Well if it gets the Saints a road playoff win..

We're willing to try anything.

Dozens of tourists in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 gathered around the tomb of Marie Laveau Sunday (Dec. 29) as tour guide Renee Dodge explained the mysterious history of the famed Voodoo queen.
But most of the tourists had one question on their minds: Why was the tomb painted bright pink?

Two weeks ago, in the middle of the night, someone sneaked into the cemetery and painted the tomb, Dodge said, but she didn't think the person had any malicious intent.

"The person really came in to paint over the thousands of thousands of "X"'s all over this tomb," she said. "And that's the real desecration."

Decades ago, someone started a rumor that if people wanted Laveau to grant them a wish, they had to draw an "X" on the tomb, turn around three times, knock on the tomb, yell out their wish, and if it was granted, come back, circle their "X," and leave Laveau an offering, Dodge said.

In lieu of desecrating Laveau's tomb, pilgrims are encouraged to visit grave site of Al Copleand. The ritual works like this.  The petitioner will his request of Al and then string a set of Christmas lights on the tomb. Next, the petitioner will go out for a steak dinner and punch the nearest political operator three times in the head. Return to the tomb one week later. If the wish has been granted, the lights can be plugged in.  If the wish is refused, try coming back in the spring with a helicopter full of rose petals.

As for the Saints, they're pulling out all the stops. This includes making their own appeal to St. Al among other mysteries.

The Saints also know the challenge that lies ahead on the road, where they've struggled to a 3-5 record this season. But they cheerfully suggested solutions to the road problems.

"Popeyes!" yelled wide receiver Robert Meachem.

"New sweatsuits. I think that'll be motivation enough for us to play well on the road," added receiver Lance Moore. "I think the sweatsuits will be the difference."

"We need to change our Gatorade flavor, travel sweats and the beefy mac recipe night before the game," summed up Brees.

That beefy mac recipe is nothing to be trifled with. We tried fiddling with beefy mac back during the 2011 Saints-Rams game. Looked okay at first.



But as that game went on, the rich creamy cheesy buttery glop began to unsettle our stomachs, not unlike the Saints' performance that day. By the end, we were resorting to all sorts of crazy remedies.



Yeah that didn't work either.  But maybe the pink paint will. 

Beefy Mac is the new Juicyfruit

Note: The following was cut from one of the "lost" Yellow Blog Saints posts that never quite got finished these past two weeks. Meanwhile this just came out of the oven.



I'm calling it "Roast Beefy Mac" as I intend to heat it up and serve on pistolettes tomorrow as Roast Beefy Mac Po-Boys. It's not a disaster but could use some refinement. I think if I had added the tomatoes before I built the cheese sauce I could have cooked some of the excess water out of it. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Enjoy the game.


We've long understood that Drew Brees suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder. Athletics happens to be just the sort of profession that can channel this kind of illness productively. But make no mistake. It is certainly an illness. Here's Sean Payton describing Brees' symptomatic behavior.

We had a diversion this week where we were at a different hotel. We were at a JW Marriott. We’re never there. So typically the night before we play games, we have a certain snack and it’s always the same. It’s cheeseburgers, pizza, spaghetti, cold cuts, salad, there’s always this lasagna, and then there’s this beefy mac that Brees likes. It’s just beef and macaroni and I think there’s maybe a couple other people, but there’s not many that eat it. We get to the buffet on Saturday night and I’m there first. The players are still finishing up their individual meetings and I’m kind of hobbling through and looking at the food and there’s no beefy mac. There’s no lasagna which is what I like to eat, so I’m thinking there’s no chance of these guys getting a long-term deal with us. They don’t have Brees’ meal and they don’t have what I like. So I sit down and I’m eating the spaghetti and pizza and finally Drew comes in. I said, ‘We have a little issue here,’ and he asked, ‘What’s that?’ I said never mind and I watched him and he’s meandering around, so he goes on to plan B and he takes a hamburger patty and chops it up over spaghetti and tries to make this homemade beefy mac I guarantee you it was on the menu list that had to be prepared and they didn’t get it done. It’ll be the last time we’re there. I asked him if this has ever happened and he said it’s happened a couple other times.”

The only thing missing from this story is the part where the Beefymacless Brees, while "meandering around" the strange hotel, informs Payton of the exact number of minutes remaining until Wapner. Were this not Drew Brees and just some dude (Sean Canfield, for example) pacing madly until he gets his goulash, we wouldn't be complaining about the J.W. Marriott buffet staff right now. Instead we'd probably be asking some public library staff somewhere if we could have him removed for disturbing the other patrons.

But it is Drew Brees and Drew Brees threw five touchdowns vs 4 incomplete passes this past Sunday night so we're celebrating. Already we're swapping recipes while fantasizing about citywide Beefy Mac cookoffs, wondering if Jimmy Graham should be nicknamed Hamburger Helper. We actually floated that name on Twitter earlier and the Tweeps came back with "Grahamburgular" which is now our number one choice for a Halloween costume this year. (Barely displacing killer cantaloupe which is easy to conceptualize but not to construct.)

Anyway the really great news is that with Brees as a role model now maybe we can convince Jenny McCarthy that vaccinations might actually be a good thing after all. Oh and we get to throw in a reference to "Kraft Dinna"