Sabotage Our Saints

Loyalty: 61,000 fans and a guy purposely wearing a #19 Guido Merkens jersey.

I generally don't agree with any of BayouBuzz's Jeff Crouere's opinions on anything pre or post KTMB, however I think his piece on yesterday's first Saints game in Baton Rouge accurately sums it up. LINK.

Getting into the game was a complete fustercluck. Luckily, I got my tickets via FedEx during the week last week--of course they botched the address on their first attempt to get to me. (The botch: they put the proper street address but had San Antonio for the city and ZIP code.) Having the tickets in hand I didn't have to mess with the will call line (see link) where the real fun was--and where some frustrated people gave up and went home. Despite missing out on that fun, it still took approximately 30 minutes to get into the stadium because of minimal entrance points and minimal staffing at the gate. There were separated security searches by gender--a male line and a female line--which I have never seen in the post-11 September world at either Tiger Stadium or the Louisiana Superdome. Despite getting to the gate in what would normally be an adequate time before kickoff, the 1st quarter was more than half over by the time my group got to our seats. The response to all of this by the remaining New Orleans Saints "yes" men officials: "We didn't expect this many people."

UPDATE: Saints ticket official Mike Feder offers an explanation for the confusion in this discussion with Garland Robinette of WWL 870. LINK

UPDATE 2: There is no way the Saints situation will not be kicked around on this site. Unfortuanately for me and my memories, part of my family tradition in New Orleans has involved going to Saints games--lots and lots of Saints games. I discovered a blog, aptly named saintsdoggle which was started pre-KTMB but whose writer is doing an excellent job referencing the various articles and pieces written by various media about the situation post-KTMB, as well as offering his own comment. Check it out--its really well done. LINK

Comments? Send email to: seymourdfair@gmail.com

Tom Benson, PR Mastermind

Nothing to see here. Move along . . .

Just when you thought New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson couldn't mishandle things post-KTMB any worse he manages to trump himself. When leaving Tiger Stadium yesterday following the just fantastic 21-6 "phone-in" loss to the Miami Dolphins, Mr. Benson pushed a WWL cameraman and got into a verbal spat with a fan. Oh ya, and this is the second hissy on camera in a week as last week at his non-Texas house in Metairie he angrily ordered a WWL TV crew to "get off my property."

UPDATE: WWL TV Lee Zurik discusses latest Tom Benson "bull in china shop" affair with Garland Robinette of WWL 870. LINK

Photo du Jour: Jefferson Avenue, 9 October 2005

A drive down Jefferson Avenue shows the complete range of damage the floodwaters caused by KTMB from no flood damage at all to complete devestation. Everything riverside of St. Charles Avenue almost looks pre-KTMB minus the refrigerators and landscape debris. At about Isadore Newman School the stuff on the side of the street begins to include bags of flooded-out clothes, books, etc. and furniture. Generally speaking, these blocks suffered minimal flood damage mostly in "basements" (on the ground level) of raised houses. Near Freret Street the damage shifts towards major flooding with the above mentioned refuse and then the piles and piles and gutted sheetrock. Since it hasn't rained in so long many of the streets in this area and on the lakeside of South Claiborne Avenue (in Fountainbleu/Broadmoor) are covered in a fine layer of white dust created from the gutted sheetrock.

Sorry Closed

OK, for the umpteenth time in the past few weeks I'm about to leave work early so that I can go buy some crap before the stores close. It's not that I mind leaving work early, it's that I don't see why hard working people like me should burn our vacation time when stores could easily shift their hours of operation to accommodate the bulk of the population that works from 9 to 5. Believe me, I understand that businesses are hurting for employees but when I see that Sports Academy is open from 9am to 5pm it makes me wonder just who in the hell goes to buy sports equipment at 9am on a weekday, especially since the rest of the working world is, well, working? I sure as hell know that there are people trying to shop at 6pm because that's when everyone is off of work.

Maybe it's because they need someone there in the morning to receive the daily deliveries. Fine, just get one or two of your employees get there early to receive the shipments and have the remainder of the employees work from 12pm-8pm so that the bulk of the shoppers can actually spend money in your store. We're trying to spend our money but you're just not open!

A Rite-Aid Rail

The Rite-Aid on Oak Street/South Carrollton Avenue remains shuttered KTMB +59. Some credit to them: Rite-Aid has opened some New Orleans and suburban stores including the nearest one to the Oak Street one on Broadway/St. Charles Avenue. Also the Oak Street store was broken into with the aid of a forklift immediately post-Katrina, so obviously thats an issue. Pennsylvania-based Rite-Aid of course purchased the iconic New Orleans/Gulf Coast drugstore chain K&B back in the late 1990's. In my opinion and I'd think most other New Orleanians the Rite-Aid corporation has mangaged to take a guarenteed purple cash cow and run it directly into the ground, crash and burn. Rite-Aid could have left the K&B name regionally, but no. Rite-Aid stated they wouldn't close any stores once they took over, but they did. So there were five or six K&B's on St. Charles alone--so what. The point of this post: I'd bet the farm that if K&B was still around, that Oak Street store would now be open.

Photo du Jour: Jackson Square KTMB +59

Before the THE BIG DANCE started on 29 August 2005 when Katrina that miserable bitch (KTMB) decided to turn things upside down, over the years I would periodically venture down to the Vieux Carre and more specifically Jackson Square to reaffirm my "being" in New Orleans. Yesterday in the AM I made one of those trips--and took the above photo. Unfortunately, the Square wasn't open yet (the gates were still locked) so I couldn't get onto the "set," uh, I mean into the Square. However--despite all the destruction and all of the tremendous problems New Orleans has to deal with--yep, "IT'S" still here--and I don't just mean the Cathedral. Oh ya, and there were plenty of Carpetbaggers and Los Carpetbaggeros types across the street at Cafe du Monde.