I’ve been over in Florida the past couple of days, seeing my boys and getting my first view of the entire run of hurricane-related destruction from Mobile to the Northshore. I’ve been aided a little by pictures my brother-in-law’s brother has taken in coastal Mississippi and Alabama, where they’ve been doing phone line repair work for the past three months. But I saw quite enough on my own. I spent time today doing a little Christmas browsing in Slidell and (we’re used to it by now) waiting in line to go across the I-10 bridge from Slidell into New Orleans East. For those of you who haven’t yet been out to the Crowder Rd exit and points beyond, it’s like Lakeview — only more so.

I felt guilty about leaving, for a number of reasons, and was greedy about getting back. I hit the road early this morning, listening to C.C. Adcock, and, after a few hours of driving and deliberating, reached one basic conclusion.

I refuse.

I refuse to be cowed into thinking this city can’t be rebuilt better than it was. I don’t give a rat’s ass what Congress or the president or FEMA is or isn’t doing. They don’t lie awake at night thinking about me, so I thnk I’ll return that favor. It’s my butt on the line, and I’ll take care of it, thankyewverramuch.

I refuse to stay on The Island — this fortunate part of town where lights work, stores are open and things appaer to be more or less back to normal. I will relish my daily trips back into The Pits, where there’s no electricity and buildings gape vacantly at me. I need to see this, so I won’t forget and so I’ll be constantly boosted to push toward reconstruction.

I refuse to listen to WWL Radio during the daytime. It has gone from broadcasting a useful exchange of information to putting out the constant bleating of various locals who feel they’ve been wronged in one way or another. We’ve all been wronged — but rolling in shit doesn’t make it smell any better.

I refuse to listen to the opinions of anyone who isn’t living here right now or who isn’t making immediate plans to return. We’re going to have Mardi Gras, even if it’s in our own neighborhoods, and the mourning period for what we’ve lost is over. And don’t talk to me about respect for the recently departed. If they were worth my respect, they’d be our biggest advocates for rebuilding.

And, most of all, I refuse to wait for some group of Crescent City Saviors to come up with a grand plan to rebuild. I’m tired of hearing about how there’s no program, no leaders, no national goodwill and no cohesive impetus to get New Orleans and the Gulf Coast moving. There never was. We’ve been on our own all along. If not for our history of radical personalities, we’d be Just Another City.

Sure, we need better levees. We need a lot of things. But my feeling is that if you wait until everything is in place, you’ll be stuck waiting. Forever.

It’s time, y’all.

Two NOPD officers were fired for their role in beating a man on Bourbon that was caught on film. A third officer was suspended for 120 days because of his attempt to interfere with the press people taping the incident.

“This case became highly publicized through the media,” [police association president Lt. David] Benelli said. “In light of the worldwide media frenzy these officers were placed under, it was impossible for them to receive a fair investigation.”

If by “fair investigation” he means a free pass for unreasonably beating someone during an arrest, then I must agree.

I have no idea if Benelli believes the words bullshit spewing from his mouth in this instance or not. I suppose it’s inevitable that we have to listen to people who are paid to say something regardless of what they actually know or think about the matter. But in reality-based America, even the most ignorant among us are able to see the type of Orwellian assertion made by Benelli for the outright lie that it is. So the comment, like the suspect who was beaten, is actually rather harmless. Here’s the footage in question (courtesy of Crooks and Liars).

The saddest part of this whole affair, besides the unnecessary beating of the suspect, is the continuing beating that the NOPD is taking. Instead of just being responsible adults and saying, “yes, we did that. As you can see on the tape, we used far more force than necessary and took some gratuitous shots” these officers have chosen to blame someone else for their actions and bring more negative publicity on the department. Kudos to the NOPD for actually doing the right thing, let’s hope that it’s not just because it was caught on tape.

To everyone who’s ever either laughed or just never believed me or thought I was just too dumb to know better when I mentioned that New Orleans was in an earthquake zone, I’d like to just say this: lick my balls.

