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Here We Are
The city council passed a few resolutions the other day and one of them allowed for licensed electricians to do the final inspection on their own work, the practical end result of that being electricians now have new reasons to ignore your calls. Or the two city inspectors can now say no I think your electrician is handling that and the electrician will say no I already filed for you down at City Hall, you will need to wait on one of the two inspectors. I have friends and family Uptown so I'm not exactly suffering. I can take hot showers and do laundry, watch a little bad football and commune with humans inside of structures with gas and electric service, surrounded by structures with gas and electric service. And little or no debris in the streets and only an occasional blue tarped roof to remind you of the fact that there may have been a storm that passed through here sometime recently.
Then I cut across town along Louisiana Ave. all the way to Broad St. Take a right and across the Broad St. Bridge and a right on Iberville and I'm back to my quiet little neighborhood. Along the way their is spotty business openings--one Rally's burger joint, a carwash, and two or three corner stores, one of which, and I kid you not, doesn't sell beer. Because of some damn religious platform I am told. But those businesses are all there is along the Louisiana Ave. route and I'll clock it for you someday but we're talking about a four mile swath, more or less. Some stoplights that didn't work a month ago are working now but for the most part the route back to Mid-City is temporary stop signs at intersections or an occasional flashing yellow (which nobody understands and those intersections would be better off with nothing.) Speaking of nothing, if you coming down Iberville there is a missing stop sign at the Dorgenois corner so you better stop or the rare passing worker vehicle will broadside you.
I don't really live in Mid-City. I am on the downtown side of Broad by a couple of blocks. It is sort of a no man's land. Even before the flood. Vacant lots aplenty, parking lots, commercial buildings and ramshackle housing. When the master planners start using phrases like "infill development" to describe the future of my neighborhood, I can only say--yeah, I hear ya.
I told you previously about the Port-a-toilet with the Katrina insignia, DB(dead body)X 3, which was sitting at a corner along Claiborne Ave, near the Superdome exit ramp, and that toilet has been moved and is now partnered with two others in the neutral ground of Louisiana Ave., across from the Rhodes funeral home, which no longer has coffins in the debris pile out front.
Holy shit, my electrician called me back. He said he'd already been part of the do-it-yourself inspection process (which he may have already told me and I just didn't get) and that my property was inspected and filed, but that wouldn't mean diddly squat shit until they reconnect that fuse to the transformer in front of my house. I've made calls, talked to Entergy workers on the street, emailed Entergy, and...
I get mad sometimes, I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
One other thing. On my recent trip to Texas people kept saying I had no idea so much of New Orleans was still dysfunctional. Well, word up, mthrfkrs. Don't take the profanity personal. Just me acting out. Getting rid of the madness. I am totally cool, totally happy, totally chill, except when I'm not.
I'm going to leave you with this. Over in EditorBville, up lakeside Iberville from me a few blocks, in true Mid-City, EditorB and wife Xy are living full time in the top floor of their house, which is powered up, but surrounded by darkness at night, except for the two nearby houses also partially powered up, and full of representatives from the new Mexican work force, and they got a new fridge delivered the other day, EditorB and Xy did. They weren't home when the guy came by the first time and had to make numerous calls to figure out what was up. But the guy came back and delivered it and when EditorB signed the paperwork he noticed a scribbled note on the bill which the delivery guy had written to explain to his higher ups why he didn't make the delivery the first time. What he wrote was not out of slackness or carelessness but simply a genuine observation.
"Entire Block Abandoned."
Singing In The Shower
Yes I did take care of some business yesterday. I made so many calls my cell phone minutes have plummeted down into the hi and bye zone.
Talked to really nice woman at Entergy and she gave me my account number which I seem to have no handy record of and I used that number to set up online billing. Which is a really handy thing to have going on and I anticipate freeing up a lot of time previously wasted on licking stamps when comes that future day when I actually get a bill from Entergy. I would expect that to happen some time shortly after I get the electricity turned back on at Rocheblave, which has now been missing for one week shy of 5 months.
I did some emailing to Entergy as well. Told them about the streetlight being out in front of my house and I received a prompt response and here it is:
Dear Mr. Louis:
Thank you for bringing this information to our attention. A service request has been issued on your behalf to have this streetlight repaired. Our normal commit time to repair a streetlight is three (3) business days. These lights should be repaired by April 3rd. Entergy is still experiencing an extreme back log of street lights in your area. We apologize for the inconvenience this is causing in your area at this time.
Did that say (3) three business days or (3) three business months?
I am not so much missing the streetlight per se, but the streetlight being on is a real sign that you are at least connected back to the grid. Up to the pole in front of your house anyway.
I'm doing some other stuff regarding my New Orleans viability that more or less feels like a dance, to a dude that doesn't really dance, except in the bathroom, which is like singing in the shower, except nobody can hear you do it, unless you grunt when you dance, and if you do, you shouldn't.
I'm going back to work Monday, with my old boss, who has sorely been missing me, and I'll get back into a groove, being a house painter/trim carpenter, and everything gonna be cool in this world gone whack. The truth is--New Orleans really is a heckuva place to bring your family, for a camping trip.
Sharon's Eyelid
Shooting in New Orleans, on Orleans, at N. Dorgenois, and at Orleans and N. Rocheblave, on Sunday, during the first authentic and majorly attended second line parade since the hurricanes. The shootings occurred 3 blocks west of M's house on Dumaine and 3 blocks east of my Rocheblave house. 3 wounded. All regret the violence and see it as a bad start, but nobody that's lived in New Orleans for very long could have expected this problem to just go away. For a second line this was a very big one ( a few thousand perhaps in attendance, many driving in from host cities, Memphis, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta) and almost exclusively black and so to some perhaps emblematic of a "black problem" that we can, once it's safely inside the quotation marks, sort of not deal with, cuz we white people. But all of us in NO, black or white, are f-ing up with attitudes which demand anything less than a Draconian or at least innovative response to the absolutely palpable violent crime that has existed in New Orleans year after year.
And Ray's been trippin' a little bit but I'm not trippin' to hard on him.
I'm giving Ray a pass because this is just too big a thing for one mayor to be handling by his lonesome with only a somewhat conniving city council behind him. Should chill on those chocolate references though, I think.
