A Wednesday in May in New Orleans

After a weirdly cold Tuesday, Wednesday warmed up a little weatherwise. Wednesday also warmed up my soul in so many ways.

Although I missed my two current crushes, Messrs. Wendell Pierce and Clarke Peters, at the HBO Treme signing at Louisiana Music Factory, I was still lucky to have my shoes on Decatur Street yesterday. I locked up my bike a couple minutes after noon and had just missed the Treme gang, but Kermit Ruffins was just getting started. I had been waiting months to order a DVD about Big Chief Donald Harrison, Sr. called Guardians of the Flame. I'd found it on Music Factory's website but thought I'd just grab it on my way in the door. No. I was told. No. It might be on the website but they don't have it and don't know where to get it. Momentarily deflated, I waded in through the huge door to door and out both doors crowd. I noted the Treme printed white hanky some were carrying and chided myself for having been late. But ah well, Kermit was playing.



The place was full of locals and visitors to Jazz Fest alike. (More on the Jazz Festers later.) They loved him. I heard so many of them saying, "And this is FREE!" Yeah, and while yesterday's lineup at the Factory was unusually packed, the level and quantity of music in New Orleans is always high. It was fun to see the look of incredulity on the visitors' faces as they enjoyed themselves, were astounded to see people in the crowd in a store with beers in their hand at noon, and browsed the rich CD bins they were in front of, grabbing something they hadn't known they'd wanted when they first came in. Imagine if they'd had access to the other bins, but that was not to be. Where they were is pretty much where they had to stay unless they wanted to fight their way through the crowd.



Kermit ended his set and headed to the cash register to sign CD's. I happened to be standing next to him as an elderly couple from Vancouver who had just purchased the CD waited patiently for him to notice them. By now, Irvin Mayfield is starting to play. They waited and looked confused as Kermit was listening to Mayfield get started and cracked a beer. I asked them if they were waiting for him to sign it for them. They said they were, looking bewildered. I leaned over the counter between us and said, "Kermit, would you mind signing this CD for these nice people?" "Of course!" he said warmly, grabbing the CD, talking to the gentleman about an inscription. The Vancouver lady said thank you and seemed surprised that there weren't security and body guards or a sign up sheet or something. They were beyond thrilled, him holding the CD up to show her. On the way out the door, this 70-ish couple looked like they were 15 coming out of their first record store together.

Meanwhile, Mayfield is playing and bantering with Kermit about how Kermit won't go to his (Mayfield's) club because he doesn't have Bud Light. Kermit is laughing and hollering, "That's exactly why!" Mayfield's singer, whose first name Michael is all I caught, was as smooth and perfect as a sip of brandy. (If anyone can enlighten me as to his full name, I'll be grateful.) The crowd shifted a little, but as a few went out, even more came in. Mayfield told the crowd he hoped his funeral would be as big as Kermit's. They bantered about that a bit more, Kermit laughing all the while, then Mayfield started in to I'll Fly Away. It was clear most of the crowd didn't know the words, but eventually most of them got it. I was singing croakily and badly while hearing Kermit, behind the counter, singing over my left shoulder. It was one of those moments we live for here. It was as though all I could hear was his voice out of the entire crowd's and I hoped that that would be what would be playing on my internal juke box as I faded out of this world. Mayfield then started through a list of important NOLA musicians who had flown away and the crowd, finally completely clear on the chorus, raised a hand or a cheer for each name while continuing to sing. While Kermit was on my left singing, on the right hand wall photos of Professor Longhair and Milton Batiste were looking down. I'm telling ya, it's those little stellar hair-on-the-back-of-the-arm raising seconds that put you in your place on the continuum and everything else falls away.



That would have been enough. Right there. But the Basin Street Records tribute continued.

Mayfield was followed by Dr. Michael White, who is revered by the younger brass bands. I once saw him join the Soul Rebels at a small set at Sound Cafe and they treated him with such respect and gratitude that I'll never forget that. Yesterday he played for the packed crowd, probably some not having a clue who he is, but watching their faces as he played was wonderful. I also noticed a great number of locals who had shown up just to see him, packing the Factory even tighter. (Thus the only photo I could get was one of those camera in the air and hope jobs.)



Everyone's set had been a little long, so Glen Andrews said they'd hurry up and get ready. Earlier he'd been trying to get through the crowd. He said he had to GO! I laughingly said I did too but that I didn't see a chance of getting to those bathrooms that seemed miles away. He said, "Just get behind me. We'll get there." With his horn on his rather imposing back, he just powered through. I was so grateful. Now he and the Rebirth guys were getting ready to blow the CD's into other bins. And they surely did. Everyone in their little two foot square of the planet was dancing.



After Rebirth Brass Band ended, we headed across the street to get a beer. It was by now, about 3PM. We climbed across the trailer hitches on Gregg Allman's tour bus (he was playing HOB last night) and found a table and two stools. Oh yeah. Life is good. Unfortunately this place is blasting 60's rock classics. Good ones mind you, and on probably any other day I mightn't have been discombobulated at hearing Led Zeppelin over my beer, in fact I might have liked it. It was such a strange change from the hyper-local scene we'd just left. Nevertheless, we had a couple beers, gave a couple people directions and had a woman point at the fleur de lis on my shirt and ask me what that symbol was called. We stayed there, missing Garage a Trois but wanted to go back for Dumpstaphunk. Silly me, I thought maybe it would be less crowded. Nope. But it didn't matter.

Right before we waded back into the Music Factory, the Urban Legend across from me (explanation of that comes later) says, "Hey, that's Mos Def." I turned and it was. I walked to the corner, acted like a completely star-struck kid and said, "Thank you so much for the BP version of Ain't My Fault. We play it almost every morning at our house. I'm wondering if you could sign my bag." He did. Not knowing what to call him, Mr. Def just didn't sound right, I then said, "By the way, the writing of Mathematics is absolutely remarkable." He looked at me like I had three heads. I am sure he in no way expected a woman of my age to even have heard Mathematics. But now my yellow bag flaunts Lloyd Price, Mos Def and Kermit Ruffins next to the Storyville girl.

Dumpstaphunk rocked it. Totally rocked it. Next to us was a couple from Massachusetts. Here for Jazz Fest, their first time. They were charming, he was red/blurry eyed and she was bursting with energy. She kept saying El-eye-sian Fields. After the third time, between songs, I leaned over and gave her the proper pronunciation. She then asked if Dumpstaphunk had some Neville's in it, and they really were total music freaks with a wide range of musical knowledge and interest. I told her yes, there were, but that they all hid their ages so well I could never keep track of who was who's son or grandson. We talked a bit more while the band got ready to play the next song, and another out of town couple, hearing our conversation, inched closer and joined in. They were all so sweet, so interested. I pointed them to Dumpstaphunk's CD as I had seen it on my way through the crowd. Just then I looked up and Donald Harrison, Jr. is walking right into me. I said, "Excuse me, Mr. Harrison!" He kindly stopped and I told him I couldn't find the Guardians of the Flame DVD and did he know where I could get one. He laughed and said, "No. I don't even own a copy!" I thanked him and he went on his way. The out of town guests were stupefied. People were dancing all the way up the staircase and out into the streets. I have no idea how many toes were stomped or how many bruises folks got from flying, dancing elbows, but no one cared.



We went back across the street to our table and stools for another beer and our backs. This was when we met the one out of seven Jazz Festers who needed a smack upside his head. He asked what was going on across the street. I told him and pointed to the schedule on the bar's door telling him that there would be great stuff going on there all week. He puffed out his chest and said, "I'm not local, but I'm here for two weeks every year so I know some stuff." Okay. 'Nuff said. We figured one out of seven wasn't a bad ratio of douchebags to nice people.

At that point we decided since it was almost 5PM that we'd wander down to see if Dwayne Dopsie was playing, but forgot that it was Wednesday and he didn't play til Thursday so off we went to the Blacksmith Shop where I discovered that I have been living with an Urban Legend. Somehow the conversation with the waiter came around to "I heard about a really bad accident with one of you buggy driver guys. Before I started working here, but heard it was really bad." We started laughing, then of course, the story was recounted broken bone by broken bone with the waiter amazed that he was looking at the actual guy. It was kind of fun in that continuum sort of way that the story was now part of the "who knows what's really true" history of that place. I guess I'll have to have an Urban Legend tshirt made up now.

