Five days in the Bay

Day One: Thursday
After touchdown in San Francisco at 8:53am, we find baggage claim, make a Starbuck's stop then board a shared shuttle to the Westin Market Street, thirty-five floors of steel, concrete and huge glass windows with a panoramic view of the city from every room. We're too early for check-in so we leave our bags with the bell hop, consult the concierge for landmarks and off we go.
We don't get very far before we realize it's 10:30am, misty and cool.  Fifty-four degrees cool.  Earlier, as we pulled into the hotel I noticed California Pizza Kitchen directly across the street.  So cold and hungry, we decided to make that our first stop.
California Pizza Kitchen.  The place that started the whole wood burning oven upscale gourmet pizza fad.  It also, I have on first hand authority, is the inspiration for the Louisiana Pizza Kitchen chain here in New Orleans.  It's true. In 1987, Michel Fredj, founder of Louisiana Pizza Kitchen,  came back to his Cafe Bastille Bistro on Esplanade after a trip to California and proclaimed to a linen deliveryman.  "Dats eet!  No moar Bi'stro! Zee money, is too much! From now on, pies!" (Michel is french) Thus Louisiana Pizza Kitchen was born.
Meanwhile, our waiter/ poet filled us in on the wheres and where nots of the city as white corn guacamole (as good as it sounds), korean bbq tacos(just ok), spicey thai quesadilla(excellent) and a margharita pizza flowed past our tongues and warmed our souls.  We like this town.  So far so good.
It didn't take long for the wifey to realize that walking the ultra steep and windy streets of San Fran in three inch platform wedges gets old in a hurry.  Alas, Macy's Union Square!
Ahh Macy's, an eight floor oasis of womens clothes, accessories, cosmetics and...
Shoes! Shoes!
Second floor.  The whole second floor! A full city block sized sea of slingbacks, ballet flats, peep toes, and closed toes!
Guys, this is like us walking into Hooter's on calendergirl day.


A table in Chinatown displaying their
daily "catch" 

A woman's feet saved and still hours away from check-in, the wife and I hit the streets again and head toward Chinatown.  I couldn't wait to get there to sample some authentic chinese food. So we walked through the Stockton tunnel following the sights, sounds and smells. As we get closer, it's as if 2011 rolled back to the 1940's. Big box retailors diappeared into sidewalk specailty markets with folding storefront tables.
Simplicit brilliance.
If you want fresh fish, you go to the fresh fish market.
Veggies? Next door, at the veggie store.
Same with fruit, can goods, groceries,etc. These tables are fully stocked with anything and everything chinese.  And the smells!  Approaching Chinatown you're hit with the smell of citrus.  Further in, onions, chinese cucumber, and mounds of greens. But the Chanel #5 of C-town is when your olfactory senses are hit like a Bruce Lee kick of funkage to the nose. The dried fish market.  Bus pans crowned with dried shrimp, fish eyes, minnows and any fish unlucky enough to be caught in last week's nets line the tables side by side.  The craving for authentic Chinese quickly disappears.  But souvenoir shops, clothing stores, tea bars,  hair salons and Chinatown's charm comforts you into wanting to hang around.  It's that comfort that comes upon you as your quick pace turns to stroll and you take it all in.
Nice.
We're hungry again and getting a little tired, so we head back to the hotel to check in.  That, we quickly learn is the beauty of San Fran.  Everything is desirable, doable and walkable.
After settling in, we head back out for dinner.  We noticed Sears Fine Foods close by, so in we went.  This place was 1940.  Opened in 1938, Sears is a local legend.  The menu reads like mom's house on Thanksgiving.  Turkey breast, cornbread dressing, garlic mashed, hericot verts and homemade cranberry sauce is tonight's special.  "One please", says the Mrs.  I go for the roasted chicken with roasted yukon gold potatoes and glazed parsnips and carrots. YUM!  Damn YUM!   Dessert was apple dumpling ala mode with caramel sauce for me and strawberry shortcake for the boss.  See we have this thing where we share a salad but we get our own desserts.  That's how we roll.
Tummies full, legs spent and on a marathoner's high, this long but eventfull day comes to a close. We head back to the hotel.  We need our rest.  Tomorrow is Alcatraz!
I like this town.



