omgwtf!

“There are gangs of armed men in the city moving around the city.”

New Orleans is under water. The only strip that has remained dry is the French Quarter and a strip of land in what is known as “Uptown;” the part that has been used for hundreds of years as a trading post by the American Indians in the area, and later by French and other settlers. The highest elevation in what was originally millions of acres of swampland. I still wear a sterling silver necklace that I bought at that trading post on the banks of the Mississippi…a curved sword…that gets many compliments.

This is what happens when you build a city in a bowl made of sponge, surrounded by deep water, and then fail to maintain the levees and pumps and other safeguards that keep the water back behind the barriers. Man, they can’t even bury people in New Orleans because the city is below sea level and you hit water like a foot into the ground. That’s why they have their Cities of the Dead (one of which abuts the French Quarter).

“There are gangs of armed men in the city moving around the city.”

New Orleans is under water. The only strip that has remained dry is the French Quarter and a strip of land in what is known as “Uptown;” the part that has been used for hundreds of years as a trading post by the American Indians in the area, and later by French and other settlers. The highest elevation in what was originally millions of acres of swampland. I still wear a sterling silver necklace that I bought at that trading post on the banks of the Mississippi…a curved sword…that gets many compliments.

This is what happens when you build a city in a bowl made of sponge, surrounded by deep water, and then fail to maintain the levees and pumps and other safeguards that keep the water back behind the barriers. Man, they can’t even bury people in New Orleans because the city is below sea level and you hit water like a foot into the ground. That’s why they have their Cities of the Dead (one of which abuts the French Quarter).

I’m of two minds about this disaster. On the one hand, I feel terrible for all the people who have lost everything, including their lives, to this nightmare. It’s going to take not months but years for New Orleans to come back from this. What are all those people going to do? I feel so bad for them.

On the other hand, though, this is what you get when you build a city in a bowl that used to be swampland. It’s like that scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I can’t help but feel that this is what you get when you think you’ve outwitted Mother Nature, and then failed to keep your good weather eye on what she’s doing to get even with you. What kind of asshole builds a city in a swamp, between two massive bodies of water, and then lets the levees fall into disrepair? What kind of moron is responsible for the fact that a new, giant pump turned out to be utterly non-operational, just when it was needed most…as it turns out, more needed than at any time before in the city’s long and varied history? This kind of thing cheeses me off.

Also on this second hand is the fact that the waters are still rising and the priority for some survivors seems to be murder and mayhem instead of helping one another. The entire gun inventory of the new WalMart in town has been stolen…and we won’t get into fucking WalMart and the fact that what the fuck are they selling guns for…and there has been rampant looting, shootings (one police officer is in critical condition with a head wound administered by one of those looters), and for chrissake car jackings, of all things. Where the everloving fuck are you going to go in a car in 20 feet of fucking water, you inbred moron? What the hell are these fucking people thinking?

The infrastructure has totally collapsed down there, because the infrastructure is rife with corruption and always has been. The police department and the city administration has long been unable to make anything worthwhile happen in New Orleans; they’re too busy taking bribes and making sure they still get paid for not working. Now the mayor of New Orleans is screaming about how the levees should have been patched; he also seems to be bitching about the fact that the Army Corps of Engineers had the unmitigated gall to rescue stranded people instead of patching the levee. I have no sympathy at all for the city officials in this situation. None.

And with all this death and devastation happening, there are “calls for prayer.”

Yeah, ’cause that’s gonna help. If you believe that God will save you, well, I’ve got a question for you, you sad, deluded little ape: who the fuck do you think sent the hurricane in the first place? How about you take your thumb out of your ass and do something to help out? There will be plenty of time to play with your imaginary friend later, hmm?

There are days when I cannot understand how the human animal has survived this long.

There’s a third hand here which is strictly personal and has nothing to do with the situation at hand, really, except for me: I lived in New Orleans for about eight months in 1993. I lived within walking distance of Lake Ponchartrain for maybe two months; the rest of the time, I lived in an apartment in the French Quarter, or Vieux Carre, as the locals refer to it. I hated New Orleans with a passion. The Vieux Carre was great; as long as I never had to set foot outside it, I had very little problem. But when I was there, it was a city full of racist bastards, many of whom made me an automatic member of their little club because my skin is white. I got a chance to see the white side and the black side of New Orleans, and I cannot for the life of me understand why any black person would ever want to live there.

