ninth Ward during Hurricane Katrina. The most well known plaintiff in this case was local news anchor Norman Robinson. He lived in New Orleans East at the time of the storm and didn’t win any damages. Since he lived a few blocks away from my home I will assume that means that we personally will not have any precedent for receiving anything. That’s unfortunate because my personal opinion is the Corps of Engineers was negligent everywhere but I not going to stress about that. Regardless of whether my neighborhood gets anything I can still sleep at night if the people of St. Bernard and The Lower Nine are properly compensated for their pain and suffering. It’s time to have everyone that lived in that area file a claim and make things right. If the person is deceased then give the money to their families for that pain and suffering. Since the storm passed I have never been the kind of person that was overly concerned with lawsuits about levee breaches and putting my name on lists for possible money. Doing that never went along with my stubborn pride. My personal feeling was I wasn’t going to let anyone watch me beg people for money under those circumstances. If they knew what happened and wanted to do the right thing they would have done it already. Besides, money wasn’t going to bring my grandmother back or magically put the homes I grew up in along with all the memories and family heirlooms back where they were. Money didn’t matter to me when it comes to this and it still doesn’t.

It might matter to my parents though. They got up every morning and worked to pay for their house like everybody says Americans are supposed to. It might matter to my aunts and my cousins because they did the same thing. I know it matters to my sisters and brothers. My grandfather passed away five months before the storm but I am sure if you asked him about his house floating away it would matter to him. My grandmother Geraldine is gone but I am sure she would be cool with her family being comfortable. I think fighting twenty feet of water in your own living room is worth something. My other grandmother Mildred is 90 and lives out of town now but knowing her the way I do she would tell you that she would prefer to go back home to her house but since she can’t her children(and we are all her children) might as well be taking care of. I don’t need a dime myself. I would be happy to see my teenage brother have four years of college tuition from something like this. I think that is a fair trade off for not being able to visit the big blue house on Benton Street for Thanksgiving next week or not having any baby pictures to show your children.

I’m not sure how this whole thing is going to play out. If this verdict stands I am sure the government won’t want to have to defend itself against thousands of individual lawsuits so they will probably work out some agreement to take care of everyone. I know how the media likes to slant things sometimes and I am sure they will find someone that is overjoyed with receiving this money and present it in a manner that makes people think folks on the other side of the Industrial Canal are getting over on the government. I’m going to do something I rarely do on this blog and speak for everyone involved including St. Bernard Parish when I say no one wanted to get paid enough to see their entire community destroyed. They earned that money the hard way.

9-0 Came Harder Than I Thought It Would

First let’s go over the positives after today’s game….

1. 9-0 is sweet no matter what. At the least we won’t have a losing season.
2. Any long time Saint’s fan hates the Rams so anytime we beat them it is special.
3. Reggie Bush has finally awakened and could finally start making me look like a football genius. He should have gotten the ball more late in the game.
4. Will Smith has come to play this year.
5. Every week we seem to be getting a big play from a different person. Today it was Courtney Roby and his kickoff return for a touchdown.

Now let’s go over some things that concern me….

1. Turnovers!
2. Tackling!
3. We have too many injuries to the secondary. They missed Darren Sharper. I think Tracey Porter is going to be out awhile. We can’t make it for the long haul without him and Jabari Greer. If Porter is out for the season we can only hope that Randall Gay doesn’t have another game like that.
4. Something is wrong with Drew Brees. He hasn’t really been on target since the Giants game.
5. The offense made the game today way more difficult than it needed to be. Twice they could have gotten a first down and couldn’t get it down.

Sometimes you have to take an ugly win. It was the fourth game in the row that it looked like the team was sleep walking through the first quarter. I think they are developing a bad habit here and they need to stop it soon. Nevertheless I will take the win because at the end of the year no one remembers that a team was close to you. All that matters is that you win. Let’s try to make it past Tampa Bay without losing anymore players. Hopefully we can get a few back before the big bad Patriots hit town on Monday Night.

P.S,
Steven Jackson is a beast!

My Weekend Vibe : Grown Man Thoughts

It's such a nice day outside that I am almost tempted to sit outside instead of watching football today. If the weather could stay like this all year it would put everyone in much better mood. My trade off for not going outside is to open the windows and let the sunshine in. That way I am almost outside. That's good enough for me right now. I have been doing things the last few weekends which is a lot for me during the football season so I don't feel bad about sitting here today. Besides, the holidays are coming and any money you can save by enjoying your own home is a bonus. I have developed a strange habit over the last year or so. I have become so paranoid of doing something stupid with my money that when I get paid I have way more money left over from the last paycheck. It's like I am so scared of something happening during the week and not having the money to fix it I won't do anything at all. That's quite a change for me. I used to be one of those cats that had to figure out how to pay for lunch and gas three or four days before payday because I would go crazy on payday weekends and blow my money. I make more money then I did then and I could afford a splurge or two without the lights being cut off but I know me and there is no need starting something that may spiral out of control. This is what being responsible feels like for me. You go to sleep at night feeling more secure but a lot more bored than you used to.