California Pizza Kitchen






fruits and nuts



veggies



merchandise



DRIED FISH!

 

Saints Draft another super bowl

It was July, 2009 at the now closed Mike's American Grill during my weekly segment on Inside New Orleans (graciously coined "Fazende Friday" by host Eric Asher).  Eric asked what I thought the Saints would do in the upcoming football season.  "I've always said that all the Saints need is a good not great defense to go to the Super Bowl, that's why they brought in new defensive coordinator Greg Williams and that's what they will do, they will beat the Colts in the Super Bowl."
The above is not an attempt to gloat or pat myself on the back.  It's just a little edification to justify my next line.
The Saints have drafted their way to Indianapolis in 2012.
Yes, that is how strongly I feel about the Saints 2011 draft.  Granted the last time we saw the Saints they were wandering around the Seattle fog dazed by the tsnuami that just washed them out of the playoffs.  The very defense that lifted our beloved Saints to the ultimate victory played their worst game of the Williams era.
Have no fear defense, help is on the way.
The draft was oviously aimed to come to the defense's rescue. From DE Cameron Jordan, possessing a combination of size and speed , considered by many scouts the best pass rushing DE in the draft to the hard hitting LB from Illinois, Martez Wilson.  But the pick most likely to help Williams defense was RB Mark Ingram.  Yes that Mark Ingram.  The Heisman trophy winning monster truck wrapped in a 5'9" frame who tore up SEC defenses for three years.  Ingram figures to be the most help to the defense by provided for them a defense's best friend. Rest.  As long as Ingram is pounding out three, four and five yard runs in the fourth quarter and moving the chains, the defense can stand on the sidelines and rest and watch the clock wind down.
On offense, the benefits are obvious.  With a signal calling field general the callber of  Drew Brees, Ingram will have a coach on the field.  Play action will open up.  The WRs will have open lanes, yadda yadda yadda.  You can book that opposing defensive coordinators are, as you read this, circling Saints week on their schedules for doubling up stocks of  Rolaids, Pepto-Bismol and No-Doz.
Buckle your chinstraps NFL. Here comes Ingram. And there go the Saints to another Super Bowl.