I talked about it in depth with a few friends I made down there…incidentally, all the people I considered friends down there, with only one or two exceptions, were black, because the white folks were just that nasty…and they indicated that they were so used to the racism that it pretty much rolled off them. I couldnt understand that; something that hateful could never just roll off me. I’m proud to say that I was considered…and called…a dam’yankee by a number of the Neanderthals I encountered, and was told by several people to go back up north where I belonged.

I was happy to oblige.

So now, seeing the place under water, and on a strictly personal level, I kind of feel like I’m watching the purging of Isengard, though I doubt very much that the hatred and villainy and unbelievable corruption will go out with the tide. Too bad.

All that notwithstanding, if I were there, I’d do my best to pitch in and help wherever I could. Finger pointing and acrimony can wait until everyone is safe and sound and the city has been pumped dry. Of course, if we’re going to go back into my personal feelings about the matter, then I say leave the city submerged and let it go back to the Earth, where it belongs. But then, I could say that about pretty much every city, couldn’t I? I’m the odd one who views humans as the harmful interloper, the planetary virii destroying everything in our path in our quest for more, more, more. I myself am guilty of the disease. Aren’t we all? Well, except for those radical monkeys in Earth First!, who prefer living in trees and eating nuts and twigs, yeah, I guess we are.

I feel slightly remorseful that I dont feel worse for what’s happening down there. I have always said that my one area of prejudice is against the Southern American, usually reserved for white southern males, who seem to be among the most vicious of the species. But that’s prejudice speaking, and I feel bad about it, and I try to compensate for it in other ways because prejudice is wrong and I will never tolerate it in anyone, least of all in myself. So I feel guilty, and I’ve made my donation to the Red Cross (even though theyre no great shakes lately and need a swift kick in the ass themselves), and I’m keeping my fingers crossed for them. I dont want anyone to die. I do feel absolutely terrible for these people…what they are going through is unimaginable. I put myself in their position and I can barely breathe for the horror.

I feel terrible, but there’s a tiny, hateful little part of me going “YES! YES! No more than what those motherfuckers deserve!” That didnt come from nowhere. That came from direct experience with those motherfuckers, and to tell you the truth, I hate them for planting that seed of prejudice in me. It wasn’t there before I went to New Orleans, but it’s been there ever since, no matter how much I remonstrate with myself against it. That little hateful seed is glad for what’s happening, and that disgusts me with myself to the point of I dont know what.

I guess the only thing I can say is that at least I know it’s there, and I know it’s wrong and terrible, and I hate it with everything inside me. I can’t help being who I am, but I can sure help my behaviour, and I can be up front about it and not be in denial. I don’t feel glad that so many people’s lives are utterly destroyed, even if that tiny hateful little seed is. That seed is just a part of me, it’s not who I am. Damn them all for planting it. And damn me for being unable to eviscerate it; to rip it up by its ugly, poisonous roots and burn it.

I wish the best for New Orleans, Mississippi’s gulf coast, and all the areas affected by Katrina. I really do.

And I have to say that I’m absolutely delighted that the Quarter made it out nearly unscathed. Glad and amused and proud. The French Quarter rocks. It’s a tourist trap and wildly overpriced, but it’s what I miss most about Louisiana. The French Quarter is awesome. Not only were they out before the rain stopped falling and the wind stopped blowing, but the fucking bars were open for business. That’s the kind of chutzpah I cannot help but love, and that’s a big, big part of why the Quarter is so totally amazing. It wouldnt surprise me if they had some good blues going there last night, a little private party, just for the locals.

For one shining, insane moment, that actually made me wish I was still there. I used to buy drinks for the doormen at the hotels in the Vieux Carre. It was a good time, especially watching the on-duty NOPD officers sitting, in full uniform, with their cocktails, on the hoods of their prowlers, trying to finagle a “professional discount” out of the working girls leaning over the wrought-iron railings of the upper-floor balconies just off Bourbon Street.

Laissez les bons temps rouler, indeed.

Have one for me, would you?

NOLA.com – Everything New Orleans (New Orleans’ Main Newspaper, the Times-Picayune site…astoundingly still being updated, at least as of this morning.)