After more beer than we'd anticipated drinking, we decided we were hungry and headed for Frenchmen Street. We got to Adolfo's at the perfect time, only 20 minutes to wait and ate an over the top meal, as is always the case with that place. After a short conference we decide to leave the bikes locked up and see what's going on over there. After all, by now it's well into evening, so we do the circuit to see who's playing where and when. Great names, all, but we decide to continue down to the Maison. At the corner of Chartres and Frenchmen was some kind of experimental band, but no Young Fellaz, and across the street was a pickup truck with an impromptu art show in the bed of the truck. Two artists, locals, had set up shop and the work was amazing. Kelly Curry, an artist and mural specialist, had a painting of Frenchmen on Halloween that she said she'd painted in real time. She had perched on a balcony and painted the scene as it was happening. I wanted it but couldn't afford it. Her other work was equally stunning. Showing with her was a young man named Joe Parker. There was one piece that stopped me in my tracks, although with a truck full of gorgeous art these two would have stopped me anyway. A combination of sculpture and painting, I had to have it and could actually afford it, so he wrapped it up and tomorrow I hang it. I have both of their emails and other contacts if you're interested, and you should be. I was stupid and didn't take a photo of this remarkable collection of pieces.



On our way down the street we encounter the Sweet Street Symphony. A street group made up of lots of young local musicians that we'd seen in various configurations all over New Orleans. Fun and wonderful, and thoroughly enjoying themselves, we stayed through a set. Once again the looks on the out of towners' faces were priceless. They all look astonished to find fine musicians standing in the streets playing for tips. I couldn't help but wonder if the town they lived in would welcome these musicians to their streets.





Lugging our new purchase we get just outside the door of the Maison, are contemplating heading home, when we hear two guitars sounding so incredible that we were sure they'd be on fire when we went in the place. They were playing, of all things, a cover of Cream's I'm Glad. When we got in there we found a superlative band headed up by a man named Roosevelt Collier. Unwieldy package or not, we were staying. The band was comprised of super-talents and watching Collier's hands was a treat. Turns out this guy was a finalist in the Guitar Center King of the Blues competition in '09. A friend had just this week sent me a reminder of who had won two years before. Clearly, there's some stiff competition there if Collier was a finalist and didn't win.



Ya know what, better yet, watch this, found when we got home.



Enjoy that? So did we. The battery on my camera was dying and so was the one in my back, so we decided to head for home. We stopped into the local watering hole on the way to the house. When we walked home from there I saw this on a telephone pole:



Twelve hours of incredible music, not one cover charge and all done on bicycles in a relatively small area. Twelve hours, no gates. Twelve hours and the stages were all over town. We were so lucky. From being peered down upon by the ghost of Fess to a poster for Jello Biafra on a pole advertising his current incarnation, the music was varied and wonderful and so, so plentiful. As I sank into bed I felt bad for that guy who only gets to be here two weeks a year and thinks he "knows stuff." He really has no idea.

More Neuron(ic?) Backfires

Now and then I have random thoughts that fly through and stick. Here are some recent ones:

1. When was it decreed from on high that Americans should always, always have cheaper gasoline than the rest of the world? Where did we get this idea? Europeans have been paying higher prices for years, while we kept buying SUV's and the ever bigger, greater torque, crew cab pickups. In February 2011, when the average cost per gallon here in the US was $4.03/gal, it was $8+/gal in Belgium, France, Italy and the UK; it was $9+/gal in the Netherlands and Germany. While Donald Trump hollers about "Americans not liking paying $5/gal," and yeah, he's right, we don't, it makes me wonder at what point we, who use such a high percentage of the world's resources, decided it was our birthright to have lower gas prices than everyone else.

2. While everyone is upset by GE's ability to make huge profits and pay no taxes, it's just one of many corporations which have really remarkably talented accountants. Meanwhile, every single politician out there starts out with the statement "and we have to create more jobs."<---This seeming to be a self-evident point, I'm curious why the conservatives railing about "people shipping our jobs overseas" don't look at the cause of that and indeed, continue to feel that corporations should somehow be allowed tax breaks on various projects or tax cuts and/or limits on their profits.

I know this will be viewed by many as crazy, but I think we should be doing a head count of those jobs overseas and levee a fine on any corporation who chooses to remove a job to an overseas destination. A hefty fine, say, the difference between the salary they pay to the Indonesian sweat shop worker and what they'd have to pay to an American laborer. If we did that, with an accurate head count of jobs exported, it might make the American manufacturer rethink job removal. Fine them. Per head. For God's sake don't give them tax credits or tax cuts. "Labor costs in America are prohibitive so we take it overseas." Okay then. Don't pay the wages of that American worker whom you expect to buy your product, but do pay a fine for closing the plant that that same American worker was just fired from. Simple formula, way easy for the whizz bang accountants they have: Close the plant, 2500 people out of work (nevermind what happens to the economy of the area they live in, we won't fine them for that). Look at your books from last year, take the figure in Box A (2500 x wages for a year), then compute the wages paid to the 2500 people you hire in (name the country) this year in Box B. Subtract Box B from Box A. That's your fine. Help lower the deficit and maybe rethink your overseas labor plan. Ya know, those fine consumers you try to separate from their money have to have a living wage in order to consume your product. Living wage? Yeah, living wage.

3. Bubble. Burst. Bailout. Bonus. Bogus investment schemes to sell "derivatives." Bet against the derivatives being a good investment. Let's move from B to R. Regulation of this Wall Street nonsense is still non-existent. It could happen again. Ask the folks who put in the regulations in 1930 which were dismantled piecemeal. And we weren't paying attention. Which gives us an F as in Foreclosure. Although I suppose I could forge that report card and turn the F into an A if I sell Adjustable Rate Mortgages to. . . .nevermind, not a good idea, eventually I'll be found out. Nevermind, I have my stock options and my multi-million dollar severance so it's all good. Aren't I lucky that I work in the only industry I can think of that rewards reckless, unethical, and in some cases, criminal behavior. Then I can get hired as a consultant or lobbyist, when I should be put on the town square, have a guy with a sword whack the buttons off my double breasted just before the leg irons go on. Rotten veggies will be provided to the onlooking crowd gratis.

4. Donald Trump. Seriously? If you are serious, or view him as a serious candidate, which apparently some do, can someone please tell me why?

EDIT: 5/1/11
5. Chris Rock has the right idea. Make guns cheap and bullets cost $5000 dollars each. Folks will think twice before popping off a $5K piece of property.

6. So now Bin Laden's dead. Shades of Dillinger, the Dalton gang. Pics of his body will be at a premium. Is that enough? Can we bring our people home now? Or are we such warmongers that we'll let them keep getting brain injuries that the VA doesn't want to pay the medical care for? Postcards of Bin Laden's body on sale at the gift shop. $5.50 a pop. Frame them. Nevertheless, bravo to our folks who did him in (says the person for whom Ghandi is the model to aspire to). Perhaps now we can get some sanity back into our government without the hysteria. My question still remains: Why'd it take so long? And why do most folks think the war on Iraq, which is bankrupting our government, is a reasonable thing to continue?

FMIA: Strange Days

Over the last few months, we who live in the Marigny/Bywater/St. Roch area have been hearing from small business owners about petty harassment by the Faubourg Marigny Improvement Association.

The Mardi Gras Zone liquor license problem was one of the first things we heard about upon moving into this neighborhood three years ago. We heard that prior to our moving here, there had been a petition signed page after page by residents in favor of their getting a liquor license and that four locals had been against it. The license wasn't, and still hasn't been granted. We thought it was odd that four people could hold up something that the rest of the neighborhood was in favor of, but truthfully, we just figured maybe there was something else wrong with their application. We got used to going to Schiro's, which we love, but is annoyingly closed by 9PM and is not open on Sunday, which has led to several frustratingly dry Saints games because we weren't smart enough to remember that Schiro's would be closed. We'd either head off to a local bar or call the ever loyal Verti Marte delivery guys to hump a couple six packs to the house. We thought it ridiculous but lived with it.

Recently Mardi Gras Zone had another problem with the neighborhood association when they debuted their wood burning pizza oven. Watching this oven get built was like watching the pyramids go up: massive, stout, stone. There had been some work shut downs, permit issues that seemed to come out of nowhere. Once fixed, building resumed. Then there it was and pizza was coming out of it, and people were loving it, and then, boom. Wood burning stove, neighborhood menace, it must be shut down. City Business did an article on it about two months ago (sorry, the article is buried under other documents so I can't cite the date) because it had become such a big deal.

Over the last few months, though, we've been hearing more bizarre stories from local businesses. Snippets, really, but interesting and disturbing ones: Lost Love Lounge being harassed over bike racks and noise (that location, by the way, has been a Dance Hall/Live Music venue since 1939); Desperado Pizza being harassed over having an acoustic music set--some of the employees worried about losing their jobs; Mimi's, a very popular local bar and neighborhood institution, being harassed over (I've heard all of these at one time or other--like I said, snippets) noise, bikes, people standing outside, and parking. Those are just the few things I can remember as the Mimi's list seems to go on and on. We then heard that the Tire Shop on St. Claude was also being harassed. I keep meaning to go up there and ask him about that, but haven't made time. The story I heard on that was that the tire shop "didn't fit in with the vision for the St. Claude Corridor." Oh yeah, and they really had it in for Plan B, the non-profit bicycle cooperative. Huh?

