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500 Angry Nikes
There is a 110 year old wrought iron fence in front of the Dumaine house. The porch railing, also most likely originally wrought iron, is now white wood spindle, minus a few due to urban teenager attrition.
Before the recently added wood railing the porch was rail-less and was for many years, between 1995 and 2002 or 3, the Dumaine domain of many a child and grownup, working class and white collar, gangster and innocent.
The young thugs, who we were convinced would show some respect if we offered some (and would not kill us no matter how we treated them, if we tutored--mostly M--and mentor-ed, their little brothers and sisters), would invariably use the aged wrought iron spear tips as a push off point for their Reboks and Nikes when leveraging themselves up onto the porch. And they would plop their butts down on the tongue and groove porch and then rest their feet on the same wrought iron spear tips. "Please don't rest your feet on the railing" was always obeyed until the next time.
Two or three tips have been broken off over the years in acts of Herculean urban teenager angst.
I was ruminating on that railing this afternoon while it rained on my last ditch efforts at long put off exterior paint prep, sitting on a five gallon bucket listening to battery-powered radioed live "Jazz Tent" Jazzfest, as the prevailing winds blew sound onto the porch from the 7 block distant fai-do-do stage.
Take The Curtain
Not getting it done sitting here. You are going to need a very long extension pole to paint that Dumaine house if you persist on sitting on your air mattress watching the sun rise, on Rocheblave.
I made the walk to the Canal/Broad paper box this morning, Friday, my day off from work so I can work day. Epictetus was leaning on the box talking to himself, 16 oz. beer in brown wrapper resting on the top of the box. In all my years over here admiring the survival skills of the stoic Epictetus, I was never sure he could talk, or even had vocal chords, but today he's talking fine, if only to himself.
I said good morning to him and he responded similarly and moved away from the box so I could get a paper. I wanted to give him something, a paper or a fiver, but he didn't ask for anything so I chose not to presume his needs. I did ask him if he was doing all right and he said--still standing.
Went to Betsy's, got the special, left a 30% tip.
Chevron is moving out of New Orleans to the North Shore, taking 500 workers with them. See ya, bye, don't let the screen door hit ya on the way out.
Same goes for me though. I'm leaving in a few weeks to resume my duties in the Virginia countryside. Not because it's too hard here or because I think there is no hope for this region but because Virginia/Delaware are part of my world now, and have been for two years.
Even without electricity and gas to my house for the first four months of my stay, this has been perhaps the easiest and most relaxing seven months of my 12 years here. I know it has not been easy for many and I don't mean to make light of the great hardships suffered by many but I honestly see nothing but good here. That the city has come this far 8 months after being underwater is nothing shy of miraculous. That there is still a long way to go is obvious but the New Orleans I have lived in for these years (on Magazine, on Dumaine, on Rocheblave) was in a very real way much more disadvantaged and dysfunctional than the New Orleans I see rising from the muck.
I am eager to reacquaint with my east coast family but equally so, jealous of you getting to stay here.
Thank you to everyone that has been nice to me this trip. To my neighbors, the Sculptor, the Chauffeur, The Smiths, Mr. Clarence, FreddyB, Raheim, and to those who invited me site unseen into their homes for food and drink and on those coldest days this winter, an occasional hot shower. I tip my glass to Laureen, EditorB, Cade Roux, and Rene. And to my blood, renting Uptown while they prepare to rebuild in Lakeview, I offer you my admiration and love, which you can either accept or trade right now for a six pack of Guinness, or what's behind curtain number 1 (and the crowd yells--take the curtain, take the curtain!)
Jazzfest Birding
This morning I was up before the crack of dawn.
Slapping the still sleeping eminent New York Professor Doctor Wilson on his hip bone with a full bottle of water, I was made to recoil as he came awake immediately, Bowie knife in his teeth, growling. It's just me Professor Doctor, I squeaked.
While Professor Doctor performed his ablutions prior to our departing for the wilds of the Barataria Preserve, I ran off to gas up at the Chevron at Canal and Broad and get cigs at the Canal/Galvez Spur. It was hopping at the Spur this morning at five a.m. and while a confused driver backed out and blocked my ability to gain front door parking, a little dude stole my waited upon space. No biggee, I backed up and exited and parked in the adjacent lot. When I walked up the little loud-mouthed shit spewing dude was just getting ready to come back out for something and we met face to face separated by the double glass doors. I put a granite fist on each handle and opened both doors at once, pretty much piercing his inflated and constantly whining bitch ass persona, with the sharp edges of my bony, shiv-like rib cage. I went straight to the counter, got my cigs, and left, having to kill no one, and not looking back to see if the little dude wanted to kiss my ass.
We were to be on a bird hunt this morning but would end up seeing enough active alligators to distract us from our mission to observe as many as possible of the warm-blooded, egg-laying, feathered vertebrate creatures with forelimbs modified to form wings.
