Parlo qui
Or
I’m talkin’ here
As you may note by our title ^, I’m now getting into ‘lingualing’… a term that I made up myself. You could say that I’m bi-lingualing… but I’m not. I’d buy if I could. You might say tri-lingualing… but I’m not trying that hard. In point of fact, I’m actually wishing to lingual (wi-lingualing?); but, I just can’t get none of that stuff to stick, languages that is. Oh, I’ve got books on the learning of foreign languages and they are all about languages that should not be foreign to me…. but are. I have friends that speak more than one language, I’ve been to other countries where they talk different; and, I eat and cook in several nationalities; however, in a word: succhio: I suck at learning any more than rudiments. And it’s a shame… because I believe that speaking another language should come as natural as passing gas.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not as dumb as I look and I can get a beer, a bed or a bathroom anywhere that I find myself. I have been to some non-English speaking places like Brooklyn, East Los Angeles and parts of rural Mississippi and gotten along fine. Also, I’ve been known to get about fine in Europe and Central America with relative ease if not aplomb. Furthermore, I plan other trips abroad and I really want to get more out of other cultures than a strange look as I order doorknobs and light bulbs for dinner in a restaurant.
I’ve been surrounded by other languages all of my life and I have assimilated a little and even studied some. I can hail folks from the far East to the near West; but, with a brain the size of a planet you would imagine that I could remember enough French to get some extra butter for my croissant or a refill of coffee.
The bitch of it all is that I do know how to say things like that; however, my brain freezes once I open my mouth and by the time things are sorted out, the damn waiter decides to practice his English on me! I just want to say: “Yo! Je parle ici (hey, I’m talkin’ here!)
I’m going to go to Sicily soon, where I’m sure you know that they talk a dialect of Italian considered strange, even by Italian standards; and, I’m practicing with dried fava beans in my pie hole, standing on my head and wearing a necklace of garlic. Not really, but close. Compared to classic Italian, the Sicilian accent sounds like a marble salesman with a mouth full of samples; so, it’s gonna be some fun for Tio Felipo.
Meanwhile, back in New Orleans, I’m imagining a city where we all speak other languages some day soon. I picture myself walking down the street to coffee listening to the ‘bon jour’, ‘ teckanes’, ‘buenos dias’, ‘ohio geziamus’, ‘buonjourno’, ‘nee hau ma’ and ‘where Y’at’ of my fellow lingua-maniacs all in the throes of making New Orleans a multi-lingual Mecca.
(Aside: to all non-linguists) You had better learn that ‘Buenos Dias’ thing real quick because New Orleans has a Hispanic population that is growing by leaps and bounds; so, now that you can comfortably order cervesas with your chiles rellenos, you can add phrases like “!Veo al lado de su equipo que usted es vaquero” or “I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy!”. You just never know when you might use it.
It’s just too bad that we can’t get an influx of all kinds of folks here; say… how about a slew of Frenchies? Then we could practice saying stuff like “oui, nous faisons cuire avec plus de douze ingredients” (“yes, we do cook with more than twelve ingredients”). Or, “faire des pomme frites sount fourni avec cette boisson glace?” (do fries come with that shake?) Plus, we already have a lot of our streets with French names, even if we don’t pronounce them like a French person would. Furthermore, they use the same alphabet and we could use more real French restaurants. Also, French people really know how to dress, they really do, and in my humble opinion we could use an influx of metro-sexualism in our wardrobes, n’est pas?
Or, how about we get us more Italians, ah yes, Italians. Is there a more lyrical sound than the romantic, tongue rolling, silk textural, sensual, goose bump inspiring sound of the Italian language delivered with love? Or the baseball bat to the kidney, battery acid to the eyes, ball peen hammer to the temporal lobe of the same tongue spoken in anger turned to wrath? No, on both counts. Italian is the language of passion and persuasion. Witness, if you will, the English translation of “Se lei tocca mia molgie… rompero la sua faccia!” (you touch my wife…I break you face!) And, here’s one for you to learn: “Lo scambio Americano della moglie e una cosa del passato” (American wife swapping is a thing of the past), or Cio e una pistola nella sua tasca o la sono appena contento per mi verdere? (Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?) See, there’s something for everyone.
Okay, we’re on a roll here, let’s try this: You and your friend are in a coffee shop and at the next table you think that you hear a some Germans talking. Have your friend say “Ich wette Sie, das ich weib, wo, Sie sie schuhe erhalten haben. (I bet that I can tell you where you got your shoes). Now, if they look at you funny, they might be Dutch and not German. How do you tell? Well, you just lean real close to the biggest one and say “Ik ben niet zeker maar Ik denk dat hij over uw moeder prat” (I’m not sure, but I think he’s talking about your mother) That ought to do it, huh?
Whew! We’re out of space now; but, New Year’s resolution (!!)… expand your linguals!!
plamancusa@aol.com
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Valentine's in New Orleans
Valentine’s Day
Or
I’ll Get You For This!
Okay, I’m channeling Carrie Bradshaw here; but, is it not true that when you tell someone that big old “L” word that, in essence, you are committing to a technicolor, gossamer lined, cotton candy, hold ’em close and never let them go, love you to death debt of honor; and, at the same time subjecting yourself to a like indenture? In other words, when you say I love you…do you really mean “you owe me”? Do I hear the shackling of the handcuffs to the heart?
Now, don’t take this personal; these are just questions, and perhaps a waste of space except that February is ripe for such inquiries, what with Valentine’s and all…plus, there is my never ending tendency to challenge your thought processes.
At this point let me clarify that, yes, I do have a lover in my life and not only does my lover act, show and treat me as if I am worthy of love; my lover tells me that she loves me and I appreciate each and every time that I hear it from her lips. Yet, I remain amazed at the plethora of connotations that are implied with the use of the word ‘love’.
“I love you”. Did your Mama an ‘em lay that one on you (“I love you, Little Booger”) when you were young; and, did you not know that any mischief, mayhem or mis-step that you made would be a breach of faith to that love? That, that love, that was given so freely and then held over your head like a fragile bird (that you could destroy with a slip in your behavior), was cemented with those words? What do we actually mean by those three little words? AND, do we accept or place burdens on ourselves and others, perhaps naively, by their use? Is it as well an award and a reward? Is the word ‘love’ slung around like a garnish of whipped cream? Does it curdle with misuse or neglect; and, (like whipped cream) does it’s use in sex seem a little weird sometimes? A re-enforcement, a goose bumpy, puppy face-licking phrase of sub-serviance?
First though: Asking about what we mean by love itself can fill this newspaper and plenty of others and so, we’re not going to get into all that here. Better to save that discussion (what is love?) for a dark and stormy night, by a warm fire with a couple of brandies under our belts. I’m wondering about the many ways that we use the word. Disparities abound in a myriad of circumstances with the uses, the oft overlooked conundrum: what do we really mean when we say “I love you”? Can it possibly be as simple as that; the epitome of human felling can be condensed into three words? Let’s see.
Now, sometimes the ‘L’ word is used as a benediction as in when you’re leaving someone in a hospital bed, kissing a child good night or ringing off on a phone conversation. At times, guns drawn and ready to break down the perp’s door and my partner and I take a deep breath and I say “ready?” and she nods assent, I say softly “I love you” and we bust in guns blazing!
Newspaper cartoon of a girl child waking up her father and he says: “huh, wha?” and she says “Dad, I just wanted to tell you what a wonderful father you are and that I love you”. The dad smiles and the child adds “and I just spilled a gallon of fruit punch in the refrigerator”.
But wait! There’s more: Is it a natural or conditioned response that when someone says ‘I love you” to say “I love you, too”? Try responding: “Why, what did you do?” or “Yes but, I love you more” or (here’s the best one) “Okay. Grab me a beer, will ya?”
Okay, show of hands… how many of us take our critters close and say those words? I do, and I’m not too shy to admit to kissing my cat and nuzzling my dog; or, nuzzling my cat and kissing my dog. Either circumstance has me saying those three little words. Incidentally when a dog licks you is that an ‘I love you’ or a ‘don’t kick me’? Who can swear?
Does Jesus really love me? Did God love me so much that he sent Jesus to save me? I don’t know, I haven’t met either one of them. Which brings up love in religion and the faithful. Is it love or fear? Does Buddha love me? Muhammad? Does eternal love require eternally saying it? What is expected in return? No, you can’t have my beer.
Can you love a government the way that you love someone’s sweater, earrings or lipstick? And don’t tell me that I don’t know the difference between love and lust; although, I have been known to use ‘the word’ interchangeably for both types of attraction.
And I’m here to tell you that I am a great fan of the spoken word, especially when it’s to express love; however, this Valentine’s I’m making a resolution to mix it up: learning to say ‘I love you’ in foreign languages, wagging my tail or purring are also things that I’m up for trying. But also, there are other ways to keep love’s attention: treat, act and show are good places to start for the non-verbal communication of our feelings.
Face it, we show our loved ones that we love them by our actions and how we treat them; ‘the do’s: politeness, respect, space considerations and compliments as well as understanding, patience, forgiveness that go with the practicing of the Golden Rule. Add to that the ‘nots’: not being a pain in the ass to be around, not acting the fool, not overstressing your opinions and not knowing when to shut the fuck up.
Another thing that you can do is to read this article to your loved one. Just make sure that you stress after the reading that; “Honey, I’m sure that he’s not talking about us!”. Happy V.D. (Valentine’s Day) P.S. I love you.
plamancusa@aol.com
Or
I’ll Get You For This!
Okay, I’m channeling Carrie Bradshaw here; but, is it not true that when you tell someone that big old “L” word that, in essence, you are committing to a technicolor, gossamer lined, cotton candy, hold ’em close and never let them go, love you to death debt of honor; and, at the same time subjecting yourself to a like indenture? In other words, when you say I love you…do you really mean “you owe me”? Do I hear the shackling of the handcuffs to the heart?
Now, don’t take this personal; these are just questions, and perhaps a waste of space except that February is ripe for such inquiries, what with Valentine’s and all…plus, there is my never ending tendency to challenge your thought processes.
At this point let me clarify that, yes, I do have a lover in my life and not only does my lover act, show and treat me as if I am worthy of love; my lover tells me that she loves me and I appreciate each and every time that I hear it from her lips. Yet, I remain amazed at the plethora of connotations that are implied with the use of the word ‘love’.
“I love you”. Did your Mama an ‘em lay that one on you (“I love you, Little Booger”) when you were young; and, did you not know that any mischief, mayhem or mis-step that you made would be a breach of faith to that love? That, that love, that was given so freely and then held over your head like a fragile bird (that you could destroy with a slip in your behavior), was cemented with those words? What do we actually mean by those three little words? AND, do we accept or place burdens on ourselves and others, perhaps naively, by their use? Is it as well an award and a reward? Is the word ‘love’ slung around like a garnish of whipped cream? Does it curdle with misuse or neglect; and, (like whipped cream) does it’s use in sex seem a little weird sometimes? A re-enforcement, a goose bumpy, puppy face-licking phrase of sub-serviance?