Many of us in the neighborhood, who frequent all of these businesses, started wondering who was behind all this and how did they seem to have so much power? Who were these people that seemed to want to remove any small business in the area, or at least make it very difficult for them one way or another. The answer was always the same: The Faubourg Marigny Improvement Association, and in particular, a guy named Chris Costello. I heard tales of Costello threatening people, coming unglued in discussions meant to negotiate or mitigate any issues, and hurling obscenities at top volume in what sounded remarkably like some sort of Napoleonic temper tantrum.

Well, last week NOLA Defender reported an incident in the FMIA offices that led to a fistfight and assault charges. Their report details a violent outburst by Costello (who, it turns out, is heading up both the FMIA AND the St. Claude Main St. group) in which he attacked Eva Campos, treasurer of St. Claude Main St., putting her in a headlock as she was cleaning out her desk following a disagreement about policy. The NoDef report also mentioned a rather confusing group of addresses attached to both the FMIA and the St. Claude Main St. project, all somehow under the umbrella of Hestia LLC. Under that umbrella were numerous entities, but one name kept showing up, that of John Deveney.

Deveney had nothing to do with the physical altercation, but certainly seems to have some interest in the doings of FMIA/St.Claude Main St. I haven't yet seen an interview with Mr. Deveney, but would be very curious to hear his side of this story, as this week NOLA Defender uncovered what appear to be some very hinky contractual links between him and the Costello run organizations. NoDef discovered FMIA had paid Deveney Communication $30,000 in 2009 for "Contract Services." It gets stranger from there, as the NoDef report shows. The byzantine financial arrangements of Deveney/Costello include payments from FMIA to Deveney Communication for everything from "Security" to "Signs and Banners" during their push to quash the Cold Storage facility at the Wharf. According to NoDef's report, "in the Summer of 2009 after Costello personally petitioned area businesses and individuals to raise $21,569.28 for the NO Cold Storage campaign." Costello allegedly then signed the money directly over to Deveney Communications, over the objections of FMIA board members who felt doing so was a conflict of interest. Two board members subsequently resigned.

They were joined this week by Chris Costello, who decided it would be prudent to take a leave of absence for the time being.

Those of us who live here will be watching this closely as we believe this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of conflicts of interest, strange cut and paste contracts, and indeed, the agenda of the Costello-run FMIA.

Krewe of Eris Defense Fund Benefit Tomorrow Night, April 14

Thanks to the Gambit for publicizing this. Tomorrow night, at the Allways on St. Claude. Complete story and lineup HERE at the Gambit.

Sometimes Darkness Makes Me Laugh

It does. What can I say? I've always had a dark sense of humor, even though I've never been an ER doctor or an EMT or a soldier. I have, however, had my share of not so great moments in life, and mostly, not always, but mostly I can find some humor there. Sometimes I have to look hard, but not this week. I was blessed with a natural.

If you've seen the Bucket List, you'll remember a scene wherein Jack Nicholson's doctor is railing at him that he has to quit smoking or he'll get cancer, he has to give up red meat or his heart will give out, he has to stop drinking or his liver will revolt. Nicholson just gets up and leaves. I would have asked the doctor, "Do you have a preference?" Ask my doctor. She'll probably confirm that. It seems the natural question since something, something is gonna get ya in the end.

Last week I was given an antibiotic for a sinus infection that, alas, is still clinging albeit with weakened claws. I had a terrible adverse reaction to it. It's a cousin to Cipro, so I guess if there's an anthrax outbreak I'm a dead duck. Turns out this stuff can cause terrible reactions, as it did with me, or in some cases the allergic reaction can kill you. I was pretty sure for about eight hours that I was that case. My skin burned like a hill of fire ants had emptied itself and taken up residence under it. My chest hurt. I was shaking all over and too weak to move from one chair to the next. All this had followed a two hour visit to the bathroom, forehead up against the tub to cool it. I could barely form words when talking. Probably too much information. Suffice it to say I thought for sure I was dying.

I took a big white pill prescribed by my doctor at noon and by 2PM I was dying. While unable to laugh externally, my interior voice was in hysterics. "Dead in two hours from an innocuous looking pill. Dead like Lenny Bruce, just that quick, but this drug is legal and was supposed to help me. Ha!"

I realized in those moments that I would die of something that no one could blame me for, as seems to be the fashion these days. Blame the dead guy, he shouldn't have eaten that prime rib, ya know. It's entirely his fault. Here I had a no-fault death, somewhat like a no-fault divorce, inevitable and citing irreconcilable differences. I was delighted. Not to be dying, not yet, but that at least this wouldn't be whispered about as the "poor dumb thing mistook the elevator shaft for the exit door. I told her she needed to get her glasses prescription changed. But after all it was only a matter of time. Did you see her scarf down that plate of fried catfish?"

I lived. For now, as is the case for all of us. And don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled by that turn of events. Although I still look at the person across from me at a restaurant doggedly eating a dry hold-the-dressing salad after determinedly jogging several miles and feel a bit sorry for them. They seem to believe that if they just do that they can stave it off, death won't come for them, oh no, they'll outrun it. It's delusional and decidedly no fun. I smile and eat my shrimp poboy, toss back a beer, order some creme brulee and know my funeral will be filled with recriminations.

Theirs will be filled with astonishment and comments about a life of salads and jogging and no bread or chocolate. If I'm still around, I'll just say, "Hey, it happens."

Neuron Backfires

Many thanks to my friend who posted the last post for me while I was out of town. I shoulda warned him about all the cheat sheet tags I leave at the bottom of my "new post" window. He's the one who taught me how to use them anyway.

This one's not about Eris, the DOJ report on NOPD (still wading through it), or any other kind of serious topic. Every now and then there are stray thoughts that meander through a head. An article read that makes the reader say, "Huh?" A comment made by someone that sticks and bounces from neuron to neuron for a few days until it is replaced by another or gets spit out like gases through an exhaust pipe on a car. Here are a few for this week:

1. Phone calls: Earlier today someone passed me this article that discussed something I've been wondering about for a while. Now everyone knows I'm not anti-technology, not at all. I do, however, wonder if we're losing something when so much of our communication is in no context other than a screen. I can text with the best of them, but as I commented to the person who sent me the article above, the sound of laughter can't be typed/tweeted/texted and sorry, but LOL or even ROFL doesn't replace that sound. If a friend says, "Maybe I should just jump off a bridge" it sure as shootin' has a different context if they're laughing versus crying when they say it. I can't tell by looking at my screen. Years ago I ran chat rooms on AOL when it first started out. They were hosted chat rooms with a topic. The standard for training a new host was to "smile from the wrists down" as there is no context on a screen. Sarcasm can seem like cruelty scrolling across a screen with no voice or face to give it context. An article a few months ago showed by some kind of test that was done, that something like 88% of emails are misinterpreted. Why? No context. People couldn't tell if someone was being sarcastic, teasing them or being purposely vicious. If my sister says "screw you" while laughing hysterically and throwing a potato chip at me, that's an entirely different thing from "screw you" coming across a cell phone minus the potato chip. Oh yeah, and not everything can be communicated in 140 characters, abbreviations, or badly spelled text messages. But hey: "NP w txt u ltr or cu 2nite @ M's" will have to suffice in some instances I guess.

2. Dictionaries: In keeping with the above neuron backfire there's this. LOL and OMG are now, evidently, words as is the "heart" symbol. Gotta love it. Actually that one did make me laugh.

3. Nicotine: Before I left on my trip my eye caught an article somewhere on the cover of a gossip mag in the airport--a photo of some actress whose name escapes me. She was smoking an e-Cig. The caption read: "So and so has been using an e-Cig for over a year now, isn't it time she stopped?" Why? Nevermind the obvious who the hell cares aspect of this, why should she stop? If all the anti-smoking folks are so upset about the smoke and she's switched to the e-Cig for her nicotine fix, thus eliminating the smoke that gets those folks' panties all in a wad, then what's the problem? Is a nicotine addiction really all that different from a caffeine addiction? How is an e-Cig so much worse than a gallon of Starbucks with a turbo shot? I don't get it. Caffeine is standard, nicotine a moral failure? Huh?