I will deal with the boredom for now because the alternative is living like a 35 year old teenager and having everyone wonder what the hell is wrong with me. There are a lot of adult teenagers running around with grown man obligations. All men have a spot in their mind that is stuck in whatever era they had the most fun or felt the most alive. Even if they don't talk about it they think about it to themselves. My dad used to talk to me about his football playing days. My grandfather used to tell me stories all the time from his early 20's. When I get together with the friends that I hung around with during my early 20's we always reminisce about stuff we did because that's how men are. There's nothing wrong with that at all. Some men never let go of that and they try to hold on it as long as possible. I actually don't have an issue with that either provided they are only responsible for themselves and can support it. Our problem is we got cats acting young and free with a woman and multiple kids to support. If you have those kind of circumstances you might need to cut back on the strip club visits and rounds of drinks at the bar unless you have the money to take care of both worlds equally. If you don't then you need to sit at home and watch football too because the rest of the world shouldn't be doing more for your children than you if you are taking your money and spending it on motorbikes, clothes, and video game systems. We have to set an example of social dignity for the kids coming up now.

Sorry for all the preaching. The fresh air does that to me.

Sitting On My Porch Part Thirty Six

"Stay in school,Get your education,Get better than qualified and you'll succeed."
George Porter, Tuskegee Airman

Greetings from the planet of New Orleans. If you have noticed a drop in the number of posts during the day you would be correct. Sometimes when you have a real job you actually have to work. This post is going to be written throughout the day when time and thoughts come together. If this post is too long everyone is going to think I didn't do any work today. I need to practice working and blogging at the same time because after the next city budget is finalized we may not have electricity after 6PM to save money.

It's Veteran's Day and here at The Crib we are always pro veteran because of Big Cliff and Grandpa. You know some veterans struggle when they come home even though all we do is tell them how great they are. Just because we call them heroes doesn't mean we take the steps to make sure their lives are good when they come home. I said it last year and I will say it again, when these men and women come home we should clear all of the their debt and pay their mortgages. At the least they deserve not having to worry about being homeless and taking care of their families. Now, if they screw up everything on their own after that then so be it but we should set them up in the best situation possible.

I am glad the city survived the terrible storm named Ida. It wasn't really terrible. The local news made it seem like it was. I know we can't take any named storm for granted but did they have to cut into the Sunday Night football game every five minutes to look at the satellite imagery? Katrina has really changed our mental state. Back in the day we would walk to school in that kind of storm and no one would blink.

Let's talk about Congressman Cao for a minute. I think by the end of the week I am going to feel sorry for him. He broke every rule in the current political book but I understand why he did it. He tried to stick to his beliefs and do the best he could for his district. Say what you want but if he gets any medical facility funding out of supporting the presidents bill he would have gotten more done for his district than any other person in office could have. Let me explain why. If he was a black Democrat holding that seat everyone would have known his vote was Yes from the beginning. There would have been no specific commitment from the president or anything like that. Our vote would have been chalked up and all the special consideration would have been giving to people like Olympia Snow who I am certain got a few perks for the state of Maine when she voted yes in the Finance Committee. He tried to use his vote to get some special consideration for his district. If nothing changes because of what he did then the Democrats played him. If things do happen then he got the most out of his one term he possibly could and he should get credit for being one of the few politicians in Washington that put his own ambition and agenda aside to do what he was sworn in to do.

That reminds me that I have a new theory on the next mayor. I was talking to some brothers this weekend and we came to the conclusion that the only way the next mayor has any chance of making real change is he or she has to be willing to only serve one term. If that person did everything that really needs to be done it would require pissing off so many people from different walks of life that they probably wouldn't win again. Anyone with long term political aspirations will have to compromise some things to get the money and support needed to run for higher office so they can't go to City Hall and lead correctly.

Now for a few random things that no one is interested in but me...........

I'm thinking about going seven full days without any Coca Cola, coffee, beer, or brown liquor. I informed one of my comrades about this and his response was "You won't make it seven hours trying to give all of that up at one time without getting arrested." It feels good when your friends have confidence in you.

Someone made the following statement to me : " Your mind is great, that's why you don't understand the simple things" Was this an insult or a compliment?

