Getting the Job Done

This guy and his partner were working in the Quarter one morning fixing a gas leak, for Entergy, the Fortune 500 utility company delivering gas and electricity to New Orleans homes and businesses. According to this employee, Entergy has repaired over one million leaks since the storms. After the levee breaks there were gas fires and water in the lines all over the city. Now they are almost all fixed. But even Entergy lacks capital to upgrade. According to this article, they are seeking funds through the state.

By contrast, the publicly-held Water Board has made little progress repairing the many water leaks featured in national news stories recently. This press release explains how they’ll use new equipment to detect leaks instead of, oh I don’t know, just driving around on a hot day looking for water running down the street! We saw lots of leaks in March, and we weren’t even looking for them.

NOLA Summer Reading

I’ve read two books about New Orleans this summer, Feet on the Street: Rambles Around New Orleans by Roy Blount Jr., and Why New Orleans Matters by Tom Piazza. Both personal takes on a unique American city. Blount’s book was published in ‘05 just before Katrina, and made the NYT bestseller list, while Piazza’s came right after Katrina and was written to defend the city. Both are short, offering first-hand stories written in a warm, conversational style.

If you are an NPR listener as I am, you may recognize Blount’s name as a panelist on the quiz show Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. His book gives this slow-talking southerner a chance to stretch out, talking about everything from the best place to get cheap po boys and gumbo to the oyster dancer who did far more exciting things with molusks than just injest them. Feet on the Street is neither a guidebook nor travel writing per se. But I plan to thoroughly annotate and highlight a copy for my next visit.

Piazza is a novelist and jazz critic originally from New York who is among the many Crescent City transplants who came down for Jazz Fest and never went home. In Why New Orleans Matters he avoids the easy fare for a book on Katrina. Although he mentions a rape witnessed outside the Convention Center, Piazza is more interested in winning the hearts and minds of America, which he does with warmth. How can a pair of broken glasses contribute to falling in love with a city? Read Why New Orleans Matters and discover all the little reasons and Piazza’s two Big Reasons why the City That Care Forgot must be rebuilt.

Got Tim, Got Faith, Got Hope

My mom just told me that Country music couple Tim McGraw and Faith Hill played a benefit concert in New Orleans after criticizing the government’s slow response to Katrina. Their charity Neighbor’s Keeper, donates money to qualifying charities helping with Katrina recovery. Here’s a quote from the story in the Times-Picaune:

Both McGraw and Hill, who is from Star, Miss., have criticized the government’s slow response to Hurricane Katrina, which killed more than 1,800 people along the Gulf Coast and flooded 80 percent of New Orleans. In interviews, Hill described the post-Katrina progress as “embarrassing” and “humiliating” to the country.

“It’s wrong,” she said. “It really gets us fired up. That’s our homeland.”

Before they show, the two toured the destroyed Lower Ninth and St. Bernard Parish. They opened the show by saying “It’s good to be home.’ McGraw is from Louisiana and Hill is from Mississippi.

New Orleans’ Endless Melody

While walking through the quarter one sultry evening with my family, I had one of those New Orleans moments that for me distilled the entire trip down to one four-minute encounter.

I think we were on Royal Street when we heard a street musician. There are a few of them coming back, playing on corners for tourist tips. This was a 2-man act: an older black man singing and a younger Asian guy playing keyboard, set up at the edge of the street, just off the sidewalk. Someone later told me this singer has been featured on a tourism commercial for the city.

These two guys, sitting in the gutter of Royal Street, were squeezing every ounce of emotion out of “Endless Melody,” a hit for the Righteous Brothers in the 60s. The singer’s huge baritone reached out and grabbed us, while the keyboardist carefully followed the singer with head down, feeling the music. They were playing with feeling a sensitivity rare for street musicians. A small crowd of tourists were drawn to the music.

Oh my love, my darling
I hunger for your touch.
The long lonely time.
Time goes by so slowly
And time can do so much
Are you still mine?

I need your love,
I need your love,
God speed your love to me.

