I never, ever thought I would live to see the day that the New Orleans Saints would make it to the Super Bowl. But now it’s for true! What an incredible game that was — and let me say that if the Vikings had pulled it out, they would certainly have deserved the honor, because they played hard. The announcer said that Brett Favre would be thinking about that last interception he threw for the rest of his life, and that’s no doubt the case. After the Saints won in overtime, I phoned my folks down in the Great State, and they were as over the moon as I was.

“Where you at?”
“I’m at a bar watching the game! We don’t have cable yet!”
“You been there one day and you already found a bar near your place?”

As if these people didn’t know where their son is from.
Look, I’m not much of a football fan, but I am a fan of where I’m from, and it’s hardly possible to express what this means to people from south Louisiana. I grew up with the Saints as a bad joke. As a kid in the Seventies, I had a bad conscience for not rooting for the Saints, but how could you? They lost all the time, and lost bad. I think they went something like 20 years before having a winning season. The worst was around 1980, when fans wore paper bags over their heads out of shame.
And now look.
No city deserves this more. No fans deserve it more. And let me tell you, I wake up tomorrow morning thinking about what I’m cooking for my Super Bowl party. Like I said, I don’t much care about pro football, but I care about Louisiana, and this unlikely event is pure magic. If you consult your local Kabbalist, I feel certain he will tell you that what happened in the Super Bowl tonight is a major sign that the Messiah is coming soon.