Uncle Lionel & Me/ Candlelight 2010

Goin To Work in New Orleans

5th Anniversary of Katrina 2nd Line

I should know better

By now I should know better: when out in New Orleans, carry the good camera.  I've told myself this many times, New Orleans being just too full of liberal photo ops. But yesterday, I was going to church. To church, with a quick stop at NOMA, how interesting could that be?  Besides, although it was sunny and bright, it was supposed to pour and I didn't want to risk getting the better camera wet.  So here I was, once again regretting my choice.

First, why was I going to church?  A bit of an unusual choice, even for a Sunday.but I was thinking about the Unitarians. About Unitarians and last year. They say that first impressions are lasting and when I arrived at the bunk house  last year, it was filled with them.  They were a wonderful bunch; healthy, happy, hail and whole and we had a good time together, working and playing.  I especially enjoyed partying after work with the pastor.  As I've said before; these were some of the best times I've ever had with a man of the cloth.  The impression that they left of knowing how to embrace all of life and being so grateful for it, left me curious about them.

So I googled  churches and found one in Lakeview,  three miles north on Lake Pontchartrain, lost somewhere in the nexus of desire and limitation..

I had heard that this area had been hard hit by Katrina but in the many months that I've been it New Orleans I had yet to visit there.  Well, what a mess.  Lakeview is an economically mixed neighborhood.  Here, as always, there are the poor,  but many wealthy families have  built imposing homes out there.  I guess I was assuming that their recovery would be more complete.  But no, it looks like the hurricane roared through here a few months ago.  The water marks here are ten feet high.  Most of the roads are still barricaded.  I was shocked and I wanted my camera.

To drive in Lakeview you need a few things: a four-wheel drive vehicle, a very good map, a lot of time and possibly, a kidney belt.  The roads are so damaged that all my concentration went to trying not to harm the truck that my friend has left me for the summer. The street signs are still down so that it was hard to tell where exactly I was.

I stopped to ask directions of a man who couldn't let me go until he had shown me his water marks, the work he had done on the house and the garden he built for his peace of mind.  Charlie told me that he is making 'it pretty' in order to attract a new woman into his life as his wife had left him after the storm. "Where exactly is the church?" I pressed before she became me.

 I was a half hour late to the service which has been held in a temporary building since the church was destroyed in the storm.  The parishioners are mostly locals and a study in healthy attitudes towards life and it's adversities, not a complaining, nor worrying bunch.  Stoic but flexible and inspiring.  The sermon was full of reminders that life is full of both joys and sorrows.  I was happy to have finally found them.  I left with a hand full of homemade cookies and thoughts about the meaning in the mythology of this American life.

Post script:  I must go back with the camera.

Sunday in the Park with Chuck:

On to New Orleans Museum of Art in City Park to see the poet Chuck Perkins and the Mardi Gras Indians.

On my way to City Park the rain comes. No ordinary rain-southern Louisiana rain.  A solid mass hitting ground that already permeated with water six inches below the surface.  There is nowhere for it to go but up.  I'm in the trusty truck but I'm starting to get nervous, the water is rising so fast.  The only condition on the generous loan of this truck by it's owner is that I Don't Let It Drown!  So I turned away towards Esplanade Ave, also called Esplanade Ridge.  Locals joke that it is their mountain, its actually a slight rise of a few feet, but still the highest ground in the city.  The French first settled here for that reason.  My adrenaline is pulsing, but I make it to the museum and park illegally, who would ticket in all of this?

Upon entering the museum I forgot about the elements, but I really wanted my other camera.

Chuck Perkins  the spoken word poet, our virile voice of rage and reason, was spilling poetry and passion.   His appearances are 'Events' as they are quite rare and he was in electrifying form.  Backing him were the Mardi Gras Indians with Big Chief Monk Boudreaux .  The acoustics in the lobby of the NOMA are celestial, and the neo-classic Beaux Arts architecture grand. NOMA was built in 1911with the intention of being a "temple of art for rich and poor alike." Judging by the mix of people attending, it looks like they have kept their promise.  The show was five dollars.  When the performance ended and I left, the sun was again out, hot and heavy.  There was no ticket on the truck. Another perfect New Orleans day-except for that camera.

Original Prince of Wales Social Aid and Pleasure Club

Honey Swamp, I'm home...

Honey swamp, I’m home.