We entered the Jean Lafitte park illegally because it doesn't open until 8 but even a complete ninny knows birds are jumping at dawn.
There was a cacophony of bird noises in the bald cypress, water tupelo and red maple trees above us, as first morning light came on.
Later, resting on the elevated boardwalk of the Bayou Coquille section of the park and a woman and her young daughter, Kristy, approached us and asked if we were seeing anything. She meant alligators. A woman who goes out there everyday had told them she saw gators every time and I said (quite authoritatively I might add), ma'am, there are of course alligators in these waters but as a frequent visitor myself, I can tell you I have NEVER seen one out here.
Professor Doctor Wilson spoke up barely 15 seconds later and said, actually, there's one laying over on that bank.
Oh, those, I might have said, but didn't.
The woman and Kristy walked on and kept spotting alligators while Professor Doctor stuck to birds and I split my time between bird and gator watching, because I was determined to see more than Kristy.
We did enjoy watching one with a dragonfly on it's nose become aggravated and while opening its gaping, jagged, razor toothed jaw did nothing to distract the dragonfly, submerging did, and the dragonfly become gator bait.
We came back around lunch, dined on soul food with the rest of our party at Two Sisters on Derbigny, and then napped while they went off to Jazzfest again. We went out to City Park after the nap and got politely policed by a security force representative from one of the camping villages sprung up post-Katrina all along the waterways of the park. We weren't supposed to be parking near the devastated soccer fields at Boy Scout Island. We could go talk to some other out of towner about getting permission to freely use our own damn park, but I wasn't doing that, we just said we'd be leaving shortly, and we did.
What kind of birds did we see? Can't really say as I am no professor.
Packin' Brushes
I have a trio of New Yorkers and a solitary Californian visiting me here on Rocheblave for the first Jazzfest weekend and last night they took me out for cheeseburgers with all the way baked potato at Port O' Call. I wanted them to go hear without me Southern Culture on the Skids but it was their travel day and they were pretty tired and retired early. They said tomorrow they wanted to do some painting on the Dumaine house so I left them the key and said, paint and ladders are up in there, have at it. I snuck out the back way at 6:30 this morning as they slept on air mattress in the front two rooms.
I've been taking Fridays off recently so I can have three day weekends to work on side projects, like the Dumaine house, and my other favorite side project--laying about doing not a damn thing. Me and the boss always took off early on Fridays anyway. And this week, my boss said he was going to take off Friday too, so today, Thursday, was our Friday and we took off early.
Passing by the Dumaine house on the way over here to Rocheblave I expected to see my Friends just getting back from a late breakfast, and probably overwhelmed by the cumulative cosmic slacker dynamic of the hood, loitering about on turned over five gallon buckets, cat-calling at the now infrequent passing gangbanger.
But glancing over as I passed by on N. Broad and I could see they had completed their assigned task of priming with exterior oil base paint the power sanded bare wood spots on the front of the house, and I thought, holy sheeit, these some kickass, sumabitch, worker guests.
Tomorrow I know they want to hit first day of Jazzfest, see Dylan for sure, but Ima see if I can get them to put on that new roof before they go.
Chicks
Yesterday, or the day before, on N. Broad St. in New Orleans, I saw, near St. Philip St., a hen walking down the sidewalk followed by 14 chicks.
Probation, But Congo Square
Prior to actually having electricity in my neighborhood I received a bill for a couple hundred dollars and I bitched about that for awhile but then I just went ahead and paid it and then five and a half months after arriving back in New Orleans my block got back on the grid, and as my required electrical work had been done I just sort of assisted the energy company and switched on my own electricity and then about a week ago a new tag showed up on my meter, which made me feel all official, but the tag was purple, the same color as my expired break tag on the truck, instead of red, which is the normal color for active meters, as opposed to yellow which is the tag they put on meters to signify inactive accounts.
I just figured this new color was part of the new world order we exist in down here, welcome back to New Orleans and all that, but every time I mentioned it to someone they would say the exact same thing--what does that mean, this purple tag of yours?
Well, Phillis knows someone down there at the energy company and she said she would ask that person and yesterday she called out to me while I, after my nap after the day job, stretched beyond what is optimal on the too short ladder I am using to scrape the high parts of the Dumaine house. I climbed down and she told me that basically what this means is I am not a special person and I am not being welcomed back to the new New Orleans but rather that I am on a probation which at some point will end with me receiving either the proper red tag, or, having my purple tag replaced with a yellow tag and my electricity being shut off.
This is all to say that, hey you Jazzfests guests visiting me next week--Welcome to Louisville, welcome to New Orleans. Good thing one of you is an electrical engineer.
Mr. BC, you still got time to jump on that jet and get down here this weekend for the French Quarter Fest. If only for Sunday at noon in Congo Square where Wynton Marsalis with his Lincoln Center jazz orchestra will perform the 80 minute world premier of his new composition--"Congo Square." Congo Square is by the way, where, arguably, American music began. Not to be missed. See you there.