Oh yeah, and some municipalities are now trying to ban fireplaces. Yup, fireplaces, the kind you hang your Christmas stocking on and dreamed of romantic evenings in front of. No more wood burning fires allowed. Other municipalities are trying to ban barbecues. Yup. Backyard barbecues could become a thing of the past, those glorious ribs and steaks a memory. The reasoning behind this is evidently that the burning meat's smoke is dangerous.

Next they'll tell you you're an irresponsible parent for taking your kid camping, building a campfire and letting them sit less than 1/2 a mile away, nevermind those burning marshmallows for the s'mores.

4. Toilet Paper: My grocery store is a locally owned rather peculiar place populated by silver painted people on Pegasus bicycles and piano lessons going on upstairs. During my trip I was in an actual grocery store about four times. I gotta wonder if we really need 40 different kinds of toilet paper. I wondered how much time Americans spend standing in that aisle, and others like it, trying to decide which one to buy and whether their decision is ultimately based on the cute cuddly bear family commercial they saw or the color of the packaging. The wine aisle was pretty amazing, but there at least folks are looking at categories like red vs. white, if red then what kind: a cabernet, merlot, shiraz? What country of origin, what vintage? I know for sure we're not looking for "vintage" tp so I'm really curious what makes a person buy this one over that one. And it's not just toilet paper, there are a zillion choices to be made for any number of items. I go to my store and Benny says, we're out of that, truck comes next Monday. I buy what they have.

Camera phone witness describes his experience at Eris/NOPD confrontation

Loki, founder of the joint blogger site HumidCity.com, interviews Ritchie Katco--the camera phone wielding witness to Eris' confrontation with the Fifth District N.O.P.D.--about his experiences that night and posts the podcast to HumidCity.

Katco has posted an additional video some might not have seen of the N.O.P.D. using pepper spray indiscriminately to try to disperse the crowd.

"I saw at least three or four tazings...and several pepper sprayings more of a crowd dispersal tool than to suppress an individual...indiscriminate spraying into people's faces hoping to disperse...

"The first tazing I witnessed...seemed to be more of an effort to stop an individual from fleeing rather than to protect an officer. That's the thought that led me to begin filming.

"I did notice State Troopers on hand...I saw some lighter blue shirts that would indicate a sergeant but I didn't see any white shirts that would indicate a higher ranking officer.

"The purposes of continued filming is to document the scene. It seemed excessive and out of control in that there wasn't a lot of central leadership. It wasn't until the sergeant showed up and the State Trooper that the crowd started moving."

"I took the footage not intending to be vaulted into an advocate for civil liberties but I feel like I'm a vessel. Now everybody has a video phone in their pocket and the N.O.P.D. and police departments...are dealing with having to be immediately accountable for their actions."



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Comments from Various Places re:Eris/NOPD

I have been inundated with comments on my original post, all of which I have posted. There a great number of well articulated and diverse opinions in the comment section of that post that I urge you to read.

There have also been some standouts and some found elsewhere that I think need to be considered. All have been posted here in their entirety.

First from this blog's original post:

Posted Anonymously:

As a former member of NOPD who has worked the FQ during Mardi Gras, I can sadly say that some of the information you give does not surprise me in the least.

Please understand that it is not indicative of all (or even most) NOPD, nor even all 5th district cops. The 5th district is notorious. It's a very large and very hardcore dangerous area to police. However, this should not impact a bunch of drunken revelers in costume.

It would be interesting to find out why they barricaded the street. Did they order come down from on high or did they take initiative. Sounds like a bunch of unsupervised hotshots acting like they just watched too many episodes of COPS.

I worked barricade duty and all we did if someone broke it was go round 'em up and point them in the opposite direction (kinda like herding sheep.) The most dangerous it got was people who insisted that they were special friends of the mayor or some big bigwig demanding to drive their limo through and trying to run us over (seriously.)

If a person gets combative, then proper procedure is used to handle that one person. Back-up is called if it's too hot to handle. Somebody's Sgt. should have been called to the scene if it was that bad.

Sounds like the testosterone was flowing a little to heavily in the PD and alcohol a little to heavily in the crowd. Bad mix all around, but the cops are duty bound to protect the safety of people, not to power trip.

Mouthing off to a cop is not illegal. "Police officers cannot have their peace disturbed," meaning that you can tell a cop to go bleep his momma and he can't legally do anything if you aren't also committing a crime. But, they can only bust you for the crime, not being an ass. As far as I know, marching without a permit is hardly an offense which deserves baton wielding, foot chases and randomly throwing people to the ground.

P.S. NOPD doesn't use "mace." They use military grade pepper spray and that shit is NASTY. I'd rather be maced 20 times than get pepper sprayed. It's not a trivial weapon and should NEVER be used in crowds.

From a nola.com article, posted by allferalcats backs up what was reported to me minutes after the altercation:

in fact many of us that organize and participate in this event are new orleans natives, young homeowners, business owners, and avid advocates for quality of life in our neighborhoods. krewe of eris is intended as a positive and accessible convergence. many of us are upset by the careless acts of just a few of the participants in the parade that may have been the cause of citizen complaints that triggered police reaction. there is nothing radical or interesting about middle class white people damaging other middle class white peoples' property, and in this case only served to endanger a joyful and benign group of paraders.
standing in the heart of this parade as the police tore through the crowd i saw people arrested at random, instruments intentionally smashed, hateful unprofessionalism and violence from the police. people were scared, crying, running. with a taser pointed in my face i said " no one is attacking you, please calm down" and was told " son if you beat that drum again im going to beat the fu** out of you."
any disgruntled young white person that at that time tried to turn this into some sort of showdown endangered everyone there. Their own privilege and ignorance to the reality of police brutality afforded them such carelessness. if violence and property damage holds a place in the pursuit of radical change in our society, this was not it. indeed there are young people that visit our city that behave in ways that are detrimental to the quality of life we as a city are battling for. most of us who had anything to do with the staging of this parade couldnt see a thing, as we were playing music and carrying homemade floats as the crowd swelled around us.
and yet the sweeping condemnation, stigmatization, stereotyping, and lack of empathy for people affected by violence that some people in this community are displaying is disheartening. i can only imagine the hatred you seed in your heart for people that resemble you less, be they queer, of color, or in poverty.
blind follower of the state, search yourself.

Then earlier today, this video was sent to me in the original post's comments section. It also backs up the original post's reportage of "I want to see your backs, no faces." The kid my husband saw turning toward the police with a guitar case and his arms out can be seen at the very end of the second clip briefly. My husband said that was the kid who was immediately beat down after doing that. Unfortunately the video doesn't show that part, but thanks to whoever sent me this:



NOPD Krewe of Eris Art is not a Crime

Another First Hand Account of Eris/NOPD Encounter

UPDATE: March 9,2011 WWLTV just aired a report: It can be seen here.

WDSU's report can be seen here.



From the report:

Meanwhile, the new city police monitor is asking witnesses to come forward to tell what they saw. If you can help, you are asked to call the police monitor at 681-3217.

We will be calling them in the morning and I urge any of you who can help to do the same.
_____________________

I am posting this in its entirety along with the link. I think it is important.

Although I have comment moderation on this blog, I have posted every single comment that has come in on the original post of my husband's and my encounter that night. I saw lots of cameras out there that night and so far the only video/photos I've seen are this one, which surprises me although I have a feeling that now that Mardi Gras is over, more will be uploaded to both YouTube and Flickr. I'll be checking for them.

Found on YouTube thanks to a commenter.

The following was originally posted here at indymedia. I think it's important enough to post the entire text:

Arrested at the Eris Parade
by Anonymous by request Wednesday, Mar. 09, 2011 at 10:00 AM

This is my personal account of parading in Eris 2011 and the crazy arrests that followed. I hope you can use this or print it somehow.... please feel free to post it anywhere and everywhere.

This is my personal account of parading in Eris 2011 and the crazy arrests that followed. I hope you can use this or print it somehow.... please feel free to post it anywhere and everywhere. I want to remain anonymous because I fear reprisal, based on the threats the Fifth District officers made over the course of the evening and from witnessing their insane misbehavior with my own eyes. Personally I have lost all faith in our police department. It is increasingly clear that the NOPD problem isn't "bad apples" but an institutional evil reaching far deeper, and now I have experienced it firsthand. So, I am frightened, but my outrage has moved me to write, to make the truth known. I was a peaceful parader, as were (I believe) almost if not all of the others arrested on Sunday night, many of whom I can vouch for personally. Mark my words, New Orleanians... if this can happen to me, it can happen to any of you.



SEVERELY FUCKED UP

The mood in the 5th District station house was grim. Not only the line of twelve cuffed prisoners kneeling on the floor of the hallway-- we were grim alright-- but the police themselves were somber and uneasy. The mood was subdued, punctuated with explosions of anger from the still adrenalized officers who'd been at the scene of the Fifth District's bulldozing of Eris.

