Hornets247′s Chris Trew teams up with his tag team partner in comedy Tami Nelson to formulate a rebuttal to the column on MeganAnnWilson.com (entitled “Not a Good Look: Hornets’ NOLA Mardi Gras Uniforms”) which addresses the Mardi Gras uniforms.
Ms. Wilson,
We appreciate your interest in our Mardi Gras uniforms. Below you will find the specific problems we have with your post and the reasoning behind our concerns. We hope you find the information useful in future discussions involving our city. We will quote your article in italics.
The New Orleans Hornets are having an indentity crisis and unfortunately, both Hornets players and NBA fans everywhere are paying the price.
There is no identity crisis. Everyone who is paying attention knows exactly what New Orleans is doing – rebuilding. The only NBA fans paying the price for our jerseys are the ones with good taste who like Carnival and are forking over the $115 for a swingman.
Also, the choice of phrase “identity crisis” is perhaps misused here. We are precisely identifying with our city and culture by sporting the Mardi Gras jerseys during Carnival time. They are a very clear, concise representation of our identity. Perhaps you should have instead written I don’t like the New Orleans identity as that seems more in line with what you wanted to say. That’s the trick about writing words – it’s sometimes more useful to chose the ones that communicate your exact intentions.
The Hornets only wear the jerseys in February and March but they have left quite an impression.
We agree with this.
I understand why the Hornets would want to reach out to the New Orleans community and embrace the Mardi Gras tradition.
What you meant to say here was “I want to understand why the Hornets would want to reach out but I don’t understand Mardi Gras and I do not like what I do not understand and I hate Mardi Gras and I hate fun.”
There’s so much inspiration to take from New Orleans and the great Mardi Gras tradition…
(Except for the colors)
…but clearly the Adidas designers took it all too literally. The over-use of elements lead to a very busy and cheap look, like what a retro Value Village find you’d only pull out to wear with a joke mullet.
Literally the colors of Mardi Gras are Purple, Gold and Green. I’m not sure if a Mari Gras jersey would translate if it were not in Mardi Gras colors. It seems an elegant choice to use colors that specifically represent the event you are paying homage to. Additionally, I don’t know what a joke mullet is but it sounds pretty funny. I’m going to look into this for Mardi Gras 2013.
The font for NOLA and the numbers similar to what the Hornets are using for their other questionable jerseys. However it’s much thicker and looks oversized and almost child-like.
I don’t understand why you are bringing children into this but we’ll take the bait. Children like Santa Claus and Easter, right? You wanna tell us why Santa wears such a thick red and white coat even while in the south? Sometimes it doesn’t get that cold here. Also, bunnies have nothing to do with chocolate.
The colors of Mardi Gras are green, purple and yellow.
Whoops! You mean Gold. It’s OK, you can do your research after you read this rebuttal.
Green means faith, purple means justice and yellow means power.
Yikes! There we go again. Let’s be clear GOLD means power. Yellow means Joy (according to a shady color reference site that had a bunch of dancey, gleaming crystal gifs). So that would work too but we are just being accurate because it feels better that way.
The last two-tone jerseys that went into production were last season’s All-Star style, also from New Orleans (quel surprise).
I think your kicky use of a French phrase was clever for a post about New Orleans, touche. However, I think if you literally translate “What a surprise” it is Quelle, not Quel. But I’m just being nit picky now so let’s get back to the point!
Okay, fine, the jerseys are kind of ridiculous. So is New Orleans. So is Mardi Gras. People get off work to usher their children into wooden boxes screwed on top of ladders to get a better chance of catching plastic beads from people in bizarre costumes riding in giant floats often poking fun at some local politician. How could the Hornets not make Mardi Gras jerseys? Our entire city has been swathed in Purple, Gold and Green since Twelfth Night, how could said jerseys not be purple in the front, green in the back and gold on the sides? How in the world can there be a Mardi Gras basketball jersey that is not gaudy as hell?
Unfortunately for you, Ms. Wilson, it’s raining today in New Orleans. The parades have been rescheduled for tomorrow morning (the forecast is wonderful and shiny, by the way) so I’m listening to Professor Longhair in my house while eating lots of Muffaletta and King Cake while sipping Sazeracs. So we had time to have some fun in Hornets Headquarters. We’re not mad at you (no time to be mad, it’s Mardi Gras season and our patience is purple in the front and green on the back) and in fact, we’d love it if you came down next February 12th to take in the festivities. You can stick around to watch a game at the Hive (on us) and we’ll send you home in a Mardi Gras jersey (which you’re going to realize you love after falling in love with New Orleans).
Sincerely,
Chris Trew and Tami Nelson
Follow Chris Trew and Tami Nelson on Twitter and watch them perform comedy every Saturday at 9:00p at The New Movement, 1919 Burgundy starting this March.
