Because We Are Nashville?

A large part of the reason that we are being ignored is because of who we are. Think about that for just a second. Did you hear about looting? Did you hear about crime sprees? No…you didn’t. You heard about people pulling their neighbors off of rooftops. You saw a group of people trying to move two horses to higher ground. No…we didn’t loot. Our biggest warning was, “Don’t play in the floodwater.” When you think about it…that speaks a lot for our city. A large portion of why we were being ignored was that we weren’t doing anything to draw attention to ourselves. We were handling it on our own.

Some will be quick to find fault in the way rescue operations were handled, but the fact of the matter is that the catastrophe could not have been prevented and it is simply ignorant beyond all reason to suggest otherwise. It is a flood. It was caused by rain. You can try to find a face to stick this tragedy to, but you’ll be wrong.

Parts of Nashville that could never even conceivably be underwater were underwater. Some of them still are. Opry Mills and the Opryland Hotel are, for all intents and purposes, destroyed. People died sitting in standstill traffic on the Interstate. We saw boats going down West End. And, of course, we all saw the surreal image of the portable building from Lighthouse Christian floating into traffic and being destroyed when cars were knocked into it. I’m still having trouble comprehending all of it.

And yet…life will go on. We’ll go back to work, to school, to our lives…and we’ll carry on. In a little over a month, I’ll be on this website talking about the draft. In October, we’ll be discussing the new Predators’ season with nary a thought of these past few days. But in a way, they changed everyone in this town. We now know that that it can happen to us…but also know that we can handle it.

Because we are Nashville.

-by Patton Fuqua

taken from here

First of all, and I say this as (no joke) a die-hard Nashville Predators fan, what the fuck? You know why no one is paying attention to Nashville? It's because it's Nashville.

You know why people paid attention to New Orleans? Because a) our thankfully now ex-president double-booked himself with both "crisis management" and "press conference in which I will break my arm patting the FEMA director on the back for his insanely grate crisis management skillz" during the exact same 45 minutes, and b) because IT'S NEW ORLEANS. IT'S FREAKING AWESOME.

(I have an expanded theory on the Bush double-booking incident that involves Dick Cheney conjuring up Hurricane Katrina in a cauldron in the White House Dungeon, cackling all the way, and then popping upstairs and telling Georgie W. to go ahead to the press conference and he would totally take care of everything. A sinister grin slowly spreads across Cheney's face, he snickers evilly to himself, and as the unsuspecting prezident skips out to the Rose Garden, Cheney's snicker crescendoes into a maniacal laugh, and lightning surges in the window behind him. That dude was a villain with a robot heart.)

New Orleans rules. They have Pat O'Brien's. They have crawfish and po'boys (and po'men and po'women too, ba dum bum!), there are streetcars and awesome Creole restaurants. There's Bourbon Street, for crying out loud! Anyone in their right mind in Nashville would have to concede that the most awesomest street in Nashville wasn't anywhere nearly as awesomest as Bourbon Street. (Which of course would beg the question, "what the hell am I still doing in Nashville?")

When was the last time you heard someone talk about the amazing meal they just had at one of the best seafood restaurants in Nashville? Or about how they went on Spring Break there? Do they even HAVE Spring Break in Nashville? Is it like Bible study and country music at the Grand Ol' Opry for a week?

Nashville, I'm sorry, but you're basically the New Jersey of the South. And New Jersey, I'm even sorrier to associate you with anything as bland and dull as the home of country mus-blichh. You know the ol' Smoke Monster loves you, Miss Jurzie.

But honestly, no one would care if either one of you got looted.

Which, by the way, Nashville, you did. Ahem.

But will the Nashville looting get as much attention as the head-up-your-ass, holier-than-thou, look-how-God-DIDN'T-rain-fire-on-Dollywood superiority complex on steroids that Patton Fuqua vomited up? No way, man. Because they're Nashville.