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Magnitude 3.0 – LOUISIANA
2005 December 20 00:52:20 UTC

Preliminary Earthquake Report

U.S. Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center

World Data Center for
Seismology, Denver

Magnitude	3.0
Date-Time	Tuesday, December 20, 2005 at 00:52:20 (UTC) = Coordinated Universal Time Monday, December 19, 2005 at 6:52:20 PM = local time at epicenter
Location	30.275°N, 90.703°W
Depth	5 km (3.1 miles) set by location program
Region	LOUISIANA
Distances	10 km (6 miles) ESE (110°) from French Settlement, LA 15 km (9 miles) ESE (118°) from Port Vincent, LA 17 km (10 miles) SW (232°) from Killian, LA 47 km (29 miles) ESE (116°) from Baton Rouge, LA 70 km (44 miles) WNW (299°) from New Orleans, LA
Location Uncertainty	horizontal +/- 29.8 km (18.5 miles); depth fixed by location program
Parameters	Nst= 10, Nph= 10, Dmin=412.1 km, Rmss=0.96 sec, Gp=234°, M-type=”Nuttli” surface wave magnitude (MLg), Version=6

---

Sadly, it didn’t happen on Sunday, when I could have blamed it on the expanding backsides of various visiting politicos.

Yesterday I was at Walgreen�s on St. Charles getting sour cream for my pizza and there was an SUV parked in the Handicap spot. There was no sign that the vehicle was owned by someone handicapped. I kept looking and looking, thinking �surly to God people aren�t that stupid�. Then as I was walking out � having not found any sour cream � the guy that walked out in front of me threw his bag and receipt on the ground. The whole thing was just infuriating. Then I hear on the news that crime is significantly rising in Houston as a direct result of evacuees from New Orleans being there and the mayor wants everyone out. So I sat there thinking about all this and throwing in the images, still fresh in the nation�s mind, of the looting, of the stories of rape and murder at the convention center, those idiots speaking in front of Congress saying �I just know they blew those levees�, on and on the list goes�

Look people, my point is, we aren�t doing ourselves any favors. I travel a lot for work so I frequently get to talk to people from other places and I have to say that public opinion with regard to New Orleans is not good. The sympathy once held in the hearts of America has been replaced with contempt. People in America like their victims to be flawless, for good or bad, that�s just the way it is. It seems to me that we�d have been much better served by holding ourselves with a little more dignity in the last few months. All the political in-fighting and misinformation doesn�t help. Evacuees murdering each other in Houston doesn�t help. The exploitation of migrant workers doesn�t help. The mayor seems to be easily discounted as a whiner by many people which renders him ineffective. Blanco is seen as an moron who should have at least known better than to run for office- or someone should have explained it to her. � bought her a pop-up book � something.

The only thing I can think of is if someone from a marketing firm volunteered to launch an advertising campaign to help mold public opinion (no pun intended). People around the country should be enthusiastic about the rebuilding, hell, I�m getting more and more of a sense that people actually in New Orleans are getting so tired and frustrated that their enthusiasm has weakened along with their optimism. Even if all this money is invested and all these tax breaks are offered, that isn�t what�s going to bring New Orleans back. A pile of bricks is not a house. Used to be when people heard I was from New Orleans they�d smile and tell me a story. Now they either don�t want to talk to me at all or they go on some rant. New Orleans is staged to languish in mediocrity for years under the weight of public opinion. The mystery is gone. The charm is gone. And if New Orleans is going to recover � I mean really recover – something has to happen to recreate that intangible something that electrifies the city in ways Entergy could never manage. Katrina pulled back the curtain and exposed �the great and powerful N.O.� to be nothing more than a bunch of whinny, ignorant, criminals. If something isn�t done to correct this view of this city, it could take an entire generation or more before people to start coming to visit and live. Over the course of several hundred years New Orleans became much more than the sum of its parts and I don�t think we can rebuild that in a few months or years, but we can make sure we�re heading in the right direction to get there at some point.

While my Mid-City business remains trashed, most of its heavier equipment (commercial refrigeration etc) remains locked inside. I have no place else to put it and, frankly, any damage has already been done by the flood. At least the stuff is out of the rain and the place is as safe as any in this town for now. Or at least I thought so until today.

For the time being, I’m actually earning a fair living selling BBQ off a trailer to the recovery workers out in the Lakeview area. I’m meeting a lot of nice folks, and they’re glad to have someone bring the food out to them, as opposed to having to drive to Metairie or the Quarter or wherever. I stopped by my business to get a trash can and my licensing and stuff this morning, then dropped back by the place about 90 minutes later…..

….to discover someone had stolen my ($1,000) generator, along with a tall ladder I used fairly often. I have no idea when this theft took place. I have no idea how they got in or got out with these large, unwieldy items. But nonetheless, they are gone.