Why does Sammy Sosa look like a vampire?

Nickelodeon pulled out of the amusement park deal in New Orleans East. The city says they are moving on without them but it's going to be hard to get people to come there without the Spongebob ride.

According to my coworkers I am the only man that carries a brush around to train his beard hair. I know I am crazy but I feel more creative with my facial hair.

Now back to something serious.............

This story is a small example that as we move forward the three most powerful people in the city will be the mayor, the assessor, and the inspector general. Just for the record I agree with the IG on the plan for remodeling the Municipal Auditorium. My only concern is that it seems the mayor is going to have to get the IG's blessing before he or she does anything. I am not sure if I am right about this but if the majority of the people elected the mayor then they should have to approve the inspector general too if he's going to have this kind of power. If they can't elect the IG then we need to elect the board that selects the IG. I believe in having an Inspector General. I am not sure I agree with the current setup.

In the midst of football games, health care bills, corruption indictments, and all the other stuff no one really paid enough attention to the fact that a 7 year old girl was killed in her house because of a shootout going on outside. Her father was in the Middle East at the time. He's celebrating his Veteran's Day in pain. I heard a term on the radio last weekend called 'social dignity'. I will explain what it means another time but we have to work on that to keep things like this from happening. Let's hope Paige DeJean is the last one because we were pass the limit on this once the first child was killed.

On Veteran's Day and every day we should all strive to have the attitude and dedication of people like Mr. George Porter from Slidell, Louisiana. You have to give extra respect to men from that era who fought for their country because they put their lives on the line for the country at a time when their citizenship was limited. That's patriotism at its highest degree.

8-0 And A Game Ball For Congressmen Cao

When you add it all up it's been a good weekend. I purposely didn't say anything about the Panthers game out of fear of angering Steve Smith and feeling his wrath. It's been a long time since Saints fans didn't go home with visions of #89 ripping their hearts out. We finally beat the Panthers at home and we are not 8-0. I can do without the slow starts but it seems like every week another player is stepping up. This week is was Robert Meachem who made a few big catches and Anthony Hardgrove on defense. They had a good games but neither one of them is my MVP.

My MVP is congressman Joseph Cao who has the distinction of being the one politician that actually voted yes for a health care plan that would benefit the majority of his district. The reality is that he's representing a district that was not created for a man like him to serve. The majority of the people in the district didn't know him before he was elected and it's likely that he won't win re-election no matter what he does. He was a lame duck the day he was sworn in and has nothing to lose. Since he knows this too he could have voted against the bill and fell in line with the rest of his party but instead he voted based on the needs and wishes of the people in his district. That's the reason why Congressman Cao gets the game ball for this week. I think the people he voted yes for need to be on alert this week because the right wing media machine is going to let him have it. Just like the Saints got lucky and found Pierre Thomas, Marques Colston, and Mike Bell maybe our district got lucky and found Joseph Cao.

The New Face Of City Corruption

It doesn’t matter about the race or ethnicity of a person when news breaks of a corruption indictment in New Orleans. My reaction is always the same. I get sad because I think of what we could have done with whatever money or opportunity that was wasted to pull off whatever the scam was. Did we even need crime cameras in the first place? What could the Recreation Department have done with at least half of that money? I guess it’s too late to worry about that. I still think that any news story concerning crime that comes out of this city does damage because no one sees it as a clean up. Everyone sees it as a reminder of just how crooked we are. With that in mind, I feel like it’s time to go ahead and point out that the current face of corruption in New Orleans just so happens to be white.

I realize Nagin is the mayor and he is famous for making the Chocolate City comment that stirred up so much emotion. The fact of the matter is that when it comes to corruption and dealing under the table the city is more of a vanilla and chocolate swirl. Maybe this case will make corruption just a New Orleans issue instead of a black against white issue. Maybe this will make Jim Letten look fair because I happen to be one person that wants him to stay in office as a warning to potential hustlers. Maybe Mr. Meffert will turn over some evidence against the mayor and satisfy the blood thirsty mob that won’t sleep until they see him get arrested. Maybe he won’t because he doesn’t have anything and the only thing Mayor Nagin is guilty of is falling asleep at the wheel while his boy got paid. Whatever happens we need to look at this as tying up lose ends of the past so we can move forward.

