Wm C. Cayle House 1862

It's been a while since I've blogged. I've been too busy with a paying job, painting houses.  A few 14 hour days amongst the past sixty plus days of no days off. I've been surprised with the size and status of some of the work Pride Improvements has been getting. I thinks it's that Jersey work ethic we brought down with us. No offense to the locals, they just have a different approach to work. "Good enough when we get around to it." Back in Jersey contractors had a lot of competition, others always willing to do it for less money, so you have to always do it better. 

Here are some photos from  the Wm C. Cayle house that we have been   working on for the fast few weeks.

Back in Jersey we were use to the burden of restrictive building codes, permits, inspections, bribes,    pay-offs and the occasional union workers slashing tires of non union workers. I won't say what work my boss managed to step in, but was surprised that it didn't go to a local good ol boy. Again, I think it has to do with standards. Most of the new work comes from referrals.

About six months ago I was doing some work for a man. One morning I asked what was on that day's agenda. "This morning you're putting  a new roof on the garage." 
"New roof on the garage? This morning? By myself? That's kind of a big job for one person, besides, I really don't have any roofing experiance..."
" NO you goddamn moron! I bought a new blue tarp at Walmart for the roof."

Oh yea, the blue tarp, the Louisiana state flag. Covering the remains of a garage were about five layers of blue tarps, each one in a worse case of decomposition than the one on top of it. Seeing this I came to the conclusion that it was one more example of the Gulf Coast residents being neglected and pushed aside.

I inquired "What  happened, didn't the insurance company pay for a new roof after the storm?"
"Sure they did. I spent the money on a new lap top so I could watch porn in the privacy of my room.  I just have to buy a new tarp every year.  Now don't be doing something stupid like falling through the remains of the roof while you're stringin it up, I don't want my insurance to go up if you get hurt." 
"Aren't you going to give me a hand? It's getting kind of windy."
 "Hell no, I'm going inside to look at a new web site I found,  justturned18titties.com. When you're  done installing the new roof, I want you to rewire the living room electric. The new extension cord  is  in the Walmart bag."

As the screen door slammed behind him,  I said to myself "Welcome  to Louisiana."

it’s a rough planet

Today was beautiful weather as I started to prep a house in St Bernard Parish for painting.  St. Bernard was hit hard during Katrina, in fact the house I was working on like many on the street still bore a spray painted X on the porch marking that it had been searched for bodies after the storm. The radio next to me was reporting on the devastation in Japan.

The contractor that I am working for has been getting a lot of work correcting repair work that was done in the months following the hurricane. Shoddy work done by fly-by-night contractors who flooded the city after the storm waters receded. Paint jobs that should have lasted 10 to 15 years starting to peel after 5.

I needed at lunch to find coffee and cigarettes. I walked block after block finding the same patterns, a recently renovated shotgun house, a couple of vacant lots with just concrete slabs, another recently renovated shotgun and an occasional vacant house covered with vines. One gutted home had PLEASE BULLDOZE spray painted on the front.  I had to walk a lot father than I anticipated, most of the strip malls that we passed on the way in, turned out to still be abandoned.

Like the rest of the world who watched the tragedy unfold on the news channels, we could not imagine what it was like for the residents. I’ve heard many recountings from those who were here. I often wonder how I will respond when and if I am forced to. Will I stay or evacuate and will I suffer the post traumatic stress of seeing my adopted city ravaged by nature.

Often we hear astronomers speak of how Earth is nestled in just the perfect location in our solar system. Any closer to the sun and we’d burn, any farther from the sun we’d freeze.  How incredibly perfectly located we are in the big picture with enough oxygen and water.  Listening to the radio reports of how many thousands may have died do to the earthquake and the following tsunami while wire brushing a Katrina X I thought about this planet. It’s not nearly as friendly as the travel brochures make it sound.

99 percent of the time it is pretty decent, but now and then the atmosphere decides to it’s time to fuck with us by slamming humanity with unlivable conditions. At times the most stable thing in our lives, the very plant itself becomes violent and our seas desire to show that they are in the majority and land is the minority.

It can be a rough planet to live on at times.

Six Flags at half mast

Six Flags over New Orleans closed for hurricane Katrina and never reopened. Here is a rather creepy and depressing video of how it looks today. It's scheduled to be demolished next year. Until I moved down here and could view the area in person I never realized how extensive the damage was, and is. I know coming from another part of the country the Gulf Coast destruction is "out of sight, out of mind." 

There are so many areas and structures that still hold the scars of damage and water marks. The people too still carry the memories and trauma of the event. It looks like the Gulf Coast has managed to get through this last hurricane season without as much as a threat. Some of the locals admit, every hurricane season brings with it anxiety, and a little rush of excitement. 

Here in New Orleans locals are already planning and anticipating Mardi Gras. These folks live for it. A Yat can tell you exactly what they wore, who they were with, and what they drank for every Mardi Gras going back four decades. The rest of the country is preparing for the Christmas season, down here that holiday takes the back seat to Carnival season.  Christmas? Leave that for the rest of the world, it's kind of lame.

