Another Super Bowl the Colts couldn't lose

Oops.

Never give in

Pigs flew. Hell froze over. The world came to an end. Baptists drank their own beer.

God Almighty, the New Orleans Saints just won the Super Bowl!

Tears were shed.

For 43 years, people like me -- people from the Gret Stet of Loosiana -- have been settling for picking a temporary favorite team in the Super Bowl because the Super Bowl was no place for our team, the oft-woeful Saints. For the likes of us, the NFL experience often was best taken in through the eye holes of a paper bag.

The one with "Ain'ts" written on the outside.

FOR 43 YEARS, more often than not, when you told somebody who wasn't from your neck of the woods that you were a Saints fan, the response was laughter. Or condolences. One was as bad as the other.

We done wid all dat now. Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints? Not a damn body, dat who!

Louisiana is a poor state, one where the schools weren't good enough, and the government wasn't honest enough, and the jobs didn't pay enough, and our expectations weren't high enough. Sometimes, we figured we were just born to lose.

Born to lose on the pro gridiron, and born to lose in the greater scheme of America. No. 1? That's where Louisiana finished in all the bad national rankings -- illiteracy . . . poverty . . . corruption . . . whatever.

YEARS AGO, a favorite New Orleans sportscaster said he'd parade down Bourbon Street in a fancy dress if the Saints ever made it to the Super Bowl. Last week, thousands -- tens of thousands -- of cross-dressing New Orleans men paraded down Bourbon in honor of Buddy Diliberto, who never lived to make good on his promise.

This week . . .

Pigs flew. Hell froze over. The world came to an end. And Baptists drank their own damn beer.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph! There is hope. The impossible is possible.

Who knows? In another 43 years, Louisiana may be on top of all the good lists and the bottom of all the bad.

Who knows? Louisiana might be a rich state, one where the schools are the best anywhere, and the government surpasses Scandinavian levels of orderliness and efficiency, and the jobs pay well indeed, and our expectation is one of excellence.

IN THE WAKE of this most improbable of nights, my mind keeps drifting to what Winston Churchill told his battered, bloodied, frightened nation in 1941 after Nazi Germany had failed -- just -- to bomb it into oblivion:

You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done. Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination. But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period - I am addressing myself to the School - surely from this period of ten months this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. We stood all alone a year ago, and to many countries it seemed that our account was closed, we were finished. All this tradition of ours, our songs, our School history, this part of the history of this country, were gone and finished and liquidated.

BACK TO the unlikely present, it seems to me we can take the same lesson from this football band of free agents, late-round draft picks, castoffs and reclamation projects: "[N]ever give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."

It might look hopeless. It might take 43 damn years. But never give in . . . "never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in."

Amen.

3 Chords & the Truth: Black & gold, baby!

They're throwing a Super Bowl in Miami, and my long-suffering Saints are in it.

I've only been waiting for this since . . . oh . . . 1967. That was the year the NFL came to New Orleans. I was 6.

So what have I been doing today? Lying on South Beach?

MORE LIKE splitting my time in snowy Omaha between shoveling wet, leaden frozen precipitation and putting together this episode of 3 Chords & the Truth. Well, that's OK -- so long as I have some good music and a hot cup of tea, I can cope.

And I'll bet you can, too.

In honor of the Saints being in the Big Game, the Big Show features some Louisiana artists this week (though, truth be told, that's not exactly an unusual thing around here). Good is good, and there's a lot of good music around my home state.

Anyway, I'll just leave you with this simple thought: WHO DAT?

It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Ainnit true, Cap? Yeah, you right!

Bra, dat dere is da funniess T-shoit evah!

An' dat because it da damn troot, cher!

My mama an dem ain't from Noo Orluns, but dat how dey tawk. You do indeed wrench ya' dishes in da zink. Only Mama say it mo' lak "zank" when she announce she gonna go wrench da dishes.


ANYHOW, dat shoit can be got fum da same sto' dat dem NFL Yankee bastids tried ta "cease an' desiss" ta det, sayin' dey can't put "Who Dat" on a shoit.

But dey had ta back down, bra, cause when dey pick on da Fleurty Girl, dey pick on all da Who Dat Nashun, and we gon' kick dey azz. Dat's fuh true!

Only in New Orleans

Once upon a time, down in the City That Care Forgot, there was a sportscaster, name of Buddy Diliberto. Buddy D for short.

Buddy D achieved local-legend status, almost as legendary as WWL-TV legend Hap Glaudi. Neither guy could have existed anywhere but New Orleans -- mainly, because it would have been too troublesome and costly for a TV station anywhere else to put subtitles on their sportscast.