Alas, I am again not in New Orleans, but in Austin TX. now, after a week in Dallas helping to get my mother placed in an assisted living facility in the suburb of Arlington, which is home of the original Six Flags, and the Texas Ranger Baseball stadium known as The BallPark, and soon also new home of Dallas Cowboys football (stadium 2 or 3 years away). And the Hurricane Harbor water park, and the wax museum, and excuse me for leaving anything out. Like a brother and sister in law and another burgeoning Louis clan in the form of great nieces and great nephews.
I'm at Jose's compound off of Cameron Rd, just down the road from the construction project on the grounds of the former Austin airport, which will be the Dell Children's Hospital. And then some mixed-used stuff coming in behind it. Jose's got another nice used truck over here that could be my next truck, a 96 Toyota with 4wheel drive. Even used, not real cheap, but Jose worked his magic again and talked the guy down almost 2 thousand dollars. I think I'm going to run the Mazda a little longer. He may want to give the Toyota to his father in Mexico.
I'm not really in the mood to talk about much. Seems like an awful lot of shit going on these days. Sharon's eyelid?
Lear Jets And Cigarettes
Sometimes you wish you could jump on a Lear Jet and bop on down to Miami for a few days, to clear your head, but why even waste your time imagining such unrealistic things? Oh, because fact is stranger than fiction?
No babe, you go on, I can't make this one, I say into the mike on the stage of that imaginary world, as the palm trees and sand and leggy nearly naked women fade to darkness.
I am on a mission of filial importance, in Dallas Tx.
My mom fell down in the bathroom of her new home in Arlington but there is an emergency cord in there so she pulled it and the staff came and got her and she went to the emergency room and had X-rays. She's been eating Blue Bell ice cream every day for years so the calcium rich cream might be given credit for saving her from broken bones. Just bruised.
As the baby and chief long time miscreant of this family I benefit from not being taken over-seriously. I could not be part of the invading force that moved her out of her home and put her in this facility. There is nothing in my past to imply that I could be part of such a team, even though, in the recent past, whenever she asked was I on that team (of six children conspiring against her) I would always say, yes. When I left my mom's room yesterday, she said, "will you take these people with you?" She was motioning with a dismissive backhanded wave, at my sister, and my sister-in-law, who have lately been taking the brunt of her discontent because they have been doing the bulk of the frontline work. My sister has been holding up admirably, except for that out of the blue crying jag at mom's former house in North Dallas, yesterday.
I started smoking again when I returned to New Orleans, in October, because all the other kids were doing it. I took to it eagerly, like a fish seven years out of water. I don't know how people do that controlled smoking thing, only smoking when they drink, or one cigarette after a meal type thing. I gots to be sucking on them all day long, from daybreak to midnight. My biggest goal was to keep myself to just a pack a day, which I did, more or less.
Now I am two days into a cessation attempt and I'm using some of that nicotine gum this time, although I have always been a proponent of cold-turkey, no anti-smoking aids, because that's how I did it last time, seven years ago. I'm at least two weeks away from being really confident about my possible success, but have high hopes, which is better than a sharp stick in your eye.
If you are in New Orleans though, and smoking happily, but are on a budget, let me suggest you bike yourself over to Terranova's grocery on Esplanade, near N. Lopez, across the street from the still boarded up Circle K, because cigs are only three dollars a pack there. At the Chevron, Canal and Broad, near my Rocheblave house, cigs are four dollars a pack. At the Royal St. Grocery in the French Quarter, they are four dollars fifty a pack, and at bars everywhere, they are five dollars a pack. If you travel to NY they will be seven a pack. So, smoke em if you got em, but be a smart shopper.
New O Logic
I have four months to prove the viability of my neighborhood AND there is a four month moratorium on renovations in the flooded zones? Man, fuck you.
Shuffle Shake And Roll
I'm in Texas and yesterday I was cruising for chicks in the halls of a co-ed dormitory in Arlington. Me and this other guy actually. I trailed behind him for awhile to pick up on his methods because he'd been around the place longer. He was an actual resident and I was just a visitor. He's got one of those fancy new candy apple red walkers, with the wheels and the handbrakes and the seat you can store stuff in or in emergencies I suppose you could even crap in it. I haven't had any coffee this morning because I'm staying at my brother's house in the Lake Highlands area of Dallas and there are two Jack Russell dogs here and one of them doesn't like me and I'm afraid to leave this room, until other people get up. So my mind is not clicking very well. I'm just staring at the screen a lot. So I'll keep this short, take a shower, and then maybe, if no one is up yet, make a mad dash for the front door and drive somewhere for coffee. Spent most of yesterday helping my sister and two sisters-in-law arrange my mom's new room at the assisted living facility in Arlington. We brought in some of her furniture from her house and pictures and milk glass and books and, most importantly, Blue Bell ice cream for the mini-fridge. She is not happy but we, three of her six kids in attendance, are. Because the place is nice, and the people, both residents, and staff, seem pretty cool, and even if this is a mistake, it is clear to all of us that it is a much lesser mistake than the one we were making by letting her stay in that big two story house in North Dallas, by herself. Anyway, I met beau coup babes yesterday. I don't think its too late for me to enter the world of big time player-dom. I'm going back today. May try out one those lines from my friend with the candy-apple red walker. Shuffle shake and roll, shuffle shake and roll, turn to resident, smile broadly, say "hiya sweets," then, shuffle shake and roll on by.
Sherbet
A dove flew down from the highwire, into a field of lilies, where children played happily. Then the sun went behind a cloud. But it came out again and shone on the children's faces and they were still happy. A hawk came and chased the dove but it was ok because the dove got away. The children shrieked, happily, in the field of lilies. And there was nothing in the world to hurt them, ever.
Just An Idea
Another new friend went out of town so I am out of the ghetto and up on St. Charles Ave. in this little condo, house sitting, resting, getting over a cold, watching football, and preparing for my exit to Texas, tomorrow, where I will visit friends and family and possibly inhabit yet another home devoid of its intended occupant. My mother is being moved to an assisted living facility in Arlington, Tx., today. It is going to break her heart when she realizes this is happening but it can only be an improvement over the extreme autonomy she pretends to enjoy now, as an 88-year-old woman alone, with Alzheimer’s.
Finally there are more black people coming back to New Orleans and although the numbers are small compared to the Pre-K population, the essence they are projecting on the street corners, and in city hall and school board meetings, and in local businesses, and in the recovery efforts, is a thing so positive to the future of New Orleans, that I am uplifted and at the same time a little weary by the memory of what we as a city and we as individual citizens are capable of as in regards to neglect of our fellow man.
