Making a Statement

Like the McDonalds signs blown part, like the empty, torn-up billboards, this traffic signal tells me things are not OK. This was taken in the Central Business District where many signals still don't seem to work --they flash red only, and stop signs have been set up at intersections everywhere. Its hard to find your way because so many street signs are just gone.

When people are looking to government, to their institutions (and, yes, even to their franchished fast-food joints) for reassurance, that it'll all be OK...the message these continuing failures send is signficant. It leaves you feeling uneasy. Things aren't under control. After nearly a year, the feeling of dysfunction, I suspect, is growing.

This morning's Times-Picayune reports that people are not coming back to New Orleans as anticipated. It's a major problem, they say, and the longer people stay away, the more likely they put down roots elsewhere, and never return. Kids start school in new districts, make new friends. You can blame the insurance companies, the federal "relief" that still hasn't gone to the people who need it, still bottled up in red tape...but the numbers don't lie, and this remains a city in crisis. And that's hoping the hurricane season passes them by this year.

In the meantime, the social as well as physical infrastructure stays wobbly. The criminal-justice system continues to deteriorate as there aren't enough prosecutors, aren't enough defense attorneys for the indigent, too many cops are no shows in court. There are courtrooms still out of commision, along with jail space still not rebuilt.

On my drive to the airport, the local jazz station DJ was very, very bitter. I hadn't heard much commentary on the station, just great music, but this old grizzled guy (it's how he described himself) went on a rant: "We don't need no celebration" of Katrina's one year anniversary. "What's to celebrate? Get things right, and we'll celebrate that! But we don't need fireworks; don't need a bunch of politicians talkin'. I got a plan ...we need ten coffins --ten black coffins-- and have a mass funeral, for all of us, before we're all buried and forgotten. Ten black coffins!" And then he spun some Coltrane, if I'm remembering right.

We can't deny there's progress. I flew out of Louis Armstrong International Airport. There was a time when Satchmo couldn't play New Orleans because of his "mixed race" band. Now there's a festival for him. There's reason for hope, but I think Katrina's aftermath --which isn't last year's news, but an ongoing struggle-- is going to be a defining time for us, and whether we can step to the plate on this one. Rebuilding the Gulf Coast --and New Orleans in particular-- isn't just about them, it's about all of us, and who we are, and what we're made of.

Beyond New Orleans

I had a local radio station on while I was driving, when a "warning" came on that there was a "water spout" reported near the Causeway, the 24 mile bridge that crosses Lake Pontchartrain. Only thing was, I was on the causeway. What are you expected to do? Duck and cover? Put the car in reverse? In the final analysis, you just keep going forward. What else are you going to do? Maybe we get too many warnings.

A twenty-four mile causeway is something. I didn't realize it was that long when I got on, thinking I'd take a short trip across the infamous lake that filled New Orleans. I'ts funny to not be able to see shoreline on the horizon. There was lightning in the dark clouds, on the drive back.

Speaking of warnings, this sign is a common sight. I guess it makes sense, considering all the flooding, but with the subsequent dislocation of all those people, you have to wonder what an added burden fell to the bureaucracy --and to restaurant owners-- trying to get up and running as quickly as possible. Of course there are many, many famous restaurants still not re-opened. And everywhere there are "now hiring" signs. It's so wrong that there are jobs begging, people wanting to return home, but the lack of housing remains a huge problem.

The trailer thing, though, I don't get, and you see them everywhere, often just plopped down in the front yard. I understand, but with so many people now living in trailers...y'know, they don't do so hot in hurricanes. Maybe everybody's just keeping their fingers crossed that another big one doesn't hit this season. Maybe there's no other answer.

Had dinner at K-Paul's, Chef Proudhomme's famous eatery. Had their blackened drum, a fish I never heard of before. With the cup of okra gumbo as an appetizer, it was yet another great meal here. I'll certainly miss the food.

One final rant before I go to sleep. I understand why lots of people are struggling to make a comeback, and I think I appreciate the challenges. But the chains? The corporate giants? Where's the corporate responsibility? Look at this McDonald's sign...not just an eyesore but a menace. Billboard after billboard left as Katrina left them. Not to mention the chain stores themselves, restaurants, fast-food joints, supermarkets, neither rebuilt nor torn down, just left as continuing eyesores.

It doesn't feel right and I think these corporations need to speed up their recovery work. They've got the resources to make things happen...they need to get it done. Now.

Anyway, I'm flying out tomorrow, to visit my Dad in Melbourne, Florida. Yet another land of hurricanes, and high humidity. When I get back to Portland, I want to put together a dinner benefit or something, for the City I'm leaving behind. We can't turn our backs on these Americans.

Apres Katrina

It feels like I've spent the day talking to myself. Getting angry --"How is this possible?"-- then arguing with myself, "well, maybe you just don't understand how bad it was?" Excuses for why there's still, nearly a year later, mile after mile of devastation.

Earlier, driving by the Superdome, I saw the new roof. "The Saints are back" the giant banner proclaims. And, y'know, I guess that's good. But not all New Orleans is back. In fact, we don't get --OK, I didn't get, I'll speak for myself-- how much of New Orleans is most certainly not back.

