I am having one of those weekends where people have filtered off in to their own rooms to watch television.
Out in the living room, family is watching Elvis, the new Baz Luhrmann biopic.
In my “room” (I’m visiting said family), I just finished Closed for Storm, a documentary about what became of a theme park in East New Orleans, Louisiana.
As I write this, The King is still playing on the TV and I’m done watching what Hurricane Katrina did to a Six Flags amusement park in 2005.
What started out as something family fun in an untouched section of a tourist city, turned into a complete eye sore, some 17 years later.
Back in the 1990s, a company came in to make Jazzland, in part of the Jazz City of the US, so people have a great place to go, outside of Mardi Gras and the French Quarter.
I’ve never been to Louisiana, so I can’t comment on what the state can offer, nor can I comment about the city that doesn’t need a reason to throw a parade (this, I was told by someone I work with, fairly recently. Her daughter lives just outside the French Quarter. There was a comment about how all you need is a positive thought and off you go. Take an instrument and play in the street. As you walk alone through the various neighborhoods, you’ll gather enough people behind you where all of a sudden you’ve got yourself a party. Call it an updated pied piper parade. Minus the rats and the kid stealing).
Anyway, by 1999, Jazzland was created and running. The park had several different areas for people to roam and play. Roller Coasters, arcades, dancing, a kids area. List goes on.
Being in East New Orleans, it was for those residents to have something positive in their part of the city. Give them something to want to go to, instead of heading to the center of the city where all the flourishing was. Build up some other city pride and give people something to do, as there was nothing like this for hundreds of miles.
Two years into Jazzland, it went bankrupt. People came in droves the first year and the park found itself in too much debt at the end of its second year. So who comes to save the day?
Six Flags.
Raise your hand if you remember Six Flags.
I went to the one in Agawam (aka Six Flags New England) back in the day. I also went when it was called Riverside Park. I might still have a ticket stub from the last trip to Riverside in the mid 90s.
Anyway, the brand bought Jazzland and re-branded it as Six Flags New Orleans.
Business boomed.
Then came Katrina in 2005.
Ruined everything, like the storm did for the city.
Seeing the footage really makes you think about life and where you live. How you take things for granted.
For example, me living on the west coast of Florida (aka the Gulf Coast, as people say), peninsula living isn’t all fun and games during storm season. Today alone, the Weather Channel app has been going batshit because we’re under a flash flood watch where I am currently located. I keep getting alerts saying “severe storm threat in your area”, “flash flooding watch until 8pm” and other blips and bloops.
Having had a taste of a big hurricane in 2017 (Irma) and driving through severely flood streets (a couple weeks ago), all this water puts a new perspective on things.
So seeing the reports of how New Orleans was devastated in 2005, I can believe it.
I mean, I can’t compare my life with what happened then. I remember the news from that time and how bad out was. I had finished college a few months prior and was working in a local radio station. Nothing can compare to other life events, but you remember certain things and how it affected you.
Every summer since moving to Florida, we say “don’t have a bad storm. Don’t be a bad storm”. We had a bad storm in 2017 and keep saying we don’t want any more bad to happen.
I keep saying I’ll take snow any day over the constant heat and humidity plus bad rain during summer. After completing the film, I’ll definitely take 6 months of snow over flooding!
Sure, we flooded a few times in Brockton, but it wasn’t as catastrophic as what happens to the states among the Gulf Coast. They get the raw end of the deal during storm season.
The rest of the movie is about local ordinances and new politics coming in to see what can be done with the dilapidated park. Six Flags pulled out of the deal once the flood waters receded. Three didn’t want to rebuild.
New governors came in, people talked. It’s a money pit to try anything else unless people really had the backing to get things started. There are residents who want something there. Bring back the positive and get rid of the negative.
All of New Orleans had rebuilt itself to be better and stronger in 2006. East New Orleans by 2020 (when the film was made) was turned to junk due to what is now an eyesore for the community.
Trespassing, graffiti, thievery… People were interviewed saying they put so much into their property to redo their house, but because they are close proximity to a run down, over grown ex amusement park, anyone trying to sell their house is subjected to low prices. However, anyone who rebuilt that is closer the main attractions, is selling way above asking price. The community is getting more shafted the longer the Earth takes the parking lots back.
It reminds me of television series like History Channel’s “Life After People” and Apple TV’s “The Year the Earth Changed”, although the latter is about the current situation with the world.
What humanity can do for local ventures and what nature can do to take back what was originally owned.
The documentary is a pretty good exploratory documentary on how we all want to help our community and how quickly big brands pull out of deals when the shit hits the fan.
Literally.
Side step now to some really good audio listening.
I’m slowly catching up on Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond. I’ve got about 90 episodes left to listen to. What killed the catch up was spending the last two years to listening only to Into the Fray (which is a really good superparanormal podcast). But Broken Record is Rick Rubin talking to musicians.
A producer just talking to friends.
The other day I heard the interview with Ben Folds, who is one of my favorite musicians since I heard him in the 90s. I missed my chance to see him perform locally with the Symphony due to the world shutting down (thanks, Covid). That would have been a completely amazing show, and I hope to see him if he comes back this way. I kick myself for not seeing the Goo Goo Dolls. The week I moved to Florida, they were at the local area performing and I didn’t know that. I would have killed to see them. I’m super mad at myself for not knowing any better and not going. Would have been a truly fun experience and “welcome to the wang!!” Concert”.
So the Ben Folds interview is about his life and how he was like most young men - bouts of anger, bouts of recklessness. He realized quickly, in his later years, that if he’s going to be hooked up with specific artistic realms (Kennedy Center, etc), he needs to calm himself down. After losing sponsorship with Steinway, it was almost a revaluation. He can have fun, but if he’s doing work with the Kennedy Center, he can’t be breaking stuff.
He goes on to talk about his 2019 memoir called A Dream About Lightning Bugs: A Life of Music and Cheap Lessons. Much like The Radium Girls being put on my “one of these days I’ll buy it”:, Ben Folds has made his way to that notepad.
The unfortunate side effect of listening to some really great interviews, is my list is growing. I’ve also added Nobody Ever Asked Me about the Girls: Women, Music and Fame and There Goes Gravity: A Life in Rock and Roll by Lisa Robinson.
Lisa Robinson is a journalist who has quite the ever spanning career in music. Being one of the only female journalists and the most sought after journalist (now), she’s had to fight to get her status. Music has always been a man’s game and being the only female to talk to big names, she has acquired enough respect over the decades, people seek her out now. With name checking certain bands, she gave anecdotes in the interviews where you’d expect the musician to be a jerk, her insight was different. Writing for magazines like Vanity Fair, I have read a lot of her articles and didn’t put two and two together until yesterday when I heard the podcast. She had referenced a cast article in an early 2000s Vanity Fair that I remember picking up. It was a music special and different names were involved. When she mentioned the spread, I remembered saving that specific month’s magazine for a few years. It wasn’t until I moved, I threw it out.
The things you learn while you listen to random things at work to keep you busy…
At any rate, the family is done with Elvis and is onto something else. Guess it’s my turn to find something too?
Until I can find drier ground…
Cheers;
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Thanks for sharing!