Players Show They're Out of Touch

I have heard it all.
Though I can't say I'm surprised.  It was only a matter if time.
"It's modern day slavery", Vikings RB Adrian Peterson claimed in an interview with Yahoo Sports.
It has come to this.  Comparing being paid millions of dollars to play a kids game with the plight of a people caught, shackled, shipped like cargo, humiliated and displayed on that original market showroom, then sold to the highest bidder to perpetual servitude.
Now THATS perspective.
It's also why professional athletes will never win the batle of public opinion when it comes to work stoppages.  Be it a strike or a lockout.
Owners are already seen as old, white, stiff ,egomaniacal billionaires with little or no public sympathy to begin with.  From the ever-meddling ultra gaudy, everything BIG in Texas Jerry "bling bling"Jones to the ultra frugal LA Clippers' owner Donald Sperling.  The one that charges the players for athletic tape.  Nobody's going Johnnie Cochran for these ole boys.
Unless.
Unless a bunch of rich, pampered, overgrown, over partied, mega adored, 'roided up frat boys who's lone skill in life is to run fast or catch good do something which they should never be allowed to do. 
Talk.
Cause when they talk, they say things like "we're thoudands of miles away from our families" or "we sacrifice our bodies".  Or my personal fave, "if it weren't for the players, there wouldn't be a game". Opening up themselves to the average fourth grader's retort, "if it weren't for the game there would be no players".
They use terms such as "solidarity".  Conjuring up memories of Poland's Leck Welesa standing on the walls of the Gdansk Shipyard leading an anti-soviet social movement.  Then take part in public signs of "solidarity" by saluting themselves with the #1 sign before kick off.  You know, frat boy stuff.
Or unless.
 They do something brilliant like have someone on the brink of signing an estimated 60-70 million dollar contract sue the NFL to complain about anti-trust laws.  Yeah, like the NFL being a monopoly has been so financially destructive to the players.  Other poor, exploited plaintiffs in the suit are 100 million dollar Peyton Mannnig and 100 million dollar Tom Brady.  "Well we also represent the players who make minimun salries as well", they will say. Right, cause the minimum salary for an NFL player rising to $340k in 2011 then $355k in 2012 is such a cross to bare.  Poor guys. The average professional worker in America only has to work about 5 years to make the league minimum.  So the average player career of 3.2 years equals 15 of the average professional's years. And that's the minimum. You know, the 53rd man on the roster, usually the guy wearing a backward Saints cap on the sidelines.  Not bad work if you can find it.  Besides, the Brees's, Mannings and Bradys of the world can donate portions of their salaries to those poor players down there at the bottom of the depth chart. 
 Let me say up front that I am an unapolgetic Ronald Reagan conservative.  I believe the biggger the company, the bigger the tax break. I've never been a fan of labor unions.  I always seem to side with the people who provide the jobs as opposed to the people who take the job then complain about the way they are treated, instead of just quittng and working for someone else who would hire their sorry ass.
I've been in three unions and the only thing I could count on was dues being deducted from my paycheck, everytime, without fail.  I wacthed my union president give away benefit after benefit with each passing contract then spend my dues backing a political candidate I disagree with.  Cause he's a "friend of labor"  From auto workers allowed to smoke pot during lunch breaks to "make work" days at a grain elevator, I think unions have collectively bargained our country to the brink of financial ruin.  But I do think unions have a noble cause.  Protect the "little man" from the exploiting evil corporation.  However,a good labor lawyer can be just as effective as any union.  Just ask Curt Flood.
What the players don't seem to realize is they don't need to collectively bargain. What can they collectively bargian for that's not already covered in their mammoth individual contracts drawn up by their uber-agents.  More time off?  Better hours? Dental?  Please.
The owners talk about opposing the negotiated percentage of revenue sharing with the players.  But if you caught one of them in a weak moment, he'd tell you they actually love it.  They know exactly how much their salary expenses are for years to come.  Every owner spends the same, only spreads it out differently.  It's like that holy grail of union accomplishments. The minimum wage.  Corporations publicly rail against it while privately loving it. They know what every other McD's, Popeye's or Burger King is paying. "You mean I only have to start you off at this low rate?"
Which brings me back to the slavery comparison.  The thing that is astronomically light years from the truth is that NFL players are like slaves.
They are incredibly well compensated pawns on that 100 yard chess board.