I'm not going for irony here. And, really, you can't easily tell from the above photo, but the sign says "Pride lives" (you can click on the images to make them bigger)...but nearly every house in this neighborhood is destroyed. Not demolished, not lying there in complete rubble, but desolate, uninhabited, uninhabitable. It was scary driving around, even in the comfort of my air conditioned rental car. There are ghosts about.

Like this ghost town nearby. (When there's a housing shortage, why isn't this housing complex fixed up?)















This picture doesn't do this justice. There are still clothes hanging in the closet. It's almost a year and there are still clothes hanging in that closet. Whose clothes? And where are they now? It gives you chills to stand there...







I don't know if the "X" means the dog got rescued, or what.














I stopped in the road to film this "car" in the median. There wasn't any traffic, and I didn't think much of it. A New Orleans cop car pulled up when I wasn't looking: "Boy, you can't be just stoppin' in the road." "Sorry, officer." He was right. He was also a young African-American calling me "boy." Made me laugh. One of my few of the day.

"Got mold?" the sign asks. Yeah, and a pile of junk too, on every other street corner in this sad, sad neighborhood of empty homes.

I was talking to a guy in a bar later, a local, and I asked him: "I don't get the debris? Why haven't they picked this up before it becomes shrapnel for the next hurricane?" "I know, man." was his answer. (I was drinking a Sazerac. 2 ounces rye whisky, 3 drops Peychaud's Bitters, a half ounce of simple sugar, and a half teaspoon of Herbsaint Liqueur. America's first cocktail, they say, invented right here in New Orleans, by Antoine Peychaud, a pharmacist. Not a bad drink at all, if I may offer an opinion.)

The bartender at the Napolean House shook my hand as we were leaving. "Name's Murray, Frank, hope you can come back." He was funny, when I was feeling down. He said New Orleans would come back. "It's just like a divorce," he said, "seems worse than it is, and then you get over it."

But the Napolean House is no longer open for dinner, and the crowd seemed awfully thin at lunchtime (though the jambalaya was awesomely good).

(Speaking of Napolean, I have Napolean's Itch, a bar around the corner from my hotel, to thank for my free wi-fi. Makes it all the way to my bed here in the hotel. I'll have to drop in for a Sazerac.)

Optimism. You can't tell from this picture, of this guy mowing the lawn...but his house looks like the only inhabited house in this neighborhood. There is an issue of squatters, though. More strange twists to the weird race relations so much a part of America, there are now complaints about "illegal immigrant" workers now in New Orleans, cheap labor for the construction industry. (One racist T-shirt I've seen for sale: "FEMA: Finding Every Mexican Available.") Can't we all just get along?

I'm lucky, and I know it. Good wife, home, job, beautiful City to come home to. Life is good, I'm priviliged. After driving the worst of this city, I had dinner at Emeril Lagasse's NOLA. Sat at the Chef's bar, watching 'em make dinners. Roasted mussels from the cook in front of me, who was working the wood stove oven. Whisky-caramel basted duck for the entree. I ordered an A to Z Oregon Pinot, and asked if I could bring what I didn't finish home. I could if I kept the bottle corked. So the rules are you can carry around oversized hand-grenades, with their 190 proof grain alcohol...but an Oregon Pinot you gotta keep a cork in it? Anyway...it was a non-issue. I finished the bottle, taking my time over a great dinner.

Anne called just as I was walking in the door. It was good to hear her voice, and I just lost it. I couldn't keep it together. There's such beauty here, mixed in with such awful tragedy. The wine, the Sazerac, the gumbo of emotions. When I finished with the call, I turned on CNN to cheer myself up. Good thing the rest of the world is OK. :-) Anyway, gotta close with a picture I took last night at the end of my block, in Jackson Square. Can you say "boo?"

Playing Tourist

Sometimes its OK just to be a tourist. To have a map, a guidebook, your camera out; to go where the guidebooks tell you to go.

This morning I walked the couple of blocks to the Cafe du Monde for beignets and coffee because, well, that's what the guidebooks tell you you have to do. And it was good, beignets being square little donuts without holes, covered with powdered sugar. And a decent cafe au lait to go with them, the house special.

The French Market; historical museum; flea market. Like Old Town in Portland, its hard to tell which shuttered buildings are just because they haven't been developed, not because of Katrina. There's new stuff, obviously, chains and Starbucks. At the Riverwalk Mall there's all the usual suspects, but the food court? Pretty empty.

Maybe 2 or 3 out of a dozen food places were open. Lots of stores, too, were closed, even ones with merchandise in the windows. Everywhere there are "help wanted" signs, and that's part of the problem. There isn't housing for the people who could live here to take the jobs to get the shops open.

What's also clear...there aren't a lot of customers. I know its not the tourist season, but this mall --and the upscale Canal Street Mall, nearby-- were deadly empty. And not all the stores are back. That's a Sak's Fifth Avenue display window covered in corrugated metal. I had lunch at "Frank's Restaurant" (couldn't resist...and my first Po'Boy. Great!) Not a lot of customers, though.