First though: Asking about what we mean by love itself can fill this newspaper and plenty of others and so, we’re not going to get into all that here. Better to save that discussion (what is love?) for a dark and stormy night, by a warm fire with a couple of brandies under our belts. I’m wondering about the many ways that we use the word. Disparities abound in a myriad of circumstances with the uses, the oft overlooked conundrum: what do we really mean when we say “I love you”? Can it possibly be as simple as that; the epitome of human felling can be condensed into three words? Let’s see.
Now, sometimes the ‘L’ word is used as a benediction as in when you’re leaving someone in a hospital bed, kissing a child good night or ringing off on a phone conversation. At times, guns drawn and ready to break down the perp’s door and my partner and I take a deep breath and I say “ready?” and she nods assent, I say softly “I love you” and we bust in guns blazing!
Newspaper cartoon of a girl child waking up her father and he says: “huh, wha?” and she says “Dad, I just wanted to tell you what a wonderful father you are and that I love you”. The dad smiles and the child adds “and I just spilled a gallon of fruit punch in the refrigerator”.
But wait! There’s more: Is it a natural or conditioned response that when someone says ‘I love you” to say “I love you, too”? Try responding: “Why, what did you do?” or “Yes but, I love you more” or (here’s the best one) “Okay. Grab me a beer, will ya?”
Okay, show of hands… how many of us take our critters close and say those words? I do, and I’m not too shy to admit to kissing my cat and nuzzling my dog; or, nuzzling my cat and kissing my dog. Either circumstance has me saying those three little words. Incidentally when a dog licks you is that an ‘I love you’ or a ‘don’t kick me’? Who can swear?
Does Jesus really love me? Did God love me so much that he sent Jesus to save me? I don’t know, I haven’t met either one of them. Which brings up love in religion and the faithful. Is it love or fear? Does Buddha love me? Muhammad? Does eternal love require eternally saying it? What is expected in return? No, you can’t have my beer.
Can you love a government the way that you love someone’s sweater, earrings or lipstick? And don’t tell me that I don’t know the difference between love and lust; although, I have been known to use ‘the word’ interchangeably for both types of attraction.
And I’m here to tell you that I am a great fan of the spoken word, especially when it’s to express love; however, this Valentine’s I’m making a resolution to mix it up: learning to say ‘I love you’ in foreign languages, wagging my tail or purring are also things that I’m up for trying. But also, there are other ways to keep love’s attention: treat, act and show are good places to start for the non-verbal communication of our feelings.
Face it, we show our loved ones that we love them by our actions and how we treat them; ‘the do’s: politeness, respect, space considerations and compliments as well as understanding, patience, forgiveness that go with the practicing of the Golden Rule. Add to that the ‘nots’: not being a pain in the ass to be around, not acting the fool, not overstressing your opinions and not knowing when to shut the fuck up.
Another thing that you can do is to read this article to your loved one. Just make sure that you stress after the reading that; “Honey, I’m sure that he’s not talking about us!”. Happy V.D. (Valentine’s Day) P.S. I love you.
plamancusa@aol.com
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Christmas Balls in New Orleans
Po Boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Christmas Balls
Or
Darning the Coal in Your Stockings
This year it’s my turn to give presents and, times being what they are, the coffers of poor boys everywhere are looking like Mother Hubbard’s cupboard; can I get a witness? My glass is nowhere near half anything, my money is funny and in the words of P. Floyd “they’re giving none away”.
So this year I’m going to give away what I have the most of, besides the love in my heart. I’m giving, for the holidays, my opinions. Unabashed, forthright, brazen and bold. I’m soul weary of biting my tongue about stuff that no one wants to talk about and so, as a gift, I want to give you something to talk about, think about and agree or not agree with. Here’s a start:
ONE. I am against white people moving into black neighborhoods and taking a slice from the home turf of African Americans and gentrifying it and objecting to traditions and rituals like second lines and meeting places that may cut into their peace and quiet. You know what, if you want peace and quiet….don’t buy a house across the street from a bar! In a Black neighborhood!
To that end, I want African Americans of means to move back into the hood, buy homes, contribute to community and vision and send white people back to their own neighborhoods, get grocery stores, markets, and services back into the neighbor’s hands. Revolt against the white slumlords that are keeping African American culture down and take back our legacy (yes, Black legacy belongs to all of us). What’s the matter of investing in rental properties where it will do the most good? Put your money where your mouth is. What’s more, I believe that the Claiborne overpass should be torn down, oak trees replanted and the division of the Treme obliterated like the crime that it is.
TWO. I believe that Catholics should maintain the right to have their churches stay where they have been, convenient, accessible and NOT be discontinued on the whim of some self appointed guardian of their groove. My solution would be for parishioners of threatened parishes to purchase their churches and hire their own priests. To hell with being pushed around! Have the archdiocese sell the buildings to the parishioners and maintain staff using an old concept called tithing. Do I hear an AMEN? You Catholics run your schools the same way, don’t you?
THREE. Let us dispense with the premise that all people are created equal, and no, I’m not about to question anybody’s inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit. I’m talking about the fact that there are smart people and there are some folks that are dumber than rocks. There are people that can read a book and have instant recall, and there’s me who can’t remember anything that I’ve read from one moment to the next. There’s the person that can’t exist without a book in their hands and then there is the person that hasn’t read anything but the funnies since they left school. There are good guys, there’s bad guys, there’s a guy that will give you the shirt off their back and the one who wouldn’t spit on you if you were on fire. Some people are as solid as a rock and others cannot hold a job for love or money. Some people can drink alcohol and others are better off letting the hooch alone. Some women make wonderful mothers and others pass on traditions of abuse, neglect and ignorance. I think that we should give people all the respect that they deserve, stop making excuses for losers and concentrate on saving the children before they become the next generation of defects. Concentrate more on giving hands up and less on giving hand outs.
FOUR. How about this? Anyone who is crying about this economic crisis that we’re having and how it affects New Orleans citizens should try opening a community oriented business of their own. Be part of the stimulus and get some money moving around our town. We need more corner grocers, mechanics and notary publics; stationers, shop owners, seamstresses, haberdashers and repairmen. We live in a fragmented society because we have ceased to function in our immediate environment, we work for employers that care little if anything about our lives and the future of our families. We shop in box stores that buy stuff from China and diss our made in USA stuff. We act as a nation of sheep, of service to no-one and of good to no-thing. What happened to that person that we wanted to be when we grew up?
Are we in the holiday spirit yet? No? Well how about some bad news?
FIVE. As I see it, a lot of the messes that we’ve gotten into have at their root irrational and selfish expectations impaired by a deficiency of imagination and compounded by poor work ethics, inexperience and the unwillingness to learn from mistakes, ours and others. We let ourselves get into jams by being greedy and laboring under the misconception that luck and the kindness of strangers will pull us through, and then complain when that does not happen.
Witness if you will this month’s daily newspaper that has a toy drive for the needy with sob stories about unwed mothers with multiple offspring, ignored by the fathers, possibly having part time jobs or on the public dole, in section eight accommodations and without the means or wherewithal to be an asset to America? Am I wrong or if a parent cannot afford to have a child, is it not logical to practice some form of birth control? Or… doesn’t bringing a child into this world come with some form of parental responsibility?
Next to all those bastards that voted in 700 billion dollars in bailout and than added another one and a half billion of pork to it: You suck.
And yes, Virginia, race has everything to do with elections.
By
Phil LaMancusa
Christmas Balls
Or
Darning the Coal in Your Stockings
This year it’s my turn to give presents and, times being what they are, the coffers of poor boys everywhere are looking like Mother Hubbard’s cupboard; can I get a witness? My glass is nowhere near half anything, my money is funny and in the words of P. Floyd “they’re giving none away”.
So this year I’m going to give away what I have the most of, besides the love in my heart. I’m giving, for the holidays, my opinions. Unabashed, forthright, brazen and bold. I’m soul weary of biting my tongue about stuff that no one wants to talk about and so, as a gift, I want to give you something to talk about, think about and agree or not agree with. Here’s a start:
ONE. I am against white people moving into black neighborhoods and taking a slice from the home turf of African Americans and gentrifying it and objecting to traditions and rituals like second lines and meeting places that may cut into their peace and quiet. You know what, if you want peace and quiet….don’t buy a house across the street from a bar! In a Black neighborhood!
To that end, I want African Americans of means to move back into the hood, buy homes, contribute to community and vision and send white people back to their own neighborhoods, get grocery stores, markets, and services back into the neighbor’s hands. Revolt against the white slumlords that are keeping African American culture down and take back our legacy (yes, Black legacy belongs to all of us). What’s the matter of investing in rental properties where it will do the most good? Put your money where your mouth is. What’s more, I believe that the Claiborne overpass should be torn down, oak trees replanted and the division of the Treme obliterated like the crime that it is.
TWO. I believe that Catholics should maintain the right to have their churches stay where they have been, convenient, accessible and NOT be discontinued on the whim of some self appointed guardian of their groove. My solution would be for parishioners of threatened parishes to purchase their churches and hire their own priests. To hell with being pushed around! Have the archdiocese sell the buildings to the parishioners and maintain staff using an old concept called tithing. Do I hear an AMEN? You Catholics run your schools the same way, don’t you?
THREE. Let us dispense with the premise that all people are created equal, and no, I’m not about to question anybody’s inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit. I’m talking about the fact that there are smart people and there are some folks that are dumber than rocks. There are people that can read a book and have instant recall, and there’s me who can’t remember anything that I’ve read from one moment to the next. There’s the person that can’t exist without a book in their hands and then there is the person that hasn’t read anything but the funnies since they left school. There are good guys, there’s bad guys, there’s a guy that will give you the shirt off their back and the one who wouldn’t spit on you if you were on fire. Some people are as solid as a rock and others cannot hold a job for love or money. Some people can drink alcohol and others are better off letting the hooch alone. Some women make wonderful mothers and others pass on traditions of abuse, neglect and ignorance. I think that we should give people all the respect that they deserve, stop making excuses for losers and concentrate on saving the children before they become the next generation of defects. Concentrate more on giving hands up and less on giving hand outs.
FOUR. How about this? Anyone who is crying about this economic crisis that we’re having and how it affects New Orleans citizens should try opening a community oriented business of their own. Be part of the stimulus and get some money moving around our town. We need more corner grocers, mechanics and notary publics; stationers, shop owners, seamstresses, haberdashers and repairmen. We live in a fragmented society because we have ceased to function in our immediate environment, we work for employers that care little if anything about our lives and the future of our families. We shop in box stores that buy stuff from China and diss our made in USA stuff. We act as a nation of sheep, of service to no-one and of good to no-thing. What happened to that person that we wanted to be when we grew up?
Are we in the holiday spirit yet? No? Well how about some bad news?
FIVE. As I see it, a lot of the messes that we’ve gotten into have at their root irrational and selfish expectations impaired by a deficiency of imagination and compounded by poor work ethics, inexperience and the unwillingness to learn from mistakes, ours and others. We let ourselves get into jams by being greedy and laboring under the misconception that luck and the kindness of strangers will pull us through, and then complain when that does not happen.