Don't you want to be in that number.....

A little background work is starting to come in. The film industry slows down every year from August to about late October. Hurricane season. No producer wants to get half way through filming a project and then have to evacuate. His set might be gone when he returns. Tonight I did a "REVEL" down at the Roosevelt Hotel.

A convention was being held and to make it in true New Orleans style, a brass jazz band marches into the room and a parade starts. The band played loud and sharp as we reveled in behind them in our costumes. We met the guests at the end of cocktail hour and paraded them through the grand lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel to dinner.

THE ROOSEVELT

Great fun for everyone. Colorful costumes flinging beads at drunk optometrists. We paraded the party downstairs and thru a magnificent grand lobby and back upstairs to the dinning room. In the lobby were two of my friends wearing big heads. Sweating their asses off to pose for hundreds of cell phone pictures.

Yep, it's considered a job down here. It was the first Revel for my friend Bobby from Philadelphia. He did great, he has a Mummer background.

 I just can't get "When the Saints go marching in" out of my head now.

Wake me when September ends....

This blog is about moving from New Jersey to New Orleans, the differences and similarities. September is where they share ugly anniversaries. Every Katrina story holds my attention and captures my heart. Acts of kindness from strangers around the country. The need to return and rebuild, with a stronger community than before. The uncountable losses.

Equally, a person from New Orleans seems intrigued by my memory of seeing the thick black smoke on the horizon. The smell that lingered for days. A small suburban town that lost twenty plus residents in an act of war. Telling folks had never seen the towers how it was one of my daily stops when I drove a commuter bus.

What could these two national tragedies have in common? Both times we as Americans expected our government to protect us, and they let us down. We go to sleep at night believing that our tax dollars are paying for agencies to catch bad guys. We trust the infrastructure that our homes are built on will be there in the morning. In both cases when questions were asked, they started to finger point and blame. They fire a few people, shuffle around bureaucrats and reassure us they fixed the problems and we are now safe.

summer has come and passed
the innocent can never last
wake me up when September ends


One observation made by a long time New Orleans resident "We managed to rebuild an entire goddamn city in 5 years, why is it taking you all so long to rebuild a couple of skyscrapers?" You know, I didn't have an answer.

What that woman she been doin' to me...

About 6 years ago in New Jersey I had a friend who had come down to New Orleans on a drinking binge with her friends. Upon her return she told me what a great city it was and that I should visit it someday. I doubt she ever ventured much farther than Bourbon Street. During the weeks following Katrina, like the rest of the nation I had a dull sickness in my gut. Sick from the idea that a city in the most developed nation of the world would be reduced to what we were watching on TV. Sickness from the fact that I never would get a chance to visit the same great place I had heard about.

Last summer in NJ my buddy Waffle kept telling me of this great city inhabited by artists of all sorts. People who were friendly and likable. An atmosphere of generosity and optimism. Being from NJ, I doubted any place like that was real, let alone the one from the news footage. "New Orleans? Is that still there?"  It was as if he was speaking of the lost city of Atlantis. "Fuck it, I have to get out of Jersey or I'll start to go Travis Bickle on my passengers."  From the moment I rolled into town, I have been welcomed, inspired and filled with hope.

Everyone here has a story worthy of a novel. Some who didn't leave or returned soon after to help rebuild are suffering from Post Traumatic Stress. Entire neighborhoods are still scarred and damaged, but most are thriving. One of my first jobs down here was as a laborer at a strip mall being rebuilt in St. Bernard Parish. As far as the eye could see, abandoned housing with a few large boats still just sitting in vacant lots where they had been deposited.

One of the first places I stayed was in the Broadmoor section. About head level a water line was still visible on the outside of the structure. The door still had an X spray painted on it. The X was a sign that it had been searched for bodies in the days after the storm. One could state that it's not the infrastructure that makes up a city, it's the residents. New Orleans then would be one of the strongest and most resilient cities in the world. It's strength is not in it's levees, but the hearts.

I’m gonna buy me a ticket as far as I can,
I ain't never comin' back
I’m gonna take me that south-bound,
All the way to Georgia now,
‘Till the train it run out of track
Can't you see, oh, can't you see,
What that woman, she been doin' to me

Saints win, 36 - 21

Back in Jersey I would have passengers in my cab ask me "You a Giants fan?" "Nope" "Ya like the Eagles?" "Both teams could die in fiery plane crashes and I couldn't care less."  I had never been to or even watched a football game in the past 47 years of life. Until last night when I went to my first Saints game. A friend of mine Brian aka "Mow" offered to treat me to a game at the Superdome. I came down to NOLA to re-invent myself, try new things and experience more of life.