Some members of the new majority (white) population are bemoaning the idea of that very small percentage of the New Orleans black population regaining its power on the streets and exercising its control over the whole city, as they have in the past. We should all be against such a thing happening, but the idea that your opinion alone is a positive force, is just dumb. Without any personal grassroots effort to improve the thing you see as a problem, you are not going to solve anything, anywhere.
People are opining that the projects should not be reopened because they are synonymous with gangster crime. This is an insult to the majority of the occupants of any given project in New Orleans. The conversations always range from—there is too much government assistance or there is not enough. I am not a big fan of projects because I think they separate the poor into concentrated blocks of buildings historically overly imprinted with the idea of failure and squalor, no matter how well the majority of the people living there are getting on with their lives.
I don’t think government is the answer to our problems but I think government assistance to people who show concerted effort towards improving their lives and the lives of others is a good thing, or could be a good thing. Unfortunately, “government” is also synonymous with failure and dysfunction in this country, and in this city especially. So be the anarchist, which is what many of you pretend to be with your disdainful attitudes toward government, and take control of what you can take control of.
Get a piece of framing lumber from the debris pile on any given block in New Orleans, sharpen one end of it by using a piece of broken glass wrapped on one end with duct tape. Attach to it a scrap piece of plywood, or siding, or sheetrock, from same debris pile. Get a fat permanent marker or a can of spray paint and write the words “free tutoring.” Pick up another piece of heavy lumber and drive that bitch into the ground in front of your house. Wait. Adjust your schedule as necessary and tutor your new mentees according to their needs, relative to your abilities. An ex-girlfriend and I did this, except without the sign, me for a few years and her for ten, she at the same address, right up until she got boatlifted past floating dead bodies after the flood in September 05. For a week she had thirty neighbors with her in that house on Dumaine, just high enough above the water.
By doing this will you single-handedly change the world? No, you will not. Will it be easy everyday and seem like a good thing? Nope. Will you stop crime in your neighborhood? No, not really. Will you prevent each and every one of your mentees from growing up to be murderers? In our experience, no. Will area gangsters stop throwing giant dead rats over into your side yard, kicking in the quarter panel of your car, ice-picking your tires, occasionally threatening to kill you? I would say it would benefit you not to expect that. Will your mentees never steal from you? They might occasionally. But will you positively impact the lives of one or two or ten? Fuckin A’ right you will. Will you make a difference? Yes, you honestly will. Will it look and feel that way? Not very often, but what else is it that you are doing here that prevents you from giving up some of your time, from the comfort of your own home, to take that chance of giving something back to a city that has given you so much enjoyment. Could we change for the better this world of New Orleans if a thousand of us did this, around the city? I guaranfuckintee we could. We could actually change the world. And without any government assistance.
I’m not likely to be a permanent resident of New Orleans in the future so you can just discount everything I’ve said. You need to know and your mentees need to know you are going to be around for awhile. But if you are staying, think about it. At least volunteer somewhere. Good luck to all of us.
The Posturing Of Us
I sure am a glutton for punishment and to prove it I went to my third city council meeting yesterday. The chauffeur again snuck up on me sitting in my truck here in the Rocheblave driveway, where in the daytime under the bright sunlight you hardly even miss the electricity we have been missing for four months, and said, you wanna go? and I said, no, not really. He said he was going to ride his bike down and I brought a bike back from Virginia and what could it hurt to have a bike ride to City Hall? Chauffeur’s bike has no air in the tires so we went in his van instead and split the five dollar parking fee in the lot across the street.
We went inside the chamber of City Hall and took seats, one apart from each other because guys who aren’t gay are always trying to prove they aren’t, to each other, and to anyone else who would point us out and say—look at those two gay guys sitting right next to each other in this nearly empty hall.
There had been a protest of 9th Ward residents and activists out front and we decided to go watch a bit of that, since we were 20 minutes early and these things never start on time anyway. A well-spoken woman with the most amazingly beautiful and gleaming parted down the middle afro was at the mike and I heard most of what she said but to tell you the truth was a little distracted by the way the sunlight was refracting off the tip ends of her full afro, as the wind blew it one way and then the other.
She was stating that the 9th Ward is not receiving the same recovery attention as other parts of the city with the implication that racism could be at the core of this. She also stated that the 9th Ward is perhaps the single largest black neighborhood in America, not to be confused with the 6th Ward (Treme) which is often considered the oldest black neighborhood in America.
We went back to the chamber after several more speakers expressed their discontent, and took our seats.
Mayor Ray Nagin wasn’t there (although the mayor of Pittsburgh was) and so at large city-councilman and president of the council, Oliver Thomas, led the proceedings, with what looked like a white tipped phallus to his right but which closer inspection proved to be councilman, Eddie Sapir.
We had to stand up and listen to a prayer from a local pastor who by tonal quality of his voice alone could prove God’s existence, and then the pledge of allegiance (can we sit down now?), and then (please, can we sit down now) a recorded version of the National Anthem complete with the hokiest big screen multi-media presentation I have ever seen.
I forget what is Greg Meffert’s title but he is Ray Nagin’s chief brain in charge of big stuff and the council members grilled him very much in the fashion of a senate investigating committee and he held his own very well I think, even though the white tipped phallus had him stuttering a little at the end by trying to get him to say was he or was he not speaking for the mayor. It was a trick question and in no way benefited any of us who were there to get some hard facts about just what the fuck is going on in this crippled city.
There was a surprise visit from Governor Blanco and she at least spewed out some facts which may or may not actually lead to beneficial changes for the future of New Orleans. Time will tell if Blanco will lead us to any positive changes here.
The chauffer I can tell sort of likes the appearance of importance that is implied by all the council members whispering to each other and taking cell phone calls while other speakers are on, and would periodically take calls (what the hell man, that phone of yours ain’t got a vibrator function?) and tell the person he couldn’t talk now, he was in a meeting.
I had to leave before Governor Blanco finished because I was having a minor depressive meltdown. I have been doing so well for awhile. I had just yesterday told my nephew’s wife that I haven’t cried in a few weeks. I wasn’t about to cry but I was getting a good dose of the material which fuels that sense of helplessness which leads to the wet boo-hoo.