Witness if you will this month’s daily newspaper that has a toy drive for the needy with sob stories about unwed mothers with multiple offspring, ignored by the fathers, possibly having part time jobs or on the public dole, in section eight accommodations and without the means or wherewithal to be an asset to America? Am I wrong or if a parent cannot afford to have a child, is it not logical to practice some form of birth control? Or… doesn’t bringing a child into this world come with some form of parental responsibility?
Next to all those bastards that voted in 700 billion dollars in bailout and than added another one and a half billion of pork to it: You suck.
And yes, Virginia, race has everything to do with elections.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
2008 vote from New Orleans
Po Boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Are We There Yet?
Or
Coo Coo Ka Joo
Well, it’s November and we’re about to be shot at and missed and shit at and hit. The days of wine and roses have come and gone and with the last shred of my innocence we’ll go from hell and high water straight into the prospect of a Thanksgiving with the realization that we may have, with our votes, actually chosen the wrong team to lead us. I mean, what happens if we are left at the mercy of those who may (or may not) have voted with us being instrumental in making the exact wrong choice. Have we unleashed the hounds of hell or elected people who, for all intents and purposes, cannot (read are not capable to) deliver the change that they promised because the infection of greed in our country goes too deep even for the brightest and the best of us to effect a difference for the good of all? When doubt rears its ugly head, pessimism snarls like a junk yard dog and optimists catch the last train to Clarksville. All those oysters and no pearls of wisdom.
The gas companies raked in sixty billion dollars this year in profits, the combined salaries of the two biggest loan association’s presidents (that the government had to bail out) is in excess of thirty million dollars a year and I’m sitting here eating pimento cheese spread and crackers wondering how I’m going to pay next month’s rent.
I remember that I had too few friends growing up, I remember when I didn’t give a thought about politics and I remember a time when ambrosia was the most exotic dish that I could ever have imagined. Concentrating on the welfare of my pals and eating exotic foods are good for my nerves, thinking about politics is not.
You have to take into consideration that this column is being written with a deadline of early September and hurricanes and evacuations are more on my mind then the outcome of a decision that will be collectively made about this country’s future standing and it’s citizens’ welfare for years to come. Believe you me, this is putting a serious cramp on my Halloween plans.
Now see what you made me do? You know how hard it is to set down a thousand words and I just erased what would have been the next one hundred and twenty five words just because they were ugly and mean. Believe me, you do not want to know.
Let’s start again. Yo! Flaws and faux pas, goofs and gaffes, the crass, the craven and the interlopers will be led up the golden staircase only to be cast aside for the chosen few to take their unrightful place and there will be the gnashing of teeth and the rending of garments by those affected and afflicted by the loss of prestige and power. How many ballerinas will dance on the head of the pin? Who will do the laundry when Snow White goes out to play? While Harry Potter strips to the full Monty and love affairs are conducted by text messaging; where do the unenlightened go for a good cup of Joe? Clover Grill hops with Little Queenie and the Percolators and Chris Owens look-alikes vie for the company of gorillas and nobody wants to dress up in the costume of a governor. Meals ready to eat, bottles of water and bags if ice served on blue tarp tablecloths and we’re celebrating the day of all souls on the eve of All Saints in black and gold. When someone passes us a joint we pass it back with solemn invocation…”it’s only dinner”.
The Von Trapps have escaped again and Monkey Hill is alive with the sound of charwomen dressed as faeries. Who will be the next manipulator of history? Who will pass the mental note torch, pull the trick of the mind? From whence will come our collective next brain seizure? You’ll need to be Houdini to get out of this one.
Dust off your View Finder and find the 3D images cavorting on Bourbon Street. Despots will come and go, the next incarnation of the Maitreya is at hand and the crazed delivery boy beheads his lover and after ravishing what’s left of her body, goes for a lap dance and a drink culminated by a swan dive from a roof top. Ambiguous thunder from the East and Lenny Bruce nods out sagely after declaring “I told you so… Halloween is Carnival compressed”. The Fire Queen is being summoned to the court of the Crimson King and the next four years will need you to call for much more than lawyers, guns and money. This may be the election that screws us hard and dry and up against a frigging tree.
However, before I tell you to hang the crepe…. you are a registered voter, right? You have been following the debates, interviews and massive media debris, right? Right? Well, where’s your friggin’ button? How ready are you to defend your candidate with facts, logic and energy? You won’t get fooled again. Right?
One thing that we can all agree upon (I hope to god we can all agree) is that the last administration mugged, raped and pillaged us. We the people. And the fact of the matter is that we did absolutely nothing to stop them except to wait for our phone to ring with a pollster asking how we rated the destruction, as if the fate of the world was judged like a popularity contest…the biggest looser. Which in effect makes us all a bunch of lazy cowards who put up with the bullying, backstabbing and deceit and let them stay on the island.
The least that your vote can accomplish is to cancel out one of theirs. The amount that your voice can accomplish is that you speak up for what you believe in and the fact that you do believe in something more than what you’ve got today. It means that you want a stake in your future and that leaving home was not the last mature thing that you did.
I work the polls. If you’re registered, I’ve got your name. If I’ve got your name, I’ll know if you vote. Not voting is the most self-destructive thing that you could ever do.
Missed a column? Phillamancusa.blogspot.com
By
Phil LaMancusa
Are We There Yet?
Or
Coo Coo Ka Joo
Well, it’s November and we’re about to be shot at and missed and shit at and hit. The days of wine and roses have come and gone and with the last shred of my innocence we’ll go from hell and high water straight into the prospect of a Thanksgiving with the realization that we may have, with our votes, actually chosen the wrong team to lead us. I mean, what happens if we are left at the mercy of those who may (or may not) have voted with us being instrumental in making the exact wrong choice. Have we unleashed the hounds of hell or elected people who, for all intents and purposes, cannot (read are not capable to) deliver the change that they promised because the infection of greed in our country goes too deep even for the brightest and the best of us to effect a difference for the good of all? When doubt rears its ugly head, pessimism snarls like a junk yard dog and optimists catch the last train to Clarksville. All those oysters and no pearls of wisdom.
The gas companies raked in sixty billion dollars this year in profits, the combined salaries of the two biggest loan association’s presidents (that the government had to bail out) is in excess of thirty million dollars a year and I’m sitting here eating pimento cheese spread and crackers wondering how I’m going to pay next month’s rent.
I remember that I had too few friends growing up, I remember when I didn’t give a thought about politics and I remember a time when ambrosia was the most exotic dish that I could ever have imagined. Concentrating on the welfare of my pals and eating exotic foods are good for my nerves, thinking about politics is not.
You have to take into consideration that this column is being written with a deadline of early September and hurricanes and evacuations are more on my mind then the outcome of a decision that will be collectively made about this country’s future standing and it’s citizens’ welfare for years to come. Believe you me, this is putting a serious cramp on my Halloween plans.
Now see what you made me do? You know how hard it is to set down a thousand words and I just erased what would have been the next one hundred and twenty five words just because they were ugly and mean. Believe me, you do not want to know.
Let’s start again. Yo! Flaws and faux pas, goofs and gaffes, the crass, the craven and the interlopers will be led up the golden staircase only to be cast aside for the chosen few to take their unrightful place and there will be the gnashing of teeth and the rending of garments by those affected and afflicted by the loss of prestige and power. How many ballerinas will dance on the head of the pin? Who will do the laundry when Snow White goes out to play? While Harry Potter strips to the full Monty and love affairs are conducted by text messaging; where do the unenlightened go for a good cup of Joe? Clover Grill hops with Little Queenie and the Percolators and Chris Owens look-alikes vie for the company of gorillas and nobody wants to dress up in the costume of a governor. Meals ready to eat, bottles of water and bags if ice served on blue tarp tablecloths and we’re celebrating the day of all souls on the eve of All Saints in black and gold. When someone passes us a joint we pass it back with solemn invocation…”it’s only dinner”.
The Von Trapps have escaped again and Monkey Hill is alive with the sound of charwomen dressed as faeries. Who will be the next manipulator of history? Who will pass the mental note torch, pull the trick of the mind? From whence will come our collective next brain seizure? You’ll need to be Houdini to get out of this one.
Dust off your View Finder and find the 3D images cavorting on Bourbon Street. Despots will come and go, the next incarnation of the Maitreya is at hand and the crazed delivery boy beheads his lover and after ravishing what’s left of her body, goes for a lap dance and a drink culminated by a swan dive from a roof top. Ambiguous thunder from the East and Lenny Bruce nods out sagely after declaring “I told you so… Halloween is Carnival compressed”. The Fire Queen is being summoned to the court of the Crimson King and the next four years will need you to call for much more than lawyers, guns and money. This may be the election that screws us hard and dry and up against a frigging tree.
However, before I tell you to hang the crepe…. you are a registered voter, right? You have been following the debates, interviews and massive media debris, right? Right? Well, where’s your friggin’ button? How ready are you to defend your candidate with facts, logic and energy? You won’t get fooled again. Right?
One thing that we can all agree upon (I hope to god we can all agree) is that the last administration mugged, raped and pillaged us. We the people. And the fact of the matter is that we did absolutely nothing to stop them except to wait for our phone to ring with a pollster asking how we rated the destruction, as if the fate of the world was judged like a popularity contest…the biggest looser. Which in effect makes us all a bunch of lazy cowards who put up with the bullying, backstabbing and deceit and let them stay on the island.
The least that your vote can accomplish is to cancel out one of theirs. The amount that your voice can accomplish is that you speak up for what you believe in and the fact that you do believe in something more than what you’ve got today. It means that you want a stake in your future and that leaving home was not the last mature thing that you did.
I work the polls. If you’re registered, I’ve got your name. If I’ve got your name, I’ll know if you vote. Not voting is the most self-destructive thing that you could ever do.
Missed a column? Phillamancusa.blogspot.com
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Carnival in New Orleans
Po-boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
The Twenty-five Thousand Dollar Cake
Or
Mardi Gras Mad Man
***********
Cab drivers and communists! Cheese and crackers! Christ on a crutch! My long lost nephew has moved back to The Big Easy!
Actually, I don’t know if he’s ever lived here before; I haven’t laid eyes on him since he was knee high to a Huge Ass Beer ™ cup. But, his parents used to live here, so that’s enough for me to classify him as a replant, of sorts. There was, as I recall, a certain gleam in his Daddy’s eyes while he was here, who knows, it may have been him.
I’ve only seen him once since he’s been back, but knowing the intelligence level of his family, and mine, I feel sure that he’s reading this. I must tell him about Mardi Gras, lest he become grist for the mill.
Dear Nephew,
Welcome back and let me say, for one, that things have changed a bit since you were here last in flesh or in gleam and not, I fear, for the better.
You see, there’s this thing called Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday (not to be confused with Lundi Gras, which is the day before, or Foie Gras, which is the Friday before). Fat Tuesday has always been preceded by Carnival. It is, definitively, THE uber-experience. There’s even a Mardi Gras Cake that won $25,000.00 in a national bake off.