Granted, the neighborhood wasn’t a very good one pre-K. A few residents have returned, but the area is largely abandoned like most of Mid-City. Maybe someone really needed this generator and….

Bullshit. Whoever took it had to spend a good amount of time inside the building and needed help getting this stuff out. And they needed some strong lighting to see their way around. In other words — they went in there specifically to take shit.

Thanks for your help in the recovery effort, you dicks.

From: R.T.
Saints game is disappointing
2:40pm 12/18/05

From: J.B.
Because you were expecting superbowl caliber players to show up from outer space and magically replace the real saints players?
2:44pm 12/18/05

From: R.T.
Yes because magical things happen at christmas
2:47pm 12/18/05

From: J.B.
Not, apparently, to the Ain’ts. Is it christmas already?
2:51pm 12/18/05

The New York Times did a front page piece on some of the victims of hurricane Katrina that may interest you.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/national/nationalspecial/18victims.html
I have been trying to get this post up for a few days now regarding the shrine which now marks the spot where Vera Smith was buried in a makeshift grave by her neighbors. Original photo: http://www.poormojo.org/pmjadaily/archives/004451.html

The text underneath her photo reads as follows:

Vera Briones Smith
(1939-2005)
Vera was apparently the victim of a hit-and-run driver the day after hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans.
Authorities left her body by the side of the street for five days and threatened to arrest anyone who attempted to
touch her remains and bury her with dignity. Her friends and neighbors finally buried her in this lot on the fifth day.
A few days later the coroners office removed her remains.

We consecrate this place in memory of all those whom government officials subjected to indignities in life and death during the storm.

It seems like we are pretty much focusing our collective efforts on a) cleaning up shit and b) feeding people.
The Red Cross stations hand out food and cleaning supplies. It’s fundamental shit we’re in right now, 100+ days
into this thing. Feeding all the Latino workers alone is a high priority. They are working hard all day and eating some pretty sparse things we locals don’t consider ‘meals’. We are serious about food.

Working at La Crepe Nanou, we see some pretty frightening food ‘episodes’. Because we lost almost the entire kitchen staff, we still can’t do french onion soup, or fondue. People don’t understand. Look, I saw the schedule pre-K that was left up and there was one guy on french soup. One dude, just for that. It’s high maintenance. Last week this man starts going OFF on my friend Renee about the absence of fondue. He’s screaming, “WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FONDUE?” Renee’s like, ” Katrina happened to the fondue.” It’s uptown, what can I say.

Personally, I missed the fondue so much while in exile that I went about learning to make it myself because I couldn’t get it anywhere in Winston-Salem, NC. I tried to get this nice little restaurant to do it right because they had this bachelor version of it on the menu that was a disaster of its own. After going ’round with their cooks, I decided I had to test it myself. It is a lot of work. You can’t microwave it, you can’t store it overnight and heat it up.

So, look, if you can’t cope with the limited menu in your favorite restaurant, you should realize that they are still working with the limited staff they opened with and we’re tired. And we’re kinda tired of your whining.
Get a cookbook or come and fill out an application.

…so I’m going up Canal St. this morning about 9 and I get to the Carrollton intersection. I look to my right, at the gutted Robert Fresh Market, and there’s a semi-trailer sitting in the parking lot with the doors open and a table set up on the parking lot. On the table are dozens of brand-new Yellow Pages phone books, apparently there for the taking. Or for someone to hand out, I dunno.

1) This is MID-CITY — no one lives there for now. Who’s going to come get these things?
2) What percentage of the listed businesses even open?

Actually, I’m sure lots of folks would love to have a Yellow Pages or a white pages right now, since they lost theirs in the flood.

It just struck me as odd.

Whether you live in Williamsburg or Wilmington or Walla-Walla, why not use the worldwide interweb highway to support New Orleans this holiday season? As luck would have it, there’s now a convenient, semi-sassy website with links to locally owned shops that carry everything from Andalusian antiques to zesty zeppole (though personally, I’d veer away from the latter).

And if you live here in Louisiana, remember this weekend is the state’s much-ballyhooed, shorter-than-expected tax holiday. Your goodies won’t be completely tax-free, but you know….

Personally, I’m hoping to get all of my shopping done at the Bywater Art Market. If you’re around, slap me on the ass and say “hi,” why don’cha?