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Clifford RIP
The generator just shut off at the Bienville house where Killer used to live, the backyard of which backs up to my Rocheblave side yard. They have been steadily renovating both sides of that double shotgun for months now. Killer been long dead.
An old lady in a housecoat walks a dog down Rocheblave to the Iberville corner and disappears to a world of viability that may or may not exist outside my view.
A cat I have never seen likewise appears and disappears.
I started smoking again Saturday morning. I apologize to the people who were proud of me for quitting but I feel like I will quit again so feel free to be proud of me again in the future.
I was just at the lake with my nephew throwing the football and drinking Guinness while his son tried to make me be Eli Manning. I resisted. I don't want to be Eli Manning.
I have been more or less geographically rejected by the Mid-City Association and will not in the future ever refer to my neighborhood as Mid-City. I have in fact only been doing so recently as a convenience to outside readers who may need a little geographical crutch to picture my area. This exclusion makes me not even a little bit sad. I live in the Bienville Corridor or my self-named Faubourg Louisville, and don't want to be, nor did I ever, want to be, associated with the politics of Mid-City.
I haven't heard or seen a car on Rocheblave, Bienville, Iberville, or Dorgenois, all of which I can see from where I sit in the passenger seat of my truck in my driveway, for thirty minutes now. I am not disturbed by this at the same time it seems notable to me.
The Baptist church parishioners of that church on Bienville between Galvez and Claiborne were out front again this morning, sitting in folding chairs, and there was ten-year-old drummer backed up against the church building, but I could not see in my passing other probable musicians. I wish I has the guts to sit in with them, if they would even begrudgingly have me.
I was yesterday helping the chauffeur measure dimensions in the catastrophe that is his home across the street and a van from the Victory Fellowship people, who either are the people from, or are just associated with, that really cool church at the corner of Broad and Iberville, and let me tell you they give out plate lunches in styrofoam containers that rock the world of free food, and this cute young woman pulls up to the curb and says, want some food? and we say yeah. Victory Fellowship, thank you.
Speaking of great free food, some new friends got married to each other in the Irish Channel last night, in front of their home and thirty guests, and the groom is a fellow former Dallas boy with barbecue skills and had enough beef and pork barbecue, cole slaw, potato salad and baked beans to allow me three full plates over the evening and I was stuffed, except when I got home, when I wished I had taken a to-go plate.
This week stop lights have been powered up at Tulane and Broad and at Canal and Broad and at several of the intersections of Orleans Ave., between Broad and Claiborne.
There are notably a few pickup basketball games happening at area courts.
Despite the lack of what George Bush considers a master plan, people all over the city of New Orleans are rebuilding. At the wedding party last night a man described his innovative ways of just pushing ahead without insurance money and then presenting his work to the insurance representatives as a way to get the money owed to him, given to him.
It's almost February here and it hasn't been very cold this winter and as the sun sets on Rocheblave, I swat mosquitoes.
My mom died on Friday.
Trailer Envy
If you have been waiting on a trailer to live in and you wonder where it is, it is in Metairie.
All up and down those streets between the Lake Ponchartrain and Veterans Blvd. and the parish line and Bonnabel Blvd. the homes have trailers in front of them. I mean a whole bunch of them do.
I really don't know to what extent people are actually living in them (I have yet to see someone enter or leave one of them), but they are there, and unlike the few trailers dotted around New Orleans proper, they are hooked up to sewage, water, and electricity, all ready to go. I think many of the people who got them just couldn't resist how easy it was to get them and that in itself has nothing to do with how difficult it is for quite a few New Orleanians to get into trailers. Unless you are a conspiracy theorist and if you are you should give it up because believing in things you can never prove will only lead you to nocturnal outbursts as reported back to you by the person sleeping nearest. "You said 'shit' in your sleep numerous times last night."
Probably you could argue that people in need are people in need and Metairie residents are just as needy as some poor New Orleanian without a house, without insurance,or a pot to piss in. It's a good argument and you came to the wrong place if you're looking for someone to argue with. You should go home or into the other room and argue with your loved one about something that has nothing to do with what you are really mad about, have make up sex, and get back to me. Please don't tell me anything about the fight or the sex. I'm already bored and your frustrations and the heartfelt delivered explicit details about your love life might just push me over the edge.
I tried to buy beer at the Walgreens on St. Charles today. You wanna hear about frustration? Walgreens doesn't sell beer. Which to me, by itself, is worse than any conspiracy theory I could come up with, and let me assure you, I could come up with one regarding why Walgreens doesn't sell beer.
I'm spending a little more time Uptown than I normally would, and not just because this is where all the sex kittens are, but because I want to feel the pulse of the apoplectic Uptown hordes, and, I'm feeling it. Diagnosis. Simply, ya'll bitches need more beer, period. In Mid-City we may not have electricity or gas in most of the homes but we have a new convenience store opened at Canal and Galvez. If a store at that location tried to pull the "no beer" bullshit it would be the fuel for a neighborhood bonfire the next night. As for the Mid-City Walgreens, where that is? Jeff Davis and Canal? Ya'll can open up or not, I won't miss you or shop with you. Selling all those over and under the counter chemicals and getting uppity about a little alcohol...well...you make me want to...shop at Rite-Aid.
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.