The word Carnival comes from the Latin ‘cruise from Hell’ or ‘flesh be gone’ which ever you choose to believe. Carnival is a time for partying, exchanging body fluids, dancing, eating and throwing up, all to excess. A lot of natives do this all the time; but, when you have millions of amateur ‘visitors’ trying to keep up, it can get real messy.
Mardi Gras in New Orleans is a tired old horse that middle-aged merchants start whipping at the beginning of the year in the hopes that by Ash Wednesday the frothing, wide eyed, sweat soaked, bleeding and exhausted mount will have generated enough profit that some of it may actually stay in Louisiana.
Carnival officially starts at Twelfth Night, which is twelve days after Christmas, called Kings Night, after the Three Wise Guys who came to see newborn Baby Jee; they had given all the gifts they could, starting with a partridge in a pear tree, had to split back to the Orient and marked the occasion as a Catholic holiday. Amen.
What we do nowadays on Twelfth Night is: bake a cake with a baby in it, smear it with purple, yellow and green icing and whoever bites into the baby gets to sue the bakery or buy the next ‘King Cake’ and continue the cycle. Needless to say, a lot of dentists make money during Carnival. This continues until Mardi Gras, which is the day before Ash Wednesday . Ash Wednesday is forty days before Easter and nobody is supposed to have a good time during that period. It’s Called Lent. Why? I don’t know.
When is Mardi Gras? Forty-one days before Easter. When is Easter?
Officially, Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox or Winter Solstice or something . So, to find out when Mardi Gras is, do the math, consult an occultist or look at a calendar.
To start celebrating Carnival, start drinking at Thanksgiving and don’t stop until the trash on Bourbon Street is waist high and everyone else looks really, really strange. The two may, at times, be mutually exclusive.
******************************************
Carnival is also celebrated with Fancy Dressed and Masked Balls (no pun intended), Parades, public humiliation, and large amounts of money going to other Third World Countries. The only thing we stop short of is human sacrifice, I think.
Parades and Balls are put on by Krewes, which is French for Crews. Krewes are made up of ‘social and pleasure’ clubs that elect a King and a Queen to lead them in parades where they cheerfully throw things like cabbages, condoms, coconuts, medallions, doubloons and strings of beads at frothing, maniacal spectators who then fight over them. The King is usually a middle-aged merchant and the Queen is usually a young woman from a well to do family who has reached drinking age. The King remains masked while the Queen wears Lancôme ™ tastefully. What’s up with that? Again, I don’t know; they’re called ‘Secret Societies’.
Another group of ‘Secret Societies’ is The Mardi Gras Indians. The fact that I consider any ‘Society’ that doesn’t invite me to join them, ‘Secret’ is another issue altogether. The Indians, far and away, would be the last group to ask me in. Why? I can’t sew and I don’t speak their language. Let me explain:
‘The Indians’ trace their roots back to the native Americans that befriended persons of color that they felt a kinship with because of the, non native, persons of non color’s rotten attitude toward anyone besides themselves, middle-aged merchants and young women who had reached drinking age. That’s how I see it, I could be wrong, it’s only my word against anyone else’s.
Anyway, Indians sew elaborate, intricate and complex Native American costumes, the likes of which would have Sitting Bull standing in his grave. They parade in groups of twelve to twenty resplendent in sequins, feathers, fabrics and heavy artillery. In their words “when you see us comin’, better get out the way!”
The Indians chant words like “Jock-imo findo hondo-wando fee nah nay”,
“Iko Iko”, “Tu-way-pa-ka-way. Oowa-a-a!” and “kick your ass on the overpass”. This either means: “my ‘Spy Boy’ spotted your ‘Flag Boy’ and ‘Big Chief’ (from the Metarie Ridge) has a shiny pistol and is “gonna make you jump in de river”, or “War, huuh, (good God, y’all) what is it good for?” (Absolutely nuthin’!).
********************************************
Anyway, Carnival generates a gazillion samollions towards the housing, education, working conditions and welfare of the needy for places like Mexico (tee shirts), Burma (sweat shirts), India (condoms), China (baseball caps), Indonesia (beads) and other parts of this country (food stuffs, plastic ware, breast implants and alcoholic beverages), none of which you’ll ever see. Content yourself with having a good time watching a bazillion of out of towners doing things that they would never do at home and remember:
1. Never drink anything stronger than you are, or of a color not found in nature.
2. Never, ever try to stop someone from acting improperly. One woman that I know did that and got her ass kicked by not one, not two but three ‘visitors’.
3. Don’t fight old ladies for beads. Doing so is a sure way of getting a heel print imbedded on the back of your hand.
4. Dress appropriately. No beads, wallet, credit cards, expensive jewelry or more cash than you care to part with.
5. If someone wants to bet you that they know ‘where you got your shoes’, tell them that they’re not your shoes.
Your loving Uncle, Phil
P.S. If you want the recipe for the $25,000.00 Mardi Gras Cake email me
Plamancusa@aol
By
Phil LaMancusa
The Twenty-five Thousand Dollar Cake
Or
Mardi Gras Mad Man
***********
Cab drivers and communists! Cheese and crackers! Christ on a crutch! My long lost nephew has moved back to The Big Easy!
Actually, I don’t know if he’s ever lived here before; I haven’t laid eyes on him since he was knee high to a Huge Ass Beer ™ cup. But, his parents used to live here, so that’s enough for me to classify him as a replant, of sorts. There was, as I recall, a certain gleam in his Daddy’s eyes while he was here, who knows, it may have been him.
I’ve only seen him once since he’s been back, but knowing the intelligence level of his family, and mine, I feel sure that he’s reading this. I must tell him about Mardi Gras, lest he become grist for the mill.
Dear Nephew,
Welcome back and let me say, for one, that things have changed a bit since you were here last in flesh or in gleam and not, I fear, for the better.
You see, there’s this thing called Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday (not to be confused with Lundi Gras, which is the day before, or Foie Gras, which is the Friday before). Fat Tuesday has always been preceded by Carnival. It is, definitively, THE uber-experience. There’s even a Mardi Gras Cake that won $25,000.00 in a national bake off.
The word Carnival comes from the Latin ‘cruise from Hell’ or ‘flesh be gone’ which ever you choose to believe. Carnival is a time for partying, exchanging body fluids, dancing, eating and throwing up, all to excess. A lot of natives do this all the time; but, when you have millions of amateur ‘visitors’ trying to keep up, it can get real messy.
Mardi Gras in New Orleans is a tired old horse that middle-aged merchants start whipping at the beginning of the year in the hopes that by Ash Wednesday the frothing, wide eyed, sweat soaked, bleeding and exhausted mount will have generated enough profit that some of it may actually stay in Louisiana.
Carnival officially starts at Twelfth Night, which is twelve days after Christmas, called Kings Night, after the Three Wise Guys who came to see newborn Baby Jee; they had given all the gifts they could, starting with a partridge in a pear tree, had to split back to the Orient and marked the occasion as a Catholic holiday. Amen.
What we do nowadays on Twelfth Night is: bake a cake with a baby in it, smear it with purple, yellow and green icing and whoever bites into the baby gets to sue the bakery or buy the next ‘King Cake’ and continue the cycle. Needless to say, a lot of dentists make money during Carnival. This continues until Mardi Gras, which is the day before Ash Wednesday . Ash Wednesday is forty days before Easter and nobody is supposed to have a good time during that period. It’s Called Lent. Why? I don’t know.
When is Mardi Gras? Forty-one days before Easter. When is Easter?
Officially, Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox or Winter Solstice or something . So, to find out when Mardi Gras is, do the math, consult an occultist or look at a calendar.
To start celebrating Carnival, start drinking at Thanksgiving and don’t stop until the trash on Bourbon Street is waist high and everyone else looks really, really strange. The two may, at times, be mutually exclusive.
******************************************
Carnival is also celebrated with Fancy Dressed and Masked Balls (no pun intended), Parades, public humiliation, and large amounts of money going to other Third World Countries. The only thing we stop short of is human sacrifice, I think.
Parades and Balls are put on by Krewes, which is French for Crews. Krewes are made up of ‘social and pleasure’ clubs that elect a King and a Queen to lead them in parades where they cheerfully throw things like cabbages, condoms, coconuts, medallions, doubloons and strings of beads at frothing, maniacal spectators who then fight over them. The King is usually a middle-aged merchant and the Queen is usually a young woman from a well to do family who has reached drinking age. The King remains masked while the Queen wears Lancôme ™ tastefully. What’s up with that? Again, I don’t know; they’re called ‘Secret Societies’.
Another group of ‘Secret Societies’ is The Mardi Gras Indians. The fact that I consider any ‘Society’ that doesn’t invite me to join them, ‘Secret’ is another issue altogether. The Indians, far and away, would be the last group to ask me in. Why? I can’t sew and I don’t speak their language. Let me explain:
‘The Indians’ trace their roots back to the native Americans that befriended persons of color that they felt a kinship with because of the, non native, persons of non color’s rotten attitude toward anyone besides themselves, middle-aged merchants and young women who had reached drinking age. That’s how I see it, I could be wrong, it’s only my word against anyone else’s.
Anyway, Indians sew elaborate, intricate and complex Native American costumes, the likes of which would have Sitting Bull standing in his grave. They parade in groups of twelve to twenty resplendent in sequins, feathers, fabrics and heavy artillery. In their words “when you see us comin’, better get out the way!”
The Indians chant words like “Jock-imo findo hondo-wando fee nah nay”,
“Iko Iko”, “Tu-way-pa-ka-way. Oowa-a-a!” and “kick your ass on the overpass”. This either means: “my ‘Spy Boy’ spotted your ‘Flag Boy’ and ‘Big Chief’ (from the Metarie Ridge) has a shiny pistol and is “gonna make you jump in de river”, or “War, huuh, (good God, y’all) what is it good for?” (Absolutely nuthin’!).
********************************************
Anyway, Carnival generates a gazillion samollions towards the housing, education, working conditions and welfare of the needy for places like Mexico (tee shirts), Burma (sweat shirts), India (condoms), China (baseball caps), Indonesia (beads) and other parts of this country (food stuffs, plastic ware, breast implants and alcoholic beverages), none of which you’ll ever see. Content yourself with having a good time watching a bazillion of out of towners doing things that they would never do at home and remember:
1. Never drink anything stronger than you are, or of a color not found in nature.
2. Never, ever try to stop someone from acting improperly. One woman that I know did that and got her ass kicked by not one, not two but three ‘visitors’.
3. Don’t fight old ladies for beads. Doing so is a sure way of getting a heel print imbedded on the back of your hand.
4. Dress appropriately. No beads, wallet, credit cards, expensive jewelry or more cash than you care to part with.
5. If someone wants to bet you that they know ‘where you got your shoes’, tell them that they’re not your shoes.
Your loving Uncle, Phil
P.S. If you want the recipe for the $25,000.00 Mardi Gras Cake email me
Plamancusa@aol
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Literary New Orleans
Po-boy Views
By Phil LaMancusa
Raspberry, strawberry, Cadillac car….(we’re not as dumb as you think we do)
or
Tennessee Williams Literary Conference
****************************
The P.H.D.'s daughter got her wooden leg stolen by a bible salesman that she had tried to seduce.
