Friday, September 30, 2005
 the city is open, hallelujah. there's always been a special place in my heart for the prytania theatre, new orleans' last truly independent movie show. even moreso today - they're OPEN. Wednesday, September 28, 2005
a bit of sad news, which i came upon today: one of my favorite professors in law school, M. David Gelfand, died a few days ago in a drowning accident in pensacola. I don't know the details, but it seems likely he was in florida, like my family and so many other new orleanians, as an evacuee. he taught me constitutional law, and i remember him as one of those professors who came off a bit tough and unforgiving, but would stay after class to discuss things further with students - you left each class thinking deeply about the issues and feeling like you'd really learned something. a good guy, and a truly significant loss to Tulane and its law graduates of the future, and for anyone concerned with first-amendment rights nationwide. Monday, September 26, 2005
i must admit that it's nice to hear that the reports of our (moral) demise have been greatly exaggerated. hellish as the superdome and convention center might have been in those first few FEMA-less days, they were apparently not the grisly rape-&-murder-fest we heard reported throughout the national media. Sunday, September 25, 2005
i'm sick to death of hurricanes, living through them, and writing about living through them - though i have to give miss katrina credit for bringing me back to my weblog, which i had mostly abandoned for a few months there - and making me realize once again how much i value this blog and the culture of blogging in general. point being, this is a transitional time for me. everything is in flux. i have a few more new orleans things to do, but the door is open and i've got a foot firmly planted on the other side. this is where things get (hopefully) more interesting, and no matter where i go, you'll always find me here. Saturday, September 24, 2005
WWL radio and the united radio broadcasters of new orleans have been an absolute godsend all through katrina, and continue to be now. an absolute lifeline of information, they may be the only thing that's been done right throughout this whole month-long catastrophe. when this is all over, i'll be surprised if we don't elect garland robinette mayor. this rita thing is more of a problem than it seemed, apparently. it's doing quite a number on galveston, beaumont, lake charles and southeast LA. i hope for them it's at least not as bad as what katrina did in this area, but it's not sounding good. here, the rain has been a bit sporadic, and consistent winds in the 30mph range, nothing threatening - but it's been that way for nearly 36 hours and shows no sign of letting up, which is weird in a not-good way. i went across the street this afternoon and checked the surge in the lake, and it was up quite a bit even then - and of course the lake has already topped the makeshift levees and re-flooded the 9th ward and st.bernard parish - though there's still no one in those areas, and no intact property left to be hurt by it, so it's kind of moot, actually. they're calling it "adding insult to injury" and "salt in the wound" but i'd say it's more like mother nature "beating a dead horse". of which i'm sure there are still several down there in da parish. if this goes away tomorrow, we might be alright, but it looks like this rita bitch is going to be swirling around above us for DAYS, which will make things pret-ty interesting and pret-ty soggy. hopefully it'll keep moving along and we won't have to worry about that. also, it would be nice if my power and cable internet don't go out, as they seem to be doing pretty widely statewide - besides the AC and lights going out and all, i'm settling comfortably back into my pre-katrina world-of-warcraft habit. :) Friday, September 23, 2005
the corpse bride opens today, and there's not a movie theatre open for hundreds of miles around. goddamn hurricanes. i'm sticking this one out here in metairie, at my parents home by the lakefront, where i've been staying lately. shouldn't be too bad here, just a lot of wind and rain... i'm stocked up for a couple of days without power, but i'm really not expecting that. i've been here a couple of days, and cleaned up a lot of the muck and debris left over from rita that might block drains or go projectile in the tropical storm winds and hurricane gusts we're supposed to get here, so i think i'll be good. hopefully there won't be much to look at, but anyway, i set a webcam up outside my parent's house, looking at some trees across the street, just for the hell of it... maybe you'll see some wind or something. updates minute-ly.  Thursday, September 22, 2005
