500 Words on 2 Words

Who Dat vs. Who Dey:



VS.


It ain't easy finding a video of a WHO DEY chant. -bri

When you’re “just a fan,” you’ll do just about anything to occupy your time during a week-long run-up to the NFC Conference Championship. When your Saints are hosting in the Superdome for the first time ever, the stress is even greater. So, naturally, you’ll start a fight about WHO DAT vs. WHO DEY? Say what?

Watch a game with Saints fans and you’ll wake up with “who dat” ringing in your ears. It’s the clarion for all true Saints fans and just about one of the most fun chants in professional sports.

We wear it on our shirts, make it our ringtones, and create countless music videos and photo montages featuring WHO DAT.

It’s all fun and games unless you are a Bengals fan. Cincy fans try to rain on the Mardi Gras parade not because they think their team is better or they’re in the NFL Conference Championships this weekend – they aren’t and they aren’t. Their tiger-striped panties are in a bunch because they think they coined the chant, with a small variation: “Who dey?”

Most agree the Bengals marketing operation jumped on-board the WHO DAT /WHO DEY train before the NOLA team. The Bengals operation formally began using WHO DEY during a stunning winning streak in November 1980. It was recorded on a local record and a local brew carried the name. (Although most agree the original cheer was a much more Midwest appropriate “Who they…”) In fact, the chant probably didn’t inspire the beer, but rather the beer – brewed by Hudepohl – may have inspired the chant.


WHO DAT was popularized during a run of the Saints in 1983. Issue resolved, you say? 1981 comes before 1983? Well it depends. Countless reports of WHO DAT, which has origins in jazz (you know, invented in New Orleans) and vaudeville, place it in the grandstands of Bayou country high schools during the 60s and 70s. When those high-schoolers grew up, they took the chant with them to Southern University (in Baton Rouge) and LSU, and this is likely where it found favor with Saints fans. Southern was using the chant when Nixon was still president, and there are reports of the chant at LSU games from the late 70s up to 1982 during a massive run.

But let’s get back to those videos. A YouTube search unveils more than 22,000 WHO DAT videos to a paltry 2,400 WHO DEY videos. How about 19,700,000 hits on Google for WHO DAT to a demure 774,000 for WHO DEY?

If I’m in a crowded bar and hear a group bust out in a WHO DAT/WHO DEY (unclear to my drunken ears) chant, what team are they probably rooting for? Being that I’ve never seen more than one Bengals fan in a bar at any given time, I’d assume the Saints.

So the dates are confusing but the numbers are clear. When Joe-Green Bay hears WHO DAT/WHO DEY in a bar, he looks up in heaven to Breesus and thanks God for the Saints!

500 Words on Mike Gatto

In the wake of the Scott Brown victory, apparently some Democrats are paying attention. I got a call from Democratic candidate for State Assembly Mike Gatto. Mike is running in a special election to replace Paul Krekorian, who gave up his seat after winning a special election to the city council after Wendy Greuel won election as Controller.

In my analysis of the Coakley Disaster its seems like her total inability to connect with voters (was it the 3 week-long Cayman vacation during the campaign and a recession?) cost her the seat and not a tidal swing to the right in Massachusetts. While Coakley was busy “approving” ugly commercials about rape and abortion, Brown was meeting voters and listening to them, then telling them what he’d do differently: the whole “41st vote” argument.

When Mike called me, I was shocked because I’m not a registered Democrat and I don’t live near his district. When I was a Democrat, party official, and volunteer I rarely got calls from the candidates. Why today?

Because he’s using social networking software to, you know, network. A few months back I approved his friend request because we had some mutual friends. Did look like a stripper, why not?

His campaign staff, pulling the anti-Coakley got proactive and looked up my number and put through a call. I got to tell him I wasn’t a registered Democrat anymore (“oh”), that I was the Democratic nominee for Assembly 6 years ago (“OH!”), that I think most LA area politicians aren’t worth their weight in union dues (“oh?”), and that I’m more Liberal, more engaged, and more militant than ever before. He seemed to understand my distaste for “office hoppers” and the funnel between labor union offices and Sacramento.

And then I dropped the marriage equality bomb. Some might considered it settled for now, but not me. It’s my biggest gripe with Democrats. It seems no elected leader will take a bold, significant stand to support us unless we’re standing in front of him at a fundraiser. From turncoat Obama all the way down, there are few leaders willing to spend any political capital for the gay community.

Mike’s response wasn’t about using the bully-pulpit for marriage equality, but the bully-checkbook. He didn’t talk about Democrats spending political capital but real capital. There are a lot of elected Democrats across the state sitting in safe districts with massive war chests. In 2008, they could have pushed that money towards registering young voters (more friendly to same-sex marriage and Democrats in general) and impacted the Proposition 8 vote. Safe Democrats could’ve used their campaign mailers to include the party’s official position of opposition to Proposition 8. Or so thinks Mike Gatto.

What do the other candidates think? I don’t think they are forward thinking enough to call me out of the blue, but I’d welcome it. Until then, I hope more Democrats follow Mike’s lead and don’t get Coaked. (I’m gonna have some fun with her name for awhile.)