Here I am again, friends and neighbors; flying in under the radar with a report on the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival slash Writers Conference slash Platform for anyone dumb enough to think they can yell 'Stella!?!?!' as good as Brando (in my opinion if Baldwin couldn't………..) March 20-25, 2002.
Last year, as a literary hopeful, my ‘Main Frame’ and I had scored press passes (hint, hint) and were determined to “be there” rather than “be el-seven”, if you catch my drift. I was curious as to what type of birds these would be; and, aside from bad hair, the absence of clothing style (for the most part, Honey, I don't mean you!) and an epidemic of comfortable footwear, they were much the same as you and I, that is, weird.
I didn't feel like much of a writer, while I was there…at all. I’m confused by the difference between illusion and allusion. I don't know the difference between ambivalence and ambiguity and, I guess like my Mama said when I asked her if I had halitosis (at age nine I had read an advertisement but wasn't sure what it was), as far as 'catharsis' and 'pathos' goes: "if you don't know what it is, you aint got it". I was wondering if what I had was what it takes to have been there at all.
I went to a whole bunch of panel discussions, in fact so many, that it was hard to tell where one let off and another began. A couple of them were yawners, but most were lively, and, mostly, I just tried to keep up with the discussions on things like: 'voices', 'revealing' characters, their development and their flaws, 'juice', 'languaging', (that one's not even in my BIG dictionary) 'perception', finding a gay friendly publisher, and what Willie Morris said to who (or whom) on the telephone late one night.
I also, to my dismay, found out that practically nobody makes a living from writing, it takes up all your time (one guy said it took him four years to write eighty two pages) and that if I keep using parenthesizes, I'll never amount to much at all.
I don't think I'll amount to much as a writer anyway because, I don't keep notes on cocktail napkins, my childhood illnesses weren't severe enough, and although my mother kicked my ass on a regular basis, I wouldn't consider her 'overbearing'. I can't even begin to guess where 'third person past tense' is, let alone write from that perspective. I'm also not at any kind of 'psychic intersection'; if anything, I'm just this guy, you know?
So what makes me think I can be a writer? The panels. I can do those panels. I mean, I didn't know most of those guys, so how do I know they wrote seven books? Because the moderator said so? Hmmmm. If I had one book that I could hold up and call my latest, and then, talk about my last book, or better yet, my first book….
Also, I can answer questions, I've got a 'whole lot of opinion' on a myriad of subjects and I can cut up and b.s. my way through just about any topic, with the best of them. Or so I'd like to think.
I attended panels on Southern Culture, Good and Evil, Wit and Wisdom, Hot Properties, Alternative Writing, The Muse stops Here, and others; and I kept saying to myself "I could have said that!" Once when a question was asked during the 'Bad Girls" panel, I almost raised my hand and yelled "pick ME!"
I can see myself sitting with 'quiet authenticity' after being introduced as a writer of 'complex fiction' with a 'clear sense of the absurd' saying: " that's a very good question, Rex; but as we all know, ' you don't have stories unless bad things happen' or as Flannery O'Conner put it: " The average reader is pleased to observe the stealing of a wooden leg".
Thank you, I'll be signing books in the lobby, and I don't care whose (or is that whoms?) they are.
Plamancusa@aol.com
By Phil LaMancusa
Raspberry, strawberry, Cadillac car….(we’re not as dumb as you think we do)
or
Tennessee Williams Literary Conference
****************************
The P.H.D.'s daughter got her wooden leg stolen by a bible salesman that she had tried to seduce.
Here I am again, friends and neighbors; flying in under the radar with a report on the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival slash Writers Conference slash Platform for anyone dumb enough to think they can yell 'Stella!?!?!' as good as Brando (in my opinion if Baldwin couldn't………..) March 20-25, 2002.
Last year, as a literary hopeful, my ‘Main Frame’ and I had scored press passes (hint, hint) and were determined to “be there” rather than “be el-seven”, if you catch my drift. I was curious as to what type of birds these would be; and, aside from bad hair, the absence of clothing style (for the most part, Honey, I don't mean you!) and an epidemic of comfortable footwear, they were much the same as you and I, that is, weird.
I didn't feel like much of a writer, while I was there…at all. I’m confused by the difference between illusion and allusion. I don't know the difference between ambivalence and ambiguity and, I guess like my Mama said when I asked her if I had halitosis (at age nine I had read an advertisement but wasn't sure what it was), as far as 'catharsis' and 'pathos' goes: "if you don't know what it is, you aint got it". I was wondering if what I had was what it takes to have been there at all.
I went to a whole bunch of panel discussions, in fact so many, that it was hard to tell where one let off and another began. A couple of them were yawners, but most were lively, and, mostly, I just tried to keep up with the discussions on things like: 'voices', 'revealing' characters, their development and their flaws, 'juice', 'languaging', (that one's not even in my BIG dictionary) 'perception', finding a gay friendly publisher, and what Willie Morris said to who (or whom) on the telephone late one night.
I also, to my dismay, found out that practically nobody makes a living from writing, it takes up all your time (one guy said it took him four years to write eighty two pages) and that if I keep using parenthesizes, I'll never amount to much at all.
I don't think I'll amount to much as a writer anyway because, I don't keep notes on cocktail napkins, my childhood illnesses weren't severe enough, and although my mother kicked my ass on a regular basis, I wouldn't consider her 'overbearing'. I can't even begin to guess where 'third person past tense' is, let alone write from that perspective. I'm also not at any kind of 'psychic intersection'; if anything, I'm just this guy, you know?
So what makes me think I can be a writer? The panels. I can do those panels. I mean, I didn't know most of those guys, so how do I know they wrote seven books? Because the moderator said so? Hmmmm. If I had one book that I could hold up and call my latest, and then, talk about my last book, or better yet, my first book….
Also, I can answer questions, I've got a 'whole lot of opinion' on a myriad of subjects and I can cut up and b.s. my way through just about any topic, with the best of them. Or so I'd like to think.
I attended panels on Southern Culture, Good and Evil, Wit and Wisdom, Hot Properties, Alternative Writing, The Muse stops Here, and others; and I kept saying to myself "I could have said that!" Once when a question was asked during the 'Bad Girls" panel, I almost raised my hand and yelled "pick ME!"
I can see myself sitting with 'quiet authenticity' after being introduced as a writer of 'complex fiction' with a 'clear sense of the absurd' saying: " that's a very good question, Rex; but as we all know, ' you don't have stories unless bad things happen' or as Flannery O'Conner put it: " The average reader is pleased to observe the stealing of a wooden leg".
Thank you, I'll be signing books in the lobby, and I don't care whose (or is that whoms?) they are.
Plamancusa@aol.com
Love In New Orleans
Po-Boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
The Lady In the Glass Bathing Suit
Or
My Funny Valentine
A local fried chicken restaurant (if you can call them restaurants) will be starting a gospel brunch soon. They’re gonna call it “A Wing And A Prayer”. This about sums up my love life.
Now Kids, I’m no expert on the subject, and will never claim to be (at least not in public); but, Uncle Phil has been around the block enough times that he’s worn a rut in it as wide as Bayou Saint John, so if I can’t talk about love, who can? In this rant we’re gonna explore some facts and fallacies about the ‘Big “L” Word” as reported by an independent study: mine.
First some fallacies:
1. Love makes the world go ‘round: what cabbage truck did you just fall off? Money makes the world go around and don’t you ever forget it.
2. You can tell it’s Love at first sight. NOT! You can tell it’s lust, power, domination, conquest or the need of possession at first sight: either that or you’re wearing your beer glasses and would screw a snake if someone would hold its head down.
3. Love means never having to say you’re sorry: Baloney! If you’re gonna hang on to love (assuming you ever find it) be prepared to admit that you’re wrong on a number of occasions, and on more complex subjects than the position of the toilet seat.
4. Love changes you: not for long, if ever. You’ll find yourself (or them) slipping back into the persona behind the façade that won favor; and, you may not be able to keep lipstick on that pig, if you get my drift.
5. You can change the person that you love: don’t count on it; and, those quirky little things that are funny now, sooner or later become a major pain in the butt. i.e. underwear on the doorknob. And while we’re at it: that new friend of yours (or possibly yourself) that’s rude to strangers, hasn’t a clue how to tip in restaurants, has an addiction or aggression challenge, likes to tell racist or sexist jokes, admires themselves in passing mirrors, is critical, abusive, unbending and just knows that it’s all about them………drop ‘em, it ain’t worth your time and make up.
6. Love brings out the best in a person: sure, like jealousy, mistrust, envy, possessiveness, insecurity and in some cases hives
and rashes.
7. It’s the ‘challenge of the unknown’ that’s so stimulating about love: No, here you’re confusing love with rock climbing, spelunking and drawing to an inside straight.
8. Love is its own reward: right. And the meek will inherit the Earth, I’ve got the winning lottery ticket and your landlord is
gonna give you free rent.
9. You always hurt the one you love: hmmmmm, you might want to make that: ‘you always let the one you love hurt you’
10. Love sneaks up on you: No, generally it sounds like the entire cast of The Lion King being thrown in to a deep fryer.
Now, for some facts.
1. Love takes work to make it stay: It does, and more than a few of us are willing to walk away rather than stay for the hard part. Then again, sometimes when your partner wants to ‘compromise’ it’s merely another way of saying “do it my way”.
2. Love can break your heart: This generally happens when someone has convinced you that you really are someone special, and then concludes with “April Fool!” Been there. Got the tee shirt; and any conversation that begins with “I think I need more space” usually ends with your relationship in the toilet.
3. Love is a many splendored thing: yeah, the walks in the park, the dinners, the smiles and the good times usually stay long after love has walked away. Enjoy them.
4. Love is like an oil painting: and you’d be advised to be careful with those brush strokes; there is no ‘do over’ accompanied by your lover’s amnesia. Think about it.
5. Love is like a song: As in Love is like an itching in my heart, I’ve got you under my skin, I only have eyes for you, you make me feel so young, knock me off my feet, since I fell for you, dazed and confused, (take another) piece of my heart, you’re driving me crazy. Are we talking about love here or dementia following a train wreck?
6. Love does NOT want to meet your ex: period.
7. You only have one ‘true’ love: but how do you know that you’ve met them yet?
8. There’s someone for everyone: and here’s where your friends come in, you know, those people who know all the worst stuff about you but like you anyway? Listen, they’ll go through Hell for you; BUT, if they don’t approve of your love……that’s a ‘heads up’! If you can’t trust your friends to know who’s best for you (or at least good for you), whom can you trust? And: if you haven’t learned this yet……. You will.
9. There are many kinds of love: but it all boils down to two things; (1) you’re thinking about something more important than yourself and (2) it gives you pleasure to do so. If you ain’t got that, you better ask somebody.
