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If you didn’t have fun last night, well then you are just a sorry human being (or a Colts fan, which is about the same). Oh and guess what? It’s Mardi Gras. Boom.

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Photograph by Greg Rhoades

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There are lowlifes and there are lowlife scum-of-the-earth piss buckets that don’t give a second thought to stealing a man’s instrument. And not just any man, mind you, or any instrument. Uncle Lionel Batiste, among the eldest of the elder statesmen of New Orleans jazz musicians, had his bass drum stolen (this, one and only hand-made bass drum) after marching with the Treme Brass Band in Krewe de Vieux.

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The man is 79 years old. He made the drum himself and used it not only to preserve the New Orleans sound of music, but to teach and mentor countless musicians under him. Unc is a city treasure and his drum is an artifact. Whoever stole that drum is either very ignorant or very hateful, but either way, they must be found, caught and made to pay.

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You do not steal a man’s drum. Especially if he’s still alive and beating it. Anyone who sees it - on the street, on eBay or wherever - that drum is stolen goods. Let’s get it back into the right hands and back into the groove.

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Screen grab taken from NOLA.com

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You know, I’ve had my fun taking jabs at NOLA.com and their (lack of) diverse online content, but I must say they are doing a bang-up job covering all things Super Bowl so far. Well, at least I thought as much until I saw them use a four-month-old photo taken by Jonathan Bachman on their front page (thumbnail on the bottom left-hand corner). That is, how you say?, bullshit.

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Of course, upon further examination it becomes apparent that the photo they stole from us is really a screen grab from a Saints tribute video that stole the photo from us first. Yes, that totally absolves a major metropolitan newspaper’s Web site from running an unaccredited photo from a credentialed photographer on their front page. Totally.

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Photo lifted from the fine folks at WWLTV.com

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A week after pigs flew through a Hell frozen over, the New Orleans Saints finally landed in Miami to begin on-site training for the Super Bowl. Well, most of the Saints finally arrived, that is. Six of them were already in Miami to attend the Pro Bowl, which they were voted into but (thankfully) had good reasons not to play in. At one point during the NFL Network broadcast, Michael Irvin was speaking to Jonathan Vilma and asked if he feels like he’s missing out on coming off the plane with his teammates. Vilma said it’s more important to disembark with his teammates back in New Orleans with a Super Bowl trophy.

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But what would Vilma and his five teammates do while when the rest of the squad arrived? If you think about it, it does seem like an awkward situation. All year Sean Payton and Co. have been preaching the line about team unity and effort. This Saints’ team is not about one player, or even the six that made it to the Pro Bowl. So how do you reconcile the fact that the Pro Bowlers are already in Miami because they’ve been selected as being more exceptional than their teammates? Dress them up as bellhops and greet the rest of the team when they pull up to the hotel, that’s how.

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As the stories from across the country start to pile up this Super Bowl week, one thing Saints fans will likely hear over and over is how Sean Payton is a “master motivator”. He’s a deeply cerebral student of the game and takes after his mentor, Bill Parcells, in using psychological tactics in all phases of the game. Payton, though, seems to have more of a loose streak than Parcells. This is a guy who played “Stand Up and Get Crunked” to get his players motivated in the locker room as well as giving every Saint a bat with the words “Bring the wood”. And now you see him dress up his star players as bell hops and greet the rest of the team in a move that almost certainly is meant to convey that those players wouldn’t have made it to the Pro Bowl if not for their teammates’ help.

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Now the Saints are all together and have six days to prepare for the biggest games of their lives. For a franchise that’s never been to the big game - and a city still coming to grips with their team’s new-found success - Payton sure is acting like a seasoned championship head coach. Forget that this is the Saints’ only Super Bowl appearance, Payton talks about veteran leadership and poise and he and his players will no doubt repeat the lines “we’re here to do a job” and “we have to finish strong” about one million times when asked how they’re dealing with the media spotlight.

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Being in a small market like New Orleans allows Payton and his players to somewhat fly under the radar nationally. Anyone whose worn black and gold for a game this season knows they have the undying affection of this city, so really, the trick for Payton is to keep his players focused at the task at hand, but loose enough to keep the pressure off. The New Orleans head coach just showed he can mix fun with hard work. Saints fans will love to see the hard work pay off with the party of a lifetime on Sunday.

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Photograph by Jonathan Bachman

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Good thing it’s the Super Bowl this week and New Orleans fans can ignore this. This Hornets’ season just got a whole lot tougher as Chris Paul will be out for up to two months after he undergoes arthroscopic knee surgery. And Phoenix comes to town tomorrow night. Great.

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Photograph by Jonathan Bachman

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After coming back from a 15-point third quarter deficit and having the lead with less than 10 seconds left in the game, the Hornets seemed poised to ride their home-court magic to another improbable victory. Then one bad David West pass and one bad Darren Collison turnover spelled doom for Bees as they fell 108-106 in overtime to the resurgent Chicago Bulls.

