Susan Tedeschi

http://www.susantedeschi.com/

Heard about this lady on NPR this morning, I mean she can sing, has an outrageous voice. I hate to say it, but when I first heard her sing I thought, “Can’t be a white woman blowing like this.” As one of the kids I tutor from time to time would say, “she put some stank on it.” Well white and from New England, you would think at least she would hail from down south somewhere; she even plays a mean electric guitar. I missed some of the interview when I stopped to grab some breakfast, but the lady was very, very cool. I think I may have to check out her new album, she covers some great songs. Maybe during the return of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival they could have her perform, she would fit in perfectly, anywhere from the Sprint Stage to Congo Square to the Gospel Tent. Good Stuff.

View From The Roof

I mean to write more on this blog thing, but just haven’t quite found the time or motivation lately. I should just write down things that pop in my head so I can expound on them here, I may get to that at some point. I guess I could just write about random things.

On a political tip I could write about the Bush war in Iraq, or about the stumbling and bumbling of this administration, or about the trifling response to the hurricanes down here on both the state and federal level.

In sports I could write about the bull…. that is the BCS, Southern getting killed by a 458lb quarterback in the Bayou Classic, my Saints finally winning a game, LSU winning the SEC West and hopefully the conference championship game in the ATL this weekend, or even my two disparate performance so far in the NBA fantasy leagues I am in (first and almost last).

I could write about the fun I’ve had the past few months getting to see a lot of friends and making some new ones. I could also mention how much I enjoyed Thanksgiving and how valuable those moments are I was able to spend that day with my family (not counting the two hour and half naps I took).

I could also mention how this past Friday I woke up at 6:30 to tailgate, then maybe 3 hours after the game somehow I ended up on the roof of the Pete Maravich Assembly Center with some friends. We had an absolutely great time, that is until LSUPD found us, and they were not nearly as amused. So after a little small talk while they called in our info, the cops told the old, graduated, ones among us we were banned from campus. Now before I could launch into my “…..all the money I’ve given this school, all the sporting events I’ve paid for (wait, a lot of those I went to free), all of the student organizations I was involved in and the service I’ve put in helping the university, not to mention my degree(s), I’m even in one of the recruiting videos LSU produced, and you wanna tell me I can’t ……” diatribe one of the 10 LSUPD officers present said we could be on campus as long as we had a legitimate reason, like class, attending an event, meeting someone, etc. However late night explorations of closed campus buildings are over. I guess I can live with that.

And last I could write about the Roger Federer level a..whooping Chris put on me in tennis last night at the LSU Rec Center. But I’m just gonna pretend that never happened.

Bayou Classic

Katrina and Rita have changed a lot of thing around here. But it really hits home this week, over something very insignificant in the big picture, but for Louisiana a reminder of how different things are. The week before Thanksgiving is always a big football week in South Louisiana; my beloved and #3 ranked LSU Tigers play Arkansas Friday for the “Boot” and a trip to Atlanta for the SEC Championship, high school football playoffs quarterfinals, and last, but not least, the Bayou Classic, aka the Black College Super Bowl; other than Mardi Gras the wildest weekend of the year in New Orleans. Except this year the game is being played in Houston, TX, not New Orleans.

Attending the Bayou Classic was a childhood ritual for me, although I admit I have not made the trip to New Orleans for the game in probably 5 years. But it was always fun, especially considering my family is split fairly evenly between SU and Grambling grads and fans (although the past 5 years I’ve had probably 8 cousins attend Grambling). This year ESPN College Gameday will broadcast live from Houston. Now that has to be a first, Gameday broadcasting from a HBCU game. On this LSU message board I occasionally peruse there was a thread with a lot of booing and sarcastic (borderline racist) comments about this. Screw them people, I love it. Chris, Lee, and Kirk (the crew) are gonna have a great time, see some fly females, hot step show, amazing band performances. And Desmond Howard (another crew member of UMichigan heisman fame) will probably get so wild he will lose his mind. Too bad I’ll have to watch from home this year. Just make it back to the NOLA next year with Gameday again and I’ll be cool.

Softball Update

Right now I’m sitting here at work drinking tons of water and trying to overmedicate myself with anything from the medicine cabinet that looks like it could remotely help with a cold. On top of that I’m kinda sore, sliding into bases and diving for balls was easy as a kid, now it sucks. But on the bright side, Second String softball club, still down a player, pulled out the win last night, overcoming an 18-6 deficit in the top of final inning to take a 19-18 lead, then keeping the other team from scoring the game winning run when they had bases loaded and no outs. We then scored 5 runs in the extra inning to win 24-19. Amazing game, we all had a great time. Plus we had a great group of fans out there last night, and the post game trip to Bennigans was fun as well. So if any of the 3.34 people who read this blog doesn’t have plans for next Thursday night about 6:30, drive out across town and come watch us play. I can’t guarantee we’ll always win, but we will definitely be entertaining.

Still My Team

Just to say it, the ribs from Saturday were amazing.

I think I’m catching a cold; apparently that is what watching the New Orleans/Baton Rouge/San Antonio Saints in person can do to you. And Tom Benson still sucks.