"Y'all fucked up," ranted a fat officer, pacing up and down the back hall where we arrestees knelt. It was hour two of what would be over four hours kneeling cuffed side-by-side on the Fifth District's linoleum before transfer to Sheriff's custody. "Y'all done fucked up now. I hope I see the motherfucker who hit me. I'm gonna find him. I'm gonna see that motherfucker on the street, and I'm gonna whip the shit out of him. You DO know that. When I see that motherfucker I'm gonna fuck him up bad, and I hope he's one of y'all's motherfucking cousins. I should'a shot that motherucker! You heard me?"

The station Sergeant was angry too, but he wasn't venting at the arrestees. He was angry at the French Quarter's 8th District police force. "I can't believe they got on the radio talking all that shit," he said, his voice getting louder as he spoke. "What the fuck was that? Getting on the radio and telling us there was a riot heading our way. Like it's a joke to them. 'Oh yeah, we got this big crowd throwing trash cans and rioting, so look out. We've got them heading right your way.' That is severely fucked up."

A junior officer grunted in acknowledgement. Several pairs of handcuffs were unaccounted for, and he was trying to sort out whose handcuffs were whose. The police couldn't agree who'd arrested which of us.

"If they really had a riot on their hands," the Sergeant continued, "the only thing they should'a been saying on the radio was 'send units.' They should've taken care of it their damn selves. And instead they send it to us! Well, we handled it for them alright. The Fifth District takes care of a riot. We cleaned up their shit for them." He laughed bitterly. "And now we get to ride this horse allll the way home."


THE PARADE

The Krewe of Eris' 2011 parade had not been a riot by any stretch of the definition. It had been a parade. It had been a jubilant and unruly parade, as it has been every year since it began, but also like every year it had been a positive, joyful, and creative parade, not a protest, an angry march, or anything remotely violent. The elaborate, lovingly handmade floats and costumes we had spent days and in some cases weeks on were made for celebration. This year's theme had been "Mutagenesis," partly in response to the BP oil disaster, and was meant to explore how new birth and change could arise from toxic horror. Prevalent in the parade were sea creatures and shorebirds, some adapted by their creators from earlier use in the Krewe of Dead Pelicans, Halloween and other parades and events reflecting the New Orleans spirit of responding to hardship by redoubling creative and constructive energy.

The parade had been without incident for the first several blocks, wending through the Marigny and Bywater neighborhoods. People seemed happy to see us as they always are. As we passed below one building, a resident threw out handful after handful of letter-pressed Carnival bookmarks to us from a high window, swirling like giant confetti. They said "Carnival 2011 -- This is Heaven."

After crossing Elysian to Frenchmen St., the parade gained a tail, an Eighth District police car that followed some yards behind the parade with its lights on but no siren. I was a participant in the parade, and I figured this police escort to be two things, neither of them alarming or unreasonable. One, it was keeping tabs on where the parade was heading, which struck me as proactive and (from a police point of view) understandable. Two, its blue-light presence at the back of the parade served as a warning to civilian vehicle traffic that the road ahead was not passable. When the parade paused for twenty minutes or so at the intersection of Frenchmen and Burgundy, the car paused with us.

At some point during this pause, one parade participant did something to attract the attention of the officers inside the car-- I didn't see this, so I don't know what it was-- and he was arrested without incident.

The parade then moved forward, finally, following a course that took it into the French Quarter. We didn't get far; it was clear the Eighth District didn't want us there. Some neighborhoods are okay to parade in, and some, apparently, are not. The response to Eris entering the Quarter was swift and markedly more aggressive. A helicopter swept us with its spotlight-- wait, does NOPD have a helicopter now? There was definitely one present. Police cars blocked off two sides of every intersection, directing the parade into two right turns: up one block and then directly back out towards Esplanade. All the cars at the intersections had their sirens going at ear-splitting volumes, as did the now-multiple cars behind us, which accelerated and roared their engines. Many paraders broke into a trot and then an unnerved run. Some crowded onto the sidewalks.

The sirens drowned out the marching band and made verbal communication impossible, even at a shout. As the tail cars nipped at the parade's heels, some younger paradegoers began dragging the gigantic French Quarter residential trash bins out into the streets to slow the police behind us down. Just as promptly, other paradegoers put the cans upright and dragged the cans back to where they'd been. Still scrambling to stay ahead of the police cars, the trash draggers and trash replacers angrily chided each other. Of course, it was impossible to hear what anyone was saying over the sirens, leaving this an argument conducted in pantomime. This lack of a unified response is perhaps not shocking in a parade named for the Goddess of discord.

The cop cars and their super-sirens kept on us all the way to the dividing line between the Fifth & Eighth districts, where they vanished. Many paradegoers had dropped out, but the couple hundred people still left cheered, as if being shunted around by effective crowd control was a victory. "Whose streets? Our streets!" chanted some as they fled back across Elysian.

It had not been a particularly fun visit to "Da Quarters," and my partner and I discussed heading home, but we figured we'd stick it out, since there were only a few blocks left before the parade was officially over anyway.

A little way up Chartres St. a police car approached the front of the parade, driving the wrong way on the one-way street. Occupying the center of the road, it drove straight forward into the front of the parade until the parade flowed around it on all sides, and then it stopped. The siren came on, then turned off, and the parade continued past the parked police car while the officer inside it glowered silently. This was bizarre, but also much more like the buffoonery I expect from our boys in blue, and for that reason was almost comforting.

At Chartres and Franklin, there was a melee.


THE MELEE

At Chartres and Franklin, cars swarmed into the body of the parade. They tried to block the parade on all sides, and the parade ballooned in the middle as the cheerfully oblivious marchers in the back marched forward into those discovering the obstruction. There weren't sirens, but there were a lot of flashing lights, and the officers were shouting profanities as they laid into a confused and frightened crowd. Why had this ambush happened? Where had this come from? What the fuck was going on?

One man was grabbed and thrown against a car. "He cut my tires!" an officer was shouting. "I saw you pull that knife out your own pocket!" someone else shouted back. Two female officers began deploying giant waves of pepper spray as they backed away from the crowd, the spray arcing up and drizzling like fog over the parade as well as the officers in the center of it.

Officers were lashing out with batons and tazers, chasing down those who ran. Eris, like most things that are great about Mardi Gras, is a family affair, and there had been parents present with their children of all ages. If there had ever been an official demand we disperse, nobody I've spoken to heard it.

The escalation was instantaneous, ongoing and exponential. Police were flinging people around, and onlookers' cameras were smashed. A tazer boomed-- it sounded like a gunshot-- and began crackling. Then another. Then another. People were screaming in fear and running in all directions. As the officers pursued and tackled the scattering parade-goers, a few angered paraders circled back to the now-abandoned cruisers, opening the cars' unsecured rear doors to let out those who'd been confined. Further down Chartres, arrestees struggled free or were yanked free by groups of their friends as the situation spiralled further out of control. A man ran down the street in handcuffs.

"Lost my taser!" one officer panted, running past the car inside which your humble correspondent was quietly cuffed. "The fuck's my goddamn taser?"

"Someone got my baton!" shouted another.

More cars roared into the intersection and fresh officers jumped out, tense with anticipation and excitement. They ran out into the darkness with their batons extended in their hands. Officers who'd suffered the effects of pepper spray were staggering like drunks back towards the blue-lit ring of cop cars, shouting and cursing while holding their faces and rubbing their eyes.

One girl was grabbed and arrested for taking photographs. Several brass band members had their instruments taken from them and deliberately broken. Twelve paradegoers that I know of went to jail and a whole lot more went to hospital.



FILTHY MOTHERFUCKERS

We arrestees were in the fifth district station for what seemed like an eternity, but was actually just over four hours. We could hear the police in the offices arguing loudly about the reports. A senior officer was scolding them and emphasizing how important it was that the reports agree with one another.

In the back hallway where we kneeled, different police came and went, some shouting at us, some ignoring us, some giving us brief paternal lectures on our misconduct. Some threatened us, and some were relatively friendly. None of the cops seemed happy, and there was a clear sense that things had not gone well. "All this shit happened because one of you childish fuck-ups started drawing penises on cars," an officer told us. "You know that? We don't care if you parade, but we got a call saying someone was drawing penises on cars. That's the cause of this whole situation. How you feel about that? You proud of drawing penises on cars? You some grade-schoolers?" The next day when I got out of jail, the friend who gave me a ride home had a penis painted on the side of her car. She, a parader herself, had apparently been among the victims. The penis washed off with soap and a sponge.