The chauffeur had stepped out before me and was in the ante-chamber talking on his cell phone when I stepped out. There are often big-time city players out in the hallways during these council events and chauffeur likes to overhear and sometimes engage these people. I went to the bathroom and a guy I don’t know but have seen in the newspaper over the years was washing his hands in the gentleman’s room to the right of the ante-chamber. He was talking to a man who was zipping up his trousers and said, laughingly, “is this perfect or what, here in City Hall the hot and cold water taps are reversed.”
I went outside into the perfect sunshine and made a call, and told someone’s voicemail that I couldn’t meet with them today about a possible job because I was just too busy. I didn’t know where the chauffeur was but I felt like walking so I thought about walking home. I called the chauffeur to tell him this and he said he was ready to leave too, and came out front 30 seconds later. We drove over here to Rocheblave and he immediately got engaged with a hardwood floor guy who may do some work to his flood damaged buckled wood floors.
I keep forgetting to eat so when I started getting dizzy I drove over to the Broad Street Discount Market for a po-boy. It was too crowded so I headed back over to Rocheblave and noticed those people out front of that pretty church at Iberville and Broad had lunches set up on a table so I went and got a couple for me and the chauffeur. They each weighed much heavier than the Red Cross lunches, which recently barely seem to weigh more than the Styrofoam container they come in. The lunches consisted of six or eight barbecue chicken wings, carrots, instant mashed potatoes, and some cooked apple slices. And they came with a can of Welches grape juice, which reminded me of the communion wine served at the Methodist church of my youth. After lunch I tilted back the passenger seat in my truck and took a little nap. The chauffeur came over and when he saw me laid back like that he said, “man, I want to be just like you when I grow up.” I said, “chauffeur, don’t aim too high.”
More Water
Traffic is picking up here in New Orleans, even in the devastated areas. The devastation is not what you might expect, after all the hype. It's not the debris piles, or all the shut businesses, or the occasional gravity-defying leaning structures, or the diminishing water lines that even a month ago, before a couple of cleansing rains, more clearly marked all the empty structures around here. In part, the devastation is most defined by the recovery. There is already a house on Napolean Ave. that has been raised five feet, and sits now on concrete pilings, surrounded by so many houses just waiting, for what? None of us know. There are houses in Mid-City with their electricity turned on but they are invariably surrounded by many many more structures that most people would consider un-livable. There is that so-called unaffected strip of land following the Mississippi River which includes Bywater, the French Quarter, and Uptown, and many of the restaurants and bars in these areas are open, but most of them are cash only, and almost all of them have something from their previous menu that is not available now. And when you leave these areas, to go back home to the campsite formerly known as "your home," you are assaulted with that mix of relief and what what? You can stay busy if that makes you feel better or you can just slack and the end result, to my slacking self, seems about the same.
The area Universities and colleges, Tulane, Loyola, Xavier, UNO, Delgado, are starting up in another week or two, with a general 50 percent cut in staff, and a few of the many area high schools are up and running, and a charter school or two are schooling the few children here...and then a pipe burst under the house at the cottage on the Virginia property for which I am absentee caretaker, and I'm dealing with that now...water, water, and more water.
Water Main
I got that pirougue out of my nephew's backyard and took it over to Rocheblave and now have better floating potential in a city below sea level surrounded by suspect levees. The demolition guys showed up that day and parked the large backhoe in my nephew's front yard, in preparation for the tear down later this week. Did they park right on top of the main water shutoff would become a question after I broke a pipe in the bathroom while trying to extricate the claw foot bathtub. "Your house is flooding," I told my nephew and his wife, who were smashing down water-swelled-shut doors with a little sledge hammer, to retrieve last mementos ("holy cow, I didn't know you guys went to Paris for your honeymoon," I said when they handed me a water dripping photo album documenting that fact). For about an hour we dug in the front yard for the water main. My nephew was sure about the location but it would not show up as he dug deeper and deeper. We did find a piece of the collar (ostensibly broken when debris removing bobcats traversed their property) and the lid, and yet still could not find the actual shutoff. The backhoe was parked very close and we contemplated tunneling under the treads to find that damn shutoff.
Today is the final day of my house sitting by the Fairgrounds and Ramona and I went on our last walk this morning and she deposited her poop by the Fairgrounds fence as I looked up the treasure lined street at--tree limbs, garbage bags, vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers, television sets, sheetrock, rotted framing lumber, shingles, car tires, broken bicycles, stereo equipment, stuffed animals, bricks, pots and pans, and furniture. And this is a neighborhood that did not flood that badly.
I would go into the bathroom periodically to give my nephew's wife an update about the water flooding her moldy, bombed out house which only four month's previous had stewed in eight feet of toxic, swirling, furniture-rearranging floodwater. "It appears to be draining out through the floor in the bathroom and is not spreading through the house much." She appeared to be in pretty good spirits about the whole thing but I wasn't absolutely sure about that so I never turned my back to her when she had the two-pound sledge hammer in her hand.
When it became obvious that the two so-called men in attendance were of no use whatsoever, we swallowed what little pride we still had and told her she would need to drive the neighborhood and be the damsel in distress to whomever she could find. She found an Entergy truck but they pertain to electrical and gas issues and although he was apparently sympathetic to her plight, he could not actually do anything. However, as all of us took turns digging, and postulating about the whereabouts of that shutoff valve, the man from Entergy came driving up the street and then went into the house with my nephew to have a looksee. He made my nephew go into the shooting fountain of water and try the shutoff by the tub, which I had already "turned off?" and rechecked once to make sure I had turned it in the right direction.
While they were in there I hit the main shutoff with the shovel blade and when apprised of this while coming out of the house leading my soaking wet nephew, the Entergy man said--"good timing." He had a couple of wrenches and did the turning, one wrench 90 degrees to the other, and stopped that flow of fresh cleansing water. Nephew and I loaded that clawfoot tub into my truck with the pirougue strapped on top and they followed me over to Rocheblave to unload and then took me over here to this neighborhood where I house sit and we ate at Liuzza's by the Race Track and had the best damn barbecued shrimp po-boy ever.