Me, Mow & Murray

Thousands of black and gold fans peacefully filed into the recently re-sided stadium. It now has a goldish hue to it. I found myself leaning on the back of a pick up truck downing a few beers and watching women dressed in jersies and heels parade past. "I think I understand the whole Roman Coliseum thing now."  No Christian were thrown to lions, but the Chargers were thrown to the the Saints. Mow told me "It ain't about the game, it's about the event."

I had a great time with the crowd. Enthusiastic, but I didn't see anyone acting like assholes or getting arrested. It was a privaledge to party with the who dat nation.  The Saint's Superbowl win was a great moral shot in the arm for New Orleans. The team brought pride and unity to a city constantly getting kicked around by the weather or now the petroleum corporations. Never have been a football fan, my only knowledge of the New Orleans Superdome was as a refuge center five years ago after Katrina.

Memories of the news chopper footage of the Superdome in the days of the storm ran through my mind as I drank up with my adoptive crew.  Murray, who I had never met provided my ticket through Mow. This is a friendly town. Even though Murray kept calling me a "Damn Yankee" all night.  I got to experience my first football game as well as a city constantly in search of something to celebrate. The Superdome represents the highs and the lows of living in the Big Easy.

 My only embarrassing moment  all night was trying to tip a cheerleader a dollar.

VIDEO

Ivory's 76 yard
touch down

Running with the Bulls in NOLA

I've discovered a lot about myself while working as a background actor. If a giant monster attacks New Orleans, I will be the first to be eaten. The director set up the shot by saying: "Imagine a monstrous, forbidding, swirling cloud descending upon the city and destroying life." The director should have remembered that this is New Orleans. That description of our imaginary monster is the weather report several times a summer down here. These people don't run in fear from large murderous clouds, they run to a bar and invent a drink to honor it.

We got the gist of what he wanted. Running in fear toward the camera, looking over our shoulders at a computer generated monster who will be added months from now. Ironically, we were looking in the direction of the BP oil spill. He wanted fear and terror, panic and confusion. He got it. People from New Orleans work well together only if you dress them up in costumes and line them up in the street to perform in the same direction. It was just another form of parade. Imagine if everyone on a crowded Bourbon street simultaneously saw the same hallucination, that's what I did today at work.

I'm 47, I don't run. I have flat feet, and today is the first time I ever wore sandals. There were several flip flop injuries that instituted wardrobe changes for tomorrow. When the 300 or so of us would walk back to position one (the starting point,) we would see a half a dozen or so shoes scattered down the street with cell phones as punctuation marks. New Orleans takes a lot of pride in it's well organized evacuations.

The last time I had to sprint 2 blocks was in Belmar NJ on my forty third birthday. The reason I was running is complicated. It involved a stolen eight ball of coke, a criminally insane stripper and a very irate Italian mobster driving around Belmar looking for us. I probably shouldn't say much more.

La Vie Boheme

By extension, Bohemia meant any place where one could live and work cheaply, and behave unconventionally; a community of free souls beyond the pale of respectable society.

Wikipedia

The tag line for my comic strip BiNGE is "An artist in search of a 21st century Bohemia" It never really dawned on me, but I guess that was what I was searching for. I tried the Ned Flanders life of Sunday school and white picket fences. It wasn't me. Not that there is anything wrong with that life style, I just can't live it. Suburban keeping up with the Jones. Spending money I don't have to buy things I don't need to impress people I don't like.

I've met a lot of people who claim to be non materialistic, claim to be simple spiritual beings. The same people are quick to boast about their new car, which when it's paid off won't be new any more and they will have to take out a loan for a newer car. New agey neo hippies who want the illusion of Bohemia in a chic four bedroom house in an expensive town with perfect landscaping. They'll talk about positive energy and karma, then talk about their best friend behind her back.

New Orleans is a city where it's people have learned from experience that all material things will end up in a landfill someday. Why run down to Home Depot for a new ceiling fan, here's one on Craigslist for $10. It's not new? That's ok, by the end of the summer we may not have a ceiling to hang it on anyway. Are you driving an 15 year old car? Let's paint it to look like Zebra.

Down here when you fill out a form that asks for occupation, you can fill in artist, actor, writer, musician or juggler and know one questions it. Back in Jersey, you would get a snide comment "What's your real job?" Well, at least it's not processing pointless paperwork.

Meet Alex

AP WIRE REPORT THURSDAY JUNE 24 2010
THE FIRST NAMED TROPICAL STORM OF 2010 .

TROPICAL STORM ALEX HAS FORMED IN THE LOWER CARRIBEAN AND IS EXPECTED TO INTENSIFY TO A CATEGORY 2 STORM AND TARGET THE LOWER COAST OF LOUISIANA NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER BY THE END OF NEXT WEEK. GULF OIL SPILL CREWS HAVE SAID BEGINNING SUNDAY THEY WILL BE PACKING UP AND CEASING OPERATIONS IN THE GULF OF MEXICO AS FOR THE ARRIVAL OF ALEX NEXT WEEK.


MORE ON THIS BREAKING STORY AS IT DEVELOPS
AP WIRE REPORT .