Reed, they're refurbishing the Superdome for the Superbowl in 2013. James Carville and Mary Matalin are the new whatever-it's-called when two former White House advisors decide to move to a busted city and kind of take over the place. Oh yeah, they ended up running the Super Bowl committee about a month after the moved here.

They're actually replacing the original aluminum exoskeleton (the panels of the dome are actually made of the same material as the Mardi Gras doubloons - or coins - that are thrown from the floats,) so it's as shiny as it was when it was first built. They replaced the first set of panels relatively quickly, as the side facing I-10 is about halfway done (1/8 done in total) and that took about a month.

To go with your butterfly effect, one of the major decisions after the storm was to pick what to build first. The Police Stations ? (as the cops had to operate out of trailers for 3 years hence, including crime labs and CSI junk. This may have had something to contribute to the murder rate.) The schools ? (as you see literally crumbling facades and stairs, and those are the good schools like McMain.) Or the Dome ? (as Benson would've moved them if he could.)

The Dome was picked, and somehow the powers-that-be bet on a symbol rather than the nuts and bolts of a functioning government. In typical Nawlins fashion, that has worked out in a New Orleanian way. Not only that, but the Bensons ended up getting a few skyscrapers and buildings around the dome that businesses left after Katrina. One is called Benson Tower.

The good side effect from all of this was that at-the-time President of the Saints, Arnie Fielkow, went public in his efforts to keep the team in the city. Benson promptly fired him. Fielkow was promptly elected to the city council, and is one of the best city councilmen of all-time so far.

I stayed up to watch the 1st half. Manning was imperious in the 1st qtr. Thought Saints would regret not scoring a TD in the 2nd qtr. So pretty surprised to see the final score when I woke up.

Is the SB always in a hot weather city? And if so why?

JV, upthread you referred to a secondline parade you attended - is that a military thing?

Kid A, it's a Mardi Gras thing.

About the furthest thing from it.

It comes from jazz funerals, when the "first line" was the family, casket, and band. The "second line" was the people in the umbrellas dancing behind them.

Over the years, African-Americans were not allowed to get insurance, so "Social, Aid and Pleasure Clubs" popped up to help pay for medical or funeral expenses. Once a year, they decided to throw their own parades. Here's my favorite vid of the Revolution S&P Club with the Rebirth Brass Band marching through the CP3 (the Calliope Projects, home of Master P and C-Murder.)

I was so angry, because I was just out of this video with my daughter on my shoulders. This was the group that my student's father was in. The Goodfellas . Last year's outfits were much nicer and the band was better (as it was the Hot 8,) but my daughter got a beanie baby out of the deal.

David Simon's upcoming Tremé series deals with all of this.

The Super Bowl is usually in a warm weather city because most of the people who attend the actual game are corporate sponsor hangers-on and associated rich douches, not the actual fans of the teams, so they want to put it in an attractive vaction spot. February in New York, for example, is too cold and snowy and, as we're seeing in DC this week, the travel possibilities in February can be very unpredictable.

There's also a school of thought that says that the Super Bowl ought to be played in good weather because for some reason we wouldn't want the outcome of the final game heavily influenced by the weather. I don't agree with that at all. Besides, it rains in Miami and some Super Bowls have been played in the rain.

However, over the years, and more recently, the NFL has "awarded" Super Bowls to cities that build a new stadium for their NFL team. Thus, we've had two Super Bowls in Detroit and a couple in cities that aren't really prime tourist destinations - Jacksonville and Houston.

There has been talk of possibly playing the game in an outdoor stadium in the north - for example, in the soon to be new Giants/Jets stadium or if and when the Redskins get a new monstrosity, but I think the sponsors generally oppose that.

I for one would love to see a Super Bowl in Ice Bowlconditions. Football has become way, way, way too much of a soft southern game played by preening Floridians for the benefit of Foppish Dandies and their bored trophy wives in heated luxury suites. It needs to get back to its roots of the Duluth Eskimos, Canton Bulldogs, Bronco Nugurski and all of that..

Well I'm glad I asked those questions. The jazz funerals are pretty amazing. I've never seen anything like that. Cheers JV.

Reed I couldn't get your first 2 clips to work but I enjoyed the OTT nature of the commentary on the last one. I hadn't thought of the tourism reasons for the SB being in a hot city. I guessed it was something to do with showing a pretty spectacle and not letting the conditions interfere with the game. But I think that sucks - if you're the best team you should be able to cope in any weather.

No one in the world does OTT commentary (or poetry) better than NFL Films.

Lombardi Gras is rolling on www.nola.com.

I realise it's very childish, but I was giggling like a fool at the commentary on that link of Reed's:

The Last Man To Play Both Ways
"When he went both ways against us that bothered me a great deal"

The Tracy Porter pick 6 as seen from a bar. This video gets me kind of misty-eyed, because that moment when the interception happens, the huge outburst of joy that everyone feels and you feel like you're best friends with everyone around you that's sharing in the same joy...you don't get that from anything else besides sports.