Payton Can't Coach here and Live There

So Saints coach Sean Payton has decided that two cities are better than one.  Louisiana is not big enough for the Paytons so he's packing up his bags and he's moving to Big D, part time that is.  Payton plans to have his bbq in Dallas and his bloody mary in New Orleans.  In other words, he wants a long distance relationship.  Well I'm here to tell ya coach. They never work. 
They start out with good intentions.  The promises to talk every night, to be together every weekend, "I'll got to your house this weekend then you'll come to mine, then me, then you,blah blah blah!" We all know how these turn out.  That nightly talk turns from steamy in week one to cold and dry by week three.  Those weekly jaunts to the love nests shorten from Thursday morning thru Monday night, to Saturday night thru Sunday morning.
Then over.
Listen, if the Paytons are unhappy in Louisiana then they should move.  This is America afterall and we have the right to live anywhere we choose.  But if he wants to move to Dallas he should resign as Saints head coach.  That's all.  Just resign.
I find it hard to believe that any Saints fans would be able to stomach a part time citizen coach. Hell, even Bum Phillips lived in the area while he coached the Saints.
Imagine they're playing the Cowboys...in the playoffs... for the NFC championship... he calls one of those double reverse pitch it to Reggie plays on third and one with the lead and it ends bad...well you know where I'm gong with this...
 Now let me state for the record that I think Payton is one of the best coaches in football.   I don't want him to resign,  I want him as the coach for my team. If it were up to me I would have Payton go the Drew Brees route and embrace this city for all its quirks and faults. Become ingrained in the rich culture it has to offer.
Isn't it ironic that the guy from Texas has chosen to plant roots in New Orleans, while the guy who brought him to New Orleans wants to bolt... to TEXAS!
 Come to think of it, Brees must be wondering what the hell is going on.  "This is the guy that convinced me to take what I'm  seeing in the ninth ward and strive to rebuild it and the city together?  Now he's bailing because the malls in Dallas are nicer?!"
"Well Payton just wants whats best for his famiy", some will say.  Fine then, resign.
"Texas has better schools, less crime, it's cleaner and...and...and...the malls are prettier". Ok...resign.
"No, Payton says he'll commute, that he really wants to be here, he'll have two homes".  Yeah, I believe that like I believe his injury reports.
The bottom line is, for a man the means of Payton, good education, safety and shopping can be found anywhere. Including Louisiana.  What can't be found anywhere is a fanbase whose love for the team is as unabashed and unbridled as Saints fans.  But they want their coach to at least appear to want to be here and to love them back.
Dallas?!  Man football ranks somewhere behind rodeos, fashion shows and umm, shopping.  Dallas fans?! I heard 90,000 people gathered for a funeral and a Cowboys game broke out.
The question is, Does he want to be the head coach of the New Orleans Saints.  If yes, awesome! He and his family lives in Louisiana.  Within 50 miles of New Orleans.
If no..sit down...grab a pen...prepare a statement...move to Dallas.

Saints Out...Hornets In

The last time I blogged the Saints season had come crashing down like the Metrodome Roof  on a  frigid December morn.  The debacle in Seattle still prevents me from enjoying the playoffs and the Super Bowl.  I'm sorry, while most NFL fans are celebrating a super bowl stand off featuring two of the most storied franchises in history, I could carre less.  Let me restate that, I could give a ____!
As I watched the rest of the playoffs, all I could think was "that Seattle loss was worse than I thought, Chicago has no O, Atlanta was a fraud and Green Bay in the Superdome for all the NFC marbles would have been epic".
In the AFC, after Payton Manning was eliminated(I can't help pulling for him), my only other team of interest was the Jets.  Love him or hate him, you can't ignore their big talkin foot smoochin compuslive cussin head football coach.  Rex Ryan has stormed onto NFL scene like a nor'easter sized breathe of fresh air, smelling of pork fat no less, but fresh indeed.  He has coached the Jets from cellar dwelling squatters to two AFC championship games in his first two seasons.  Name a coach who can say the same. 
Well, they lost to the Steelers, a team I could not loathe more. From the Immaculate reception against Snake's Raiders to beating my childhood beloved Cowboys in two Super Bowls to their date rapin QB. Not to mention THE most overrated and overcreditted head coach in sports.  I just can't stomach 'em.
So now I'm stuck in no football land.  I'll watch the bowl, half heartedly pull for the Pack since they are NFC and their fans remind me of Saints fans. And, of course, Lombardi will be home again.
My attention now turns to the streaking Hornets. Ten straight wins as of this blog.  Monty Williams seems to have found his voice and is now ahead of the curve in his growth as a head coach. CP3 is back to the MVP type point gaurd we're used to seeing.  David Wext and Omeka Okafor are playing like all-stars and Trevor Ariza has stepped up his game. What's also encouraging is the emergence of  former LSU gaurd Marcus Thorthon and the play of the bench.  Watching the Hornets play is fun again.  Their poise when down, their grit in close games and now blowing out three of their last four opponents, including San Antonio, makes them a force in the West.  Never in my wildest dreams did I see this coming after the off season, pre-season then crash after the fast start.  As a fan, I don't want the all-star break to come as I fear it will break the momentum the Bees have built over the last few weeks.  One fan wrote it best, BeeDat!