I missed the Miami-Nick Saban return game last week, but I did make it out to see the Saints lose to the Chicago Bears. Despite the small crowd I had a good time, and got to see a really good halftime performance by Southern University’s famed marching band, The Human Jukebox.

Someone asked me how it felt to watch the Saints play in Tiger Stadium. It felt like watching football. But one thing was different, at LSU games 95% + of the crowd is composed of white folks. Not saying anything is wrong with this, most of LSU’s alumni are white, which means most of the season ticket holders will be white. And though black students attend games on the same, if not better percentage than white students, from what I see I would have to image a very small percentage of LSU’s black alumni become season ticket holders after college (including myself, and I tailgate for almost every game and until this year attended most). Saints games in the Superdome always drew a very diverse crowd, a lot due to the demographics of the city I’m sure. Generally at Saints games the crowd is 30-40% black folks, maybe even higher, as was the crowd in Tiger Stadium Sunday. Again I’m not complaining about LSU’s crowd, LSU could fill the stadium with delegates from the National Redneck Convention and I probably wouldn’t mind if LSU beat everyone they played by 30, but it was good to see some black folks in the good seats in Tiger Stadium.

Other stuff, when I walked up to the tailgating spot Sunday one of the guys brought a Nintendo out and we were playing Mike Tyson’s Punchout. We remembered to code to get to Tyson, but no one there could beat him. I couldn’t even make one round. I think when I was 12 I beat the game once. Anyway we decided to have a little fun and we made the following sign (notice the fine print). Even had two challengers, but alas, they both fell short.

More game pics

Softball, Ribs, and Saints

This is a picture (Little League Style with the bats crossed in front) of the great diamond warriors know as Second String. We played with only 8 players last night which in slow pitch softball is generally not a good recipe for winning games, but we probably had our best hitting game of the year. And everyone had a good time, actually looking forward to playing next week. Thankfully I’m getting over the injury bug, I hope.

The beginnings of some good eats for Saturday. Give em a day a half to marinate, by Saturday should be good and tender. Last real tailgate of the year, should be good times for all.

And last, New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson is a punk (read here) In fact he has probably passed up Dick Cheney, Tom Delay, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter (work with me here) as the old white guy I dislike the most. I would and could say more, but I’ll just leave it at that, and this picture taken outside Tiger Stadium. More news from the alma mater, maybe not racist, but definitely not funny. (read here)

And, "Boondocks", definitely funny, premiere this weekend. (read here)

Have a good weekend, I will.

Online Quiz

I normally don’t fill this crap out, generally it takes too long and most people don’t really care to know extra stuff about their friends, but I had some free time today, so here ya go.

THREE SCREEN NAMES YOU HAVE HAD:
001. headliner
002. fastfreddy
003. fanjr77

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
001. smile
002. body
003. my height

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS YOU DON'T LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
001. my left knee (doesn’t want to work right lately)
002. my right hamstring (pulled it playing softball)
003. nothing else

THREE PARTS OF YOUR HERITAGE:

(I cheated here a little, I just chose my religion heritage)
001. Missonary Baptist
002. African Methodist Episcopalian
003. United Methodist

THREE OF YOUR EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS:
001. email
002. food
003. exercise

THREE THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW:
001. 10 year old doc martins
002. grey cargo pants
003. navy blue boxer briefs

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE BANDS OR MUSICAL ARTISTS [at the moment]:
001. Stevie Wonder
002. Rebirth Brass Band
003. Earth, Wind, and Fire

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE SONGS [at the moment]:
001. Do What Ya Wanna – Rebirth Brass Band
002. Midnight Train to Georgia – Gladys Knight
003. Amazing Grace

THREE THINGS YOU WANT IN A RELATIONSHIP:
001. Honesty
002. Excitement
003. :Love

TWO TRUTHS & A LIE [in no particular order]:
001. I love sports
002. I sing out loud a lot
003. My favorite professional sports teams are good

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS ABOUT THE OPPOSITE SEX THAT APPEAL TO YOU:
001. Smile
002. Legs
003. Eyes

THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE HOBBIES:
001. Running
002. Reading
003. Going to hear live music

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO REALLY BADLY RIGHT NOW:
001. leave work
002. go eat
003. start tailgating for Saturday

THREE CAREERS YOU'RE CONSIDERING:
001. public servant
002. proffessor
003. politician

THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO ON VACATION:
001. somewhere in the Caribbean
002. New York City
003. Southern California

THREE KID'S NAMES:
001. Fred III
002. David
003. Janelle

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE:
001. live a life pleasing to God
002. Have a family
003. Watch the New Orleans Saints win a Super Bowl

THREE WAYS I AM STEREOTYPICALLY A BOY:
001. I hate shopping
002. I’m extremely competitive, especially with sports
003. I can watch football all day

THREE WAYS I AM STEREOTYPICALLY A GIRL:
001. I have a lot of clothes I never wear
002. I like to take long baths
003. I pack way too much stuff when I travel

THREE CELEB CRUSHES:
001. Halle Berry
002. Gabrielle Union
003. Mariah Carey (1990-1998 only)