The Fuse
It is true that I am not exactly the most proactive acting individual around but this morning with the prop of the low-riding dachsund Ramona on her walk in a neighborhood bordering the Fairgrounds, where at one point a nice resident man said, "hey, I've been seeing you around, you live here?" And," my wife will be very upset if you let that dog shit on our grass, without bagging it," I collared an electrician getting tools from his truck and asked him if having no street light was really the sign that you aren't even hooked up to the grid yet. He took the time to walk me down the street a ways and pointed out the transformer up on the pole and explained about the fuse either being hooked up or not. Before he even finished I flashed to that little thingy hanging down loose from the transformer in front my house on Rocheblave (which now I know is a fuse) and said, "ok, thanks, I see what you're talking about." I saw my neighbor, the sculptor, two days ago, and she said she stopped by an Entergy truck on a nearby street recently and begged them to power up our block. They wrote down here address, I'm guessing out of politeness as much as anything else.
I brought a small generator back from Virginia, which, although not powerful enough to run a power tool, is powerful enough to charge up the Christmas lights I strung along my front porch. I also plugged in a string to the plug-in converter in my truck, which runs off the battery, and ran it inside via extension cord to act as multi-colored festive night light in the bathroom. And I have a twelve volt camping lantern. There often seems to be a bottle of whisky on my kitchen counter, which is a kind of fuel too.
There are now open a few convenience stores along the several mile stretch of Broad Street, which is obviously a positive sign. At the same time, they are so far spaced in an area still without much population, that partly what these stores offer is a painful contrast of the function and disfunction of this city. At night in Mid-City there are sections of town with street light and sections totally black. Very few, and I mean, very few, houses have interior lights at night. Still, some of us are camping and lately we are enjoying amazing weather, day and night.
Many of us here travel in and out of state periodically and are hipping up to what is a normal reaction from people not affected by the flood waters. The residents of New Orleans just need to handle their business and quit all the whining. A little whining though is a healthy release for us so please don't begrudge us that. This is not by any means a hopeless situation here but to live here and daily traverse through the operating and non-operating sections of the city is at times difficult to our psyches. I should also mention that many outsiders have been a huge help to this city and thanks to all of you.
I still get politely Q&A'd by cops occasionally, because I look like a criminal, but none of them have beat me up or shot me so I am grateful for that.
I am later today going into Lakeview with my nephew to retrieve the pirogue from his back yard, which floated onto his property when eight feet of lake water visited his neighborhood, back in late August, early September. The demolition crew is scheduled to knock his house down tomorrow. We may try to retrieve the claw foot tub from his, uh, newly remodeled bathroom. He is rebuilding, my nephew is, and his amazing wife and three young children are with him every step of the way.
I have been invited, sight unseen, but not blog unseen, to a New Year's gathering at the home of another Mid-City camper. He and his wife recently had the electricity turned on to the top half of their house. They live in a neighborhood just a couple of minutes from Rocheblave, and are surrounded by darkness. He is Editor B and gots a groovy blog.
Four Months Down
Looks like we're at the four month anniversary of the flood. It's warm here this week so I could be sleeping quite comfortably at Rocheblave but I got a few more days of this house-sitting gig so I'm sleeping comfortably on N. Lopez. Talked to a guy across the street who has no electricity (the only house in this neighborhood without it) and I asked him what kind of converstations, if any, he had had with Entergy and he said 30 minute to one hour holds with occasional in his face hang ups and the last bit of hopeful info they gave him was--weeks, not months. Did you know that weeks eventually do add up to months? His experience with Entergy is pretty similar to mine except that my block is not even powered up at all, no streetlight, which is the signal that you can at least anticipate the reality of your juice being turned on. I could start to get frustrated here pretty soon. My friend says I should be calling Entergy but I don't really agree with my friend about the benefit of that. Lucky for me I got things to take my mind off of this shit. In a couple of weeks I'm driving up to Dallas to help my siblings kick my mom out of her house and set her up in assisted living facility. She doesn't know that's going to happen but all of you do. A bit of advice to all of my mentally ill friends who may wish to visit here. Do not wave a three inch knife at large gatherings of police. You will scare them silly and they will shoot you dead.
NO Merry Christmas Memories
5.18.97--The Dumaine Players
CL, a 20-year-old young man raised by Mama D goes my the name K and while shirtless sports the pucker of bullet wounds across his stomach and back, wounds inflicted during his fifteenth year. More of a ladies man than a street hustling drug dealer, K follows the flow of current events and avoids conflict to the best of his ability. Sometimes seen on the street holding his newborn daughter, K smokes the blunt, raps a few modern lyrics, but mostly stays on the border of any serious business dealings in the area. The mother of the baby is in jail on a charge unrelated to shooting through the front door K's ex-girlfriend across the street here about six months ago. For a man of his age in this environment, K has been plenty respectful of the two white people at 2646. On one occasion at the Magnolia convenience store across the street M found herself laughing at the sexual advances one young gangster was making towards a young girl, and while the young man was inclined towards getting in M's face over this small humiliation, K, with some theatrics, dissuaded the other young man from pursuing his actions. So M likes him and perhaps K appreciates (and is yearnful of, himself) the time M spends with his younger blood relations on the street. Just a week ago M had put out on the front porch some coloring books and crayons for the younger children to play with and when she came out a bit later she found K proudly displaying his colored picture and asking her opinion of its worth compared to his sister's, LL. LL is a 14-year-old honor student.
6.2.97--Surrogate Parent
I proposed a few months ago to some of the neighborhood children (ages 6-12) that if they would clean the street on Sundays I would take them on road trips outside the 6th Ward: to Audubon Park (where I say--come on guys don't pull your dicks out and pee off the jungle gym, go behind a tree or something. Or they call each other motherfuckin' nigger in front of the rich white children), or to the New Orleans Lakefront where I let them illegally swim until the park police come and bust them, or to the beach in Waveland, Miss. where a carload of good old boys drives by yelling out--hey you niggers, or to a local music festival where Shelton, 12, punches out Eric, 10, or this weekend to a festival in the French Quarter where M and I went with three boys and came back with only one. Even knowing that all these boys roam the Quarter on their own and can walk or bike the distance in less time than we drive it didn't relieve me of guilt for leaving the two boys (even though we waiting in one prearranged spot for four hours). But they know I don't mind, even expect them to stray to Bourbon St. to ogle outside the titty bars, as long as they check in once in awhile. So while Fermin hung close, got an outlandish balloon hat from a clown (who wouldn't accept my money but took everyone else's), got his face painted (also for free) and shared a po-boy with us (which is a special treat because I usually make them bring their own food), Shelton and Eric disappeared to do God only knows what. When Fermin tells us he has to go home and take some medicine, we drive back to Dumaine, where I drop him and M, and pick up two more boys, Glynn and Michael, and head back to the Quarter to make at least the pretense of a search. I centrally locate myself (next to that damn clown again) and send the boys off into the Quarter. They go to the river, the French Market, Bourbon St. and back, get free balloon hats each (the most extravagant that clown made all day), and I say so you guys looked for Shelton and Eric to which they respond, oh yes, and we head back home. Shelton and Eric are there, sitting on the porch, and knowing I'll be mad try to sucker punch me with--why did you leave us down there, at which point I yell some grown up stuff at them (although not once did I call them motherfuckin' bitches as their guardians sometimes do), and banished them from next Sunday's activities. To which they respond--what about the Sunday after that? I guess I showed them.
