Meet Ashley Morris, the Real Creighton Bernette (John Goodman) From HBO's "Treme"

[JamesG]

Meet Ashley Morris, the Real Creighton Bernette From "Treme"
by Danny Gallagher
posted Jun 12th 2010


Creighton Bernette, John Goodman's character on the critically acclaimed HBO drama "Treme", is one of many voices trying to be heard in the screaming deafness of post-Katrina New Orleans.


His undying passion and tremendous adversity to help himself, his family and his community to return to the way things were before the storm prompts him to scream until his vocal chords bleed.

He weaves common sense solutions and heartfelt sentiments around a string of obscenities, aimed at a world that refuses to put politics aside for the people they are supposed to serve and protect.

His voice, however, is not entirely his own.




"Treme" creator David Simon based Goodman's character on Ashley Morris, an even-more vocal blogger and New Orleans resident who took to the Web to voice his disgust with a bureaucratic system designed to protect the people within it rather than work on the safeguards needed to keep the city from being destroyed.

Morris' blog was filled with words and sentiments that quickly became a popular voice of reason for New Orleans, including the famed "F--- you, you f---ing f---" that defined Bernette's online persona on "Treme".





Sadly, he passed away in 2008 before he could have a chance to see himself and his work immortalized in Simon's project.

Morris' widow, Hana, said she still gets compliments and reminders about Morris' words and passion for the Crescent City, especially since the premiere of "Treme".

She was nice enough to endure another trip down memory lane about her husband's love for N.O., his celebrity status and the impact "Treme" has had and will have on her and her family.







How did you become involved with the show?

David Simon called me in early spring last year. He asked me for permission to use parts of Ashley's blog and of course, I gave it to him because he admired Simon greatly and he would have considered that a great privilege, for his writing to be used in any way ...

I decided not to be involved or interested in the making of the show in any way because (laughs) just like I wrote in the blog, it is very strange for me to watch it and, of course, painful and I just didn't want to do that.

It just hit a little too close to home.









Are there certain things or moments that remind you of your husband?

The first Mardi Gras after Ashley died, his Krewe, Krewe de Vieux, and his sub-Krewe, Krewe of Pan, made him into a float.

The first year was horrible because wherever I went, people would tell me, "oh you're Ashley's wife, we loved Ashley." New Orleans is not really that big of a city, especially the section where we live, which is Uptown. Everybody knows everybody ...

There was a woman in the same Krewe who knew who Ashley was and she just jumped out of the crowd and said, "You're Ashely's wife. We loved Ashley" and I had no idea who she was.



Three months ago, some people from Katrina, the people who plant trees on New Orleans streets that were taken by the hurricane, there were a couple of women planting magnolia trees in my front yard.

Some men and a little boy came by my house and were talking to the little boy and saying, "See? This is where Ashley Morris lived" and the women were interested and asked who he was.

Afterward, they wrote me e-mails saying that they saw his blog ... I meet things like that everyday, it's kind of surreal, it never goes away.









Did Ashley ever meet David Simon?

They never met.

David Simon read Ashley's blog and they talked a few times. Ashley was a professor and he asked David if he could be the speaker at graduation that year -- in 2008 -- and he had prior engagements and couldn't do it, so they didn't really know each other, but they talked a few times.



The character in "Treme", they really got the basis of Ashley's character, the fact he didn't really care what anybody else thought. He was a brilliant researcher. He did extensive research on everything he wrote and if someone didn't agree with him, he could either argue with them to the point where he would persuade them or make them know they were wrong ... honestly, he didn't care if people agreed with him or not because he knew he was right.



I thought David Simon got that right with the character in "Treme". It was funny when he had the "F--- you, you f---ing f---s" on YouTube and the next day everybody in New Orleans was greeting him on the street. The same thing happened for real. It was not the next day, but a few months later, people would meet him on the street and say "you're awesome and that's exactly what we think."

He became a celebrity down here. He went down to the French Quarter and saw one of the shops selling T-shirts and one had "FYYFF" on it and took a picture of it ...

He became famous to the point that it was worth making T-shirts.









How did you and Ashley end up in New Orleans?

He graduated from Tulane in Computer Science and after teaching at DePaul University in Chicago we decided to move to N.O. in the fall of 2004.

But first he got a six month engagement in the Czech Republic, where I'm from. We moved out of Illinois and got everything in storage and moved to the Czech Republic for six months and then we were going to move to New Orleans.



We came here in August and got our house. The plan was to see if he might be able to get a teaching job at Tulane and three months after we got here, they closed the whole computer department so that was not an option anymore.

Moving to New Orleans had been in the works for so many years, ever since he left, eight years, nine years before we moved here, I think, and he had been talking about moving back ever since ... He did love his DePaul teaching job and the university had been really good to him and he really liked it there, but it just made more sense to teach here.




When Katrina happened, he asked if I still wanted to move to New Orleans and we talked about it and we decided that not moving to New Orleans was not an option, especially after Katrina.

To us, it was the time people should move there and help the city and be there for the city and rebuild it and help the people and the economy, not the time to bail out .









I hate to keep asking about things that remind you of your husband, but now that the show is on, has it started all over again?

It did at the beginning because when they started running the promos on TV, they talked about it in The Times-Picayune, so people Googled the blog and read about it.

Actually it's funny because the teachers of my oldest one, they go to Lusher (in New Orleans), which they also mentioned ... Her teachers were fans of the blog before Ashley died, and followed the whole thing with "Treme".

When I was picking my daughter up, they asked how I was holding up with this whole "Treme" thing. I couldn't say I was doing great; I can't say it does not get to you at all because it does. I think the show is really good. I like the show.

I think the people in New Orleans get it much better than anybody living outside (of New Orleans), but they can get the general feel for what life was like after the flood.





It's strange to watch your husband, who has been dead for two years, on TV ... I'm not sitting at home crying day and night, but it's kind of bizarre. You never think you're going to get in a situation like this.

Most people, when their spouse dies, it goes away.
In my case, it's brought up over and over and over.









How do you think Ashley would react to the show?

I can't imagine what he would do if he could see this (laughs), but one of the big reasons I'm happy this is happening, he died when my kids were really little. My son was just barely 2 years old. He really does not have much of a concept of what having a dad means, and he does not remember him at all.

It will be really nice when they grow up one day and I can show them the show and tell them this is what it was like after the storm and this is what your dad was saying and this is kind of how he was.

http://www.tvsquad.com/2010/06/12/me...te-from-treme/