fuck. not again. what the hell is this? looks like rain. Tuesday, September 20, 2005
 down but not out: first post-katrina PJ's iced mocha, skim. --ab3 Monday, September 19, 2005
  --ab3     Aarrrr, I'm standing in line in metairie this morning where they're giving free shots - tetanus, hep a and hep b... I only need tetanus, because I may eventually be getting in to lakeview to see what's left of my grandmother's and aunt's houses... as the Brooklyn EMTs who are administering them tell us, the hep b shots are just for medical workers and the hep a shots are only for those of us who'll be walking through raw sewage or (yo-hee-ho) doing body recovery work. though my parents house, where I spent last night, is nice and comfortable and not too foul smelling anymore, metairie generally looks a worse wreck than it did last week, matey, and smells universally like wet carpet, which is evident on every curbside, along with sheetrock and insulation and refrigerators, taped closed to keep in the rot. tis' a nasty scene. happy talk-like-a-pirate day, folks. Saturday, September 17, 2005
Through all this mess, my friends at the San Diego Reader have been extremely kind, and allowed me to write two pieces about life as an evacuee in the weeks after Katrina. Check them out, let me know what you think. September 8th, 4007 St.Charles is DRY and September 15th, Man, Do I Need a Drink
so since things are opening up so quickly back in new orleans, it looks like the plan is going to go a bit differently than i thought... a combination of pragmatism (i can recover my stuff), morbid curiosity (how fucked are we, in actuality? how does it look? how does it smell?), and hopeless devotion to the city have settled me on a bit more deliberate course of action. i'm going to head back into New Orleans tomorrow. the city isn't open yet - sounds like wednesday - but metairie and the suburbs are, and so i'm going to stay at my parents house until then; and when i can i'm going to go back to my place, clean up whatever damage i may have had and then pack up what i can... meanwhile, go back to work, since my office has re-opened, see what's up there, and use that time to see where things stand. and then ... then... um.... Wednesday, September 14, 2005
things seem to be progressing much better than expected in new orleans - the water is going down faster, utilities are coming online, businesses are returning and getting repairs underway - things are looking, well, not good, but better - than anyone could have expected two weeks ago. that being the case, i can maybe finally unburden myself of some of the things i really, really miss about my life pre-Katrina. i know it's superfluous boo-hooing, and as i've said it's sick how fortunate i've been, amidst all this, but still... • i miss the music. yeah, i have my trusty ipod - couldn't have survived this far without it - but haven't gotten a new CD or been to a concert in 3 weeks, and i don't see myself having the means to do so for quite a while. new albums coming out by dar williams, devendra banhart, american analog set, iron & wine with calexico, rogue wave... and i won't know what they sound like till they're old news. ick. :( • i miss my computers, at home and at work. i miss doing design work. i miss photoshop and illustrator and Elune be praised, i'm having fucking delirum tremens from world of warcraft withdrawal. • i miss my damn privacy. having just turned 30 and having to move into an apartment with your parents and half your relatives right down the way is SO not something you want to do if you can possibly avoid it. • i miss my new orleans friends. leslie and christopher and darren and gina and corey and jenaya and ryan and arianna and and melanie and erin and ashley and mike and david and liz and bebe and jeff and everybody else who was still there... and now we're scattered to the four winds - and we'll probably never all be back there again. Sunday, September 11, 2005
I've been writing here for more than 4 years; tragedy comes back around to tragedy today, a bitter repetition - though i never thought the next big one would be a natural disaster, and I never, never thought it would happen to me. also, just an offhand observation - all these networks have photo/video montages of the hurricane and flood destruction, some better thanothers. but what's strange is that at least 3 of those that I've seen have been set to a particular piece of instrumental music, which though very moving, has to have been picked more for the relevance of its title, which most people won't know - it's moby's "god moving over the face of the waters." Saturday, September 10, 2005