6.8.97--Depravity, With Despair On The Side
Shelton, at 12-years-old, is the oldest boy living in Mama D's house. Shelton is the neighborhood bully and as much as we see him being a bully and can imagine and remember what it's like being the the recipient of a bully's bad attitude, it's hard to see Shelton as much of a threat to the world at large when he's laying on our front porch with his head in M's lap, sucking his thumb and pouring out his worst fears about this most obviously fucked up world he lives in. Shelton is cursed with the gift of insight combined with a seriously lacking education. He sees and interprets everything with amazing clarity. He knows where he's from and where he is most likely to end. And he sucks his thumb.
Shelton spent his first weekend down at juvie. He and Michael and Eric were playing in D's backyard on Thursday (Which D's mom, Y, forbids, because all the people across the street are "animals.") and when D asked the other boys for some candy they had, Shelton told him he could have some if D would suck all three of their dicks. Eric then pulled his pants down and Shelton pushed Eric on top of D and that was pretty much the whole incident. Until the next day when J, Shelton's 12-year-old girl cousin (who is bursting ripe with sexuality and likes to hang around the young gangsters hanging on Y's porch), tell's Y about the incident. So that same day three cop cars show up, and Y's ex-husband's mother, who is a cop in the child welfare division, also makes an appearance. Mama D comes across with Shelton, S and G with Eric, and then Y shows up with D. Mama D tells Shelton if he wants to get his dick sucked he should just stay home and get one of his brother/cousins to do it for him. S, not to be out-done, yells something unintelligible at Eric and then pauses briefly as if at a loss to say something meaningful, and suddenly cold cocks him upside his head. G pulls Eric away in a protective embrace and then leads him back across the street. Y, who I think secretly admires Mama D's parenting skills, starts telling D a thing or two--I fuckin' told you not to take any goddamn shit from any of those boys. Those boys try to fuck you up, I don't care how big they are, you better fight your fuckin' ass off. I told you this before but you're so fuckin' stupid you don't listen. You're so fuckin' stupid you're smart. Everyone agrees that Shelton is the instigator of all things bad around here so he takes the fall. Undoubtedly he will make some new friends this weekend down at the juvenile detention center.
6.15.97--The Adopted Father Of Dumaine
Fun projects for the kids: An empty 20-ounce coke bottle becomes a macabre, lifeless terrarium, in this easy-to-do project for children ages six to twelve. Simply put two live chameleon lizards, with or without tails, in a bottle. Make sure not to puncture bottle as any breach in the plastic will extend the life of your lizards. Pass bottle between children, letting each child torture these fascinating and harmless creatures to their satisfaction. Slick and gooey with bloody contusions, your lizards will soon stick to each other in a myriad of real life positions. Marvel as your children learn to recognize everyday predicaments of life in a vacuum.
Look at 'em making love (that one on the bottom look none too happy).
Look at 'em fight (that one on the bottom look none too happy).
I think they dead (that one on the bottom look none too happy).
As an added fun feature to this project, witness your children as they explore the applications of Darwinian theory. Yes, stronger children really can hold down weaker children and place pulverized lizard parts on their heads...
Note: the lizards were already dead by the time I came to witness this little science project. I did not interfere with their fun until they began exploring the antiquated sewage line access, inside the fence below the porch. It has an eight inch square hinged metal lid and is about ten inches deep. A four inch diameter clay pipe opening can be seen at the edge of the hole, disappearing under the sidewalk. Players: Shelton 12, Jacque 11, Bryan 9, Marqin 8, and Erica 3. All the players are huddled around the hole when Shelton says--Mr. Jim, come see. Grumbling in protest I step down from the front porch and stand over the hole. I see the tops of five children's heads.
You see 'em, Mr. Jim
No
Erica squeals--lookit Mr. Jim, lookit (Erica, the sweet dark angel of Dumaine, father unknown, mother, 17, is hiding out in CA from a local attempted murder warrant). What has her attention now I finally see, oh, how nice, baby rats. And as I watch these children open and close the iron lid, banging on it with sticks and then opening it again to see what effect they are having on newborn rat babies, I wonder what it is going through other people's minds when they query me as to why I have no children of my own.
Shelton! Do not torture those rat babies!
I won't, Mr. Jim.
I mean it Shelton. I didn't come out here to watch a bunch of psycho kiddies torture animals.
I know that Mr. Jim. Ya'll cut out all that banging.
And don't poke 'em with those sticks.
Shelton slaps his cousin, Marqin, across his head. Marqin says,
Why you hit me, Shelton?
Mr. Jim don't want us torturing those babies.
That right Mr. Jim?
That's right Marqin.
We can look at 'em, Mr. Jim.
Just look at 'em, Marqin.
And I'm trying to figure when I will have the opportunity to throw some rat dope in that hole to kill the bitch rat. Fuck a bunch of rat babies.