Back in the station-house, one of the arrested paradegoers had been tazed so long and hard that he had urinated on himself. "Y'all motherfuckers stink," a Fifth District sergeant said. He was not one of the relatively friendly ones. "Y'all make me sick. It's disgusting. You oughta be ashamed of yourselves, stinking like you do." He left the room and returned with a big can of room deoderizer in each hand. "Y'all some foul motherfuckers," he said, walking up and down the line and spraying the tops of our bowed heads with the intensely scented aerosols. Tightly cuffed, we cringed away as best we could. "Y'all some filthy motherfuckers."

The ordeal was a mix of menace and unintentional burlesque. Addressing one of the brass band members who'd been arrested-- their large instruments had made them slow to escape, leading to a disproportionate number being detained-- an officer told him, "I saw you slash them tires. Oh yes. I saw you. Think you cute, using your mouthpiece on them tires. Well we got your mouthpiece, there's DNA all over it." In spite of this compelling physical and scientific evidence, that particular musician has yet to be charged with slashing anyone's tires.

Later, the same officer came back into the hallway waving a gleaming clean pair of safety scissors. "This it right here," he said triumphantly. "This here is what you used on them tires." He waited to see if anyone would react. "Yep," he said, "you in trouble now." He went back into the office.

At one point an officer who wasn't in uniform came and looked at us silently for a while without speaking. When he did speak, his voice was quiet. "This is a job to me," he said, making eye contact with each of us. "Okay? I want you to know that. This here is just my job. I come here, I do my job, I pray god I go back to my family at day's end. That's all. Arresting anyone don't get my dick hard. I want you to know, it don't do nothing for me. I am just here to do this job." He stared at us longer, seemed about to say more, and then left.

One arrestee had a broken cheekbone and a large, matted bloody wound on the back of his head from being beaten with a police baton. Later, this injury would require surgical staples. On the wall where we were kneeling, there was a growing bloodstain behind his head where his injury had bled onto the drywall. "He's bleeding," said another of the arrestees. "Officer, that man needs medical attention."

"I say you could speak? Shut the fuck up," the officer currently watching us replied. A couple of the arrestees had earlier been demanding lawyers, and he had told them to shut the fuck up too. He was big on that phrase. Earlier, he'd told yet another arrestee, "I'm a trump your charges to the sky if you don't shut the fuck up."

An officer walked in cradling his hand and smiling. "You need hospital?" The silence-oriented officer asked him.

"Yeah, I'm going in a minute," said the officer with the wounded hand. "I knocked motherfuckers tonight, tell you what."

"That hand definitely look sprained," said the shushy officer. "Please tell me you tagged one of these assholes."

"Nah, none of these here," the officer said, looking us over. "I don't think it was none of these. But whoever the fuck it was, he damn sure know it." He poked his knuckles tenderly. "I'm a be out on this one for a while," he said, and grinned. "Might have to stay home Mardi Gras."



THE JAIL

When we finally got transported to OPP, we sat for a while on an outdoors bench with all the other unfortunates who'd been arrested that night, many of whom still had Mardi Gras beads on. One of the boys from the Fifth District station house, a scrawny white officer from Indiana, waited with us until we could be processed into jail.

"I'll tell you now, they're gonna take your shoes," the scrawny officer warned us. "I mean, they're bad in there. They're like savages in there, and I guarantee you guys won't go before a judge before Thursday at the soonest. Courts are closed for holiday. You'll be in there a week with those animals. Really, you guys will be lucky if getting your shoes taken is the worst thing that happens. You know what I mean? I pity you. It's bad in there. I wouldn't want to be in there."

None of lost our shoes. Except for the pitiable cases who were visibly mentally ill, the other people incarcerated at OPP and the House of Detention were on the whole quite good-natured. Our fellow inmates found it hilarious that we were covered in sparkly makeup and had been arrested while parading. "You ain't shot nobody? You just paradin' with a band? Ain't that some shit!" The fact a number of us had been playing in the brass band went a ways with the inmates as well. "Man, the fuck they always arresting horn players for?"

There was a certain amount of teasing about our bizarre and scanty outfits, but unlike our experience with the paid professionals of NOPD, the inmates didn't threaten us or bully us. There was only either camraderie or indifference.

Only a couple of us had ever been arrested before, and OPP was new to all of us. These more experienced inmates explained to us newbies how the byzantine processing system worked. They showed us how to operate the janky telephones, warned us which guards were mean, and when the food cart came around they made sure we "parade folk" got sandwiches. Don't get me wrong, OPP and HOD are miserable to be in, but after the Fifth District, the Sheriff's department staff were quite frankly a fucking relief.

When we went before a judge the next day to get our bail set, he remarked on the unprofessionalism and sloppiness of the police reports, noting that they lacked any detail and didn't address who did what. That is, the random assortment of charges we'd each been given weren't linked to specifics in the police reports, which were almost all just exact duplicates of each other, characterizing the parade in general terms as a violent and dangerous riot.

The last word should perhaps go to the Sheriff's officer whose job it was to process us into the jail. His cubicle, at the end of the long outdoor bench, was the point where the NOPD handed us off to the custody and responsibility of the Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff's Office. When the arrestee with the broken cheekbone and the matted, bloody head was brought in, the Sheriff's officer in the processing cubicle shouted so loudly he could be heard on both sides of the doors.

"Oh, fuck you! What the fuck is this shit?" the Sheriff's officer exploded. "You trying to slide him in here, busted up like that? Oh HELL NO. This man is going to the goddamn hospital!"

The Fifth District officer responded inaudibly.

"The fuck you are," the sheriff's officer said, still loud. "We are not taking this. No way. He's going straight to the hospital. No way you're passing your fuckup off on us."

NOPD Krewe of Eris Art is not a Crime

Permitting Culture Crimes

UPDATE: March 9,2011 WWLTV just aired a report: It can be seen here.

WDSU's report can be seen here.

From the report:

Meanwhile, the new city police monitor is asking witnesses to come forward to tell what they saw. If you can help, you are asked to call the police monitor at 681-3217.

We will be calling them in the morning and I urge any of you who can help to do the same.
_____________________

Yeah, I know. A title. What can I say. I'm not quite awake yet.

We've all seen the ads: Come to New Orleans! Great culture! Food, music, art, parades. A great time to be had by all.

Here in New Orleans, however, it would seem that some folks really want all that to stop. First there was a move to stop street musicians. The ordinance allowed for powertools to rev up early and stay late, but not a brass band on a corner. Yeah, you know, the ones in the ads by the Tourism Bureau.

Last week a Costume Market on Frenchmen Street, which had been around for 20 years, was shut down. No permits. For information on that, please see Lord David's piece here.

Last night the rebellious Krewe of Eris rolled through the Bywater, Marigny and French Quarter ending in injuries, arrests, tazing and mace. No permit. I wasn't in the parade, but I saw it and saw the melee in the end. Jules Bentley interviewed one of Eris' organizers a few days ago. Excerpts here.

I've watched Eris for years. Usually wildly imaginative costumes, lots of whooping, a band, some crazy bicycle floats, seemingly tons of feathers, are to be seen and the number of folks at the beginning of the parade's roll swell as onlookers join in along the route. Last night we heard them coming and ran out the door up to Mimi's on Franklin and Royal. Giant bugs rolled by, followed by an imaginative three headed dragon seemingly made of dryer duct tubing, and a really cool bead catapult. Everyone was having a wonderful time, dancing, singing, celebrating. We saw absolutely no aggression, no shoving, no pushing, no fighting, no cops.

We stayed at Mimi's maybe 40 minutes and had a couple beers then headed home. I had just walked in my door, didn't even have it closed yet, when I heard loud chanting coming from Port and Chartres. "Let them go. Let them go. Let them go." I ran back out the door and ran into a man who had been with Eris who told me that the cops had tried to blockade them at Esplanade, then Franklin, now here at Port. When I walked the half block to the intersection I saw cop cars everywhere, cops with a kid face down on the ground and all had their batons out and their attitudes in evidence. The police were very clearly spoiling for a fight.

Again, I wasn't in the parade. I can only tell you what I saw and experienced in my little corner of the Marigny.

A few of the Eris folks decided to run the barricade. I heard a voice say, RUN, and they did. Police were knocking over trash cans to slow them down, and some of the Eris folks (I heard this didn't see it) knocked trash cans over to slow the cops down. I saw a cop shove a very small young man with his baton. The kid fled between two cars and the cop followed body blocking him to the ground. It took four of us to pick this kid up off the sidewalk he was so shaken. The way he was crumpled we thought he'd broken some bones but we had to move him in case there was another stampede. I saw repeated incidents of police threatening and hitting people with their batons. In the end I helped pick four people up off the pavement. Two in the street, one on each sidewalk. As I was helping neighbors pick up trash cans and people, my husband was down the block. More on that in a second.