this terrible situation has it's bright side in that it has brought out the good in so many people. i realize that sounds silly and trite but the sympathy and kindess of strangers that I have personally experienced has been incredible, to say nothing of the aid my friends have offered. I don't want to be pitied, but it makes life a little easier to be treated like a welcome guest - and at least here in destin, that has been the case. yesterday i had a root canal, again. I had one earlier in the summer, which went well; this one had been started by my dentist at home about a week before the storm, and I was scheduled to have it completed this week. for obvious reasons that didn't happen, and I've been on a constant flow of over the counter pain meds since I got to florida, so I decided that enough was enough and made an appointment with the only endodontist in town. I got there, filled out the paperwork, and explained the situation first to an asisstant, then to the dentist. Then the chair went back, they took x-rays, and got to work. It was worse than I had expected - when the dentist keeps saying "wow" and "oh my" and "this is really bad", it's not a good sign. apparently it had become pretty infected since the process had been started in new orleans -which explains the pain I had been in. she kept going, explaining that because of the infection, this would be painful - anaesthetic or not. and it was. but I soldiered through it - it helps if you just try to think of the pain as "warmth." by the end, the dental assistant whispered to me that she had never seen anyone take that much pain that well... but hey, she probably says that to everybody. anyway. so I go to the front to pay for the procedure, and the dentist tells me that since my first dentist in new orleans had probably filed the insurance claim on that tooth, and because of the situation with the storm, she knew I had better things to spend my money on - there wouldn't be a charge for this. maybe it was the pain, maybe it was being in the position of accepting rather than giving charity - more likely it was just the sheer generosity - I broke down crying right there, told them how much I appreciated it through my tears, hugged the dentist, thanked her again... all the dental assistants in the office were crying by the time I left. Thursday, September 08, 2005
it's like some kind of weird alternate world, driving and walking through metairie this week; it's all absolutely familiar but at the same time impossible, impossibly different, changed and bloodied and broken and just thorougly beaten. metairie, suburban hell, most of my life there, wouldn't have thought I loved it as much as I do when I see it this down, unspecial but not as unspecial as other suburban hells because of the proximity, veination, the inextricable link with the urb it is sub to. my parents house not flooded, just nicely moistened by wind-blown water under the doors: damage to the wood floors, walls permeated and beginning to mildew; the fridge rank with rot, indelible putridity that sticks and stinks and outlasts a drive back to florida and a shower, psychologically embedded. a garbage bag that unceremoniously carries to the curb the top of my parent's wedding cake, 31 to my 30. my truck is soaked at least through the carpet, tried to dry it but had to leave it still damp to beat the curfew out of town, taking what we could. metairie is cut deep but not knocked out, not laid flat and comatose and having cpr administered in a strobing ambulance like new orleans next door, pulse but no breath, breathe you stupid motherfucker, breathe don't die on us now breathe come out of it wake up goddamnit breathe you are stronger than this thing cough it out wake up. I went to the breach in the 17th street canal levee - once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, or close the wall up with 30,000 lb sandbags - and saw it with my own eyes. murderer, mistake, miscalculation. so many lives destroyed, so many more utterly ruined. who leaves lakeview, safe, settled lakeview? besides friends, co-workers, my grandmother and aunt have houses still roof-deep in there, aquatic, waves lap the living room ceiling, backyard pool an absurd redundancy, a cruel joke. I have dreams of swimming through my grandmother's house, like a shipwreck, softened history - my history; spinning familiar objects around, books and plates and that ceramic lion, weightless in my hands; faded family photographs floating, so many christmas eves and childhood memories and the ghost of my grandfather, all dissolving upon the slightest touch. muck. fish. Tuesday, September 06, 2005
helicopters, troops, downed trees, downed powerlines, mud, shingles and a wretched stench... and that's the side of the city that was lucky.