7.27.97--Going For The Gold
Five more murders last night, makes twelve in five days. One of the murders happened right across the street from H-A's bar in the 7th Ward. H is the Neighborhood Watch cop for this district. P was over this evening giving M some Night Out Against Crime paraphernalia. Party at Mama D's in a couple of weeks. BBQ chicken and whiskey, maybe some stuffed (deviled) eggs. Anyway, P said H heard the shots and when he went outside, there was no one there--except for this young man lying on the sidewalk with the top half of his head missing. Last time there were this many murders in one week the citizens marched on City Hall. I went down with P and M. My brother, Alex, was in town and he came too. Our smarmy mayor set up an image control team outside on the grounds. Had a stage, some inspriational speakers, maybe even a little gospel music, I can't remember. Then we all rushed the chambers. P and M made it inside. Alex and I were forced to retreat and enter from the back and made it as far waiting area but we could see inside the chamber. Again, the mayor had the fix in and had half the chamber filled with city employees and lackeys. But there was enough pissed off screaming citizens to make for quite a show. The mayor never did show up though. Unlike this week, that week's murder count included three white people (employees of the Pizza Kitchen in the Quarter; the killers used potatoes for silencers on their guns). This week, as the boys at work might say, is just a bunch of niggers killing niggers. Punks and gangsters who aren't productive members of society, so fuck 'em.
Monk's wife would not respond to calls from her sister today so her sister called emergency services and they busted the door down. His wife had been living with cancer for some time and today it killed her.
It's ten o'clock Friday night and Jacks closes at eight so I walked over to Kim's on N. Broad, near the corner of St. Ann. I wanted a 22 ounce Heineken. Monk was standing in front of the iron gates that Kim puts up late at night. I gave him a feeble wave as I approached. We shook hands and he told me what I already knew and I told him how sorry I was. He had a lot of gin in him and was looking for more. He was married for 33 years. He walked off with a man I did not recognize in search of something I cannot imagine.
Happiness is the absence of intellectual thought.
Saturday: three more dead last night but one of those might be a repeat in the count so let's just say 14 in six days. One more day to go. Murder cannot continue at this rate but if it did the toll would top 600 for the year. The per capita equivalent in NYC would be 12,000. The actual count in NYC is closer to 1,200 for a year.
But overall the murder rate is down for the year, and all crime in our district ( The First) is down, and the 2600 block of Dumaine is pretty quiet, so maybe I should just cheer up. There is no TV here and if I didn't read the newspaper I wouldn't even know any of this is happening. I wonder if ignorance is an option at this point.
Sunday: some punk shot his lawyer last night. And that makes fifteen.
8.10.97--Slapping The Bayou
H-A's restaurant, bar, grocery store, over on LaHarpe in the 7th Ward burned down last night. The establishment was 90 years old and was known by the original owners' name--Mule's (Mulays). H and his brother co-owned it with members of that prodigious Ngyuen clan.
Things are sleepy and quiet on Dumaine. Temperatures are down but the air is too still and wet. Some of the boys playing football in the street. Sharon stabbed Greg today. The Saints are playing the Chiefs tonight in the Superdome. I'll probably listen some on the radio.
I've been staying inside lately, pondering, stagnating, resting. Reading a couple decent books.--Richard Russo's latest, Straight Man, and some good detective fiction by a Boston writer named Robert Parker.
Mr. Dave, around the corner on Dorgenois, died Wednesday, deserves something of an extended obit but I will have to confer with JW, who sold the house next door to Y.
I'm going outside to see what happens.
Sunday: (I never did go outside last night. There was no place to sit what with all those kids and coloring books). Got up around 6:30, went to look for paper but it wasn't here yet. Came in, took a bath, made coffee and toast, loaded up the one hitter, and drove down to the bayou, parking on Moss, just down from the corner of 3300 Dumaine. I sit at the first set of steps, the Dumaine bridge to my left, and that church with the green copper dome to my right. Early Sunday mornings are so fine in New Orleans; so quiet the sound of repentance. My coffee is good but I burnt the toast. I light a cigarette and bow my head in prayer. That fisherman two hundred yards away might be jealous of my trained fish, which glitter at sunrise, high above the water, before reaching the arc's pinnacle, when they lay flat and to the right (as per training), and come down slapping the water in high fashion. God, I love those fish.
Joggers, bikers, and dog walkers are making their appearances. More cautious than curious, they seem to carry with them an inherent understanding of the folly of running yourself healthy in a place so casual about killing. Reiterated too often in the news is the that discouraging reality that no place in New Orleans is completely safe.
I set fire to the little morsel of weed in my pipe and suck it dry. A little dab will do me. I have to hold the smoke in my lungs longer than I like out of respect for that pedestrian who snuck up behind me. By the time I do exhale, very little smoke leaves my mouth. I guess I got all of that one.
I am completely alone on the bayou when the church bells start clanging what soon becomes a brief melody. Just when I think I might be able to hum along, the notes begin breaking down, slow and easy, until the disentigration completes itself with a single wavering note. Silence.
It's 8:30 when I get back to 2600 and there are five boys waiting in front of the house, ready to clean the street. Only four of them will fit in the Festiva.
So the four boys and I leave out of here for the beach in Waveland, with Michael crying in the rear view mirror.
A white family let the boys play with their nerf football. When I went to return it prior to our departure, the man said--"well you're very welcome, it looks like they were having a lot of fun." I'm not sure, but I don't think he was referring to the part where they were holding each other's heads under water, yelling, "stay down bitch, stay down."
Kacofinny
Ramona enters from stage left as an image of her true self in the mirror by the door, her dachsund claws clicking on the painted wood floor. The lap cat, whose name I would have to retrieve from the house sitting check list, is not on my lap because the laptop is, but under my right elbow she purrs.
I had breakfast in the French Quarter at the diner on Bourbon St. The jukebox was blaring gospel, the waiter called me babe, the tall cook with glasses was a blur of motion. The rather proper looking woman to my right had a tattoo revealed on that sliver of exposed flesh at the small of her back, disappearing downward, oh my God.
A man on the street had asked me for fifty cents but I gave him a dollar. Another man had pleaded with me to tell him what to do because he didn't have any idea. He was from Pasadena, Tx. and had lost his car, his wife, his house, and his dignity. Tough town to be pleading all that but I gave him a dollar anyway, and sent him off to sleep in the shut down Armstrong Park, which you can still slide into.
A man with funny accent hollered at me from his car and then pulled over and I talked to him and his wife. What the hell he was saying I had no idea but finally I got it. "Where is the broke part?" We were still in the French Quarter. He said, "This is so beautiful, where did hurricane hit, we are from Quebec, that's in Canada." I pointed them north and said it may not look safe but check it out, it's safer than it ever was, and thanked them for coming down. "Our friends said 'oh no don't go down there,' but we wanted to see," and I reiterated my belief that everything is fine here for a visitor, and thanked them again for coming.