Café du Monde at 8am. The place is already packed with tourists and some locals whom you can usually spot as the manner of dress here is unique. I’m especially fond of the older gents who sport straw hats, dressy linen jackets and shorts with sandals. I’m on a pilgrimage, once again taking in everything I find wonderful about this place. I short cut through Pirates Alley , where Jean Lafitte's’ brother had a blacksmith shop and cross Jackson Square to get my cup of chicory coffee and fresh beignets

I’m Gonna Let It Shine

The walk over is a doo wop of sounds: a small village and living museum waking for the day. Shop keepers opening shutters and throwing out buckets of swill water. Street musicians are setting up shop. Already the sounds of alto jax and horn in the air. In the air also is the smell of river mud, crawfish and funk. Centuries old urine and sewage systems stressed with the shock of all of us. But no matter, all great old cities wear this perfume. Bars are opening and preparing to get busy. Mist hangs in the air like smoke on Old Man River. Tourists are talking about their problems and who they said what to and how much they paid for their hotels and their tours. The locals quiet but acknowledging each other with nods and “how ya’ doin’”s. . There is still a chill in the air.

I’m staying in the Quarter on Dauphine between Toulouse and St. Peter's. My hosts are still sleeping. Robiere is the French sax player that I met in Johnny White’s on Bourbon St. last year. We became fast friends and I was lucky to receive such a quick entree into the city's music and cultural history through him and his wife Holly who gives leads historical tours through the city. They are both scholars and music aficionados. I owe a good chunk of my NOLA education to them. Within hours of landing we were watching vintage Count Basie 'soundies' from the 40’s in their loft. They are late sleepers as they keep musician’s hours. I’ve been living with no electricity in the jungles of Quintana Roo. I rise and fall with the chickens and the sun, so in spite of long travel day, I’m up and anxious to see my city.

New Orleans is pulsing with its usual energies and then some, still coming down from the high of the Saints win. Everyone tells me about what it meant to this city and how it has helped to change the world's view of them. Tourism is back. New Orleans is not lost but standing proud, full of hope for the its future with its newly elected mayor, Mitch Landrieu, the city's first white mayor since 1978. New Orleanian's were so tired of the failings of Ray Nagin that Landrieu won by a landslide, even capturing the black vote by 78%

But the work and struggle goes on here, as I was reminded within minutes of landing. While waiting to claim my luggage I heard my first story. A chauffeur sitting waiting for his ride told me of how his wife now lives in Chicago with the kids as in the time it has taken to rebuild their life here, she has built a new life elsewhere. He now visits her when he can. Versions of this story abound. Later, making my way into the city, I was dropped at Johnny Whites, the famous local’s bar that has never closed its doors, even during Katrina. The man sitting next to me starts to tell the tale of his return to Mississippi and the search for his house on a street that its self had been blasted into nothingness by the ferocity of those winds. The same stories that gripped me last year of what happened to these people and this culture during and after Katrina, are unfolding . They come pouring out, with no prompting, stories of loss and shock and courage. They both break your heart and inspire you , not told in self-pity but from an unrecognized need for catharsis.

I reach Cafe du Monde

I get my favorite corner table by the main entrance and cover myself in powdered sugar while " Down By The Riverside" and old jazz hits favored by the tourists are belted out.. I'm looking across to Jackson Square and the grand St. Louis cathedral, the oldest cathedral in north America. Flanking St. Lou are the Pontalba apartments, purportedly America's first apartment complex, built in the 1840's. My friend Donna grew up in them. One of the cooler thing about New Orleans is how personal all this history quickly becomes. It's not book dry and abstract, but up close and personal, you can feel it, smell it and run your fingers through its long tangled hair.

I went on a pilgrimage to see old friends and places. First taking the street car down Canal, arguably the widest street in the country, to Mid City to see my friends Mayla and Dianna. They had kindly left me their double shotgun camel-back for 3 months last summer. Their only condition fro this generous gift was that if a hurricane came, I would not let the truck drown as it had during Katrina. They are vegetarian and I arrived just in time for lunch. For once I got my ten servings of vegetables for the day. Something that is often lacking but seldom missed in my diet here. Good to eat green when you can.

That evening went to the new bar The Maison on Frenchmen for a free crawfish boil. The secret in the pot seems to be oranges. I lifted the lid and looked in. The chef told me with some anxiety that he was not giving away his secrets. Naw uh. I scored with two plates of crawfish, as my friend Donna is a vegetarian, bless her. Then we crossed the street and entered the latest revival of The Spotted Cat to catch my friend Robiere sit in with the a local band. The lead singer doing a sincere imitation of Billy Holiday, complete with white gardenia behind her right ear.