I wrote this week about the city’s efforts to raise money for Mardi Gras by asking locals and visitors alike to donate money via text message. Really no response on my thoughts other than by Chick Ciccarelli who works for MediaBuys LLC, the company that the City of New Orleans has worked with for the last 18 months to find a sponsor or sponsors for Mardi Gras. Here is his response:

“You may really have gone off the deep end. The Paypal Text To Give program is not a scam. It is the “Support” portion of the Mardi Gras Sponsorship and Support program. Our company’s job is to help offset costs of Mardi Gras, whether it be from sponsors or individuals.

While you are making fun of helping New Orleans, what you should be doing is donating to the cause. You can do so by visiting http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?tabid=86.”

In my initial post, I did not even mention MediaBuys. I wrote about the effort last Mardi Gras and didn’t feel the need to point out what everyone living here already knows. The attempt to sell sponsorships for Mardi Gras by MediaBuys LLC has been a failure.

At first I thought I would just blow off Chick’s comments. Free country, welcome to post anything he wants to really. But as I was in the shower, preparing for a beautiful parade day, I couldn’t get what Chick wrote out of my head and felt the need to respond.
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I just went to the corner bar in my bathrobe and got a beer. I’m wearing a jockey hat and eating sardines for breakfast.

IT’S GRAW!!!!!!!!!

Dear Ray Nagin:

I don’t know what Ms. Quiett & Co. have been advising you to do to resucitate your flagging (some would say dead and buried) public image, but let me assure you: showing up at a crime scene in the middle of the night and attempting to comfort your terrified, beleaguered subjects is most definitely not the way to go.

Instead of pandering to the TV cameras, might I suggest that you spend those extra hours at the office working to get that dumbass Riley and dumber-ass Jordan to talk to one another. Hell, Riley won’t even set goals! Aren’t you his boss? Can’t you ask him for a list of achievements, objectives, expected outcomes–stuff that everyone else with a job is required to do if they want to pick up a paycheck? I’ll make a deal with you: you make something positive happen–anything at all–and you can have a photo op. Deal?

Angrily
Richard

I know I’ve mentioned in past blogs how much I hate certain commercials on television. I can’t understand why some companies feel the need to advertise certain products or advertise the actual company itself. Read on when you have some free time.
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There was this guy on the radio this morning from some gun magazine bitching about how the N.O.P.D. won’t give back the guns they confiscated during Katrina. His Second Amendment organization is actually suing the city on behalf of N.R.A. members they supposedly represent. Warren Riley was also on the show and stated that the N.O.P.D. did not confiscate weapons from persons if they were in or on their own property and had licenses for said weapons. He said they didn’t have the guns and didn’t know where they were because they never took them.
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Given the less-than-encouraging events of the past month or so, I hesitate to post this New York Times article about brain-drain in New Orleans, but it’s a real problem–moreso now than before Katrina or even immediately after it. Not many of us want to talk about it, and I don’t know of much that’s been written on the phenomenon lately, at least not in any complex or meaningful way. It’s not for the faint of heart:

As a city in flux, New Orleans remains statistically murky, but demographers generally agree that the population replenishment after the storm, as measured by things like the amount of mail sent and employment in main economic sectors, has leveled off. While many poorer residents have moved back to the city, the “brain drain” of professionals that the city was experiencing before the storm appears to have accelerated.

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Yes sir, normally we would all be screaming “Throw me something Mister” to those fine ladies and gentlemen riding floats around town for the next 5 days. This year though, things are gonna be different. This year, the city is screaming to the visitors “Text me something Mister or Misses”.

The city, in full glory and pride, is asking visitors and locals alike this year to text message money to the city to pay for Mardi Gras 2007. Don’t do a double take. Don’t start thinking oh damn, Wacko Dan has gone off the deep end….again. No not this time. Maybe in this place, yes…but not this time.

If the city was really smart, hahahahahaha- sorry, then they would dump this text message scam - (Anyone think this will raise more than 100 bucks? Anyone?) And really take the bull by the horns. Here’s my idea:

Eddie Jordan can’t keep peeps who “murk” other peeps in jail, so let’s put them to work! Strategically placed “thugs” in high traffic areas with buckets and signs saying “Give New Orleans some money or I’m gonna shoot you” would have this city rolling in the dough. Hell, let the thug keep some of the cash to repair the city’s much-needed projects. Plus we wouldn’t need those wonderful folks at Glad Trash Bags to keep donating free trash bags for the big after Mardi Gras clean-up.

No matter what anyone says, Mayor Noggin is really on top of things and has this city thinking progressive for a change!!!

That is all I can figure from the article at the bottom of this link. The Times-Picayune must have watched some parades last night and had a little too much to drink, because this article seems to imply that the ninth ward is in mid-city and that a shooting happened in a nightclub and earlier another shooting happened in a parked car in the same nightclub. What?! The fact that the article ends with Ray Nagin spewing some bullshit about doing something about the problem doesn’t help. He always wants to talk about how we should discuss a plan to have a meeting in order to talk about what needs to be discussed. Ugh.

That’s all I got to say. Muses rules it. Best throws, best floats, best marching groups. Everything is creative and executed wonderfully. Muses is the future. All the other krewes are stuck in the past, for better or for worse.

“Lord, if you won’t take care of us
Won’t you please please let us be?”

One of god’s drumsticks played out a spastic solo a dozen blocks or so from the shanty. I grew up in Ohio so tornadoes are something I’m at least vaguely familiar with though I should note that no tornado has ever really impacted me personally. The situation the other night is a real Freddy Krugar scenario. Middle of the night and all. At least up north there are Civil Alert Sirens. For those unfamiliar, these are large, usually yellow sirens on the top of public buildings that let out an ungodly noise when something bad is about to happen to you. It’s hard to forget they’re there since they are tested every second Wednesday of the month at noon. It is increasingly odd to me that I haven’t heard anything about implementing this sort of thing as part of the Emergency Response System. Its an old technology, but it might have netted less injuries the other night.

As New Orleans gets hammered again and again, I keep waiting for people to stop thanking God for what isn’t fucked every time something bad happens and start blaming him for it. Faith is a funny thing. On the one hand, if something doesn’t kill you then it isn’t because God missed since he’s all infallible but infallible also means he meant to tear the roof off your house. I guess I’m not the best theologian to comment on God, but I do have an understanding with God (actually, with the universe, but we’ll say god for the benefit of the zealots) where as long as he leaves me alone, I’ll leave him alone. Oh, and talking shit about God like I’m doing here is well within the bounds of our agreement since I’m fairly certain he talks shit about me as well. At least, he does when he’s drunk at cocktail parties.

Anyway, I was going over my ‘To Do’ list.

-Dodge a bullet: check.