A post-game victory video: vimeo.com/9287905

Appropriately, Porter was on a Pirate Ship float tonight.

Unfortunately, Brees was not only so drunk that everyone was worried that he'd fall off the float, but he made a point of toasting Sen. David "F Dem Hos" Vitter and Governor Bubbyjindal when he was in front of Gallier Hall. He's no Fujita.

Also unfortunately, the Fux station had the best feed, and jerkoff Mayor Nagin was showing off his new attempted skills as party MC. Every politican tonight that was trying to be a part of the celebration looked like an absolute asswipe. Sen. Landrieu's eyeballs rolling into the back of her head when she was singing "Star Spangled Banner," the US Marine band being forced to play "Get Crunked" with their 'funky' moves, Mayor-Elect Landrieu getting on the Budweiser Clydesdale float and doing a "raise the roof" hand motion while not getting mentioned at all (and I mean at all) by the tv announcers, and scumbags Vitter and Jindal there.

I've been doing this thing with my daughter, where I put her in a spaghetti pot and carry her around the house saying "baby in the pot....baby in the pot." So when she sees a pot, she says "Pot !"

Last week in the Krewe du Vieux parade, there was a float with Jindal, Landrieu, Vitter, Landrieu, and Nagin in a pot surrounded by a fire in hell. My daughter screamed "pot !" Tonight, it was a definite "pot !"

"the autumn wind is a pirate"

No it isn't.

Is Brees conservative? I didn't know that.

Yeah, politicians at victory parades are the worst. Even the ones I like. At the Laker parade last year, apparently Mayor Villaraigosa horned his way onto the main bus so he could stand next to Kobe. Kobe refused get on if Villaraigosa was going to stand right next to him, and Villaraigosa wouldn't ride anywhere else, so the parade started late. Kobe got on, and Villaraigosa was on the same bus, but further to the back. Then there was this great moment:

As the team bus approached Georgia Street, it was greeted by about 100 city workers who had labored throughout the previous day and night preparing the Coliseum for the rally. The bus stopped in front of them and the hard-working crew went ballistic for the team and shouted and cheered like they'd lost their minds. Then the mayor popped up from among the players and waved to the group, which suddenly turned silent, as if a spigot had been turned off.

Not necessarily a conservative, but quite close. Like I've said, he visited Guantanamo and had this to say:

"I can say this after that experience -- the worst thing we can do is shut that baby down, for a lot of reasons," Brees said. "But I think there's a big misconception as to how we are treating those prisoners; those detainees over there. They are being treated probably 10 times better than any prisoner in a U.S. prison."

"I mean, they're allowed to call and write letters home, and receive letters and calls. They get five opportunities a day to pray, and they have arrows in the prison pointing towards where Mecca is. And the prison goes dead silent so these guys can have their religious time. They have rooms where they can watch movies and play Nintendo Wii. So I think that just goes ahead and says it right there."

"And you just talk to all the guards that are Army and Navy personnel, they'll tell you stories about how these prisoners, they'll be walking the cell blocks as they're keeping an eye on these guys and they'll be throwing the feces and urine in the faces of the guards as they walk by and the guards are not allowed to do anything. They're not allowed to physically retaliate or do anything hardly to try to restrain these guys at all. These guys get away with whatever they want."

"the autumn wind is a pirate"

No it isn't.

If John Facenda said the autumn wind is a pirate, than the autumn wind is a goddamned pirate.

jason voorhees wrote:
Not necessarily a conservative, but quite close. Like I've said, he visited Guantanamo and had this to say:

"I can say this after that experience -- the worst thing we can do is shut that baby down, for a lot of reasons," Brees said. "But I think there's a big misconception as to how we are treating those prisoners; those detainees over there. They are being treated probably 10 times better than any prisoner in a U.S. prison."

"I mean, they're allowed to call and write letters home, and receive letters and calls. They get five opportunities a day to pray, and they have arrows in the prison pointing towards where Mecca is. And the prison goes dead silent so these guys can have their religious time. They have rooms where they can watch movies and play Nintendo Wii. So I think that just goes ahead and says it right there."

"And you just talk to all the guards that are Army and Navy personnel, they'll tell you stories about how these prisoners, they'll be walking the cell blocks as they're keeping an eye on these guys and they'll be throwing the feces and urine in the faces of the guards as they walk by and the guards are not allowed to do anything. They're not allowed to physically retaliate or do anything hardly to try to restrain these guys at all. These guys get away with whatever they want."


What a horribly naive thing to say, hopefully Fujita will set him straight.

Well, after that he did film the Obama commerical.

nola.com has 3 real nice looking vids of the parade in the scroll-down lower left hand corner. I wish I could've seen it at Canal St instead of the douchebag politicians, because it looked much better there.