Defenseless in Seattle

After Saturdays's embarrassingly humiliating loss to the worst team ever to host a playoff game, all Drew Brees could say to the world was"it's hard to win a playoff game".  Really? Really, Drew? Gee why didn't I think of that.  Afterall it was just a year ago that it looked pretty easy winning a  playoff game. You did it against the Arizona Cardinals, a team one year removed from losing Super Bowl XLIII in aganizing fashion to the Pittsburg Steelers. You must remember the 45-14 skulling that day.  That wasn't so difficult.  So what was the difference between those Saints and the Saints of January 8, 2011? 
Two words.
"DEEE Fense!" boom boom "DEEE Fense!" boom boom
In January, 2010 the Saints defense beat down and suffocated a 10-6 NFC West winning Arizonna offense featuring a hall of fame QB, pro bowl WR's and  a solid staple of RBs averaging well over 4 yards per carry. In other words, the offense that gave the Steelers fits in the Super Bowl and came within seconds of winning it. Remember , it was an TD interception return of 95+ yards just before haltime that flipped that scoreboard  in the Steelers' favor. Otherwise, it would have been the "defending champs" getting that beatdown last January. In that game the Saints defense was intense, opportunistic and brutal.  So brutal that Kurt Warner called it a career after being knocked out by a variety of "remember me" body shots culminated by the kill shot by Saints DE Rodney McCrae on an interception return.
The very next week, the Saints defense pounded Viking's QB Brett Favre so bad that instead of running for positive yards and getting his team into field goal position in the wanning minutes of a tied NFC championship game, he threw the interception heard around the world.  Earlier, Favre had been so badly beaten up, his family couldn't bare to watch as he lay on the field in agony.  That interception, which ended Favre's season and for all practical purposes his carrer, was a result of the relentless assault from Greg Williams' defense.
Where was that defense last Saturday?  Certainly not in Seattle. No intensity! No guys flying to the ball.  No remember me shots to the QB. No turnovers created. No big stops. NO. NO.NO.NO!
But yes, there was Roman Harper being fooled not once, not twice but three times by an offense boasting  the 28th ranked QB in the NFL with a 73.2 rating.  Yes, there was Darren Sharper, who's been seen more in the TV studio than in the film room this season, taking a bad angle on a seam route to get burned by a WR cast to the NFL scrap heep two seasons ago.  Then, yes,  there was Scott Shanle filling the hole, hitting then losing Seattle RB Marshawn Lynch, the 35 ranked RB with a 3.5 average to make a key stop on second and 10, forcing Seattle to either throw and risk stopping the clock or a turnover or run then punt to Drew Brees with time and time outs.  Instead, Lynch broke seven more tackles in route to a 65 yard back breaking TD run.  A play that will be shown over and over and over and over again on every sports highlights reel across the universe.  A play that will win an ESPY for best run of the season.  A play that will win an ESPY for worst effort and takling of the century.  A play that will haunt Saints fans forever!
Silly me, I thought it would have been the offense that suffered due to their rash of injuries.  I figured the 4th ranked defense in the NFL would shut down Seatte's 28th ranked offense and the Saints 3rd ranked passing offense would score enough to pull off a workman like two score victory.  I was thinking 21-10, 24-14.
Well Brees and comany more than did their part. Scoring 36 points which could have easily been 50 by a one legged offense with zero running threat would have sent a message throughout the NFL that the Super bowl champs are here and pissed and ready to repeat. They displayed the heart of a champion.
Little did we know the defense was making plans for the offseason.

