All told, [New Orleans] is a city with the opposite calculus of Dallas: It is decayed on the outside, but inside there is life. Here is a citizenry that believes in the power of the underdog. New Orleanians fell first and see something the rest of America is blind to right now: a way back into the light.
Alright, so that's fine. But I have some quibbles. First: where the hell is Jeffrey when you need him? I mean, the nolablogosphere erupts in unanimous praise for a national article describing the "soul of the city", and our resident Master of Malcontentedness is AWOL. You just know Jeffrey Gloomypants would've obliterated the damn thing and put everyone's jock strap in a twist. So I guess these contrarian duties are left to me. I'll try my best.
Early on in the piece, we're treated to a happy scene from an X-mas party at a St. Charles mansion. (Seriously, if Jeffrey wasn't too busy messing with his comments section he could've made a good scrooge here.)
Then this:
The team's rise from the weight of the past [since 2006] mirrored a similar rise of the city.
The Saints, always popular, have transcended, now lumped in with New Orleans' institutions -- Mardi Gras, Louis Armstrong and red beans on Monday. They're woven into the fabric of the town... because they stayed.
Not saying that the past few years haven't been special, but do longtime Saints fans agree with the claim that the team wasn't woven into the "fabric of the town" until Benson "decided" (read: was pressured by the NFL) to stay? Really? Pity that Buddy D wasn't around when the Saints finally "transcended" into something larger than just a popular home sports team.
After a brief detour in which we learn that part of the soul of the city is located inside Congressman Anh Joseph Cao (again: I like Cao, but this would be target-rich territory for Jeffrey), Thompson breezily exults in the fineries of Galatoire's, refers to Chris Rose, makes a quick hopscotch jump through a 9th ward school, and then settles comfortably on James Carville's porch for a drink and a defense of the Benson family:
Carville sits with his back to the wide front porch, and on his right is Walter Isaacson, native New Orleanian, best-selling author and former CEO of CNN. On his left is Rita LeBlanc.
"The hero of New Orleans," Isaacson says when LeBlanc sits down. "She is our own saint."
...
Yes, [Rita LeBlanc Benson] is young. Yes, her grandfather is Tom Benson, who became loathed in those confusing months after Katrina because people felt he wanted to take the team away from them. Just after the storm, abandoned refrigerators full of rotted food appeared with a spray-painted message: Do not open... Tom Benson inside. This is unfair -- he bought the team in 1985 to make sure it didn't leave the city, and what owner of a billion-dollar asset can be blamed for wanting to protect it? Regardless, after that long season of doubt -- "It looked like we were gonna lose them," Archie Manning says -- Benson committed to keeping the team in New Orleans and turned control over to his granddaughter. The Saints immediately sold out all the season tickets for the first time and almost made it to the Super Bowl.
Fact check: it wasn't just in the "confusing months after Katrina" that people were loathing Benson. They "felt that he wanted to move the team" for most of 2005, and with good reason. In 2004, Benson was talking about some sort of far-flung (and immensely generous) "permanent solution" between the team and the state. Then, over the next year, Gov. Kathleen Blanco (rightfully) played hardball with him as he enjoyed "perhaps the sweetest lease deal in all of football". According to the writer Tyler Bridges:
Blanco has won high marks for forcing Saints owner Tom Benson to withdraw his demand that the state build him a new stadium and for challenging his back-up demand, that the state continue paying him more than $25 million a year to stay in New Orleans and pay more than $150 million to renovate the Superdome.
To gain leverage for his profitable team during these negotiations, Tom Benson broke off talks with the state during the spring of 2005. That summer Saints chatter was dominated by speculation about whether (or when) the Saints would move to another city.
[Interesting side note: during that time I was working on a political campaign for an opponent of State Senate candidate Derrick Shepherd. I advised my candidate to make news by calling out Benson for his cagey behavior, and demand that he make a deal with the state rather than postpone talks. My candidate called him out, and we successfully got some media attention for the effort. In fact, to capitalize on the moment we hastily filmed a campaign commercial (which aired) attacking Benson, and calling him out. I'm not sure any other politician in New Orleans had ever called out Benson in a campaign ad, but we did. It was my idea and it sort of worked (we got some media attention but lost the election badly). The funny thing was we tried to film the ad on Super Dome property, doing a few takes before state security personnel expeditiously escorted us off the premises.]
The main point is that Saints fans were disgusted with Benson's conduct throughout the year prior to the storm/ff, not just during the "confusing" months after it. He has always viewed this team from a business perspective. It was an asset he owned that accrued value because of loyal Saints fans, subsidies from the state of Louisiana, and growth in the NFL brand, among other things. Then, after the storm, Benson's assholery intensified... I'll use this sports business reporter's summary to discuss that period:
Tom Benson kept quiet on the Saints future early in the 2005 NFL season. At the Saints-Falcons game on October 16, the second of two warm receptions of the Saints by the San Antonio community, San Antonio Mayor Phil Hardberger stated that Benson had agreed to schedule negotiations for permanent relocation once the 2005 season is over. In reference to Benson, Hardberger said, "I'm pretty comfortable in saying he wants to be here." Benson was born and raised in San Antonio.