23 responses to “A Response to Megan Ann Wilson’s Mardi Gras Uniform Article on MeganAnnWilson.com”
Haha. Les bon temps rouler! Always someone in the media has to bash these AWESOME jerseys. Great post. Now off to the parades, while Ms. Wilson looks for reality TV to watch.
WTF is this a**hat? LOL! Identity crisis? Really now? Why must there be so many dumb a** people in this world? WHY??!!!
Hopefully Hugo wont read that article or she’ll end up giving him an identity crisis, now that his name is apparently just NOLA… sure sign you put a lot of thought into your article when you just assume the “poor” mascot who you’re writing about name is whatever’s sewn to his chest…
Her website says she is from Canada(Toronto I believe)….Of course Toronto is known for its knowledge of New Orleans traditions & Mardi Gras
On behalf of smart Canadians who actually know (a bit) about Mardi Gras, I sincerely apologize. She will be sent to the Arctic Circle to serve her punishment.
That’s funny.
Love me some Tim Horton’s, by the way.
Tim Horton’s is addictive. Where I’m from (Moncton) has the highest Tim Horton’s per capita in Canada, about 1 to every 3000 people
I was in Hamilton at a conference a few years ago. There was a a corner not too far fron McMaster where you could see 4: one in a shopping center, one in a gas station, a drive through stand, and a standard one. That indicated to me that whatever it was, it was worth a sample.
I took some buddies from Detroit over to Windsor (right?) just so they could say they ate at a Canadian one.
IMHO, Memphis unis yellow tops ang green short are by far the worst jerseys in the NBA today. They should write something about that.
Yeah, but those are throwbacks, and are thus exempt on historical grounds….
I laughed at “We agree with this.”
Lets face it major US cities hate NOLA they like to tour NOLA but hate our culture.We don’t like yuppies douchebag idiots who like to disrespect our culture and customs i get deeply offened when someone talk about the 504.
that woman is as crazy as Casey Anthony
All i can say is these writes who live in shoe box apartments in a robotic society in the big cities must be so jealous that all they can do is pick on a city like New Orleans because the community loves and embraces their culture and want to celebrate it, and also the Hornets want to be apart of it. I was so fortunate to visit New Orleans for a short time when I last visited the US from Australia, I loved it! Keep it real NOLA!
While I don’t like the jerseys myself, what’s the point of that article? We all know why we’re wearing them and it most certainly has nothing to do with an identity crisis. That’s hilarious somebody would even assume that.
Read it again.
Still funny.
Personally, I thought Chris and Tami took it easy on her. There were half a dozen other points in the original article that they could have debated just as well. Great job!
And I love the uniforms. Bottom line, New Orleans is a city that you either get, or you don’t. Lots of people who visit and “get it”, eventually move here. Those that don’t understand, think we’re nothing more than Bourbon Street and “Girls Gone Wild”.
What she should have chastised instead was that Mardi Gras baby. Regardless of relevance, thing is creepy.
Didn’t read her article but the MG unis are ugly as hell. Shame, too, because there’s a lot of potential there. I would prefer something similar to the Perlis MG rugby shirts.
I love the uniforms. In fact, I wouldn’t be opposed to them bringing them back in playoff runs and such since we don’t get much national exposure otherwise.
Change the blue to Green. Eliminate the god awful George Shinn inspired stupid ignorant horrible baseball only PINSTRIPES!!!! I hate them. HATE. It is awful. Put NOLA on the front of all our uniforms. Eliminate the Hugo logo (finally put that thing out of its misery, geez a dribbling insect wearing basketball sneakers as our #1 logo – :P) Fleur-de-bee prmary logo, nola horn secondary. I agree our regular uniforms are awful. The Gold Lettering on the Road Blue Uni’s make me kinda sick every time I see them. It’s such a bad look. Bring back the MARDI GRAS UNIFORMS DURING CARNIVAL EVERY YEAR!!! Mardi gras is a crazy time. From my bourbon st. balcony yesterday I saw 70 year old couple fist pumping to LMFAO, multiple men dressed as women, about half a million brightly colored wigs, Everybody walking through the street with alocholic beverage in tow, and a naked woman riding a menataur. Yep, a menataur. So obviously our Mardi Gras uniforms aren’t the craziest thing we’ve seen in our city. That is all.
Hugo first logo is beautiful, is a part of history of this franchise. Fleur de bees is beautiful too. I live in Italy and i love this Mardi Gras jersey, i have buy one of this jersey. It’s not ridicolous, is a part of tradition in NOLA. ok is strong to watch and probabily or you love or you hate this jersey. Thank you for explain what the colors means.
The MG uniforms are ugle as hell. They look loud and tacky, but I support wearing them a couple of times a year around Mardi Gras. They should also consider wearing their black and gold unis more often: http://cdn.bleacherreport.net/images_root/slides/photos/001/133/929/paul_display_image.jpg?1311826628