Memphian Exile

Well, we survived Hurricane Gustav yesterday, though we remain in Memphis, as our town is officially closed and our house is without power. We kind of saw a couple of the big spots here in Memphis, but really didn't.

seventy bucks
for Elvis' jumpsuits?
went somplace else.

Lorraine Motel
American shrine
copyrights enforced

We went to Graceland yesterday and cut our losses at the $8.00 parking fee. It cost $28 just to see the house, and over $70 to see the fun Elvis stuff like those tacky jumpsuits. Also, DW didn't much like the notion of the Elvis security going through her bag.

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

--Dr. Martin Luther King, April 3, 1968

Early morning, April 4
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride

U2, Pride
After leaving Graceland in a huff, we went to the Lorraine Motel, which is now part of the National Civil Rights Museum. I took several pictures of the exterior of the site of Martin Luther King's martyrdom, but we chose not to go inside when we were asked to deposit any cell phones or cameras at the door. Evidently, someone has copyrighted some of the material inside the museum in order to make a little money. Isn't this a place where cameras and camcorders should be encouraged so that American children can be reminded of both our country's original sin (racism) and of the better angels of our nature?

Panic City

Damn, this area is jittery today, the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Gustav is forecast to make landfall Tuesday morning down on The Bayou (Bayou Lafourche), in Cajun Boy's territory, yet I had difficulty buying gas this morning in Slidell, which is far removed from there. I don't know why, but that really cheesed me. I think it was just icing on the cake of overkill broadcasting, premature evacuations, and and a general sense of panic. Anyway, I was yelling, slamming my fist on the horn, and punching the steering wheel whenever I encountered the usual rush-hour frustration on the way into work this morning. I rarely get worked up like that.

Here we go again

Well, this certainly sucks out loud. Fortunately, I reserved a room in Memphis just in case we feel compelled to evacuate. Maybe we'll go to Graceland or something.

Football Fun in New Orleans

DW and I were on Bourbon Street earlier tonight with her brother, who is in town for a conference. It was nice to see him, especially as he seemed to be enjoying the city. How they ever got hotel rooms for that conference is beyond me, as the collegiate football national championship game will be played at the Superdome on Monday night. It's like a Super Bowl weekend in the French Quarter, particularly as LSU is in the big game (hence the purple blog). Also, I saw some beads being thrown from balconies; I suspect I know what will start happening as the people down there become increasingly drunk. Alas, most people have no business showing their body parts in public, but that's what happens when people start throwing beads.

I just enjoy watching this clip of Les Miles, so I'm posting it here.

Also, whenever I go down to the Quarter on a crowded party night, I think of the A Streetcar Named Marge episode of The Simpsons, which hilariously pissed off the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

Long before the Superdome,
Where the Saints of football play,
There's a city where the damned call home,
Hear their hellish rondelet:

New Orleans!
Home of pirates, drunks, and whores...
New Orleans!
Tacky, overpriced souvenir stores...

If you want to go to hell, you should take a trip
To the Sodom and Gomorrah of the Mississip':

New Orleans!
Stinking, rotten, vomity, vile...
New Orleans!
Putrid, brackish, maggotty, foul...

New Orleans!
Crummy, lousy, rancid and rank...
New Orleans!
. . . .

Tyler Durden, Pretty in Pink

Brad Pitt has become a benefactor of the Lower Ninth Ward post-K:

The Other Game in Town

The New Orleans Hornets had their return-to-town rally in the park across the street from my office at noon today. It was nicely done, with free food, the Rebirth Brass, a parade, attractive cheerleaders, and NBA players singing "I Believe I Can Fly" while making airplane-wing arm motions. I took my cellphone over and snapped a few photos.

Haunted House

We wil be visiting the Haunted Mortuary later this week. I have a disturbing tendency to laugh at these kinds of things while others scream. It should be fun.

ETA: We made it out of the mortuary alive last night. It is very nicely done, and the setting is an old funeral home next to a group of cemetaries. There are a number of neat little tricks; my favorites being the dining room table that sprung open to have a ghost pop out and a rusty old toilet that sprayed water on some of the other visitors while I stood there laughing. The house had a few unnerving collapsed tunnels made of fan-blown fabric that we had to push our way through; the small girl behind me was truly terrified. The strobe lights and fake corpses were nicely designed, and the live actors timed their jumps and screams to scare the crap out of the more vulnerable-looking visitors in the group. I noticed that DW was targeted by one or two of those actors, but she only flinched once. DW was almost disappointed by the absence of one absolutely necessary element of any haunted house, then the guy with the chainsaw jumped out from an alcove as we were walking through the final passageway. The Mortuary is a job well done.

As we were driving home, I was amused once again that the parking lot of Slidell's local strip club is clearly visible from I-10. I used to look over to see if I recognized anybody's car over there. I never did, but the thought that a divorce or two might have been caused by that parking lot's placement has always struck me as funny. At least the porn store next door is situated such that one has to park out front of the leather/marijuana paraphernalia/cigar store and walk around back. Anybody whose car might be seen in that lot could be doing something entirely respectable.

Splatter Season

As the Louisiana resident readers of this blog are aware, we are in one of our semi-annual swarms of copulating bugs.

Great N.O. Music Video

Local musician Clint Maedgen made this fabulous video in the lower French Quarter shortly before Hurricane Katrina:

Thanks to gentle reader Cajun Boy for the heads-up.