At the end we clapped and cheered, and one librarian belted out “Bravisimo!” It was a love song from the city to it’s own exiles, wooing them back home like a lover after a quarrel. “Come on, Baby,” the singer seemed to say, “I know we’ve had problem — serious problems. God knows I ain’t perfect. But baby, I just can’t make it without you. Your love sustains me and gives my life meaning. Come on back, to the Bywater, the garden district, to uptown, downtown, the Lower Nine. Come on back and bring the kids. We’ll fix this mess up — you’ll see. I’ll be waiting. Come on back.

I hope they do.

The Library says Yes

I was so upset by the Blackwater gendarmes and their bad manners that I didn’t really get to the point of my trip to the New Orleans Public Library in my last entry, which was donating Librivox CDs.

The upshot of my meeting with Jan Barnes was this: she is thrilled! She was gaga over the Magna Carta, impressed by the Constitution, and eager to make her requests so we can get the donation ball rolling.

So I await her email requests. Once we have a “wish list” set up for the library, I’ll post the first project, set up an instruction page, and we’ll start burning, printing, and shipping!

My Blackwater Surprise

While I was in New Orleans on vacation with my family, I called the public library to ask about donating some audiobooks from librivox. I talked to Jan Barnes, the Assistant Aquisitions Librarian, who made time to see me.

The main library has been occupied by FEMA as its statewide headquarters, so I had to go through metal detectors inside. I noticed an interesting scene of people waiting to have claims processed by FEMA, so I snapped a couple of photos. Big Mistake.

Before I could be led to Jan's office, I was approached by a woman in a Blackwater shirt who demanded my camera. I refused, saying it was a public place where I should be able to take photos. I said she was not going to take my camera. Then the woman, without showing a badge or citing a law, told me to leave. I told her I was spending tourist dollars to support the city and that I had an appointment to donate audiobooks to the library. She didn't seem to believe me, but finally, after I agreed to delete the two photos, she let me go about my business. It was unpleasant. It was upsetting. It was just the tip of the iceberg of what NOLA natives have been experiencing for the past 10 months, I'm sure.

Although I deleted my photos, I'll tell you what I saw: a bunch of black people waiting for a bunch of white people with computers in front of them. I saw paper signs directing people to wait for FEMA or the SBA (small Business Administration). I saw temporary walls creating a typical drab public office space amidst library stacks which, I would assume, are now off-limits to the general public.

I'm not interested in embarrassing anybody. In fact, if I'd gotten an even slightly apologetic explanation coupled with a request to delete the photos, I would have gladly complied. We southerners are polite to a fault. But there was nothing other than an after-the-fact insistence that I could not take the photographs I had just taken. I got the distinct impression they'd never dealt with this situation at all.

I'm a tourist. Tourists take photos. I'd been shooting private property, state property, and Federal property the entire week. I'd included images of New Orleanians going about their lives as well. Why suddenly did the Federal government see fit to ban photography without notice, either verbal or written? Are the really that concerned about the "privacy" of individuals applying for loans or conducting Katrina-related business?

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NOLA Rising

We just got back from a week in New Orleans, and I’m happy to report that the Crescent City is down but definitely not out. Right now the city is a strange gumbo of contractors, federal officials, military, tourists, and diehard citizens. We found wonderful food, welcoming people, are more reasons than ever to visit the most exotic town in America.Here are a few reasons:

• The American Library Association held the first big post-Katrina convention in the city while we were there. Their “thumbs up” will encourage others to spend much-needed tourist dollars there.
  
• I was accosted by FEMA-contracted security personnel for shooting a photograph. It’s good to know Blackwater’s finest is keeping the city safe from tourist snapshots at the city library — now commandeered as state FEMA headquarter.
  
• There is reconstruction going on in many parts of the city. Federal assistance and insurance dollars are going into re-roofing, remodeling, and rebuilding.
  
• Tourism is still only one-third pre-Katrina levels. Click here for tips on how you can plan your next vacation or weekend getaway in America’s most unique and exotic city.
  
• The big question in the city is whether the levee system will hold for another year. The many locals I talked to seemed to have doubts about the strength and soundness of the Army Corps system that failed in many locations during Katrina, causing massive flooding.
  
• Everyone I spoke to had had their lives damaged in some way, from losing personal property to one woman who lost her home, all her belongings, and her husband to a post-Katrina heart attack. We need too continue to show our love and support for all areas impacted by hurricane and flood damage.