[StBernard] Say what's so, Joe

[Westley Annis]

Say what's so, Joe
The truth about New Orleans is for Theismann to tell 
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Chris Rose

Dear Joe, 

Welcome back to New Orleans. As you have probably noticed, a lot of the city
looks like it did when you were last here, whenever that may have been, in
our pre-Katrina state. 

Admittedly, all those windows blown out of the Hyatt downtown have an
ominous look about them, a jarring reminder of what went down here a year
ago. And, since they loom over the Superdome, they'll make for good TV
images, and that's why I am writing to you. 

I am offering you some unsolicited and perhaps unwelcome comments on how you
should do your job Monday night. 

Joe, I hate when strangers give me unsolicited advice on how to do my job.
But you and me, Joe, we've got history together. 

I grew up in Washington and was a young man when you came to the Redskins
and gave us a new attitude and our first Super Bowl win. That was a night to
remember. 

It was 1982, before the era when "fans" of NFL and NBA teams began that
wonderful tradition of looting their downtown stores and burning cars to
celebrate winning the championship. 

Ah, the old days. 

And by the time L.T. busted your leg on "Monday Night Football" all those
years later, I was living here in New Orleans and watched the game with some
friends in a bar in Kenner and I want you to know, Joe: I was there with
you. 

It hurt me as much as it hurt you. 

Well, maybe not. 

But I'm straying from the point. The point is, I don't know much about all
the other sports guys who are in town this weekend telling America our
story. But it worries me that they won't get it right so I wanted to write
to you to ask you to get it right. 

There's that guy on Fox Sports named Chris Rose -- he does that "Best Damn
Sports Show" thing -- and I suppose maybe he's the guy I should be talking
to but I don't know Chris Rose and the whole idea of talking to a guy named
Chris Rose is a little weird to me. 

But I know you, Joe. When you're in New Orleans, you hang out at my
neighborhood bar, Monkey Hill. Hell, Joe -- we're practically family. 

So here's the deal: I know you like to talk a lot, a whole lot -- and that's
OK because it's your job -- but I'm like a lot of people around here, very
sensitive about what people say about us these days. 

Maybe too sensitive, I don't know. 

I'm afraid our circumstances will end up being cast in sports metaphors and
somehow I get the feeling that we'll be portrayed as the '76 Buccaneers or
the 2003 Detroit Tigers -- teams without hope or redemption -- when the way
we really see ourselves is as the '69 Miracle Mets. 

Sad sack underdogs. The odds stacked against us. Backs against the wall, all
that cliché stuff. And then -- the great story line -- pulling together and
overcoming the odds and winning the big game! 

Of course, I'm talking about the city of New Orleans and our neighboring
communities, Joe. Not the Saints. 

We've got bigger issues than the Falcons to deal with. We've got life. And a
lot of our life depends on what all you sports guys tell the world about us
and my guess is that you'll all go to our really great restaurants on your
expense accounts and rave about the survival of New Orleans cuisine, so that
one takes care of itself. 

But there are other pressing matters at hand that might come up during your
conversation with 10 to 15 million Americans tomorrow night, so I'd like to
offer you some talking points. 

The first is this: I'm assuming you had the professional curiosity and
courtesy to drive around town and take a look at it for yourself. If you
did, then you now understand what we mean when we say you have to see it to
believe it and you'll understand why we kind of freak out when the message
that goes out is that a tiny and interesting place called the Lower 9th Ward
got wiped out but everything else is OK. 

And if you haven't seen the Lower 9th -- or Gentilly or Lakeview or
Chalmette or any area of the devastation, which is roughly the size of Great
Britain -- then, please, don't even talk about it because you won't know
what you're talking about. 

Here's the message you need to give America, Joe, and this part gets a
little confusing: Tell everyone that the city is rocking, it's alive and
kicking with music and food and all that good-timing crazy stuff that
Americans have come to expect when they visit here. 

The fact is, you can spend a week downtown and in the Quarter and the
Marigny and Garden District and Uptown -- the small, old part of the city
where tourists usually confine themselves -- and hardly see any
manifestations of the storm, the flood and its damages. 

Tell people that, Joe. Tell them that New Orleans is still the best city in
America. Tell them to come see for themselves, that we're happy, hopeful,
joyful and celebratory still. 

Then tell them this: New Orleans is a broken, suffering mess, weakened and
scared. We're not ashamed to say it Joe: We're afraid. 

Because what tourists never see is the other 80 percent of the city and
that's the part where businesses, homes and churches got wiped off the map
and that's where despair and sorrow have set in like incurable viruses.
Depression, divorce and suicide are the trifecta in this town now. 

Tell them that, Joe. Tell them that New Orleans is also the worst place in
America, dysfunctional and angry, victimized by looters, predators,
insurance companies, utilities and even government. 

Got that? It's simple: Everything is fine here. But it's not fine. 

I'm not sure why people get so confused when we tell them that. 

Anyway, Joe, tell them we don't want a handout. Tell them we just want a
fair shake. 

The feds built crappy levees, Joe, weaker than the Packers secondary, more
porous than the Browns' offensive line, and tens of thousands of people lost
their homes and possessions and all physical manifestations of their youth
in the flood. 

Imagine if you had no photos of your grandparents anymore, Joe, or of your
little league football team or your best friend from high school or the
letters your dad wrote to you from Vietnam or the diaries you kept all your
life or your wedding album or your collection of jazz 78s, baseball cards or
some other stupid thing that was really, REALLY important to you. 

Imagine if you lost one of your parents to a slow and unbelievably agonizing
death in a dank attic last year. 

All right, I'll stop there with the gloom. 

I'm just trying to say, Joe, that we're a proud people around here and we're
held tighter together through age, race and social class than the outside
world has been led to believe and we are resilient and determined to save
our city and our culture and I guess sometimes we hear out-of-towners say
stupid things and we get all in a tizzy about it because we think no one
understands us. 

Then again, we don't understand ourselves. That's why we all find each other
so interesting. 

So have a good time while you're here Joe, live the good life and loosen
your tie and say hello to strangers and talk a good game tonight and
remember that even if we can't stop Michael Vick, in the end, we're going to
kick Katrina's ass. 

It's third and long -- real long -- but there's still a lot of time on the
clock and although our front office is a joke and the game plan is shaky at
best, we've got the guts, the courage and the tenacity to persevere and
nobody works as hard as we do day after day because nobody else has to. 

Remember that feeling, Joe? It's almost rapturous: When everyone thought
you'd be a pushover? That you'd just lay down and quit in the face of
insurmountable odds? And then you showed them what you were made of? 

That's us, Joe. We're "The Bad News Bears," man. We're "Angels in the
Outfield," "Brian's Song," "The Longest Yard," "Remember the Titans." We're
"Rocky," dammit. And we're gonna rise up. Tell the world. 

. . . . . . . 


Columnist Chris Rose can be reached at chris.rose at timespicayune.com; or at
(504) 352-2535 or (504) 826-3309.