Also because, unless they brought in an English-speaking Yat to do the subtitling, you would have had a lot of "????????????????" at the bottom of your TV screen.

BUT THAT'S not important now.

What's important is that Buddy D -- who sadly did not live to see the day his Saints made it to the Super Bowl -- always used to say that if the Saints ever made it to the Big Game, he'd march down Bourbon Street in a dress.

And today, in a classic "only in New Orleans" moment, hundreds of Saints fans of the male persuasion did just that. In honor of Buddy D.

Of course, it didn't look that different from any other day on Bourbon Street, but that's not important now, either.

Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints? Who dat? Who dat?

W** d** say d** gonna beat d** S*****?

Crescent City funk master Dr. John went suddenly mute Thursday in the wake of a weeklong National Football League sweep across New Orleans with cease-and-desist orders in defense of its trademark on "Who Dat?" and other Saints-related phrases.

Local attorneys speculate the music legend was advised by counsel to cease all forms of communication, except for the occasional grunt and some rudimentary hand signs, out of fear that trademarks held by the league would subject Dr. John's entire vocabulary to stiff licensing fees or litigation.

When a reporter called the New Orleans home of the singer and piano man -- born in 1940 as Mac Rebennack -- someone picked up the phone, but did not respond to any questions. Only breathing could be heard over the line.

More details on this story as they become available.

EARLIER, a New Orleans daily, The Times-Picayune, reported on the "Who Dat?" controversy:

Count the National Football League among the growing members of Who Dat Nation. After all, they own the phrase -- or so they say in cease and desist letters sent out to at least two local T-shirt retailers earlier this month.

In letters sent to Fleurty Girl and Storyville, the NFL ordered the retailers to stop selling a host of merchandise that it says violates state and federal trademarks held by the New Orleans Saints.

Among the long list of things the NFL says is off-limits without a licensing agreement are some obvious violations like the official logo of the Saints and the team's name. But the one that stands out is "Who Dat."

Who knew?

The NFL, noting a 1988 trademark the Saints registered with the Louisiana secretary of state, says it has exclusive rights to the phrase and demands that the retailers stop selling it.

"I was surprised," Fleurty Girl owner Lauren Thom said. "I think everybody was."

Thom's shirts feature the phrase Who Dat written as one word with lowercase letters and preceded by a hash mark, a nod to the language of the social networking site Twitter. On Twitter, a hash mark followed by a word unifies all tweets on a specific topic. If a tweet, for instance, includes #whodat, it joins other posts on a page generally about Saints topics on Twitter.

"It was designed to unify the Who Dat Nation, not within a tweet, but through a shirt," said Thom, who began selling the shirts in August on her Web site before opening a store on Oak Street two months ago.

The NFL also claims that several shirts at Storyville T-Shirts violate the NFL trademark, including a black shirt with the phrase Who Dat Nation, a name commonly used to refer to Saints fans, and a black shirt that uses the term Who Dat along with the Roman numeral XLIV.

According to the letter, "any combination of design elements (even if not the subject of a federal or state trademark registration), such as team colors, roman numerals and other references to the Saints" are also trademark violations.

That means that a black shirt featuring XLIV in gold letters, a representation of this year's Super Bowl, is off limits.

The video worth 10,000 words

We've only been waiting for this moment since 1967.

We've only suffered through countless seasons of NFL futility, bags over our embarrassed heads.

We well remember 1975 1979 -- the Saints first non-losing season -- when 8-8 felt almost as good as what we imagined 16-0 must be like. Not that we dared imagine such crazy things as 16-0 . . . 9-7, maybe.

WE ONLY WERE born to a state where, it seems, damn little ever goes right and getting collectively ahead can seem just as insane a proposition as the Ain'ts going to the Super Bowl.

Hell, it's about as crazy as having a place kicker with half a foot kick a 63-yard field goal. Oh, wait. . . .

AND NOW THIS. Which puts the remarkable video (at top) from the The Times-Picayune in a little better context.

Today, even Christianity seems a little less audacious. A little.

WHO DAT!?!

The Saints are coming

WHO DAT!

Down in Louisiana, we always thought the long-suffering Saints would make it to the Super Bowl about the same time hell froze over.

Well, the forecast tonight for Hell is rain and snow. Low around freezing.

OK, it's Hell, Mich., but what the . . . well, you know.

After the screaming and jumping up and down, a tear or two may have been shed in the Favog household. Go, Saints! Go!