spasticrobot

Joie de Vivre

Driving through the city right now is equally heartbreaking and awe-inspiring. The damage is so comprehensive yet there are crews everywhere and families reclaiming what was their home and what will be again. Other parts are so desolate and abandoned that it makes my stomach hurt and my teeth gnash.

It was so much fun to dance and drink and act goofy and just be with my people again in the middle of this craziness. So healing to be in the cool New Orleans sun on the river with an October breeze blowing through the park. So exciting to hear brass bands again, to wander through the Quarter with my posse, laughing. So relieving to see people back downtown again. The best part of the whole weekend was showing off our new digs to our friends and walking out from there, realizing how in the middle of the rebirth we really are. Our neighborhood is alive and functioning and a launcing pad for so many of the relief workers. I’m lucky and glad to be there, pumping money back into the city and doing everything I can to help get things back in order here.

For the first time since the storm I’m feeling that no matter what the obstacle the people of this city and this country are going to set things straight down here. WE'RE GONNA MAKE IT YA'LL!

Halloween Homecoming

This weekend promises great things. First of all several great friends are coming in town including Chris & Rose, Heather and long lost Jaime who has been hanging out in NYC for the past two months. Next there are a ton of shows including Voodoo Music Fest, Rebirth at Tipitina's and Kermit at Fat Harry's. Then there's the Molly's Halloween Parade and the subsequent Decatur street costuming/drinking party. Finally Shanna and I will be cleaning and preparing our new home and then moving in throughout next week. It's homecoming time in New Orleans and I couldn't be more happy or proud that I am returning home so soon.

Back to the City

Shanna and I just put down a deposit and paid first month's rent on a beautiful home in the Marigny!! We're moving back to the city, maybe as soon as this weekend! I'm meeting our new landlord for the second time today to pick up keys and a copy of the lease agreement this afternoon. I'm a little bit nervous as the rent is a bit higher than we were originally thinking about but the location is just so amazing. We really wanted to be in an area of town that is busy and also to be close to our few friends living in the city already. This place meets both needs. I'm so excited!

I Hate the Saints

After 20-some-odd years of total and obsessive loyalty the Saints and I are through. I’m sick and tired of watching these guys lose and with Tom Benson looking like he will move them out of town it’s time for me to end my codependent relationship with them. We had some good times together, that Morton Andersonn field goal kick that got us to the playoffs for the first time felt really great. Jim Haslett’s first season up until that dismal game against the Vikings, well that was pretty nice too. Everything else is just a memory of half drunken cursing and pounding on the floor in pain as they threw away their hopes season after season.

101 Books I Need

If you know me it's probably obvious to you that the hardest thing for me to lose in the storm was my library. Those books were my most prized possessions and to me they were the physical representation of how I built myself back up from scratch after a seriously rough and tumble adolescence. I'll never really replace all of my collection but I will rebuild it as best as I can. Here's a list of 101 essential books that I plan on repurchasing. These will serve as the foundation that I build everything else on.

Optimistic Futurism

Tim O'Reilly, David Brooks, Esther Dyson, Malcolm Gladwell, Moby, Mark Dery and Clay Shirky recently sat down with Time Magazine for a roundtable discussion on how current trends in technology, politics and religion will influence the future. Here's my favorite part:

IS THE AMERICAN LANDSCAPE READY FOR CHANGE?

BROOKS: In the United States, we've seen the intense power of partisanship. I think it may have crested, but we're left with this intense polarization--think Red Sox vs. Yankees--where team spirit supplants philosophy. I really don't know what a conservative or liberal is. But I do know what a Republican or Democrat is. Still, I think this phase of intense polarization is ebbing. If you look at the polls over the past year, you see people flaking off from the Republican side--not going over to the Democratic side but being dislodged and just sitting there in the middle.

Afternoon Mix

Today I'm wishing I was in a forward thinking Nordic metropolis and wishing I wasn't here. Here's an afternoon mix that's transporting me to chilly, clean streets filled with pretty hipsters instead of warm, dirty, muddy streets filled with redneck carpetbaggers:

1. Polkamatic - Vitalic
2. Hung Up - Madonna
3. Destroy Everything You Touch - Ladytron
4. Holiday - The Tough Alliance
5. No Fun - Vitalic
6. Give It To Me Baby -The Greatest Hits
7. Heartbeat - Annie
8. Another Excuse (DFA Remix) - Soulwax
9. White Light Generator - Ladytron
10. 84 Pontiac Dream - Boards of Canada
11. My Friend Dario - Vitalic
12. Bongo Song - Zongamin

I'm really loving the new Italo flavored Madonna track. That Abba sample with the Jacques Lu Cont production is smoking.

Finally, some good news for New Orleans!

LSU scientists have published the results of their independent tests of the flood waters and the results are pretty good. Lots of E-coli, some metals but not a lot of chemicals. This is great news for the future of the city and really great news for our poor Lake Ponchartrain. I may not be afraid to eat seafood this year after all.

Normal Friday

After a long week of 12 hour workdays I am ready for some weekend fun. Today is possibly the first "normal" feeling day for me since the Friday before the storm hit. All I want to do is spend a little time shopping, get a nice dinner & some wine at Etoile and spend the rest of my time relaxing at "home".

Maybe I'll get really lucky and cable service will be restored. That would be so amazing. I can't believe how much I miss the small of amount of television that I watch. If not, there's always sweet Netflix, which just delivered my first post-K set of disks.

Dutch Amphibious Houses

These Dutch amphibious houses are magnificent. This is the kind of visionary architecture we should be embracing in New Orleans. We need innovative design solutions in order to survive future storms. The thing I respect most about the Dutch is that they have fully embraced design as a matter of survival. New Orleans must do likewise.