10. It’s worth it: Yep, as corny as it sounds, with its incredible highs and devastating lows, it’s all worth it. Besides, the alternative is to live a superficial life. Love IS the original ‘Living On The Edge’ roller coaster-drive it like you stole it-hell bent for leather-mind bending-flummoxing conundrum of your life. If you’re fortunate enough to have love in your life cherish it, guard it and protect it; because, one false move, Buddy, and it’s history.
11. And, The Lady In The Glass Bathing suit? Seymour Heer writes, “She’s worth wading for”.
By
Phil LaMancusa
The Lady In the Glass Bathing Suit
Or
My Funny Valentine
A local fried chicken restaurant (if you can call them restaurants) will be starting a gospel brunch soon. They’re gonna call it “A Wing And A Prayer”. This about sums up my love life.
Now Kids, I’m no expert on the subject, and will never claim to be (at least not in public); but, Uncle Phil has been around the block enough times that he’s worn a rut in it as wide as Bayou Saint John, so if I can’t talk about love, who can? In this rant we’re gonna explore some facts and fallacies about the ‘Big “L” Word” as reported by an independent study: mine.
First some fallacies:
1. Love makes the world go ‘round: what cabbage truck did you just fall off? Money makes the world go around and don’t you ever forget it.
2. You can tell it’s Love at first sight. NOT! You can tell it’s lust, power, domination, conquest or the need of possession at first sight: either that or you’re wearing your beer glasses and would screw a snake if someone would hold its head down.
3. Love means never having to say you’re sorry: Baloney! If you’re gonna hang on to love (assuming you ever find it) be prepared to admit that you’re wrong on a number of occasions, and on more complex subjects than the position of the toilet seat.
4. Love changes you: not for long, if ever. You’ll find yourself (or them) slipping back into the persona behind the façade that won favor; and, you may not be able to keep lipstick on that pig, if you get my drift.
5. You can change the person that you love: don’t count on it; and, those quirky little things that are funny now, sooner or later become a major pain in the butt. i.e. underwear on the doorknob. And while we’re at it: that new friend of yours (or possibly yourself) that’s rude to strangers, hasn’t a clue how to tip in restaurants, has an addiction or aggression challenge, likes to tell racist or sexist jokes, admires themselves in passing mirrors, is critical, abusive, unbending and just knows that it’s all about them………drop ‘em, it ain’t worth your time and make up.
6. Love brings out the best in a person: sure, like jealousy, mistrust, envy, possessiveness, insecurity and in some cases hives
and rashes.
7. It’s the ‘challenge of the unknown’ that’s so stimulating about love: No, here you’re confusing love with rock climbing, spelunking and drawing to an inside straight.
8. Love is its own reward: right. And the meek will inherit the Earth, I’ve got the winning lottery ticket and your landlord is
gonna give you free rent.
9. You always hurt the one you love: hmmmmm, you might want to make that: ‘you always let the one you love hurt you’
10. Love sneaks up on you: No, generally it sounds like the entire cast of The Lion King being thrown in to a deep fryer.
Now, for some facts.
1. Love takes work to make it stay: It does, and more than a few of us are willing to walk away rather than stay for the hard part. Then again, sometimes when your partner wants to ‘compromise’ it’s merely another way of saying “do it my way”.
2. Love can break your heart: This generally happens when someone has convinced you that you really are someone special, and then concludes with “April Fool!” Been there. Got the tee shirt; and any conversation that begins with “I think I need more space” usually ends with your relationship in the toilet.
3. Love is a many splendored thing: yeah, the walks in the park, the dinners, the smiles and the good times usually stay long after love has walked away. Enjoy them.
4. Love is like an oil painting: and you’d be advised to be careful with those brush strokes; there is no ‘do over’ accompanied by your lover’s amnesia. Think about it.
5. Love is like a song: As in Love is like an itching in my heart, I’ve got you under my skin, I only have eyes for you, you make me feel so young, knock me off my feet, since I fell for you, dazed and confused, (take another) piece of my heart, you’re driving me crazy. Are we talking about love here or dementia following a train wreck?
6. Love does NOT want to meet your ex: period.
7. You only have one ‘true’ love: but how do you know that you’ve met them yet?
8. There’s someone for everyone: and here’s where your friends come in, you know, those people who know all the worst stuff about you but like you anyway? Listen, they’ll go through Hell for you; BUT, if they don’t approve of your love……that’s a ‘heads up’! If you can’t trust your friends to know who’s best for you (or at least good for you), whom can you trust? And: if you haven’t learned this yet……. You will.
9. There are many kinds of love: but it all boils down to two things; (1) you’re thinking about something more important than yourself and (2) it gives you pleasure to do so. If you ain’t got that, you better ask somebody.
10. It’s worth it: Yep, as corny as it sounds, with its incredible highs and devastating lows, it’s all worth it. Besides, the alternative is to live a superficial life. Love IS the original ‘Living On The Edge’ roller coaster-drive it like you stole it-hell bent for leather-mind bending-flummoxing conundrum of your life. If you’re fortunate enough to have love in your life cherish it, guard it and protect it; because, one false move, Buddy, and it’s history.
11. And, The Lady In The Glass Bathing suit? Seymour Heer writes, “She’s worth wading for”.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
New Orleans Sunday Paper
Po-boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Sunday Goblins
Question: Name the one thing on Sunday morning that is common to most all New Orleanians, and possibly everyone else in the universe? We’re talkin’ everybody that’s anybody, that is with the exception of brunch cooks, ne’er do wells, runaway princesses, pirates, the mentally challenged and those of us that are ‘Proud To Crawl Home (after Saturday night)’.
Answer: Church? We would hope so. Coffee? Could be. Grits and grillads? Maybe so. Cleaning our powerful handguns? Wondering who that is sleeping next to you? How about: r e a d i n g t h e S u n d a y p a p e r ? Bingo!!!
The Sunday Paper!
I LOVE the Sunday Paper, in fact that’s what my costume is this Halloween, I call it ‘all the news that’s fit to stink’.
To honor of that rag that we affectionately call our TP (pun intended), and, as close to my dead line as possible, I’m going to pick up Sunday’s paper and point out how a ne’er do well (mentally challenged) brunch cook pirate (and his runaway princess) after crawling home (proudly) go through the locally published information at hand. I give you: ‘THE TIMES PICAYUNE’!!!
The first thing you need to do is to heft the paper, get a feel for the weight of the thing, consider the sheer amount of words that you are about consume, retain, dismiss and forevermore live with the possibility of regurgitating at the most inappropriate times ( oooh Baby, oooohhhh Baby……did you read how fares are dropping to the west coast? OUCH!! What was that for?)
Now it’s time to cull the stack. All that stuff that you know you’ll probably never read, unless you’re being held hostage at your in-laws annual brunch ‘get together’ without a decent cocktail in sight; get rid of it. Out goes the ads for Rite Aid, Lasik surgery, The Celebration Station, the K-Mart two day only white sale, Eckerd, AT&T wireless, Office Depot, Sears, Lowe’s, Circuit City, BestBuy.com, and the ads for Pope Paul the second coins, Dachshunds painted on plates and Classic Comfort bras (“so comfortable you’ll forget you’ve got it on”….WHAT?) Personally, I do keep the Walgreens’ section, as Walgreens is the only store that I would actually come across in my wanderings. I suffer from the ‘if it’s not in the Quarter do I really need it’ syndrome.
Next, my favorite to get rid of (though possibly not yours): Sports. As far as I’m concerned, any part of the paper that bandies about words like ‘dominating’, ‘trouncing’, ‘dousing with a powerful surge’, ‘pounding’, ‘shutting down’ and ‘annihilation’ along with ads for muscle cars, penile enlargement, and the Hustler Honey Amateur Contest better be in color and show blood or frontal nudity. And while we’re at it, why is baseball, basketball and football season happening simultaneously?
Next to get the axe is the Parade section with the cover boasting The 2003 Cars & Trucks, the inside answers the burning question of whether Roy Rogers Jr. had to sell his daddy’s saddle to pay the IRS, I’m presently not in the market for a minature ceramic St Nicholas, Laugh Parade doesn’t give me a chuckle and the last time I bought five books for ninety nine cents I received junk mail until I had to relocate. It is interesting to note that gas guzzlers in this time of the oil wars, come with twenty inch aluminum wheels, leather bucket seats, navigation systems and optional DVD entertainment systems; all for about twice or three times my yearly salary!
Real Estate? “This exquisite Country French home showcases wood flrs. Gourmet kit. 4 bdrm 3 ba 1+ acre, Spacious living & magnificent views for the price of a small South American country.”
Jobs? Classified? ‘Split shift, exp necc. Drug test, 6days/week, now hiring, apply in person, EEO/AAP, M/F, call Lisa or Amy: M-F 8am-4pm, 401K and hospitalization’. Do I want to be a Buggy Driver, Associate Professor of General Surgery, Legal Secretary/ Exp Line Cook that much? Nah, and most of us already have jobs we don’t want.
TV Focus? I don’t have cable, I’m a PBS junkie, end of story.
Comics? I read ‘em all. Especially Peanuts, Garfield and Doonesbury. After that Zits, Mother Goose and Grimm, B.C. and Rose is Rose. Generally I find it hard to be amused, but it’s better than the News. Why is the Piranha Club banished to the week day Classified section?? Now that I can relate to!
The Money section? If money were dynamite I wouldn’t be able to blow my nose.
The main News section? Reading it is rarely rewarding and generally reminds me of an Adlai Stevenson quote: “There is nothing more horrifying than stupidity in action”. In a nutshell Edwards is still out, the War’s still on, Louisiana ranks worst on everything, and we’ll never be prepared for ‘The Big One’.
That leaves the Travel, Living and Dead (Metro) sections.
The Travel section had an article on the Natchez Trace that I’d love to hike. It also had cut rate ads for going anywhere and the book section which had the first three best sellers touting “After her husband leaves her for a younger woman, a fourteen year old looks down from heaven when the young caretaker of an estate finds a newborn girl in a box. A 45 year-old woman finds romance in a small town on the North Carolina coast as she describes what happens in the aftermath of her kidnapping and murder, his employer, an 80 year-old matriarch, helps him keep the baby”, (but not in that order).
The ‘Dead’ section, or Metro as it’s called, will, more often than not, give you a cheery front page on Sunday. Monday thru will give you mostly the details on how New Orleaneans are brutalizing each other or the real horrors of living here. Yes from a man shot twenty five times and living to a seven year old being murdered in the street by his mother’s boyfriend.
However on Sunday, it’s mostly cheery stuff on the cover. Once inside we have pregnant woman steals man’s truck (at gunpoint), N.O. man arrested in shooting of woman (get this, he shot her because she was smoking while pregnant), 3 men wanted on burglary warrants, asbestos in the air, roll over car crashes and the like; also we have the death notices.
Frankly, I read the death notices because I’m sure that one day I’ll see my picture in there. I simply do not trust myself to tell me when I die, and as for my friends, hah, they keep me in the dark about everything!