on the way back to jefferson parish at 4:30am. going to get in line to get into metairie to assess damage and take what we can from my parents' house, and maybe even my office. won't get into orleans to see my condo or get anything, but the only thing that really bothers me is that I'm going to be that close to all the suffering still happening in new orleans and not be in a position to help. Sunday, September 04, 2005
nearly a week after I left new orleans, I'm realizing very quickly that although I knew this was going to be a cat. 4 storm, I didn't pack for it. I guess I -like everyone else- didn't realize what exactly that meant. That being said, I'm certainly not in need of anything - but I find myself with an interesting assortment of material posessions which at least until I can go back and do some salvage qualify as all I've got. here's what I brought: gadgets: T-mobile Sidekick w/charger; 40gb Ipod (8300 songs) w/charger, headphones and portable speaker; Panasonic DV camera in case/w accessories clothes: 12 t-shirts; 1 guayabera (lt. blue); 2 polo shirts; 1 oxford (yellow); 1 rainjacket; 1 windbreaker; 2 pair of jeans; 2 khakis; 1 pair of black pants; 2 pair of hiking shorts, 2 pair of running shorts; tevas; tennis shoes; sketchers; small laundry bag of assorted socks and underwear (I had just done laundry on saturday, threw the whole bag in the car.) books: Getting Things Done; How to Talk to Anyone; The Collected Ghormenghast Novels; The Deep Blue Goodbye; Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass; Archy and Mehitabel: the poems of Don Marquis; Cursiv, the drawings of David Choe; the Zen of CSS Design; Flash to the Core; Logo:lab; Pen &Mouse, the art of Digital Illustration. magazines: Wired 13.09 (jon stewart cover); issues 331,332,333,337 of Communication Arts; Current issue of How; current issue of The Believer (in which I'm mentioned by name on the inner front cover, in a slightly embarassing context.) dvds: pulp fiction; snatch; trainspotting; fear and loathing in las vegas; the last days of disco; amelie; kagemusha; ran; the hidden fortress; the seven samurai; yojimbo; sanjuro; the seven samurai; the wonderfalls season 1 collection. that may seem like a lot, but as far as the books and magazines, that's just what I happened to have in my car/courier bag at the time, with intent to read. the clothes were the nearest at hand that I could throw into my backpack. the dvds, oddly enough, are the only sign I had any real sense of the catastrophe to come: only my very favorites... and my kurosawa collection? what a freak. how many people left new orleans with absolutely nothing - how many didn't even get out - and i here i escaped with my japanese art films. *sigh* Saturday, September 03, 2005
amen to the journalists at the Times Picayune and this. Thursday, September 01, 2005
don't believe the federal press conferences, it's all bullshit. the feds aren't there, the national guard isn't even armed, and my fucking city is under siege by thugs. they are killing the few cops and firemen that are there trying to maintain order. the red cross and FEMA aren't providing any food or water. GET US HELP. call your congress people, anything, GET US HELP. if this sounds unbelievable, if you think I'm exaggerating, tune in to WWL 870am if you can pick it up. elected officials are crying on live radio, pleading for help. this is FUCKED. --ab3
so now the "lawlessness" is out of control - new orleans has devolved to the state of nature, no social contract - they're shooting cops and rescue workers and looting everything. they should punish looters by just not allowing them to evacuate and letting them live in the real state of nature, testing their entitled little junk-food immune systems against the malaria and cholera and toxic waste filth. I also like what one mississippi official said, "you don't have to tolerate looters, shoot 'em, drag 'em out, write "looter" on a piece of paper and pin it to the body, no questions will be asked." grrr.
if you're an evacuee, you need to go to http://www.scipionus.com - its a google map with annotations from people in the city describing damage, by location. I checked it tonight, and to my amazement, there was a marker exactly where my apartment complex is. I clicked it and it said the beautiful, beautiful words "4007 St Charles is DRY." Although I know I'm in serious danger of looting - they say it's rampant uptown - and I may have wind damage, broken windows, whatever, and they say we won't be able to get back into the city for 3 to 4 months, in which time I hope to have already gotten myself relocated and back on my feet - I still got chills of pure joy at the news. chills.
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