Even the Satchmo Jazz Festival I headed to next, back in the French Quarter: it didn't seem like a lot of folks to me. Lots of food boothes, but not many customers. It doesn't help that it is hot and humid. ( I was going to head back out again tonight, but now there's a "severe thunderstorm...and they just interrupted the news to annouce the National Weather Service has issued a tornado alert for an area a bit west of here. Geesh!)

It's a small world...but some folks live with weather in different ways than we do in Portland! And on that "small world" note...there's a small A&P around the corner on Royal Avenue, and I was there to get some eye drops I forgot to pack. I recognize this guy coming down the aisle, it's Pascal Sauter, chef-owner of Carafe in Portland. Talking to him, he's here for a cooking contest tomorrow at the Convention Center.

(Man. There's lightning outside, and the TV "beeps" and then you have to read the scrolling message about the tornado warning...maybe I'll order room service. :-) Actually, the funny thing for me is I have no idea where these neighborhoods are...but "if your state highway 52, you better find some shelter". For the Metro area: "A lot of lightning activity.")


Back to the Satchmo Jazzfest, already. See that girl in the center? She can sing up a storm (so to speak). When she started into "Wonderful World", so famously done by Louis Armstrong...I lost it. I teared up something awful.

I finished "The Great Deluge" on the plane and the author's conclusion is, sure, there's racism in how we failed to address the Katrina disaster but mostly, y'know, it's self-serving "dysfunctional bureaucracy".

Really? I 'm not buyin' it. Yeah, FEMA failed; the administration failed; and --I'm convinced, Mayor Nagin failed. But in the end...those are African American faces on that stage. And I'm thinking if they were whiter faces in the Ninth Ward, with fatter wallets, failure would've have been such an option. Anyway, tomorrow I'm taking the car out, and getting beyond the tourist circuit. I want to see the levees, the ninth ward, the destruction that's out there that I don't think we really understand, acknowledge or appreciate. That a little girl could sing so beautifully and hopefully...that really touches me. But is her trust and love and faith really warranted?

Anyway, I'm not a touristy T-shirt kind of guy, but I coldn't resist this one. ("Make Levees, Not War.") There's another one out there too: "Forget Iraq, Rebuild New Orleans." The ones about FEMA...not for mixed company.

On the news now they're saying"Potential 2 inches of rainful an hour..."quieted down in the French Quarter, a lot of "puddling."
I think I'm going to head outside now and jump in a couple of puddles.

The Arrival

OK, I say I hate flying...but it is amazing flying out of Memphis, down the Mississippi, approaching Biloxi with the red sun setting, clouds in surreal formation. When I think how few people, in the history of humanity, have experienced the magic of flight, first below and then rising through the clouds...what a special, awesome thing that is. I feel humbled and priviliged. I can just do without the turbulance, thank you very much.

The drive from Biloxi to New Orleans, passing familiar names I'd just been reading about, places devastated by Katrina. Charmette. Slidell. Then the long drive on the bridge crossing infamous Lake Pontchartrain. Canal street with lots of construction going on. I've got a knack for finding my way around strange cities, and I find my hotel in the French Quarter, the Bourbon Orleans, pretty easily. It's a classy place I'm staying at on the cheap.

I don't arrive until 11:00pm, and the picture, taken this morning, doesn't reflect the scene last night. At the end of the block is Bourbon Street.

The OLCC would not approve. I was looking for a late dinner, but mostly bars were selling "hurricanes" and "hand grenades"...to go. It's quite legal to walk the streets with your beers and very over-sized drinks in hand. And, at least here --on Friday night-- the younger crowd did not go empty handed...or quietly, through the streets. (When I asked a bartender what was IN a "hand grenade" he said he really didn't know --it was pre-mixed for him-- but the key ingredient is 190 proof pure grain alcohol.) (Can you say "whoo-hah?" Lots of people were last night.)

I had a Creole Splash and some mudbug --crawdad-- pasta at Tony Moran's , grabbed a gin and tonic at Pat O'Brien's, and then called it a night.

The Night Before

Thursday evening. I'm anxious. I don't like to fly. Worse, I don't like to fly alone. My ticket takes me to LA, then to Memphis, then Biloxi, Mississippi. I fly in at 9pm...then am driving to New Orleans, an hour and a half or so away, I think. Too many layovers, too much uncertainty.

While I don't like flying, I took my family to Berlin not long after the wall was breeched. Traveled to China during the Cultural Revolution. Been all over Europe over the years. Not bragging, but amazed that after all that I'll still be longing to hold my wife's hand as the plane takes off. Again and again.

I'm on page 421 of "The Great Deluge" (Douglas Brinkley, 2006) Thought it would be good to get "background" on what I'll be experiencing; in the final analysis, maybe not such a good idea. It hasn't even been a year since Katrina, and our governments --local and federal-- did not serve these Americans well. And, I can't help thinking, can't push out of my head, it's hurricane season...