Insight

Since the hurricane, Rose has stopped eating cheeseburgers, become a bad painter and adopted a homeless Katrina dog.

This interview took place earlier this month on the front stoop of the Howlin’ Wolf, a bar in New Orleans’ warehouse district.

Brennan: How long were you evacuated for?

Rose: Until the Monday after the storm, Labor Day.

Brennan: Is there any one image from that return that remains in your mind?

Rose: Our first stop was on Causeway, by the levee on River Road. We had to help a reporter who had been here the whole time, suffering from heat stroke, hunger and shock. The look on his face was a sign of what I was headed for.

Brennan: Did you ever think about not returning to New Orleans?

Rose: I wanted to come earlier. There was no question about coming back. The story that would define my life and career was dropped in my lap. This is what I do.

It’s like training to be a soldier for 20 years; when war starts you don’t quit. Natural disasters are a good career move [said with obvious sarcasm].

We cover death and destruction all the time. It’s different when you are doing it from your home. It’s a fight for the city, my home, my job. I like my job. I get creative satisfaction. A lot of people have to work and come home and do their hobby. I have a lot of creative freedom.

I guess now it’s a double-edged sword. Everyone is paying attention to me. I guess that is what I have always wanted. You know that when there is a movement [called] “Chris Rose for Mayor,” you know this city is in trouble.

I’m used to commenting on the agenda. I am not used to setting it. I am grappling with the reactions to my words.

Brennan: What do your kids think about this?

Rose: To my kids this is an adventure, because they are young [ages 3,5 and 7]. My friends’ kids that are between 10 and 17 are really p——-d.

People are having to shrug and say, “It’s just stuff,” everything you have collected in a lifetime: LPs, antiques. To a 13-year-old, their stuff is theirs. It is their life.

It’s amazing, my daughter had to write a book — my first-grade daughter. Her first sentence was “There was a hurricane, some people died, some were kids.” They understand more than I think we give them credit for.

It is very important to shield children from the despair the adults are dealing with. When we lose hope, we have to hide this from them.

They have seen us cry.

Brennan: Have you seen Mayor Nagin since your columns criticizing him for the “Chocolate City” comment?

Rose: After I wrote the articles, he e-mailed me: “You the man. Life is like a box of chocolates.” I e-mailed him back: “I wouldn’t use that as your campaign slogan.”

What I can’t get over is his billboards: “Re-elect our mayor — Reunite New Orleans.” Who tore us apart?

Brennan: You have been described as the collective voice of hurricane victims. What do you think of this?

Rose: There are some nights where I don’t want to be the voice of hurricane victims. The Los Angeles Times called me the voice of New Orleans. I am just doing the only thing I know how to do.

We were faced with something. I did what I could. I do what I can. I just wanted to be part of the solution. The solution ain’t working, so maybe I needed to be part of the problem. I am performing journalistic ministry. I am creating a new genre [again, sarcasm].

Brennan: You write about a lot of things that upset you, a lot of negativity that our city is suffering from. Is there anything positive that you have observed?

Rose: Yes, the Uptown soccer moms. They will look you in the face in jeans or work clothes. The Women of the Storm, the Ladies in Red Dresses, the One Levee Board — I have never seen political activists [like these]. They [the Legislature] have never met anyone they couldn’t cut a deal with. But there was no deal to be made with these women.

It doesn’t matter whether or not you have your house or your car or your job. It is very difficult living here. [But] they weren’t like, “Woe is me.” They got up and did it themselves. The Katrina Krewe set the model for civic engagement in this town. [The Katrina Krewe is a citizens’ group that cleans up the streets of New Orleans every Wednesday and Saturday. Hundreds participate every week.]

Brennan: We had to read your funny column about post-traumatic stress syndrome in class. It was supposed to make us laugh. I cried. It was so nice to see that someone else was experiencing the same things I was.

Rose: I still can’t process the way people are responding. Either I am hitting my mark or people have lost perspective, or both. People feel powerless. They want to vent and scream. All anyone wants to do is tell their story.

Everyone wanted to tell their story before the storm and didn’t have a story to tell. Now they do and no one wants to listen.

I am telling their story: How p——d off they are, they want to scream, wanting to tell their story and I have a vehicle to tell their story.

I am performing in the newspaper one of the most public crack-ups and people relate. Maybe we are all crazy.

Brennan: Is there a way you release your feelings of despair?

Rose: I get to process my grief, my anger through my writing. I have immediate grief processing and it’s very helpful, to look at the paper and what I have written. Being with my children is a release, too. I have an amplifier for my guitar, my version of scream therapy and I bought my boys a drum set for Christmas. Best gift I, they, ever got.

Brennan: What did you do pre-Katrina that you wish you still were doing now?

Rose: Rent movies, watch golf. The Masters has been on for two days and I haven’t watched anything. A therapist would call that classic post-traumatic stress syndrome. Play basketball. Eat. I miss eating a fricking cheeseburger. I just want to be hungry. I want to eat for joy. I don’t cook anything. I used to cook.

Brennan: Do you do anything now that you did not do before the storm?

Rose: I have become a bad painter and I got a dog, Luna Biscuit (French for moon pie, sort of). That’s in my next article.

Alana Brennan is a communications major at Loyola University in New Orleans. She is a native of the city.