I had never been a football fan until I moved to New Orleans. Never. I couldn't understand the obsession or the fanaticism. Back in New Jersey, not everyone liked the same teams. At the cab company we had a few Giants fans, an Eagles fan, some guy who loved the Jets and another who liked a mid west team for some strange reason. I used to listen to them perplexed as they would become abusive and belligerent towards each other over sports teams. "Your team SUCKS!" "No, your team sucks more! " " They both suck, mine is the best!" I would silently think to myself, "Are you for real? Why do you base your self esteem on the success or failure of total strangers who couldn't give a shit about how well you do your job?"
I had a passenger ask me once "You a Giants fan?"
"Nope."
"What teams do you like?"
"None."
"NONE?? What do you mean?"
"I don't follow football, never did, never will."
"What are you? A FAGOT?"
Let's examine that statement. You spend your Sundays with your male friends squeezed onto the same couch or elbow to elbow at a bar, watching sweaty, muscular, athletic MEN roll around in the mud piled on top of each other while wearing skin tight pants. When they do well, you and your buddies high five and even hug. When your team of MEN are done, they pat each other on the asses and take a shower together. The only thing that is even remotely heterosexual about football are the cheerleaders who they seldom show. If your team of MEN do well, you feel good about yourselves and your self esteem goes through the roof. Like you as the fan actually acomplished something yourself, but you didn't. You wasted several hours of your free time cheering on millionares. If your team fails, you are in a bad mood for days, acting like a pissy little bitch whose man didn't please her. Football is very gay.
The GIANTS
Most of northern New Jersey love the Giants. The Giants are a NJ team. The stadium is in Jersey, the players live in Jersey, the fans are in Jersey, the revenue comes from and goes to New Jersey. The team calls themselves THE NEW YORK GIANTS. Isn't that kind of a slap in the face? I mean, if I had a hot young trophy wife she better be using my name. If you are spending my money, you better be calling yourself MRS STYLES bitch. However, New Jersey has such low self esteem that they allow their team to take the name of another state that already has two teams of it's own, the Jets and some team out of Buffalo NY. In all fairness to the Giants, would you want to be associated with New Jersey? Of course not.
It wasn't until I arrived in New Orleans that I started to understand the football thing. Perhaps because Saints fans aren't complete assholes like Giant fans were back in Jersey. NOLA has such a loyalty to the Saints, it is part of the community. Not just some franchise making a buck off of fans, the Saints are inspiration to a city that feels isolated and alienated from the rest of the country. In times when the residents of the city seem to be shooting each other at an alarming rate, there is almost a truce on game day. If some local points a gun at you and you can manage to yell "WHO DAT!" before he pulls the trigger, you may get to live. Music, food, parades and the Saints is all that keep New Orleans imploding like some middle eastern capital.
NY GIANTS 24 • THE SAINTS 49
