(Ed note: Well, that was quick. "Read it Like A Man" didn't bring in the web traffic and died a short happy life. What gives, chickees? Too much literary mind-blowing for you too handle? No? Whatever. Eggheads. Click here to read installments 1-4. Back to the blog...)
"You can try to drown us, and you can pour oil all over us, but the soul of New Orleans lives on in its music and it's people," Quint Davis, Jazz Fest Grand Poobah.
I just returned from a second Jazz Fest taking place while the gulf region suffers through another devastating man-made disaster. Living it up while folks drown in oil brings on its own slightly guilt-inducing cognitive dissonance, but the party-to-keep-from-weeping-ethos is ingrained in New Orleans, and who are we to question civic responsibility?
The weekend was best summed up by Kate Speakes of the "Pussyfooters," a group of well-cleaveged burlesque-y pro-chick parade-marchers. (For the uninitiated, they aren't strippers, they're professional party-goers in frilly skimpy corset thingees; Par for the crawfish bread down there.) At a Mardi Gras World party, Speakes implored me to spread the word that BPs corporate malfeasance is doing ungodly damage to the (often family-owned) fishing and shrimping industry, to the protective wetlands that were starting to regenerate after Katrina, and to the well-being of all kinds of wildlife, including a bird sanctuary created by Teddy Roosevelt back when "conservative" stood for conservation and not "Drill, Baby, Drill."
Passing along the dire word is the absolute least I could do for a region that has brought me such love and happiness over the years. Don't let Eddie Vedder be the only one screaming out at this massive ecological for-profit f*ck-up. It's not much, and Lord knows if it helps, but maybe you could take a second and sign this petition, or drive past the BP station and go to...Exxon? Yikes.
Yet again, hopes, prayers, karmic vibes and best wishes to the gulf region.
In NOLA solidarity, why not read one of the great Big Easy books in the latest Blisstree "Read it Like A Man" series? It's not like you have a job to go to.
