Ashley lives

Most of you know that Ashley Morris was the creator of the original psychodots web site and a longtime fan starting in the late 70s. He died suddenly and unexpectedly about two years ago, way too young.

For some reason I was thinking about Ashley today and for the first time in a long time I checked his old blog, which his widow Hana still updates occasionally. Turns out that there's a new HBO series called Treme, about life in New Orleans post-Katrina, and it features a character played by John Goodman, who is primarily based on Ashley! Pretty freakin' amazing. Has anyone seen the show?

Here are some links to find out more:

http://www.nola.com/treme-hbo/index.ssf/2010/04/blogger_ashley_morris_provides.html

http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2010/04/after_katrina_when_every_day_w.html

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/07/entertainment/la-et-treme-goodman7-2010apr07

http://www.hbo.com/#/treme

and Hana's reaction at:

http://ashleymorris.typepad.com/ashley_morris_the_blog/2010/04/so-i-am-watching-the-interview-with-david-simon-about-treme-and-watching-the-bit-with-john-goodman-listening-to-him-saying.html

If you never saw Ashley's blog, he used it as an activist in reaction to the bungling of the Katrina disaster. His style was confrontational and profane, which no doubt rubbed a lot of people the wrong way (at the time I first saw it, I must admit I was a little put off by the level of his vitriol, deserved or not). Ashley was also a huge fan of the TV show The Wire, and he corresponded with and ended up befriending the show's creator, David Simon. Simon is the creator of Treme, and he added the character based on Ashley late in the development of the series. I haven't seen it, but apparently Goodman spews some dialog that's taken almost directly from one of Ashley's best-known blog entries entitiled "Fuck you, you fucking fucks." -- you can read it as reposted recently by Hana on Ashley's blog here:

http://ashleymorris.typepad.com/ashley_morris_the_blog/2010/05/fuck-you-you-fucking-fucks.html

As a bonus the series is apparently presented mainly from the perspective of musicians.

Ashley was quite a guy, and he never stopped being a Raisins / dots fan.

-scooob