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if i catch you talking dirty to my kids, i will kill you. September 30, 2006

When my adorable little grandson visits, he brings his adorable little germs with him. Right on schedule, I’m feeling punky and I have the sniffles and a sore throat. When he takes a bite out of a cookie, carries it around for half an hour and then wants to stick it in my mouth, my head says, “no, no, no,” but my heart says, “yes, yes, yes.” If they lived here in New Orleans, I would see him more often and I would be immune to his germs, if not his charms. As it is, I know I have it pretty bad for the little dude when I don’t care if he makes me sick.

I have to pull it together for Paola’s birthday party tonight. Michael just had his birthday and mine is coming up. I know an awful lot of people who have birthdays close to mine. Fall is a popular time to be born. Leicester’s birthday is October 22, and he will be 23.

Reports from New York are that Leicester is working for a catering company that does gigs for the likes of Elton John and all kinds of celebrities. He said he had to get away from waiting on tables. He is going to auditions more and more. He had turned his nose up at modeling, but he’s re-thought it. Ha Ha! He loves New York. William had an interview at a big advertising agency.

It’s funny, but even though Leicester and William are so far away, they are both surrounded by friends from Louisiana. Leicester’s group of friends from LSU have migrated up there and William is staying with Graham Holly, our neighbor’s son from Hammond. There are many DIVA offspring living in New York. I wonder if it’s heredity or environment.

There has been some reverse-migration as well. Katherine’s father, Eddie, has been living in New York for years and he was recently remarried - to a woman from Louisiana. Even though Eddie is a north-easterner, he just can’t stay away from those Louisiana women, I guess. He works for Fed Ex (and, I just realized, Kinko’s. Oh, well.) The closest he could get to New Orleans with his job is Monroe, so he and his wife are moving there. My one trip to Monroe, Louisiana, to perform in a college play, didn’t leave much of an impression. I remember watching a movie in the hotel room that scared the hell out of me.

I see that they have managed to find a more reprehensible congressman than William Jefferson. At least Jefferson took advantage of adults. Wouldn’t you just know Rep. Mark Foley (R-NAMBLA) would be from Florida? And there is a Louisiana connection to the whole sordid thing. Ugh. Isn’t it incredible that this guy was head of the committee writing legislation to prosecute people who seduce minors over the internet? I guess he was trying to put the rest of his fellow perverts in jail so he could have the field to himself. And what better way to hide in plain sight than to ingratiate himself with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Coach Hastert and The Boner need to lose their jobs over this. There are less than 450 people out of all Americans who sit in the United States House of Representatives. You mean to tell me that we can’t find better people than this? Hastert, Boner and Alexander have known about this for almost a year. They did not do the right thing. Why? Because it might put a Democrat in that seat. They would rather have a pervert than a Democrat. What kind of power trip do you have to be on to shield a guy who talks dirty to 16-year-olds? Believe me, I am a flaming liberal, but you would have to pull my hands from the throat of a Democrat who did something like that. I would like to choke William Jefferson for what he has done, and it doesn’t even involve pederasty.

Alexander, the coward, is hiding behind the boy’s parents, saying that they didn’t want to talk about it any more. Well, I guess they don’t, but thank you very fucking much for letting this guy go on to mess with other people’s kids. No wonder the pedophile priests have been getting away with it for so long. Unlike priests, though, U.S. congressmen take oaths to uphold the law. And even if they didn’t take that oath, it’s inexcusable that they delayed getting this guy out of our congress. Rodney Alexander: When you find out that someone has been sending sexually explicit messages to minors, you pick up the phone and call the police, not Coach Hastert.

It is also very disturbing to read about the violent pervert who took children hostage in a classroom in Colorado and sexually assaulted them. He let everyone go except for some girls, and one student said he “preferred blonds.” Excuse me if I’m not flattered, and brunettes should not take that as their cue to relax their guard. This may sound odd, but I also found the sheriff’s comments disturbing. The one girl who was killed was murdered after the police stormed the classroom. Might she have lived if they had waited? The sheriff said that he had to storm the classroom because she was being sexually assaulted. There is a disconnect in that statment. She could have recovered from a sexual assault. She will not recover from a bullet in the back of the head. The sheriff, who seems too emotionally involved, is feeding into the stereotype of rape being a fate worse than death. Yes, it’s pretty fucking horrible, but it’s not worse than death. That kind of statement is actually shaming to the rape victim who gives in rather than resisting to her death. It’s certainly not a good reason for law enforcement to throw caution to the wind and let a hostage get killed. You’ll have to live with that one, sheriff, and so will her family.