I do know from reading the obituaries that a large percentage of eighty to ninety year old corpses once were homemakers or retired merchant seamen. Fifty to sixty year olds die usually of heart attacks or cancer, the men were all veterans and the women had promising careers. The Forty year olds usually succumb to lung cancer or heart ‘failure’ or the mysterious undetermined causes. In their twenties and thirties, violence usually accounts for mostly sudden demises especially if their nick names are ‘Boom Boom’, ‘Big Man’, ‘Slick’ or ‘Fast Betty’. If politics continue their merry way, I predict young folks in uniform appearing. Children are the saddest to read about and we won’t go into that one here.
Lastly the Living section: entertainment, horror-scopes and puzzles. After the Comics, it’s my favorite. Dave Barry is here, my personal hero as well as advice from Carolyn, Abby and Miss Manners. A calendar of events and photos from the past live in this section.
In all, the newspaper is a nice place to visit with its horrors and heroes, and if I had more room I’d wax eternal. Look for me on Halloween and if you don’t give me candy, I’ll probably tell you to “read my hips!”
By
Phil LaMancusa
Sunday Goblins
Question: Name the one thing on Sunday morning that is common to most all New Orleanians, and possibly everyone else in the universe? We’re talkin’ everybody that’s anybody, that is with the exception of brunch cooks, ne’er do wells, runaway princesses, pirates, the mentally challenged and those of us that are ‘Proud To Crawl Home (after Saturday night)’.
Answer: Church? We would hope so. Coffee? Could be. Grits and grillads? Maybe so. Cleaning our powerful handguns? Wondering who that is sleeping next to you? How about: r e a d i n g t h e S u n d a y p a p e r ? Bingo!!!
The Sunday Paper!
I LOVE the Sunday Paper, in fact that’s what my costume is this Halloween, I call it ‘all the news that’s fit to stink’.
To honor of that rag that we affectionately call our TP (pun intended), and, as close to my dead line as possible, I’m going to pick up Sunday’s paper and point out how a ne’er do well (mentally challenged) brunch cook pirate (and his runaway princess) after crawling home (proudly) go through the locally published information at hand. I give you: ‘THE TIMES PICAYUNE’!!!
The first thing you need to do is to heft the paper, get a feel for the weight of the thing, consider the sheer amount of words that you are about consume, retain, dismiss and forevermore live with the possibility of regurgitating at the most inappropriate times ( oooh Baby, oooohhhh Baby……did you read how fares are dropping to the west coast? OUCH!! What was that for?)
Now it’s time to cull the stack. All that stuff that you know you’ll probably never read, unless you’re being held hostage at your in-laws annual brunch ‘get together’ without a decent cocktail in sight; get rid of it. Out goes the ads for Rite Aid, Lasik surgery, The Celebration Station, the K-Mart two day only white sale, Eckerd, AT&T wireless, Office Depot, Sears, Lowe’s, Circuit City, BestBuy.com, and the ads for Pope Paul the second coins, Dachshunds painted on plates and Classic Comfort bras (“so comfortable you’ll forget you’ve got it on”….WHAT?) Personally, I do keep the Walgreens’ section, as Walgreens is the only store that I would actually come across in my wanderings. I suffer from the ‘if it’s not in the Quarter do I really need it’ syndrome.
Next, my favorite to get rid of (though possibly not yours): Sports. As far as I’m concerned, any part of the paper that bandies about words like ‘dominating’, ‘trouncing’, ‘dousing with a powerful surge’, ‘pounding’, ‘shutting down’ and ‘annihilation’ along with ads for muscle cars, penile enlargement, and the Hustler Honey Amateur Contest better be in color and show blood or frontal nudity. And while we’re at it, why is baseball, basketball and football season happening simultaneously?
Next to get the axe is the Parade section with the cover boasting The 2003 Cars & Trucks, the inside answers the burning question of whether Roy Rogers Jr. had to sell his daddy’s saddle to pay the IRS, I’m presently not in the market for a minature ceramic St Nicholas, Laugh Parade doesn’t give me a chuckle and the last time I bought five books for ninety nine cents I received junk mail until I had to relocate. It is interesting to note that gas guzzlers in this time of the oil wars, come with twenty inch aluminum wheels, leather bucket seats, navigation systems and optional DVD entertainment systems; all for about twice or three times my yearly salary!
Real Estate? “This exquisite Country French home showcases wood flrs. Gourmet kit. 4 bdrm 3 ba 1+ acre, Spacious living & magnificent views for the price of a small South American country.”
Jobs? Classified? ‘Split shift, exp necc. Drug test, 6days/week, now hiring, apply in person, EEO/AAP, M/F, call Lisa or Amy: M-F 8am-4pm, 401K and hospitalization’. Do I want to be a Buggy Driver, Associate Professor of General Surgery, Legal Secretary/ Exp Line Cook that much? Nah, and most of us already have jobs we don’t want.
TV Focus? I don’t have cable, I’m a PBS junkie, end of story.
Comics? I read ‘em all. Especially Peanuts, Garfield and Doonesbury. After that Zits, Mother Goose and Grimm, B.C. and Rose is Rose. Generally I find it hard to be amused, but it’s better than the News. Why is the Piranha Club banished to the week day Classified section?? Now that I can relate to!
The Money section? If money were dynamite I wouldn’t be able to blow my nose.
The main News section? Reading it is rarely rewarding and generally reminds me of an Adlai Stevenson quote: “There is nothing more horrifying than stupidity in action”. In a nutshell Edwards is still out, the War’s still on, Louisiana ranks worst on everything, and we’ll never be prepared for ‘The Big One’.
That leaves the Travel, Living and Dead (Metro) sections.
The Travel section had an article on the Natchez Trace that I’d love to hike. It also had cut rate ads for going anywhere and the book section which had the first three best sellers touting “After her husband leaves her for a younger woman, a fourteen year old looks down from heaven when the young caretaker of an estate finds a newborn girl in a box. A 45 year-old woman finds romance in a small town on the North Carolina coast as she describes what happens in the aftermath of her kidnapping and murder, his employer, an 80 year-old matriarch, helps him keep the baby”, (but not in that order).
The ‘Dead’ section, or Metro as it’s called, will, more often than not, give you a cheery front page on Sunday. Monday thru will give you mostly the details on how New Orleaneans are brutalizing each other or the real horrors of living here. Yes from a man shot twenty five times and living to a seven year old being murdered in the street by his mother’s boyfriend.
However on Sunday, it’s mostly cheery stuff on the cover. Once inside we have pregnant woman steals man’s truck (at gunpoint), N.O. man arrested in shooting of woman (get this, he shot her because she was smoking while pregnant), 3 men wanted on burglary warrants, asbestos in the air, roll over car crashes and the like; also we have the death notices.
Frankly, I read the death notices because I’m sure that one day I’ll see my picture in there. I simply do not trust myself to tell me when I die, and as for my friends, hah, they keep me in the dark about everything!
I do know from reading the obituaries that a large percentage of eighty to ninety year old corpses once were homemakers or retired merchant seamen. Fifty to sixty year olds die usually of heart attacks or cancer, the men were all veterans and the women had promising careers. The Forty year olds usually succumb to lung cancer or heart ‘failure’ or the mysterious undetermined causes. In their twenties and thirties, violence usually accounts for mostly sudden demises especially if their nick names are ‘Boom Boom’, ‘Big Man’, ‘Slick’ or ‘Fast Betty’. If politics continue their merry way, I predict young folks in uniform appearing. Children are the saddest to read about and we won’t go into that one here.
Lastly the Living section: entertainment, horror-scopes and puzzles. After the Comics, it’s my favorite. Dave Barry is here, my personal hero as well as advice from Carolyn, Abby and Miss Manners. A calendar of events and photos from the past live in this section.
In all, the newspaper is a nice place to visit with its horrors and heroes, and if I had more room I’d wax eternal. Look for me on Halloween and if you don’t give me candy, I’ll probably tell you to “read my hips!”
New Orleans: The Secret Life of Crayons
Down and Out in The Big Easy
Or
The Secret Life of Crayons
Rejection and despair. That’s the sound that is made when a crayon hits the floor; and, Green was face down in a pool of dust. Again. And, that was the sound that had just interrupted a story that I was trying to compose.
But, I digress, (as an aspiring writer, I’ve always wanted to watch myself, coolly detached, type ‘but, I digress’ into a story, along with other phrases like ‘It gave me great pause’ and words like ‘trepidation’ and ‘indigent’) and since you asked, here’s the story:
I had put aside my borrowed copy of George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London. In the book, he talks about his misadventures being indigent in these places in the nineteen twenties or very early thirties. I had decided to do a piece on the people who fall through the cracks here in New Orleans. I have a current passing, and sometimes personal, relationship with about a dozen local ‘unfortunates’ and recently it has given me great pause, I think because, on some subliminal level, I can relate to them and their missed fortunes.
I was also marveling at how much so little has changed for the poor over centuries of progress for mankind; as if the impoverished, being one of the lost tribes of Israel, passed their misery from generation to generation.
I was listening to Mozart’s Requiem in D minor and reflecting on how, with one twist of fate, we are all a step away from living on the street or relying on ‘the kindness of strangers’. I’m convinced that, without my consent, an event or, series of events, could have me (like others that I know) eating from trashcans, sleeping in doorways and carrying my life in a black plastic garbage bag. Possibly, my ‘twilight years’ would be spent lying in a mental ward getting my Pampers changed, as I bark like a duck. One degree of separation, that’s how I was seeing it.
I considered getting a cell phone, surely that would save me from a future of cheap wine, generic cigarettes and asking that cute couple from Des Moines to give me money for standing still, on a milk carton, painted silver. In New Orleans being a living statue on a street corner is a vocation; one step above begging, they do not have cell phones. People hurrying from paying jobs to warm hearths have cell phones. The upwardly mobile, drinking snappy cocktails at swank joints, have cell phones. I do not have a cell phone.
After a recent conversation with my older sister on whether poverty was hereditary or contagious, I came to the conclusion, that in my case at least, it is both. I know no one who is not living from paycheck to paycheck, when they’re that lucky, including every member of my family. You can probably guess what I have to say to that smart-ass that coined the phrase that “money can’t buy happiness”!
In addition, I’m not aware that I’ll have an alternative financial plan, should some mishap occur in my life. I don’t even have a primary financial plan. As I see it, I’m living in a world where college buildings will get millions, and the benefactor’s names will be emblazoned on them, possibly along with their cell phone numbers. Meanwhile, the majority of the population; the impoverished, the insufficient, and the undereducated (the un-cell phoned) will get minimum wage, (at best) and no benefits, ignored by the very people that have it in their power to help them. Maybe the folks with cell phones are hooked up to a higher power, or something. Maybe folks with cell phones never slip through the cracks. My head was hurting; I was obviously putting a strain on my brain.
***************************************
Then, between Introit and the Kyrie Eleison, as if by design, a crayon, known only as Green, bit the dust.