There were lots of folks with cameras, video and still cameras. One of the cops was concerned about that. Another, who seemed to be in charge, told him "Don't worry about the damn cameras." I heard later that some people with cameras were arrested more than a half an hour after the last and worst of the melee had ended. (I asked several of the photogs to send me links to their pics. I will post them when I get them.)

One young man in angel wings and a long white tunic was put on the ground, handcuffed and put in the back of a squad car. I saw it and hadn't seen or heard him do anything to warrant that. Maybe he had a smart mouth. I don't know but he certainly wasn't fighting the cops when I saw them grab him. It seemed random.

By this time the forward contingent of Eris was headed toward St. Ferdinand and then to Press. The cops took Angel Wings out of the car he was in and walked him back to the cars nearer to Franklin, then that car continued behind the others headed toward Press.

My husband was in that group. He was not parading with them, just got swept along. He saw one cop baiting one kid, trying very hard it seemed to get the kid to swing at him, when the kid did nothing, the cop grabbed him and took him anyway then hit him with his baton. He saw cops tazing people left and right, he heard that it had started back at Franklin, but by the time they got to St. Ferdinand it was in full swing. The police were also using mace by this time. One guy, carrying a guitar case turned to the cops as if asking why they were doing this. He was wearing glasses. The cop grabbed him with one hand and maced him right in the face behind his glasses with the other. My husband said he could see it foaming behind his glasses. His friends tried to help him when he went down, trying to rinse his eyes out with water. They all got tazed. Tazers and mace were used liberally. My husband saw clouds of mace and was caught in it. At Press Street a cop told my husband not to turn around, saying, "Anyone who turns around gets arrested. I don't want to see faces, I want to see backs."

One drummer in the band was told by a cop holding a baton over his head that if he hit that drum again, his head would get hit by the baton. I talked with a friend who was in the parade. He said that yes, some people were dancing on cars and shouldn't have been. He absolutely refutes the report that anyone threw a brick at a cop or anyone else. He said that if the police had seen one of the paraders doing something, they could have come in and gotten that ONE person out, instead, according to him, they came on with total aggression, breaking heads and instruments, and escalating the problem. As the cops became more aggressive, the people in the parade began to defend themselves, not by throwing anything but by trying to run, or put their hands over their heads to protect their skulls. This caused the tazing and macing to begin, which of course, threw more fear into the mix which caused stampeding and a lot of people being knocked down. If there were cars scratched in the Marigny, from what I saw last night, it was most likely caused by people trying to get up on the sidewalk away from the flailing batons.

I'm certainly not going to try to say that no one in the parade might have caused a problem. People join in along the way. There is no set membership with wristbands, there is no parade security. Nevertheless, I've seen this parade many times before and it's pure joy and whimsy. These are delivery people and artists and musicians and young families. (I am hoping that none of the kids I saw in wagons, strollers and on parents' hips were hurt in all this.)

NOPD's behavior was absolutely contrary to trying to maintain peace. It appeared that they were spoiling for a fight. It's what I saw. It's all in the attitude.

I know there will be a ton of comments regarding why don't they just get the permit. Please spare me that argument. What I'm seeing is street musicians, artists and now a small group of Mardi Gras paraders being ticketed, shut down, beat down, tazed and maced because they didn't render unto Caesar to get their golden ticket giving them permission. This grates me.

I can pretty much guarantee that there isn't a gun in the pocket of that brass band musician or that costume maker on Frenchmen or that artist selling sketches on a blanket or in the stroller of the 2 year old dressed like a bunny or in the head of the dryer duct dragon. These are not the criminals, NOPD. I really wish you'd go out and get some of them instead of spending your time shutting down people who choose to create rather than destroy. Seems your priorities are a bit skewed.

But that's just me.

As Lord David puts it: ART IS NOT A CRIME.

Neither is parading during Mardi Gras.

Just Kids

I am reading Patti Smith's award winning book, Just Kids. Borrowed from a friend, it has made my "immediately buy" list. Everyone who knows me well knows she's a hero of mine: we inhabited the same environment, read the same books, had the same heroes, grew up believing ourselves to be artists. Whatever that meant. Granted she was a few years older than I, but when she talks of places like the Electric Circus, now defunct, I remember my first visit to that place. When she talks of living in the Chelsea Hotel, I am jealous. It's where my first husband and I aspired to live but never quite made it. She talks of poetry readings, off off off Broadway plays, the unknown bands playing the downstairs of the Village Gate and I remember bitching about the cold as I loaded in amps and guitars out of a beat up van in the alley behind that place. But for his band to play there was the big time. My god, one of our idols might be in the audience.

We held intermittent jobs, had a friend who was a printer who would work just long enough to collect unemployment so he could travel, then return and do it again. Made sense to us. We were regularly evicted from our apartments for being in arrears on the rent. No credit checks back then. Just grab your paltry belongings and move to another. We lived in huge houses with ten other people, until the Health Department told us we were in violation of some bizarre law stating that no more than three unrelated people could inhabit a 7 bedroom house. We all had dogs. We all had drawings or chord charts taped to our walls, and books on the occult or Eastern religions near our copious candles in second hand holders. We had tons of books, all also bought second hand, all passed around, all discussed at length. We dreamed not so much of fame, but of achievement, accomplishing something in whatever art was our forte that had never been done before while holding true to the grand romanticism of Rimbaud and Beaudelaire and Van Gogh. Patti followed Rimbaud's footsteps to his hometown, saw omens in things that happened on his birthday. I get her.

One scene of her pocketing two steaks, one in each pocket, made me laugh. I remembered my first husband putting a London Broil down his jeans and the rest of us saying he could have found a better place to put it as we all chowed down on it. Patti had a job at the point that she grabbed those steaks, just as we had jobs when the London Broil became dinner. As I recall I was working at an employment agency, one of those private ones long before the word head-hunter entered our lexicon, he was delivering auto parts. Where did our money go? We'd dutifully put a little in the community coffee mug designated for rent and utilities. Yeah, yeah, we bought some recreational drugs, but the rest went for art supplies and guitar strings and a payment on the wah wah pedal down at the Main Street music store. The owner was kind and understood it would take us forever to pay it off.

We were young. Eighteen to twenty. We were just kids. We believed in the purity of art in and of itself and in terms of our lives. Uh huh. I know. Incredibly naive, incredibly selfish in its way, incredibly irresponsible by most standards, and incredibly beautiful. But I'm a long way from that place now. Many decades past it. I have owned cars, houses, raised a child, worried about college funds, come up with stories for the light company when times were tough. Other than the child, I wasn't wild about any of it. In fact, my moving to New Orleans was an attempt at divestment, a return to a more art-focused than stuff-focused life. My bones are too old for constant moving now, and I don't do the cold as well as I used to, so a place with a bed in it has become a necessity. No more can I sleep on someone's floor with my jacket for a pillow and a samaritan's blanket not long enough to cover my toes.

Last night a second line for John Flee, as he was known, passed my house. I knew it was scheduled and I heard it coming. Bundled up in my robe I went out to the front gate catching it just as it turned off Architect Alley. People, lots of them, turned the corner onto Port. Guys on two story bikes Flee had probably helped weld together at Plan B towered above the mourners and the motley collection of musicians playing. It certainly wasn't a standard second line with an organized brass band giving them a beat. It was a "hey, doesn't Tommy Socks play tuba?" kind of music. It was lovely. And very very sad. John Flee was shot in his home and the thieves, from reports I've read, only took a couple of computers. Friends in the second line group stopped by the gate and we hugged. Two young women asked if they could hug us, offered us whiskey, cried on my shoulder. I told them to dance their little feet off for him. They said they would.

Among that group marching somberly in front of my house were eight kids who had no idea that this would be one of the last things they'd ever do. Eight kids, squatters, gutter punks, nuisances, non-contributors to society, died in a fire in a warehouse last night trying to keep warm, their bones still young enough to sleep on a hard floor. Most probably still clinging to the sorrow of the loss of their friend and many of them still believing in the romantic freedom of an unencumbered life, offering whiskey generously to two old people who had a roof over their heads.