What is it with these losers who prey on women and children? Are we going to have to turn our schools into fortresses? Will we start to see middle-class kids with armed bodyguards, like the children of the rich now have? Why is our society one that allows small, self-hating, angry men the power to turn themselves into killing machines? Why do we allow morally stunted, disgusting people to sit in our congress? This corrupt government has about as much business bringing “peace” and “democracy” to other countries as Mark Foley has running a child-care center.

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Author : dangerblond

there’s another one born every minute September 29, 2006

So, I was writing yet another post about how adorable my grandson is and I got distracted by the Wet Bank Guide. Then I read the story about garbage in the Picayune (broken up into numerous parts so their ugly website can serve up more ugly ads). So, what I’m saying is it’s Mark Folse’s fault that my head is going to explode.

Among the many things in this article that made smoke spontaneously spout from my ears was this:

[Veronica] White also said that because the city still operates under its pre-storm contract, residents must pay the same rate for less-frequent trash service to make up for the fees displaced neighbors no longer pay.

Uh, whassat? The priority here is that Waste Management has to make enough money? How long do we replaced residents have to keep paying for something we are not getting? Until we make it up to Waste Management for all the displaced residents? Ya’ll, this is horseshit. If Waste Management is losing money because one day half our population left and never came back, that’s what insurance is for.

I don’t know about you, but I want half my goddamned money back. And I want Ray Nagin removed from office for signing a contract that makes the citizens of New Orleans liable to Waste Management for lost garbage fees. I call bullshit on this. We need a lawyer! Bayou St. John David, where can we get a copy of this contract? What is Waste Management obligated to do for us, besides collect money from us? Is there any way we can stop them from ripping off the citizens of New Orleans every single month? New Rule: No one in City Hall gets to sign a contract on our behalf until our lawyers can look it over.

Hey, I have a novel idea! Since garbage pick-up is so important to even the most minimal concept of quality of life, and since it’s a unique function that must be coordinated on a city-wide basis, why doesn’t the city start up it’s own Sanitation Department! It could have an office and a director who is an experienced professional. The Sanitation Department could hire employees and buy garbage trucks. These employees could go around on the trucks and pick up our garbage twice a week. There could even be special crews that the regular garbage men could call on a cell phone if they ran into a large pile of crap that came out of someone’s ruined house. If these employees failed to pick up garbage, or failed to call for a “debris crew” (just a suggestion, that name), they would be fired and other employees would take their places.

Someone remind me again why we have all these elected officials on the payroll? If these craven hacks contract our rights away to corporations, why don’t we just buy shares in the corporations and cut out the middle men? Perhaps we can get Sandra Wheeler Hester on the board. Better yet, why don’t we just get these corporations out of our lives so that their bottom line does not have to be our problem. Don’t we have enough to worry about without having to carry the load for Waste Management?

Then there is this innovation, something else I didn’t know we had agreed to:

Nagin, who said in May that sanitation is a priority of his second term, is expected to award lucrative contracts to two new trash contractors for automated or semiautomated trash pickup in every neighborhood except the French Quarter, White said. The announcement was supposed to be made this week but has been delayed until at least next week, she said.

The deals call for trucks with mechanized arms to grab uniformly designed trash cans and unload their contents neatly and quickly. On narrow streets, a sanitation worker may aid the automated process.

Service is expected to begin Jan. 2 and mark the resumption of twice-weekly trash pickup for the first time in more than 16 months, she said. Starting in October, residents will be asked to visit sites across the city to register and to choose a trash can size — 30, 60 or 95 gallons — which the city will provide for free.

“We want uniformity,” she said. “We don’t want excuses.”

Uniformity of garbage? Mechanized arms? Are you fucking kidding me? Who is coming up with this stuff? You have to read what Mark Folse says about this. How did this happen to us? I have to tell you, I have an image of Ray Nagin and his entourage all shacked up in the Waste Management party suite at the last big garbage convention in Weedwackin, New Jersey. Plied with liquor and whores, Ray signs this fucked up garbage contract in a smoky haze while chewing on a big fat cigar.

Here’s another quote that is straight out of George Orwell:

“If your collection day is on a Wednesday and on Thursday morning your garbage is not picked up, please contact my office,” White said. “Please don’t let your garbage sit out for a week. It’s a health hazard.”

