Eight days after Hurricane Gustav made landfall, I texted my friend in New York, Louisiana native and comedian extraordinaire Adam Wilson, to tell him Entergy had just restored power to my house. His response epitomizes how the media treated the worst hurricane to hit the Capital City since at least 1950. His text said, “The lack of news coverage nationally is Orwellian.” At least if Big Brother were watching, someone out there might have noticed our plight.

In case you hadn’t heard, while we in South Louisiana suffered for over a week with no power, a curfew, quasi-apocalyptic traffic snarls, and gas lines reminiscent of the Carter administration, the rest of the country was led to believe that we had dodged a bullet. If Gustav’s aftermath was that of a dodged bullet, I’d hate to be here when we suffer a flesh wound, or worse, a point-blank shot.

Only a couple of weeks later, after Ike inundated our coastal region with a storm surge no less damaging than Rita’s, the nation’s attention remained almost solely focused on Galveston and Southeast Texas. Widespread devastation in Cameron Parish and 15,000 flooded homes in my native Terrebonne Parish hardly registered a paltry blip on the national media’s radar.

As much as we in Baton Rouge and other parts of the state bemoan the national media treating us like the redheaded stepchild of the Gulf Coast in the wake of these natural disasters, we must come to grips with the fact that the standard for such news coverage was set three years ago after Katrina. If New Orleans isn’t drowning amid rampant misery, despair, and lawlessness, it’s not really news.

I say this because, no sooner than they saw the New Orleans levees held and the city was no longer in danger of being deluged, they packed up their satellite trucks and headed for the Republican National Convention in Minnesota. As far as they know, the only levees in Louisiana are exclusively in the Crescent City, or at least the ones that truly matter.

I would have imagined that Katie Couric being in Baton Rouge and broadcasting from WAFB might have helped garner more national attention. Then I remembered that, unfortunately, no one watches Katie Couric.

From their standpoint, there was no real reason to stick around here after the storm. As bad as it was here, we just didn’t offer anything juicy enough for them to cover. No stranded people getting plucked off rooftops by the Coast Guard. No brazen looters cleaning out stores in broad daylight. No elderly folks dying in wheelchairs on the sidewalk. No dehydrated African-American babies for Geraldo to hold up in front of a camera while pleading for government action.

All we had were lines – gas lines, food stamp lines, downed power lines – and let’s face it, lines just aren’t sexy enough for Anderson Cooper.

It also didn’t help that our elected officials displayed a high level of leadership and competence. The governor didn’t stammer at the press conferences, appearing to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The mayor never cursed the federal government on the radio. The chief of police appeared completely capable of handling the criminal element in the city. Haven’t these people ever heard, “If it bleeds, it leads”?

That’s why I think we should organize a press-grabbing corps for future storms. While the real leaders do their thing like we elected them to do during the recovery effort, we could have a group of actors posing as a bunch of bumbling local officials, simply to dupe the national press into giving our region the attention we deserve after such a calamity.

Our local theatre scene has plenty of acting talent. If you don’t believe me, check out the 11 p.m. showing of Dracula at Baton Rouge Little Theatre on October 30. (Paul Harvey is my hero.)

Plus, it wouldn’t cost very much. Local actors don’t get paid a lot, anyway. Besides, when the folks in the rest of the country see Gov’ner Slingblade ask FEMA for more French-fried potaters, they’ll feel so sorry for us that charity and grant money will start rolling in hand over fist overnight.

I’m talking about area thespians cranking the village idiot dial to eleven. They’d make our Metro Council look like Shakespeare’s version of the Roman Senate. Even Paris Hilton would be horrified by our mentally vapid “leaders.”

If you doubt that parading dumbass politicians saying dumbass stuff will get the press’s attention, just look at Representative John LaBruzzo. As soon as the Republican legislator from Metairie suggested the state should pay poor women $1,000 to get sterilized to help reduce their dependence on government assistance, he was being interviewed on CNN by Kyra Phillips. I’m telling you, those people can’t help themselves when it comes to giving copious airtime to idiotic politicians, especially those from the South.