Now, there is one thing that can bring the race card back into play. A 63 count indictment is nothing to sneeze at. Mr. Meffert and his wife got hundreds of thousands of dollars from this plan. I’m thinking that if Oliver Thomas has been in prison for since 2007 and serving 37 months for only 15,000, then if Greg Meffert is found guilty he has to at least get a sentence five times that amount. If Oliver Thomas does three years and Greg Meffert gets probation or any kind of soft treatment then I am going to pull out my race card and throw it on the table because that will be the right card to play in my opinion. I don’t think I will have to do that because I believe Mr. Letten is going to set an example with this case. That’s going to be a great thing if it can stop everyone from trying this kind of thing again.

All It Takes Is One Crazy Person

I don’t discussing stuff like what happened at Fort Hood yesterday because sometimes all the coverage takes away from the real story which is that innocent people lost their lives. There were two things I took away from watching the news yesterday. The first thing is that the media is too quick to report facts before they are sure. It started out as multiple gunmen. Then, it was only one shooter who was killed during the incident. It turns out that this guy was still alive in stable condition the whole time. Sometimes we need to calm down and wait until we get the official word. The second thing I took away from what happen is that you never know when one person is going to snap. We are in the era of people saying anything and everything to get the public to their side of a debate. I’m not just talking about Republicans and talk radio either.

It seems to be the norm to say something sensational to make your point. Just this week someone predicted there would be a race riot in New Orleans soon. Rational people who feel stable watch this stuff and pass it off as either foolishness or political posturing. They are right about that but not everyone is as stable as you to hear words of anger and fear all day and not do something crazy. I don’t know what goes on with a soldier during times of war. You can talk to people that have been there but I think it’s something to you have to live for yourself to fully understand. I don’t know who or what are made Major Hasan do what he did yesterday. I do know however that it didn’t take a few hundred Al Qaeda commandos to shut down the largest military base in the country. All it took was one paranoid American with the wrong mindset to do it. The next time you listen to a discussion on an hear about how the government wants to take our freedom and send us to Nazi camps you think about those people that got shot yesterday and remember that someone is taking this stuff literally and you don’t know what they are capable of.

Flex Your Muscles Mr. President

Last year this time I was sitting on my sofa watching election results as Barack Obama defeated John McCain to become president of the United States. I felt like things were looking up in spite of a potential stock market crash and depression on the way. So far during his short time in office there has been a lot going on. Last night there were gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia. The Republican candidate won both of them and now the media and political pundits say that this was an indicator of the country feels about Barack Obama’s policies. I don’t think that is true. I think it may be more a case that so far he hasn’t done anything to keep the people who came out and voted for him energized for change.

Barack Obama won because of young voters and independents. I think he needs to realize one day that those people voted for him and not necessarily the Democratic Party. The country didn’t actually convert over to Democrats. They just felt that he could lay the groundwork for some real changes. It’s not like the Democratic approval ratings were that high last year. That’s one of the reasons why he was able to climb to the top and win. He didn’t have the baggage and shouldn’t have added any baggage to himself either.

I knew he was going to have a little trouble when he appointed the same financial gurus to fix a system they helped to break. Sure, they probably understood how the system works more than anyone else but the people didn’t care. They had to be somebody in this country no associated with Wall Street that could have come in and handled that crisis. That one move alone may have been enough for some to say that everything in Washington is still the same. That opinion is helped along by the way everyone seems to be fighting and getting nothing accomplished. Old school Republicans and Democrats are not that ready to shake up the system and work together for the people. That bi-partisanship is cool but sometimes you when are the new management in charge you have to make an example out of some older employees just to let the rest know that the old days are gone before you can become the good guy that works with everybody.

I personally think that he would be feeling pretty good about everything if he would have bullied the House and Senate to pass the health care bill he wanted with a public option. You can’t have a better example of change where the people benefit more than that. Even the ones that get mad about know we need it deep down. Instead I think we are about to get this lobbyist influenced bill that is going to say reform and not really change the game for anyone. One of his advisers needs to tell the president that it’s okay to throw his weight around a little and to stop making everybody happy. That’s what we want him to do.

One of my favorite new things on the web is watching The Young Turks on YouTube. They are a progressive group but they cover a wide range of topics and are very entertaining. I am one of the few people in this area that really don't care about David Vitter. He's going to win again because enough people in his district like the way he thinks. Nevertheless I thought I would post this clip from their channel because it says a lot about the image of our leadership. The lady in this video was pissed.

Reminiscing On The Song Blog

You should go to the Just a Song blog and check out my latest post. I think it's pretty good. All of the post are good actually. I just a brief Kanye moment. I promised I would write about a song that was made after I was born instead of all the old stuff I usually do. I dedicate that post to my people from the Lower Nine because I drove down there today and decided to pick this song.