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“That one’s on me,” the rookie Collison said after his turnover sealed the Hornets fate tonight. “I let my team down. Definitely going to lose sleep on that play.”

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Granted, Collison’s turnover came at the worst possible time and prevented the Hornets from even attempting a game-tying shot, but there were many other factors that contributed to this loss. For one, the Hornets could have called a timeout before Collison dribbled wildly into the opposing defense. Secondly, New Orleans could have come out of the halftime break a little stronger than they did before giving up a 15-point lead. Most importantly, the Hornets would’ve won if they weren’t so sloppy.

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“We weren’t real sharp in the first three quarters,” head coach Jeff Bower said.

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If there’s any positive to take from this game is that the Hornets shot just 39.4% the entire game and were outscored 60-36 in the paint, yet still only lost by two points. This on a night where the Hornets PA system did everything it its power to channel the Saints’ good vibes by playing the Ying Yang Twins’ “Get Crunked” and showing black and gold-clad fans as often as possible in the fourth quarter.

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“We gave ourselves an opportunity to win,” Chris Paul said. “We made a few mistakes there at the end.”

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No, the Hornets are most definitely not the Saints right now and, yes, they have a long way to go to before becoming a team that can be relied on to consistently win these types of games. But what have the Hornets done to have their fans expect anything else this season? At 25-21, New Orleans is just good enough to compete for the eighth and final playoff seed in the West. Against a 23-22 Bulls team doing just the same in the Eastern Conference, the Hornets came up short. The question is whether this is a reflection of the Hornets season as a whole, or just a bump in the road on this teams’ road to finding itself in the winner’s circle.

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Now that the Saints are in the Super Bowl, Who Dats everywhere have to get ready for a seismic shift in the national perception of their team. They are no longer burdened by being one of the few franchises to never make it to the big game and they no longer must think of themselves as perennial losers. Oh, and all that wacky, local fandom that, over the all the years of losing has created some of the most memorable and inspiring fan-created Saints iconography? Yea, the NFL wants that dead.

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WWL is reporting that the NFL has sent cease-and-desist orders to a slew of local merchants selling merchandise with the words “Who Dat” or a black and gold fleur de lis. Per the WWL article:

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“I really thought the ‘Who Dat’ was something that belonged to the people more than to the Saints or to the NFL or anything else,” said Storyville co-owner Josh Harvey.

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According to NFL spokesman Dan Masonson, “Any unauthorized use of the Saints colors and other [marks] designed to create the illusion of an affiliation with the Saints is equally a violation of the Saints trademark rights because it allows a third party to ‘free ride’ by profiting from confusion of the team’s fans, who want to show support for the Saints.”

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Loyola Law School intellectual property professor Ray Arieaux said the ownership of ‘Who Dat’ may be a gray area.

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“Is there some unfair trade taking place because maybe the public does associate that with the Saints? The question is what does the public associate with ‘Who Dat,’” Arieaux asked.

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And the NFL isn’t the only company claiming ownership of the phrase.

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Yes it seems that the NFL is quick to jump into the fray when there’s Super Bowl-type money to be made, claiming ownership of a phrase that most likely originated on the radio. After all, how else would you explain the NFL waiting until this post-season to start cracking down? Either the NFL doesn’t watch its own games (unlikely) or didn’t care about local merchants profiting off of Who Dat merchandise because the Saints were never that good to begin with (most likely).

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This also speaks to a much bigger issue that Who Dats everywhere should start to take into account. As beloved as the Saints are, and as wholesome and pure people would like to believe their connection to the town is, the team and the NFL are corporate entities in the business of making a profit.

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“But the Saints are different! They’re the new America’s team!” some might say. True, the connection that the Saints have with this city is unique, but that has more to do with the whims of mother nature and the teams’ heartfelt response to relief efforts. And yes, the Saints and Carnival may be balancing the City budget, but that doesn’t make this situation any different than any of the hard-luck teams that came before and the profit they generated (for themselves) after historic wins.

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And if you’re still holding out judgment on this and think that the NFL will look past their greedy corporatism for the sake of the fans, realize that their is a precedent for such actions. Just look at the Boston Red Sox and how they treated their long-suffering fan base after winning their first World Series in almost 100 years. Touching, really.

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See that picture up there? That picture was taken within a second of Garret Hartley’s game-winning field goal kick split the uprights and sent the Saints to the Super Bowl. Of all the pictures I took on Sunday, this has to be my abosolute favorite. The hands in the air, the complete and utter joy on the faces of the fans and - the best part - the two men in front who have yet to react, still digesting the fact that their team is in the Super Bowl.

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Sorrow, disbelief, doubt, distress, joy, and elation; the finals minutes Sunday’s game ran a complete gamut of emotion and it was almost unbearable to watch Saints fans go through them. Follow the jump to check out all the emotions.

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