http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-saints-celebrate10-2010feb10,0,1664938.story
Reporting from New Orleans – If pro football really is the national religion, the Mardi Gras-style victory parade for the New Orleans Saints on Tuesday displayed the varieties of religious experience: What other event would bring together Bobby Jindal, Louisiana’s choirboy GOP governor, and the Ying Yang Twins, the Southern rap duo whose songs describe sexual activities that barely sound biologically possible?
On Monday, Saints quarterback Drew Brees starred in the Super Bowl victor’s traditional parade through Disney World. But baby, this ain’t Disney World. This is the louche, gothic, funky old city of dreams, on the third night of a celebratory bender.
“If you didn’t come here to have fun, something is wrong with you,” outgoing Mayor C. Ray Nagin yelled outside Gallier Hall, where the Ying Yangs, warming up the crowd, had performed the Saints’ hip-hop anthem while Jindal listened nearby.
For a city with a good pro football team, it’s convenient to have Mardi Gras in February. The parade, which began at the Superdome, borrowed a dozen floats from the major Mardi Gras krewes. Players rode amid papier-mache trappings, chucking beads to adoring crowds in a sea of black and gold.
Little distinguished this from the deliriously frivolous parades that have been rolling through these streets for centuries — except the float with the coach, Sean Peyton, hoisting the shiny football-shaped trophy that had avoided New Orleans like a teetotaling tourist.
“This is better than any Mardi Gras,” said longtime fan Gene Guilbeaux, 49.
LATimes.com
2/10/10
Magnolia Tribune