On Monday, October 17, Benson in a story that captured national headlines dismissed Saints executive vice president Arnold Fielkow, who had been a public supporter of the Saints' importance to the state of Louisiana, and who had advocated the playing of home games in Baton Rouge. According to Fielkow, Benson told him that if he'd tender his resignation and sign a confidentiality agreement, he'd be paid the remainder of his contract; when he refused, he was fired outright.
Benson's actions quickly drew outrage from Saints fans as well as local and state officials. On Wednesday, October 19, New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin sharply criticized Benson for acts he deemed heartless and opportunistic. Said Nagin: "For them to be openly talking to other cities about moving is disrespectful to the citizens of New Orleans, disrespectful to the Saints fans who have hung in with this franchise through 30-something years under very trying times."
Two days later, Benson publicly stated that he has made no plans to move the Saints to San Antonio. "There are many factors that will affect the future location of our team," Benson said. "That is also true of many other New Orleans-based companies that are faced with deciding their future homes." He said he would make no decisions about the team's future until the 2005 season is over.
In Wright's piece, Archie Manning said he was pretty convinced the Saints were going to leave. Now read this excellent NYT article for more perspective on why fans like Archie believed this. They weren't confused, they were realists. According to this article, Katrina and the NFL practically forced Benson to stay.
Rita Benson is indeed pretty cool. We like her. However, I don't need to hear how the people of New Orleans, during the "confusing" months after Katrina, were "unfair" to her father. No. F-ck that. Tom Benson was (at best) flirting with moving the team before Katrina, and then he talked serious relocation turkey with the mayor of San Antonio after Katrina, when this stricken city was on its knees.
Wright's account of the Benson family receiving warm appreciation by wealthy political elites on James Carville's porch is fine. But don't feature it in an article about the "soul of New Orleans" without giving the other side of the story. And don't give me some apologia about Tom Benson needing to protect his billion dollar asset without discussing the manner in which he chose to "protect" that asset. And whatever you do, don't gloss over and defend Benson's selfish behavior in an article about the "soul of New Orleans".
Alright, what else in the article would Jeffrey take to task?
Ah yes, in a section of the article called "Suffering", Thompson makes a bizarre decision. He decides to use an account of a friend's aerial flyover of flooded New Orleans as an example of the "true despair" residents felt when coming home after Katrina. "Every single New Orleanian has a story like that" Thompson writes, "and it lives deep inside of them."
Uhhhhh... I think maybe George Bush has a similar story to that one, but most New Orleanians felt "true despair" at some moment on the ground. Is a flyover the best or most appropriate example of "suffering" he could come up with?
As if the expedition to Galatoire's wasn't enough, Thompson takes us to Restaurant August and Chef John Besh, as he entertains Saints players:
The O-line knows the ins and outs of the menu, and Reggie Bush, Besh says, knows the chefs working the kitchen.Again, where is Jeffrey the Malcontent when you need him?
"Shockey used to live upstairs," Besh jokes, laughing. "We're glad he's gone. We kept losing hostesses."
All of them -- Besh, LeBlanc, Brees, Payton, Bush -- they are all part of this first generation of post-Katrina successful New Orleanians. They are building a city from scratch, and people see them every day, working, adopting charities, enjoying life, sitting at the next table or listening to the same band. Katrina almost destroyed the city but, if you look closely, you'll find that it did something else: It strengthened it, made the people who loved it love it even more. Everyone left the city, so no one is here because of inertia. They chose to come back.
Obviously, three of the people Thompson mentioned weren't among those who chose to "come back", because they didn't live here before the storm. And is it really true that "all of them" are part of a first generation of "post-Katrina successful New Orleanians"? Payton lives on the North Shore, and Bush's professional career might one day take him elsewhere. They've both done some fine things for the city, and I cheer for their success, but are they really part of a "new generation" of New Orleanians?
In conclusion, I want to say that I liked the article but didn't love it. There were several things with which to quibble-- including excessive sympathy towards the Benson ownership.
I tried my best to be the cynical malcontent, but we all know Jeffrey would've put this post to shame.
===
Endnote: Thompson made mention of the historic Monday night game against Atlanta on Sept. 25, 2006. He notes that it was "Payton's and Brees' first home game" and that
The Friday night before, Payton gathered his team in the empty stadium. People had died there, just 13 months before. The bodies were stored in a catering freezer.
It would've been excellent if Thompson had noted that no one was killed in the Super Dome after Katrina and that the deaths were exponentially fewer than what the authorities expected. Thus, the big ass catering freezers that they stored the six bodies in... weren't necessary! I discussed this information in a classic YRHT post that I wrote prior to that historic football game (don't miss the story about Mr. Radio.) That post contains some relevant historical data about Mayor Nagin and Chief Compass' unhelpful storytelling during the Katrina aftermath, which T-P columnist Jarvis DeBerry wrote about recently. I hope to share some more thoughts about that whole issue in a future post.
Labels: Cao, Derrick Shepherd, Elections and Campaigns, Markets, Nagin, oyster, Pelicans, Queen Bee, Saints, sports, Tejas, tv