In my day, there were certainly plenty of folks who thought we were nuisances too. They definitely reminded us of our lack of responsibility. They told us we were dirty, un-American, un-patriotic. They told us we needed a back up plan "in case we didn't make it as artists." They told us there were rules of society that we needed to follow. We didn't understand why. We were making our own. I never expected that my generation would wind up spouting some of the same vitriol that was hurled at us. I, naively it would seem, expected that our generation would somehow be more tolerant, more understanding, would remember the couch surfing and the purloined dinners. I expected that we'd understand when we looked at the young ones among us that they were just going through the same paces we did at their age. Yeah, yeah, the issues and manifestations would be different: Iraq instead of Vietnam, two story bikes instead of mocassins and beads, guerilla art installations instead of portfolios, Fringe Fest instead of off off off Broadway, pitbulls instead of labradors. And while we were certainly not all saints, hardly, neither are they. To lump them all in the vagrant category does them a disservice: some of them deliver your food to you on bikes, some of them run community bookstores, many of them helped gut houses after the storm. They are not all good. Nor are they all bad. They are not all artists trying to live the life of pure art, nor are they all aggressive junkie panhandlers.

And no matter what, we need to remember, those of us with some of the alleged wisdom that comes with age, that compassion is ageless and timeless. There will always be kids who do not choose to throw themselves headlong into what grownups think is the societal norm.

That young woman with the whiskey may turn out to be the Patti Smith of her generation. That kid on the two story bike might toss it away and decide that Bernie Madoff had the right idea. We don't know and neither do they. Yet.

Because they are very simply, just kids. Nine of them dead in a week. Perhaps those two among them.

It breaks my heart.
_______
EDIT 1/29/11
Some wonderful photos of the Second Line Memorial to these people can be found HERE.

I Wish I Could Tell Louis.. . . .

. . . .about this article in the Times Picayune today about two police officers lying about a shooting at the Convention Center after the storm. Last time I saw Louis, which was about four years ago, he was a much changed man. He had lost his nephew at the Convention Center and then had lost his beloved son to a heart attack following the storm. His son, for whom he worked himself to the bone, was in his early thirties, and no drugs or alcohol were found in his system at the time of death. Following all that, and what had happened to him in the storm, he rarely smiled. He drank a lot. He told me once when I asked if he had told anyone else about what he'd seen at the Convention Center that it wouldn't do any good. He was beaten down to despair. I've since lost track of him, but ask every time I'm in the old neighborhood if anyone has seen him. The answer is always no. I am in hopes that he hears about the cops being exposed, his recollections being affirmed as opposed to being relegated to the category of urban myth.

Below is his story, actually only a fragment of it as I never got a chance to get it in its entirety. It was written December 29, 2005. I never knew his nephew's name. I'm wondering if his name was Danny Brumfield. If not, I'm wondering if Danny Brumfeld was the only one shot there. I've heard multiple stories from multiple people who are not wingnuts, so I tend to think not. No age is given for Mr. Brumfield, so I certainly cannot say that this man was Louis' nephew. I would, however, like to tell Louis that saying something, maybe even now, might do some good.

We were standing outside, the weather was warm for this time of year. Zack and Melissa's folks were here, and they're always a joy. So we stood out there talking, laughing, having a couple drinks. David was due home shortly but was still at work. I had come back in the house for something and the doorbell rang. When I opened it there was a man with a wonderful smile on his face, dressed in a bright Christmas red sweatshirt, black pants, and red hush puppies. It was Louis Towns, our neighbor. All he needed was a bow on his head and he would have been the best gift of Christmas. Before he could get the "Hello Miss Marie" out of his mouth we were hugging each other. Then the phone rang and it was David. I told him there was someone here who wanted to talk to him. I handed the phone to Louis and he said, "Hey, Mr. Dave!" David was thrilled and hurried home.

I still don't have the whole story of Louis' odyssey, but I'll give you what I do know. First a little bit about Louis. Louis is one of the most decent and one of the hardest working men I've ever known. A black man, born and raised in Louisiana, very intelligent, not very well educated. He's married, has a son who wants to be an engineer, and he had two grandsons. He may have former wives, other kids, other grandchildren, but we've never discussed any of that. Pre-Katrina David and I met him on the Ferry as it seemed we were usually coming and going at about the same time, all on bicycles. He lives a few doors down on our block and of course we'd seen him, but it was on the Ferry that we made friends. Many nights we'd be coming home from work the same time as he did and we'd talk about lots of things. He worked in a warehouse in Metairie, which is by bicycle a very long way from Algiers Point. Louis is in his early 50's and he rode his bicycle to and from his job in a warehouse every day. If we didn't see him on the Ferry we knew that his boss, who thought he hung the moon, must have picked him and his bicycle up over near the bridge, but usually if the boss did that it was at 4:30AM. Louis, grateful for the ride, would go to work early then ride his bike home. Our relationship was casual. He'd come to our porch to talk, we'd stop at his porch to talk, but we always talked on the Ferry.

About three weeks before the storm, Louis had somehow dropped either a pallet full of stuff or a large 5-600 lb drum on his foot. I can't remember which, I only remember him telling me the story and it was a totally freak accident. His foot had been literally smashed and the doctors had put multiple pins in it just to keep the bones together. One of the pins was sticking out of his big toe. Just looking at it made you cringe because you could imagine, or thought you could, how painful this injury was. David and I had talked back then about how difficult it would be after this accident for Louis to do his daily Algiers to Metairie ride. Louis said he'd find a way to get to work because he was trying to help his son become an engineer, besides, he had said, he'd been saving up some money to buy some old beater car. About a week before the storm, Louis moved up to a friend's house in Metairie, or near there, because it was closer to the doctors who were treating him and walking to and from mass transit wasn't really an option for him at the time. Then came Katrina. We didn't see him again. When his family returned to the flat up the street, we'd ask every time we saw them if they'd heard anything from Louis. They had no idea where he was. They were worried too. We all knew that he had been in a part of the city that had flooded. At least once a week David or I would wonder if Louis had made it. It was one of those vague little aches that we didn't know how to fix, someone once there suddenly gone. We didn't know his last name---he was simply Louis and we were David and Marie, a name that I am not sure how he ascribed to me but he's always called me that and I've never corrected him. We weren't really close with his family so felt like we'd be intruding if we asked for last names and we figured they'd already checked all the various lists.

On Christmas Eve when he showed up on the doorstep we found out what had happened to him. Unfortunately, it's not a particularly unique story. He's just one of many. He had been in Utah. I should have figured that out by looking at the Utah Utes red sweatshirt, but hadn't noticed anything but his smile. How he got to Utah is a story that I hope to get in toto one day. He says he's written some of it down and has warned me that his spelling is no good. I don't care. I got the "short" version the other night and want to hear the complete version. (He said he'd been interviewed several times by the Utah newspapers. I wonder what they made of his story.)

When the storm hit he was lakeside in the City, either in Metairie or nearby. That is the area that the 17th St Canal breached and flooded. His foot still full of pins and in a cast, he walked through waist deep polluted water until someone rescued him and took him to the Convention Center. There he spent five days. Another couple of friends were also in the Convention Center and have told me about the level and degree of filth, including two inches of urine on the floor. He was there with his 19 year old nephew and some other friends or family. His nephew went to get bottled water for some of the elderly people near them at the Center, and somehow he wound up in the chaos of evacuees and police and was shot and killed. Louis stood in my kitchen at one point and sobbed saying, "I watched my nephew die and all he was doing was going to get some water for the old people." He looks utterly bewildered when he says this. There is some anger in him, but his anguish over not being able to help his nephew outweighs the anger. At least for now. At this point his feet and legs were in terrible shape from walking through the water in combination with the injury he had sustained prior to the storm. He left the Convention Center on foot and joined the people on the Crescent City connection. He was one of the people the Gretna police turned back. Remember, he lives over here. He was told that if he could get someone on the phone to come and get him, that he could come through. He didn't have anyone's phone number and no cell phone, so that option was gone for him. He walked back to the other side of the river and through some intervention, not sure whose intervention, he wound up on a Jet Blue to Utah.

When he got to Utah, they put him straight in to a hospital, where he was told that his feet and legs were so horribly infected that they might have to amputate them. Evidently his feet and lower legs were triple the size they normally are. They pumped him full of antibiotics and painkillers, and remarkably, saved his legs. I told him he was actually lucky not to have been allowed to cross the bridge because at that point I'm not sure that there would have been a hospital in the area who could have taken care of him. There was still no power in most places. He spent weeks in the hospital and was so sick and so out of it that he said he didn't realize how much time had passed and he didn't know where the rest of his family was either. Finally he was released, evidently has been set up in some kind of living arrangement, still has medical issues that need to be dealt with so he could only stay here for a couple of days before heading back to Utah. He also found out once he got in touch with his family here that one of his grandsons had died. So his return here was bittersweet, but he was so grateful to be home. He says he'll return home permanently at the end of March, but for now he'll be in Utah not liking the snow but grateful for all the help he's had. He believes absolutely that he was saved for a reason. His emotional pain will take much longer to heal.

--This is also an excerpt from the Christmas in New Orleans piece published in A Howling in the Wires, 8/25/2010



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