Dear Gulf Coasters:

We are very much in Dem Dark Days for NFL fans. Whether you’re in Houston or New Orleans – or anywhere in between – parts you didn’t even know you had are sticking to themselves. Pete Prisco is offering horribly unfounded takes on your team(s) for engRagement.* You can’t care about hockey or basketball. What do you do?

Here are some ways to pass the time.

1. Start a group chat with your fellow football fans. They are every bit as bored as you right now, and will somehow appreciate your crappy Saints and/or Texans memes. You can start an Instagram account specifically for that so you don’t have to individually text them, and then get hated on by strangers a year later for having a bunch of posts and eventually only 200 quality followers. (On second thought, don’t do that. It sucks.)
2. Check out your local Goodwill for gear on the cheap. (Westheimer and Shepherd netted these, a Yordan Alvarez jersey, plus buttons and a koozie for less than 20 bucks. A California bandwagon’s loss is your gain!)
3. Learn how to do basic HTML, because I clearly do not remember shit about it anymore (see above).
4. Saints fans: pick up the tuba. This should go without saying, because Saints fans will produce a tuba out of thin air. I want somebody to GoFundMe a tuba. Never mind, maybe not; my cat will get lost in it, and one morning I’ll pick it up and try to play “Do Whatcha Wanna,” and on the first “BLUUURRRRP” my cat will fly out the tuba and across the room and knock down my Jeremy Peña bobblehead, and then disappear somewhere into my studio for a week.
5. For Houstonians: the city has just knocked down the old Meridian, which had become a nexus of beautiful street art. If you’re talented, or even if you’re not, go spray up something in its honor. Especially if it’s the concrete going up for the new useless highway expansion. Tag the hell out of that. Go to City Hall on a public comment day and spray the mayor. Hit up that old Enron complex. Is anyone using that cursed joint? If you’re feeling extra saucy, break into the Astrodome and build out the bones of the fucking entertainment complex it should be. Call me first, I’ll bring the duct tape and Sharpies.
6. For New Orleanians: go check out the favorite candidate running for mayor, she seems devoted. And go buy some shit from the Factory of Weird, because I need that place to still be open when I go back in the next six months. Take care of y’alls rookies. I’ve been enjoying the videos and photos of them loving the city that should be the model for every other city. Other than possibly Buffalo, what city has their football team woven into the DNA of their everyday life? And I can tell you firsthand: Buffalo is ASS. There is a reason those fans spray each other with condiments and jump on folding tables. It is because they all have a death wish, because they live in Buffalo. New Orleanians have a death wish too, but it’s gonna involve alcohol poisoning, being killed by a ghost, or being hit in the head by a spontaneous tuba. Which one would you prefer? Food is better in New Orleans. So is the weather and the job market (barely).

To quote one of my favorite songs of all time, “Whatever you do… do it good.” This world is an ugly state of affairs, but as long as we have football, we got a li’l sum’.

Hang in there, and much love,

Andy

*I coined this term and want royalties