I was listening to the radio this morning during my 2 hour commute, which should only have taken maybe 45 minutes. I was driving in to Metairie from Slidell (through New Orleans), and on the radio they were chatting it up on WWL 870 AM. The DJ, Bob DelGiorno, was referring to different topics and what not concerning the Crescent City's Future. From Mardi Gras to the Mayor and to a skit that was played on Saturday Night Live over the weekend. It was a repeat from September, but it must have been the first time that Bob had seen it. He said it was in bad taste and showed what he felt that people outside of the area probably think of our situation. I can concur that to believe it fully, you have to see it, smell it, and feel it for yourself. I have friends out of state who grew up here for most of their lives, and on a recent trip, even THEY were shocked at what they saw compared to the coverage that New Orleans got after the hurricane destroyed everything in their hometown. The fact of the matter is, whatever the stigma is on Louisiana, it doesn't change the fact that this shit was seriously (and without overuse of the word) fucking devastating. With that said, I have no problem with Saturday Night Live poking fun at any situation. There are times where it's so sad, it's funny around here.. and comedy practically writes itself. The one particular skit that was the topic of discussion is basically a showcase for the different SNL cast members to do various impressions in a New Orleans-Celebrity-House-Rebuilding setting as shown on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 show. Plain and simple, that's the skit in a nutshell. My honest and unbiased opinion is that it was just not funny, and not because of any insult it may have caused some people, but because it was not written very well and was not humorous. In comparrison, the New Orleans-Katrina-Girls Gone Wild sketch was ok. Now I know funny and during the early to mid-90's, I looked to SNL as a sorta dream job when I was a teenager. Most people believe that the golden age was back in the Aykroyd/Murphy/Chase/Radner/Belushi era... well since I grew up in the 90's, Hartman/Carvey/Farley/Spade/Sandler/Myers where my heroes. Nowadays, the best I can hope for is for Christopher Walken to host again. Now, I can see how that skit could be considered insulting for some. If there was a variety show based out of New Orleans, and we poked fun only about a month after 9/11 happened (you know, when the twin towers fell), it would have probably been frowned upon by New Yorkers. Now in this hypothetical variety show, we would have depicted some guys looting ground zero, running with a broken fax machine while others are seen sawing off hands sticking out of the rubble so that they could steal someones jewelery... then a scene or rapings, beatings, and police brutality at Madison Square Garden... and finally a bad imitation of Rudy Gullianni looking like a clueless schmuck screaming "The towers are burning, the towers are burning!"... Well, I have my doubts that New Yorkers would have found that funny. Say what you will, but the only element that would make 9/11 a bigger tragedy than Katrina, is the fact that it sparked a catalyst for a greedy oil-driven administration to host a senseless military-death-ridden war (with reasons based on faulty intelligence, of course). Other than that, there's not much comparison. You see, Katrina didn't spark any patriotism, which is why it's not getting much US or congressional attention. When hurricanes attack, there's nothing to bomb, no people to hate or torture, and no catholisism... I mean democracy to spread. So as you can imagine, it doesn't sound nearly as much fun compared to playing in the middle-eastern sandboxes. The whole 9/11 incident and what followed is treated like the holocaust, where people are marked a backstabbing heretic, a villainous trader, or treasonous unamerican if they merely utter anything remotely similar to not completely agreeing that it was the end of the world. So how big IS the biggest disaster to ever hit America? Over 200 BILLION dollars in assistance estimated to be needed for recovery. Over 90,000 square miles of designated disaster area in Louisiana, Mississippi, & Alabama. Over 2,700,000 people left without electricity. Hundreds of thousands of homes, businesses, structures, cars, and boats all destroyed as well as hundreds of thousands of lives put into disarray. Hundreds of thousands filed for unemployment, thousands missing, and hundreds of thousands displaced. All this and no Toby Kieth song to show for it. You'd think that Uncle Sam would rather spend some money and time to help take care of business at home and rebuild the gulf south, instead of wasting billions of dollars "rebuilding" Iraq... hell, here there's also oil in it for them! Some would say: You'd think that Saturday Night Live, being based in New York and all, would know what the effects of a tremendous tragedy could bring to a city, even if it only took place inside of a couple of city blocks. And you'd think that with a whole week of preparation, that SNL would somehow be introspective, creative, and most of all, witty! But I suppose not.
So Lame! I give it four and a half Fallons!
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