Don't Be Mad At Ed Blakely. Be Mad At Yourself

There is a news story about an interview with Ed Blakely. In the interview he had a lot of negative things to say about the city. He basically said the natives were dumb and lazy, black people didn’t like taking orders from white people and white people wanted to seize political power. He says that we paid him all that money because we didn’t want to fix our own city and was just hoping someone like him would do it for us. He also said that if the next mayor wasn’t a clever person there would be a race riot in the city. There were enough harsh words to go around for everyone. He’s probably sitting somewhere spending one of those New Orleans paychecks right now.

When I first read it I was mad at Mr. Blakely and I wanted to call him all kinds of names. I am sure he deserves a few of those names but I thought about it for a minute and realized that he didn’t really say anything that I don’t hear from different people living right here in the city. I even wrote myself last week how we keep wasting money because of our incompetence. The truth of the matter is that we live in a city where black leadership doesn’t have a good image because of the current state of the city. White leadership doesn’t either because too many black people think everything they do is personal and they don’t do anything to prove that theory wrong. Most of us spend our day fussing about some aspect of city government or some demographic that bothers us. Outside of pulling for the Saints, you would be hard pressed to find anything that people in this city rally together for. I can’t be too mad at Ed Blakely for saying what he did. His biggest sin was breaking the local code of putting our personal business in the street. We prefer to keep our problems secret so we don’t scare off the tourists. There are a lot of people that feel like Ed Blakely does but they have to live here and make money so they channel those feelings into being concerned about the conditions of the natives that can’t help themselves.

The men and women running for mayor should save a copy of Mr. Blakely’s interview and watch it several times a day because whether we like it or not it’s how people view the city. We have no one to blame for that but ourselves and we are the only ones that are going to change that. I say we all agree that the first candidate who spends all of their time trying to tell us what we suck at instead of how we can be better they should be forced to shut their campaign down immediately. I’m tired of paying people all this money for things we can do for ourselves and having them look down on us. When is all that local pride we say we have going to kick in for real progress.

7-0

After a game like tonight all you can do is take a shower, finish off your game liquor and go to sleep. Before I go to sleep I have a few things to say to some of the players.

To Jabari Greer and Darren Sharper: Thank you for coming to our city. You two may be the key to going to Miami.

To Marques Colston : I was wrong. You might be the real deal.

To Jeremy Shockey: Please see what I said about Marques Colston

To Mike Bell: Please see what I said about Greer and Sharper.

To Will Smith: Sorry for all the things I said to my boys about you.

To all my peeps who thought I was being negative earlier: when I was five years old I had a white am radio alarm clock and was listening to Saints games in my room crying because they were so sad. Back then you had to listen to the radio because they were so sad that they never sold out. We couldn’t afford a ticket at my house but I listened on that radio like I was there. If I don’t go to the game I am still doing the same thing today. I have been through Dick Nolan, Bum Phillips, Mike Ditka, Jim Mora, Jim Haslett and Sean Payton. I am battle tested and I want to go to the Superbowl. Let’s get it done!

The Bandwagon Is Getting Crowded

There is nothing that brings me more pleasure in sports than when the Saints beat Atlanta. There's also not another team that reminds me of how rough it's been over the last 30 + years of following this team. These Saints/Falcons games are personal. I like being undefeated but this media attention after only 6 games is starting to bother me a little. It would be one thing if our team was used to it but they are not. I like flying under the radar and keeping the routine close to the same. Peyton Manning and the Colts figure out how to do this every year in spite of all the commercials he does. The national media acts like the Saints are the best team in the league. Most of these folks had the team going 8-8 but now they can't stop raving about us. I don't like that because it takes away our edge. I don't want to be kissed up to until we are in the Superbowl. Then and only then will all of that admiration be legitimate.

If you just started following the team since Katrina you won't understand what I am saying. Just remember I told you that the first lost or rough stretch of games that all teams have we are going to be pushed aside like a flash in the pan. They all really want Brett Favre or Tony Romo to play in the Superbowl anyway. They don't want New Orleans to win and kill their ratings and promotion. If you want to know why I am talking so negative about the team being popular instead of holding parades in their honor this early in the season, it's because I can sense a little changing of attitudes on the team. They look a little too cheerful to me to only be 6-0. They could end up 6-10 and all this was just a brief moment of happiness for nothing. They need to stay hungry and come out like the same team no one thought had a chance. They are playing the pre-season favorites who will be fighting for a chance to win the division tonight because if we win it will be hard to come back from three games down with our schedule. They will give it all they have and we need to match that. I hope the first half of the Miami game was a wake up call. You are not going to come out flat like that and come back against NFL teams that often.

With all that being said.................Saints 35 Falcons 17. This isn't the week that the bandwagon breaks down.