Saints Battled Super Bowl Hangover Well in 2010

  As most know, the hardest thing to do in sports is to defend a Super Bowl championship.  Especially your first.  Your team is asked to do that which is completely foreign to them. After receiving enormous adjulation from fans, media and contemporaries, they must battle complaceny, apathy, injuries and if that's not enough, every team's best shot.  Every week.
In short, the Super Bowl hangover.
Now in New Orleans we know all about hangovers.  They can range from mild (1 Advil) to severe (5 Advils) on the K&B Hangover Rx Scale.
Ask the Baltimore Ravens(4) and Tampa Bay Bucs(5), teams that failed to qualify for the playoffs after winning their Super Bowls then bounced around never to return and the Bucs sinking to a 3-13 season.  Ask New England and Pittsburg (3) who after winning their Super Bowls, failed to qualify for the playoffs but rebounded to win the big game again. Then there's Peyton Manning's Colts (1), who won their division but lost the their playoff opener the year after their Super Bowl win.  It's just tough.
So the New Orleans Saints finished their first post Super Bowl regular season a respectful 11-5 and qualified for a wildcard berth.  11 wins and playoffs automatically eliminates five Advil status.   However a look at the losses revealed a lingering hangover looming early in the season which might have doomed a lesser team.
Let's take a look.
In week 3, crucial turnovers by Drew Brees and a hungover Garrett Hartley missed a gimme 29 yard field goal attempt in overtime ending Sean Payton's mastery of Atlanta.  A miss that would prove monumental as the season played out.  3 Advils
Week 5 was perhaps the worst in the Payton era.  Losing to a very bad Phoenix Cardinals team featurng a first time wristband reading starting quarterback named Max Hall. A team who would go on to lose 11 games and become cellar dwellers of the woefull NFC West. 5 Advils and an Alka Seltzer
Week 7 came after a 31-7 beat down of division rival Tampa Bay.  The floundering 1-5 Cleveland Browns came to town wanting a piece of the Super Bowl champs.  They got more than a piece as they befuddled SB MVP  Drew Brees into his worst performance as a Saint. Brees threw two pic6's to a DL bearing a name earily close to that of his newborn son.  They were preceeded by a costly drive killing INT to cast off LB and former NO fan fave Scott Fajita.  All to a team that would close 2010 with 11 losses. Hangover?! This looked  more like an overdose! 5 Advils and 4 drops of Visine.
The metal of the champions were indeed being tested.
Displayng the heart of champions, though, they responded. Ripping off six straight wins including a Sunday night home win against Pittsburg and a Monday Night Footbal win on the road in Atlanta which positioned them for a shot at the #1 seed in the playoffs. 
Losing to the Ravens in Baltimore in December ended that dream of repeating as #1 seed in the NFC playoffs. 4 Advils and a heating pad.
Losing a meaningless regular season finally to Tampa normally wouldn't mean much, but with three starters going down to injuries, this could spell doom in the playoffs. 4 1/2 Advils and 2 Vicadin.
Struggling with a once reliable receiving corps that dropped more passes than Wil I Am drops beats, an offensive line that averaged mutilple holding penaties per game and provided Brees with little time, injuries to runninng backs Lionel Hamilton, Pierre Thomas, Reggie Bush, and Chris Ivory,  Drew Brees threw a career high 22 interceptions but also a miraculous NFC high 34 td passes. The offense finished 2010 ranked 6th total and 3rd passing. 2 1/2 Advils
Defensively, the Saints ranked a Sean Payton alltime high 5th in the league going into the season finally, however failed to muster up the game changing turnovers created during their run to the Super Bowl.  Nowhere was this more dramatic than interceptions. The Saints were 3rd in the NFL in 2009 with 26 int's, returning 5 for touchdowns compared to 9 pics and 2 for td's in 2010.  OUCH! That's a 4 Advil by itself!  The defense did however see the emergence of second year DB Malcom Jenkins into a legit NFL safety but perhaps the fading of all time great Darren Sharper. 2 Advils
As the playoffs loom, the Saints face a new challenge, no home playoff games. However, the Saints played better on the road this season at 6-2, including a huge victory in the Georgia Dome.
As hangovers go, I'd rate the regular season a 2 out of 5, with 5 being a losing season as the Saints did finish with 11 wins but failed to win their division and lock up home field advantage.
Now it's on to the playoffs and a new beginning. We'll see what the champs are made of.
And if the hangover worsens or fades away...