New Orleans: A reminiscence and rant (now with poll!)
Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 01:42:12 PM PDT
"So don't say good night...tomorrow was made for some, tomorrow may never come for all we know". Abbie Lincoln sang those words so beautifully at one of the first Katrina relief concerts last year. It is becoming increasingly clear that for New Orleans, tomorrow may never come. That's why Orleanians have always done their level best to live as if each night may be their last. I met my first Orleanian in San Francisco, of all places. I was quite youthful and adventurous. It was love at first sight. He had atypically blue eyes and bright red hair, Bukowski in his back pocket and thought that San Francisco was a sterile and uncultured place. Are you insane, I asked? Where are you from that you could say such a thing? New Orleans, he answered very slowly, and very languidly. [more on flip]
The next thing I knew, I sold my car, quit my fantastic job, left my trickpad of an apartment on Nob Hill and was flying sight unseen to the City that Care Forgot. He had flown ahead and was working on the oil islands and had rented us a place just outside the quarter. I pictured jasmine and moonlight coming in through a window in a house that looked very much like Tara. The reality was quite different. After I got over my initial shock, I realized that the beauty of New Orleans was entwined with its decrepitude. It was found in its secret, dripping gardens, in its special mind-numbing concoctions, in its refusal to really assimilate into the United States,. I worked on a riverboat, went to Jazz Fest before anyone had ever heard of it. Developed a rhythm to my walk and a cadence to my talk. Got in touch with my southern roots. I used to go wait for him outside of Brennan's where he worked, on Royal Street, and we would walk home together. Years passed. There were many Stanley Kowalski moments. The relationship was high octane and had a hurricane's punch. I eventually decided I had to come back home, to get a profession, face reality. I left him, and New Orleans. Fifteen years passed and I got a call from his mother telling me he had passed away. I went to the funeral, and to New Orleans. It all came flooding back, so to speak. I went to Brennan's, and his ghost walked out in a waiter's uniform, with bright red hair, bright blue eyes, daring me to come and go with him I know not where. I knew that if I actually spoke to this person he would not be a ghost, but would instead be some guy named Evan who just happened to resemble my ex-lover right down to the eyelashes. But I didn't break the spell. I decided then and there I had to have a piece of New Orleans. And so, I bought a condo there, in the French Quarter. I was able to do this because my Orleanian never stopped challenging me to the very best I could be, selected a profession for me and then propelled me in to it.
So when things got tedious in my "real life" I had the great and occasional luxury of calling Southwest and flying out to those magical square miles that time and care never touched.
Then Katrina. I watched in horror as the swirling stain seemed to cover the entire Gulf of Mexico. Any person with half a brain knew this was going to be bad. No such person was in the White House. When I heard that President Bush had to have a DVD prepared for him to show him how bad the devastation was I just thought what an idiot. Do you now how to turn on CNN? Of course, I wondered about my condo, which was on the first floor, on the edge of the Quarter. There is a famous picture of a lady crying next to a dead body on a board. She had floated her dead husband all the way down Rampart Street to the Police Station near Toulouse because no one would come and get him. The curb in front of my place was visible in the background. Except for text messages, it was impossible to communicate with anyone in New Orleans to see how things were. There was no way to check on people or property. My cell phone, which has a New Orleans number, did not work at all for two weeks. I had no idea how my place was, or my friends were, except for the ones who had escaped.
A friend and I went down in early October. The City that had defied reality for two centuries defied it no more. And reality had made up for lost time. What we saw was a thousand times worse than what you saw on television. We went to Lakeview, and the Ninth Ward (you had to sneak in there). The entire city had been militarized, but the military were not doing anything in particular. Entire neighborhoods were dead quiet. Not even a bird. You had to dodge fallen wires, and be very careful when you drove, lest you drive over one of fifty billion nails that had been ejected from the houses that were destroyed. Blocks and blocks -make that miles-- of incredible architecture. Destroyed. There were vast tracts without power. The gaslamps in the French Quarter were no longer merely decorative. They lit the way. There were only six or seven places to eat and they crowded up quick and closed early. We broke into the homes of friends, at their request, to retrieve important papers, or jewelry. In one, I nearly fell through the floorboards which gave way beneath me. And then we went to my place. The police (I am told by neighbors) kicked in the doors looking for dead people, but had thoughtfully put a plastic tie on it to keep it closed. Inside, everything was precisely as I left it, right down to the china cups on the wrought iron café table. I cried at my good fortune and for the horrible misfortune of others.
The other day, a fellow Californian, and a Bushie, who was unaware of my New Orleans connection told me "Can you believe that some people are actually moving into neighborhoods that flooded in New Orleans instead of moving to some place safe?" As I often do these days now that I realize silence is no longer golden, I let her have it. "Your president", I said, "cut funds for the levees, ignored the need to restore the wetlands which protected new Orleans for years, and then when the levees failed had to have a special picture show made for him to demonstrate how bad things were. But he didn't' care because Orleanians aren't in the right party or class. He let people broil and drown in their own living rooms. Then he flew over it and said `Wow, things look pretty devastating from up here...I'll bet it's even worse down there." Then his buddies cranked up the propaganda machine. They tried to convince people that Orleanians weren't our kind of people and weren't worth saving. Look, there's a shirtless youth trying to break into a store (shown a million times). They blamed it on Blanco and Nagin. Blanco and Nagin couldn't do jackshit. This was the worst natural disaster in American history. Only the Federal Government had the power and resources to rescue these people, to plug the leaks, to attempt to drain the city and to save New Orleans. But it was more important to him to stick to his message: government is bad and will not help you. Turn to the churches. They posed him in front of church after putting stage lights on it, and he promised that he would bring back New Orleans better than ever. It's a year later. They still haven't even fixed the levees back the way they were BEFORE Katrina, and they are lying and telling people that they are. Are the Dutch going to let Amsterdam fall to rubble because it is below sea-level? Are the Italians going to kiss-off Venice? Look. This is not just a half a city of half a million people. It is a CULTURALLY SIGNIFICANT city of half a million people. The fact that you are willing to let it go says a lot about you and how far our country has declined in the care of people like you. I believe we are our brother's keeper. That's the difference between Republicans and Democrats. You think it's every man for himself. We think we are in this together. That's the difference. What New Orleans needs right now more than anything is a levee. The money to do that is in Iraq. Please don't vote Republican again."
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