Coming back from The Island yesterday down the length of Louisiana Ave. from St. Charles to Broad St. and there was still a 16 foot fishing boat resting its hull on the pavement by the curb but the coffins laid out as trash along the street outside of the Rhodes funeral home were gone.
Also I should mention that there are smaller islands in New Orleans, off the main island, and I am on one of them now, house sitting (the caretaker is everywhere) near the fairgrounds, just up the street from Liuzza's by the Racetrack, which is open, and into which I could be in 45 seconds, drinking beer and eating po-boys, if I were to get up from the couch.
I put a couple of small strands of Christmas lights on my front porch on Rocheblave yesterday and cranked the generator cord and raked the back of my hand against the chain link fence and made a few bloody boo boos between my knuckles and wrist. The lights are very understated and the hum of the generator is less than pleasing, not at all as syrupy but every bit as annoying as Silent Night.
Caretaker Defamation
I was parked in front of a fancy hotel in North Carolina last spring off loading luggage and when I started the truck back up it blew out a truly impressive cloud of white smoke. In idle it continued to emit blue/grey white smoke at such an alarming rate that I worried for the health of my fellow wedding guests, who were mingling just inside the open door leading into the lobby. I quickly pulled away from the front door (forcing even more white smoke from the exhaust pipe) and parked in a nearby lot behind a row of vehicles that I felt certain did not emit smoke of any kind.
The white smoke can be indicative of a blown head gasket (very bad) or a blown rear seal (also bad) and is not the sort of thing you want to happen to your vehicle while on a wedding road trip that requires you to drive 40 miles between rehearsal dinner and wedding and reception. A friend recommended I take it to a nearby mechanic and have him pour in some of that engine additive seal sealing gunk (and something similar for the radiator) and I had nothing to lose so I did this, and the truck responded favorably. It got me back to Virginia. But that trip marked the last of the road trips for the Mazda B4000. It could only be used locally until I either had major engine work or off-loaded the truck. Except that besides for a noticeable engine skip in the 50 mph range it just kept on running pretty well, so I test drove it up to Philadelphia a couple of days after Katrina hit New Orleans. And no problem. So I drove it to New Orleans in Oct and it did ok so I drove it back up to Virginia and NYC this last week, and now I am driving it back, and, all systems go. I'm not at the halfway point yet but have high hopes for my unlikely success.
In Virginia, on the grounds of Mt. Prosperous, always f-ing off, always working, I had the heating system worked on in both the houses, received delivery of a replacement window (that I had ordered 3 months previous and had given up on ever receiving), attended to a burst hose bib on the bighouse, aired up the tires of a bicycle, and performed complicated banking maneuvers at a Front Royal, VA branch of the bank that handles my NC business as it relates to the rental house there.
In Woodville, VA. I remedied a wood stove problem which was bewitching the radical feminist octogenarian play-write, and only laziness and lack of interest kept me from fixing the pervasive underlying problems of the entire Rappahannock County.
Deep in the bowels of NY City's Lower East Side I met with one of my curmudgeon underlings, inspected his ongoing work, purchased one of his flower arrangements, and fixed his damn semi-circular bathtub shower curtain rod assembly, while he looked on, in sheer awe of my methodology.
If only I could relax when on vacation, instead of always feeling that need to reach out and fix the crumbling infrastructure of others. Such an attitude, however, would be a direct defamation to the essence of the caretaker.
Email From NOLA IIz
NY City. At a Deli near Central Park I paid $17 for a few small bags of ice so we could keep beverages cold at the little get together we were having off of 5th Ave. Across the street from this large 5th floor apartment is, well, every damn thing, it's NY what do you think?, but notably, there is a bodega that sells the cheapest damn corkscrew you could ever imagine, and upon every use a piece would break off of it until yesterday, the day after the party, I was reduced to using the blunt end of what was formerly the sharp screw part of the device, to push the damn cork into a bottle of wine.
As I double parked in Jersey City the afternoon of the party, waiting for Otis's most delicious, delivered vegetarian chili, I was witness to a twenty minute sidewalk cell phone tirade by a young woman who informed me, her man, and every available ear on the block about what a complete low-life shit he, her baby's daddy, was.
I do not approach NY these days with the relative gusto of my youth, and so yesterday, the day after the party, I took advantage of this large space, with steam heat so ample that the windows are always open, and laid around, watching the miserable Saints, and then the miserable Cowboys, on TV. The small two person elevator opens right into the apartment and I would go down periodically to smoke a cigarette and wander no farther than the immediate block or two, and every time would see a restaurant or shop or notable building that, I swear to God, wasn't there two hours previous.
An affluent looking man, with grey burr-cut hair and an ear ring and an overcoat looking like it might cost close to what I've spent as down payment on New Orleans ghetto property, was mad at a bus driver double parked in front of his vehicle, inside of which sat his grandson, and this man in the truest tradition of the holiday season, went so totally ballistic, foaming at the mouth, red-faced, veins popping, that the young gangbanger walking in front of me turned around a couple of times with a look of shock, or maybe it was train-wreck anticipation.
I went around the corner after that and stood out front of the grocery store and listened to hip-hop coming from a vehicle across the street. Two teenagers were dancing and then all of a sudden they started to beat the shit out of a homeless person, throwing him to the ground and then kicking him in the kidneys and side of the head. The homeless person lay apparently dead on the sidewalk while passersby stepped around him. After two full minutes laying motionless the homeless person jumped up, danced in place, and then ran off around the next corner, following his friends who had pretended to beat up his pretended homelessness.
I could have gone to Starbucks for coffee this morning but I prefer not to shop at coffee houses where they blank stare you if you go in and order, "coffee." So I went to the Dunkin' Donuts across the street and stood queued behind a few morning commuters and right after I ordered ( by saying, I would like a large coffee), the woman beside me said, at full volume, (and as far as I knew, apropos of nothing)--You owe me an apology. And then she reiterated several times that one of us owed her a damn apology. All five of the workers behind the counter and the five of us queued up glanced at each other to see which one of us was shitheel of the moment. It was one of the workers who had inadvertently taken someone else's order before hers. There was profusely sincere and soothing apology, from every one of the workers, and then a heartfelt--you have a nice day--and the woman almost cried, and said, thank you so very much. Apparently because she was so happy to be even in the proximity of the merest insinuation of the possibility of actually having a nice day.
Seasons Greetings from NYC, woohoo.