Katrina Anniversary

Today is the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina striking New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Much of the region is recovering fairly well, but New Orleans proper is struggling with numerous issues, of which an escalating crime rate is the most serious. Still, around 85% of the region's population is back--though only about 60% of the city's and 35% of neighboring St. Bernard Parish's people have returned--and the place is slowly being rebuilt.

Drink for New Orleans

I noticed a display for Absolut Vodka's New Orleans-themed beverage at WalMart earlier this evening. "Every Sip Brings Back the Gulf" made me go "ewww!" as I thought about a drink evoking the salt-water flavor of the Gulf of Mexico. It took a second or two to sink in that the slogan meant that the company is donating all of the profits from the product to charities in New Orleans and elsewhere on the Gulf Coast. That's pretty damn decent, IMHO, so, if you like Vodka, down a shot of this stuff.

New Orleans Murder Muddle

The murder rate in New Orleans is high, and the conviction rate low, as Newsweek points out. One particular part of town is known locally as the "Murder Triangle," as drug dealers from other, less populated parts of town shoot each other dead in turf struggles. BTW, then-U.S. Attorney Jordan (mentioned in the article) once saw your humble correspondent in his birthday suit, but only because the bathroom door in the courthouse gym had a malfunctioning lock. I said nothing, but I thought, "I have nothing to hide from the Government, as you can see."

Happy Utah Holiday

The 24th of July marks Brigham Young's entry into the Salt Lake Valley, and the day is a quasi-holiday for Wasatch Front members of the LDS Church. They have a parade and everything, though it's not a real parade because nobody throws beads and public nudity isn't as popular in Salt Lake as it is here. Now it's true that most of the people who show flesh at Mardi Gras aren't ones I want to see naked. However, if new N.O. residents Brad and Angelina want to show for throw, it might help them fit in around here. I'm just saying. Not that I would look or anything. No way, not me. Oh, yeah, Pioneer Day. The date isn't all that significant to Mormons outside Utah, though gentle reader Ann says that the local congregation in our town had a Pioneer Day commemmoration on Sunday.

The Patron Saint of the Saints

I saw this portrait hanging above the sports memorabilia case at my kids' school, and it reminded me of the local superstition about the New Orleans Saints' first winning season. John Paul II held a youth rally in the Superdome in 1987 that fans like to say gave his imprimatur to the stadium and the team.

Here we go again

With hurricane season rapidly approaching, it's unclear whether the New Orleans levee system would hold in a catastrophic, Katrina-type storm or be overtopped in even a moderate, category-II, storm. Let's hope we don't have to find out, and that the Corps of Engineers will have time to rebuild the entire system to withstand another major storm.

Conspiracy Theorist

Now the Mayor appears to be blaming a racist conspiracy for the slow pace of New Orleans' recovery.

The slow pace of New Orleans' post-Katrina recovery is part of a plan to change the city's racial makeup, Mayor Ray Nagin told a national newspaper publishers' group last week.
. . . .
"Ladies and gentlemen, what happened in New Orleans could happen anywhere," Nagin told the association. "They are studying this model of natural disasters, dispersing the community and changing the electoral process in that community."

Read the rest here.

The Times-Pic's columnists aren't buying Nagin's latest bizarre comments. They seem to think that ineptitude on the state and local levels has much to do with the sluggish recovery. Check those columnists out here and here.

Disappearing Louisiana

The New Orleans Times-Picayune has a scary series of articles this week about the rapid loss of wetlands in south Louisiana. According to the wetlands experts interviewed for the articles, it is possible to reverse the devastation of the past 75 years, but it will take time. If nothing is done, the open Gulf of Mexico will be right up against the levees on the southern end of the New Orleans metro area by the year 2020.

BTW, nobody mentions global warming as having anything to do with this problem. I thought I'd mention that in light of the announcement at the Oscars about how Hurricane Katrina brought home the need to do something about global warming. Not that global warming isn't problematic in its own right; it just has nothing to do with our vulnerability to storms.

Mardi Gras 2007

Oh yeah, Mardi Gras is next Tuesday. Enjoy the video, unless, of course, you're using a Microsoft browser (what has Google/YouTube done to piss off Microsoft?). My 60-something retired superivor marches in this parade.

Edited to add: Here is the Krewe du Vieux's newsletter. It's loaded with snark and satire directed at the political establishment, national, state, and local.

The rebuilding is complete!

For those of you who don't live here, a most reliable source has declared that the rebuilding of New Orleans has been completed.

The Saints

We watched yesterday's NFC and AFC championship games, and were a little bummed to see our Saints defeated. However, the Saints' offense is based on timing and rhythm, and, thanks to the Bears' defense and the crummy weather, neither timing nor rhythm really got going. Also, Drew Brees didn't seem to get back in sync after he got called for intentional grounding in the end zone, resulting in a safety and two points for the Bears. The Saints' defense played remarkably well in the first half, given the amount of time it was on the field. Next year looks good for the team if it avoids injuries.

The AFC championship game was likely the real Super Bowl, with the winner of that game emerging as the favorite to win the whole enchilada. I was a little surprised at the Patriots' aggressive play-calling early in the game, but it worked well, to the tune of a 21-6 halftime lead. The Colts showed toughness and determination in the second half, and this year they finally got themselves a trip to the Super Bowl. It was a great game to watch.