In New Orleans

My first visit to the Crescent City post Katrina. I don't know what I was expecting but everything seemed fresh or different to me. The airport seemsd less crowded, less hectic. Lots of unused terminals and gates and the chaos that is usually de rigeur at most airports seem to be missing. The airport looked the same though, the shrubs were trimmed and neat and the parking lots were clean and well kept. Like I said, I didn't know what I was expecting.

The trip into town was uneventful. You can see where the neighborhoods have been rebuilt versus those that are still boarded up. The canals and pipes that line the highway have always been there i supposed, but I never noticed them before.

I am staying at the Canal Street Sheraton, the Marriott where I stayed for the AVCA convention a few years ago is right across the street, parts of the Marriott are still boardedup. Harrahs an dthe other Casinos are up and running though.

I started my third visit here with lunch. I had gone on Chowhound and asked for recommendations for places that are open post Katrina and got a slew of recs. I went to Coops for some cajun fare, fried oysters, gumbo, shrimp creole, jambalaya, and red beans and rice. A great lunch. After lunch I went strolling through the French quarter at a more leisurely pace. Decatur street is a major tourist trap, Cafe Du Monde and Jackson Square are both on it. I saw most of it on my way to Coops. It seemed funny to me how the national chains seem to congregate about Canal street and Poydras. House of Blues, Hooters, the major casinos are all right here, in fact the further east you push the more authentic the restaurants seem to be.

I took a walk through Jackson Square, it was a lovely day, a tad humid, but I am in New Orleans so I was prepared for it. The non-tourist focused places were cute, charming, and genuine. They weren't priced that way though. The walk was relaxing and the ethos and rhythm of life in the south seem to envelope me in a warm embrace, kind of welcoming me back to the south. The pace is relaxed because it is just too dang hot to worry about things. I walked along for a few hours and after being thoroughly relaxed, I went back to the hotel to take a nap.

Dinner was at Cochon, the review is on Chowhounds. No need to duplicate myself.
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Why is it that when people talk about people, they always seem to marvel at how some one is able to be him self and never change. The comment is always about how even years after the friendship begins, so-so is the same man as when he was a boy. Isn't stunted growth, emotional or intellectual, necessarily a very bad sign for a person. It just reinforces the mindset of this society, where change or personal growth is viewed with disdain and suspicion. You would want change, especially when comparing the boy with the man. Just a curious observation.

Ruminations on 9/11

If there ever is a day that deserves to be somber, today is the day. Hard to believe that it has been six years since that horror filled day. The survivors and the relatives of those who had lost their lives all gathered to commemorate the day. The pains in their eyes, tears, and sobbing shoulders tells the story of the ultimate loss, of a pain that seem unsurvivable, a loss that is indescribable. The news outlets run about busily to capture the encapsulating moment, touch, or look, the one act of tenderness, grief, or confusion which - to them - neatly and tidily sums up the day. But it is to no avail, no amount of gestures can summarize the tsunami wave of emotions of the day.

Jarringly juxtoposing on this day is the testimony of General Patraeous and Ambassador Crocker at the senate chambers, swiftly and feverishly disguising an undisguisable civil war with spin. So we have on the one hand a day marked by brutal and searing pain in New York, Pennsylvania, and DC, while at the same time we have clones saving their own hides along whatever is left of the least of our presidents reputation, such as it is. God, if he exists, has usurped the Lenny Bruce sense of irony and unleashed it on this day.

Perhaps the day in 2001 is still too close to us, perhaps the facts have yet to be consumed, digested, and regurgitated. For I yearn to see and understand something profound that has thrust forward in the ensuing six years, but I look into a void. Perhaps I am looking - like the news outlets - for a summation, a piece of brilliance which, if not explain it all, can make it all seem less convoluted and wrong.

It must be good to live the life of a simple mind. Facile explanations and dogmatic recitations of shopworn and trite pronouncements roll off their memory effortlessly and fall easily into their mouths, the cognizant mind need not participate. As I sit and hear Bush, Giuliani, and Bloomberg mindlessly, numbingly recite the neocon tautologies, I get a sick and sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, the speeches are reminiscent - so familiar are they that I can almost recite them by rote- of facist and communist dogma. I hope the resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue does not sleep well tonight. I hope he lays awake tonight in a pool of his own sweat, realizing with immense shame of the massively wasted opportunity and good will that he has wrought after this day six years ago. I hope he feels the pains of the many who died young and hopeful while at the beck and call of the weak and feeble leaders of our nation in service for a cause that is neither noble nor relevant to those events that happened six years ago today I doubt his all will bother him. Single celled creatures have no conscience or feelings about the lives of their fellow men. Drunk frat boys are not capable of self examination.