Is it really? It’s a health hazard? Then why in the name of Albert Fucking Schweitzer are ya’ll not picking up garbage twice a week?

When you smell that week-old funk, does it make you feel any better that we are keeping Ray Nagin’s promises to Waste Management for him? What else are we on the hook for? What other ridiculous innovations do they have planned for us? Maybe there is a corporation hawking water meters that residents have to insert their credit card into every month or the water shuts off. Maybe some friend of Greg Meffert’s has patented a trash can that compresses trash into Mardi Gras beads and throws them to tourists. The new cans are only $3,000,000 each. Whatever. Thanks, all you suckers, for re-electing a mayor who understands business.

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Author : dangerblond

“a customer is coming! quick! activate the force-field!” September 28, 2006

I had to go to Kinko’s today, and I hope I never have to go back. Remember when Kinko’s was a cool, fun place to go? I can remember when John Odell was running the Kinko’s on the corner of St. Charles and Julia. All the people who worked there were helpful and friendly. For a period of time, I was in there every other day. Martin-Greater Film Graphics was down the street. I used to run into all kinds of artists at Kinko’s. You could rent a Mac for $10 an hour. Dawn Dedeaux and many other people put entire books together in there with Pagemaker on rented Macs.

I don’t know when the suits ruined it, but two years ago, when I had to turn in my Moot Court Brief, I was amazed to watch the clerk at Kinko’s carefully count out 30 pages of laid paper and hand them to me, along with two sheets of red card stock, and tell me to go stick my credit card in the self-service copier, make my copies, and bring it back to her for binding. I swear she counted out 30 pages of paper, and she could have made three bound briefs in that amount of time.

Kinko’s is now horrible. They dole out the paper and it’s like there is a force-field keeping them behind the counter. God forbid they should help you. By the time they explain the process of running the self-service color copier, they could have made the stupid handful of copies for you. Then you pay a ridiculous amount to make your own copies. You have to stick your credit card in the machine now, so you don’t even get a couple of proofs gratis to adjust color, size and position. If you want to pay cash or have them do it for you, you can come back in four hours, no matter how many employees are sitting on their hands inside the force-field. Who makes two trips for a dozen copies? Whoever it was at Kinko’s who came up with the idea of giving less service and charging more money, thanks a lot, pal. You ruined what used to be a fun and creative place.

Does anyone know of a place where you can get color copies without having your credit card sucked into a machine? Where people actually care if you are happy with the expensive pieces of paper and ink they are selling you? I need color copies a few times a year. To me, going to Kinko’s now is like taking the car in for a tune-up and having them hand me a pair of gloves and some spark plugs and explaining it to me from across the room. I don’t want to read the owner’s manual of all their various copy machines. I don’t want a handful of copies to take up half the afternoon. I’m willing to pay you if you will come out from behind that force-field.

It reminds me of when I was working at a printing company. A friend made a sign for me that said, “Graphic Design: Cheap, Fast, Good - Pick 2.” “Cheap” is no longer an option. You can get it done as “fast” as you can do it yourself. And I guess “good” is when you can actually get your credit card out of that thing when you get done.

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Author : dangerblond

black men: get someone else to drive September 27, 2006

On Wednesdays I have four classes, so I usually spend the whole day feeling like I am in the weeds. Today was actually pretty good, though. In media class, we watched a documentary about the Rodney King case. Back when all that happened, I wasn’t paying much attention but I remember being appalled that the policemen were not found guilty after that horrible beating was videotaped and put on television. The film today showed the testimony of the policemen involved almost in its entirety. The defendant policemen all told the exact same story and they were all very good witnesses. After seeing it, I am no longer surprised that the defense was able to neutralize that video. Just because you have a video, it does not mean the jury will take it as a representation of the truth.

I went to Coyacan between classes and had a delicious lunch. I was alone and I read my Marshall McLuhan book. I thought about asking someone to join me, but I didn’t want to complicate it. It wasn’t very crowded and I felt very comfortable there. I’ll have to remember Coyacan next time I am in the mood for a quiet lunch. I had pork with tomatillo sauce, beans, rice and corn tortillas. Simple food that really hit the spot.