I’d be remiss if I signed off this month without thanking some people for their actions both before and after the storm. They did their part to help our community’s psyche during the recovery after Gustav. Of course, I’m talking about the people in the Police Briefs section of The Advocate. These brave souls risked what reputation they had in order to keep us entertained.

Most of the city was without power. Even more didn’t have cable service. With a few exceptions, though, The Advocate was still delivered on a daily basis, and boy, did the criminals give the kids from “Family Circus” a run for their money.

First, before the storm ever hit, there was the story of the guys who were charged with kidnapping and beating a tattoo artist before forcing him to do tattoo work on them. Many of us were too busy getting ready for Gustav when it was printed two days before the storm hit, but it served as a great literary diversion after that tree fell on the roof.

In case you were too busy trying to score a blue tarp from FEMA (aka the “Tarp Tards”), it featured 21-year-old Nakendrick Bowman, 20-year-old Rodney Rip Walker, and 21-year-old Carl Dynell Sanford. According to police, they kidnapped the tattoo artist at gunpoint from the City Food Mart on Plank Road. They allegedly forced him into a car, beat him in a field, and drove him to his home.

There, authorities say, they compelled him to do tattoo work on the three of them for seven hours. I’m not sure what the hourly rate of a tattoo artist is, but apparently, it’s too much for these guys. Either that, or he’s really good and was booked solid for the next three months.

As for what these hardcore thugs wanted done, Bowman reportedly got a tattoo of Scripture on his left arm, with a name just above the Bible verse. Maybe he wanted to be like Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction and read Scripture to suckas before poppin’ a cap in dey ass, but he had trouble remembering the verse.

Speaking of angry black people, there was the account of 20-year-old Dominique Latrice Pate. She’s accused of approaching a police patrol unit in the middle of the day, leaning into the vehicle, and punching the officer inside in the face.

She then allegedly hit the officer in the stomach with her elbow and told him that she hated both law enforcement and white people and that she wanted to kill them. Seems like the folks at the Nation of Islam didn’t have any trouble getting their newspapers out after the storm.

We also had Curtis B. Hayes, who channeled the spirit of Tyrone Biggums from Chappelle’s Show. When deputies arrested him for drug possession, they asked him how 2 grams of crack and 7.9 grams of marijuana got into his home. Hayes reportedly replied, “Hurricane Gustav must have brought it.”

Man, no wonder everyone was acting so crazy after Gustav hit. His 90-mph winds dropped trees, power lines, and crack all over Baton Rouge. Good thing I don’t have to worry about any drug tests.

Even political types tried to entertain us in our time of crisis. Scott Lemoine, Republican candidate for the District 11 Metro Council seat, was issued a misdemeanor summons on a count of simple battery. Lemoine allegedly treated another man like a non-housetrained puppy and hit him in the face with a newspaper. I’m sure he’s got the man’s vote now.

Then there’s the saga of the hijacked pizzas and Robb Sharper, Metro Council Member Byron Sharper’s 41-year-old brother. According to Baton Rouge police, they told him to stay the hell away from the Parish Emergency Operations Center after defrauding Domino’s Pizza, which had set up a mobile kitchen in the parking lot to feed workers and first responders stationed there.

Sharper, who was wearing an NAACP shirt and signed in at the center as a member of the NAACP, allegedly told Domino’s employees he needed 300 pizzas to give to the elderly at local nursing homes. The employees purportedly ended up giving 50 pizzas to Sharper because he was wearing the NAACP shirt and he looked like an official. In a related manner, hundreds of frat boys at LSU have been witnessed walking into area Domino’s Pizza stores wearing NAACP shirts and asking for a dozen free pizzas.

Upon further investigation by Mayor Holden’s security detail, it turns out the pizzas never made it to the old folks’ homes. When Sharper returned for another batch of pies, he reportedly admitted that he had not taken them to the nursing homes, but instead delivered them to people living in his brother Byron’s district. Looks like the folks in District 7, where Byron’s running for re-election, got the pizza while the emergency workers and first responders got the pepperoni.