Unfortunately, there was a lot of it, so I ate too much and I was nodding off in Persons. Today’s topic was adultery. You would think it titillating and exciting, but honestly it’s boring and weird. In most of the cases, the real issue is not whether a person is sleeping around. The sleeping around is used as reason to get alimony or not get alimony, so the issue is really money. Sometimes people sleep with their estranged spouses to falsely create a reconciliation. Why? Because of money. Even when it’s fighting over the children, it’s usually about money. I find it distasteful and stupid that the law has to concern itself with adultery. Judges actually write about whether one person has forgiven the other person. How could they know that? How do the people involved even know that?

There are so many depressing things about family law. The best advice any human being can really give another is never let your personal life get into the hands of the civil court system. We haven’t even gotten to child custody battles yet, and I know that is going to make me bite my fingers as well as my nails. There was a young woman in class today who had become engaged. She had a beautiful ring and everyone was congratulating her and wishing her the best. It’s so weird to be on the other end of that. I would never want to burst anyone’s bubble, but I am glad to be where I am now. I wouldn’t want to be that young again, that’s for sure.

I ran into some of my old friends from night school. They jokingly called me a traitor for switching to day classes. I said, yeah, well I am graduating in the spring. Call me if you need a lawyer!

My phone rang just as I was coming in the door and it was Josh. We had a drink at the Delachaise and then went for sushi. It’s nice to have a date with just me and Josh. We hit it off when we first met in 2002, and then we bonded during the exile in Lafayette. He is a really smart guy and a very good lawyer. Sometimes I get very bored with law school, but then a conversation with Josh can get me enthusiastic about it again. Or at least enthusiastic about being a lawyer. I’m not afraid to let Josh see my inner nerd. I think he digs nerdy girls, anyway.

On my way to the Delachaise, I saw yet another young black man being handcuffed and put in a police car. Is it just me? Do you pass by young black men getting arrested Uptown once a week? This guy was wearing a basketball jersey and long shorts, and he also looked thoroughly ashamed. There was a carload of older black women there, looking very distressed, and one was talking on a cell phone. I don’t know what he did, he barely looked old enough to shave, but whatever it was, he is screwed for life now that he has an arrest record. The burden of all of this will fall on those women, who are probably his mother, grandmother, great grandmother and aunt whatever. I sure hope it is worth it.

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Author : dangerblond

if you want a friend, be a friend September 26, 2006

I thought it was strange that I didn’t hear from Don last night and it turns out he was at the Tulane Hospital Emergency Room with an old of friend of ours. Our friend has a pretty serious condition and a very unnerved wife, but Don says everything is going OK and he is improving. No word on when he can get out. Don is a very good person to have around if you get sick. He is supernaturally calm, even if the news is bad. I’m sure Don will go to the hospital every morning.

With that going on, he only saw Jackson briefly yesterday morning and this morning. Jackson woke up this morning asking for David and the hammer. He insisted on having his shorts and his shoes on so he could be ready to hammer. Don and David arrived at the exact same time. When they came in the door, Jackson ran to David yelling, “Dayfid! I wanna bang! I wanna bang bang!” David gave him a hammer and he banged on nails, wood and concrete for an hour. It’s scary to me, but he manages not to hit himself in the head. He cried when they left, but it was because he didn’t want to give the hammer back. They are going to have to get him a hammer in Lafayette.

Jackson is a full-time job when he’s here, but I just hate to see him go. He is especially snuggly and cuddly in the morning. He has always awakened in a good mood. I had every intention of going to class this morning and I got up very early. While I was bathing, the door opened and there was his little face. “Hey, Grandma. Where’s daddy?” Everyone was still asleep. No way I could leave him and go to class. We sat down and had cereal and bananas. Then he started asking, “where’s Dayfid?” every five minutes. If memory serves me, Laurence and Amy have about four years of non-stop questions coming, starting now.

I am very glad I could welcome my son and his family here, and I’m happy that they could go to the game. It is hard to believe that on this day last year, I was still living at my son’s house in Lafayette. I had lost a week due to Hurricane Rita and I didn’t yet have an apartment in Houston. Katherine was in New York and we were still having a hard time getting through on our cell phones. We were due to start classes in Houston on Oct. 3, and we were in a state of shock, running on pure adrenaline.

We have all been through so much. Now that the house is empty, I’m feeling like all my kids are so far away, and I can see the holes in my happiness. All the things that happened a year ago seem like they were yesterday. When you look around, parts of the city are still in ruins. I don’t feel completely healed over either, but the pain is dull and chronic now, rather than acute. I have to tell myself that I handled it OK, I’ve kept moving, doing, making and rebuilding. I think that’s what every person in town is doing. We are handling it, and that’s all we can ask of each other.