I kept the basic box of eight crayons by my desk in the hopes that remembering all of their names would be proof enough that dementia wasn’t setting in. What do I know? Twice before, I’ve found Green out of the box and thought ‘that’s it, I’ve got Alzheimer’s’. This time though, I caught them red handed! Who? The other crayons, of course. What were they doing? Practicing color discrimination! Why were they doing that? I don’t know, maybe it’s just what they do where they come from, kinda like us. Where do they come from? That parallel universe that I’m always talking about
From now on, my theory that there is a parallel universe that is invading us with bad tippers, digital watches, haters and cheaters will include crayons with their own agendas. How else would you explain a CEO who builds a house for a hundred million dollars while John Q. Shareholder takes it in the shorts, if certainly not for a parallel universe and its invasion? These types certainly can’t come from this planet. Period. No member of Homo Sapiens could think or act like that. It belies the term. For the unenlightened, ‘Homo Sapiens’ literally means ‘wise man’. I certainly don’t feel very wise, but, I also didn’t consider myself the type of ‘homo’ that would strap on a body bomb and visit a shopping mall for a little ‘catch back’. That, my friend, takes an alien.
I wondered if there was a correlation between the secret life of crayons and man’s inhumanity to man. To this end, I decided to take my color discrimination theory a step further and perhaps learn something that would be of use in my future, and possibly the future of the world.
I went to Walgreen’s and parted with my ‘hard earned’ for a box of sixty -four Crayolas™. There are other, less expensive, brands and bigger boxes, but, sixty four is the largest quantity you can buy in the French Quarter and Crayolas ™ come with a handy sharpener and are made in the good old U. S. of A. (non toxic, of course). I was hoping to surprise the invaders and learn something about their culture, and perhaps save our planet.
Walking home with my purchase was a joy. It was a clear, warm afternoon in the French Quarter and the smells of Tea Olive and honeysuckle were in the air, and the air was full of expectation. The slight breeze whispered of great potentials and happy endings. I was content to meander in a southern miasma of partial amnesia, if you catch my drift.
‘Drifting’ my way through the narrow streets, past centuries old cottages and ornately ironed balconies brimming with ferns and flowers, I wondered how much had changed over the years in crayon land. Was the color ‘Flesh’ expanded to include ‘Asian’, ‘Hispanic’, and a myriad of ‘African American’ colors? Or was it now called ‘Band-Aid’ or ‘Caucasian’? Were the Greens grouped with Blues because envy was safe with melancholy? Were the Yellows now cowering in their own section, and was ‘Aqua Marine’ now in a ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t tell’ area? Were the crayons of my youth ‘toxic’ (we used to eat them, you know)? The possibilities were endless.
The box sat on my desk unopened for days. I pictured an uneasy truce between the colors being so closely confined and sealed to boot. I wondered what terrors the opening of the box would unleash. Would they behave? I recalled finding a Yellow Penway ™ Crayon in the street a few days earlier; it was broken in three places, obviously the victim of turf wars.
I read the box. Did you know that in Easton, Pa. there is a factory that makes Crayolas? And, that you can call them toll free at 1-800-crayola for a seventy five-cent coupon off your next purchase, you can tour the factory if you ever get up that way, and that, no, they are NOT made by Oompa Loompas. I called them, and they told me that stuff. They have a website, and, of course, it’s www.crayola.com. I also called their marketing firm (not toll free) and I’m awaiting a call back or press package or something.
See, isn’t that better than dwelling on the fact that a third of the adult population of New Orleans can’t read above fifth grade level? How smart does that make you?
****************************************
I finally decided to open the box. I mean, hell that’s more important than the fact that less than half the registered voters actually vote here (and only a fraction of those eligible even register).
First I stood the box on its head for a couple of hours to disorient them. I don’t want any oriented crayons, not on my watch.
And then for the moment of truth.
***********************************************
I opened the box slowly, carefully, with extreme trepidation, forgetting to breathe.
“Holy Cannoli” I exhaled, “they’re in four smaller boxes and there’s no rhyme or reason to their distribution!” I said to no one in particular. The cat eyed me suspiciously from her perch atop the computer printer. I cleared some space on the desk, dumped the crayons out and tried to make some order, or at least get some sense. I started by looking for ‘patterns’ and some emerged.
The Greens were outnumbered, the Red family that drifted into the Oranges held the power, Yellows are almost extinct having inter bred with every other color. Purples were uppity; Silver was being treated like a red headed stepchild, while Black and White simply did not give a shit.
The colors will boggle your mind. There’s Orange, Red Orange and Yellow Orange. There’s Macaroni and Cheese, Purple Mountain’s Majesty, Timberwolf, Asparagus (looking a little overcooked if you ask me), Tumbleweed and Granny Smith Apple! I kid you not. There’s even a color called Bittersweet; I had wondered about that.
But, it was the family of the Blues that blew my mind: Cadet, Turquoise, Pacific, Sky and Robin’s Egg Blue. Cornflower, Cerulean (?), Periwinkle, Blue Green (not to be confused with Green Blue), and of course Blue. I wondered how many shades of the blues there were, and, would B. B. King be able to sing about them all?
Putting them back (in order, of course) I didn’t see Aqua Marine and there were no flesh tones of any ethnic group in evidence. My neighbor assures me that there’s a box of ninety-six out there and has intimated that the next time she leaves the French Quarter she’ll look for it for me. As a hard core Quarterite, I live with the shopping policy that: “If it’s not found in the French Quarter, I don’t really need it”
There, that’s easier than trying to figure out why it seems that The American Dream is being filmed in Myopic-Vision and is being directed by Frederico Fellini, from beyond the grave; hang on……, I thought I just heard Raw Umber telling Olive Green to “Stop whining and get a !@@##$$%%*8* Job!!”
It’s time to reseal that box, there is such a thing as too much information. And besides, who’d believe me?
Or
The Secret Life of Crayons
Rejection and despair. That’s the sound that is made when a crayon hits the floor; and, Green was face down in a pool of dust. Again. And, that was the sound that had just interrupted a story that I was trying to compose.
But, I digress, (as an aspiring writer, I’ve always wanted to watch myself, coolly detached, type ‘but, I digress’ into a story, along with other phrases like ‘It gave me great pause’ and words like ‘trepidation’ and ‘indigent’) and since you asked, here’s the story:
I had put aside my borrowed copy of George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London. In the book, he talks about his misadventures being indigent in these places in the nineteen twenties or very early thirties. I had decided to do a piece on the people who fall through the cracks here in New Orleans. I have a current passing, and sometimes personal, relationship with about a dozen local ‘unfortunates’ and recently it has given me great pause, I think because, on some subliminal level, I can relate to them and their missed fortunes.
I was also marveling at how much so little has changed for the poor over centuries of progress for mankind; as if the impoverished, being one of the lost tribes of Israel, passed their misery from generation to generation.
I was listening to Mozart’s Requiem in D minor and reflecting on how, with one twist of fate, we are all a step away from living on the street or relying on ‘the kindness of strangers’. I’m convinced that, without my consent, an event or, series of events, could have me (like others that I know) eating from trashcans, sleeping in doorways and carrying my life in a black plastic garbage bag. Possibly, my ‘twilight years’ would be spent lying in a mental ward getting my Pampers changed, as I bark like a duck. One degree of separation, that’s how I was seeing it.
I considered getting a cell phone, surely that would save me from a future of cheap wine, generic cigarettes and asking that cute couple from Des Moines to give me money for standing still, on a milk carton, painted silver. In New Orleans being a living statue on a street corner is a vocation; one step above begging, they do not have cell phones. People hurrying from paying jobs to warm hearths have cell phones. The upwardly mobile, drinking snappy cocktails at swank joints, have cell phones. I do not have a cell phone.
After a recent conversation with my older sister on whether poverty was hereditary or contagious, I came to the conclusion, that in my case at least, it is both. I know no one who is not living from paycheck to paycheck, when they’re that lucky, including every member of my family. You can probably guess what I have to say to that smart-ass that coined the phrase that “money can’t buy happiness”!
In addition, I’m not aware that I’ll have an alternative financial plan, should some mishap occur in my life. I don’t even have a primary financial plan. As I see it, I’m living in a world where college buildings will get millions, and the benefactor’s names will be emblazoned on them, possibly along with their cell phone numbers. Meanwhile, the majority of the population; the impoverished, the insufficient, and the undereducated (the un-cell phoned) will get minimum wage, (at best) and no benefits, ignored by the very people that have it in their power to help them. Maybe the folks with cell phones are hooked up to a higher power, or something. Maybe folks with cell phones never slip through the cracks. My head was hurting; I was obviously putting a strain on my brain.
***************************************
Then, between Introit and the Kyrie Eleison, as if by design, a crayon, known only as Green, bit the dust.
I kept the basic box of eight crayons by my desk in the hopes that remembering all of their names would be proof enough that dementia wasn’t setting in. What do I know? Twice before, I’ve found Green out of the box and thought ‘that’s it, I’ve got Alzheimer’s’. This time though, I caught them red handed! Who? The other crayons, of course. What were they doing? Practicing color discrimination! Why were they doing that? I don’t know, maybe it’s just what they do where they come from, kinda like us. Where do they come from? That parallel universe that I’m always talking about
From now on, my theory that there is a parallel universe that is invading us with bad tippers, digital watches, haters and cheaters will include crayons with their own agendas. How else would you explain a CEO who builds a house for a hundred million dollars while John Q. Shareholder takes it in the shorts, if certainly not for a parallel universe and its invasion? These types certainly can’t come from this planet. Period. No member of Homo Sapiens could think or act like that. It belies the term. For the unenlightened, ‘Homo Sapiens’ literally means ‘wise man’. I certainly don’t feel very wise, but, I also didn’t consider myself the type of ‘homo’ that would strap on a body bomb and visit a shopping mall for a little ‘catch back’. That, my friend, takes an alien.
I wondered if there was a correlation between the secret life of crayons and man’s inhumanity to man. To this end, I decided to take my color discrimination theory a step further and perhaps learn something that would be of use in my future, and possibly the future of the world.
I went to Walgreen’s and parted with my ‘hard earned’ for a box of sixty -four Crayolas™. There are other, less expensive, brands and bigger boxes, but, sixty four is the largest quantity you can buy in the French Quarter and Crayolas ™ come with a handy sharpener and are made in the good old U. S. of A. (non toxic, of course). I was hoping to surprise the invaders and learn something about their culture, and perhaps save our planet.
Walking home with my purchase was a joy. It was a clear, warm afternoon in the French Quarter and the smells of Tea Olive and honeysuckle were in the air, and the air was full of expectation. The slight breeze whispered of great potentials and happy endings. I was content to meander in a southern miasma of partial amnesia, if you catch my drift.
‘Drifting’ my way through the narrow streets, past centuries old cottages and ornately ironed balconies brimming with ferns and flowers, I wondered how much had changed over the years in crayon land. Was the color ‘Flesh’ expanded to include ‘Asian’, ‘Hispanic’, and a myriad of ‘African American’ colors? Or was it now called ‘Band-Aid’ or ‘Caucasian’? Were the Greens grouped with Blues because envy was safe with melancholy? Were the Yellows now cowering in their own section, and was ‘Aqua Marine’ now in a ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t tell’ area? Were the crayons of my youth ‘toxic’ (we used to eat them, you know)? The possibilities were endless.
The box sat on my desk unopened for days. I pictured an uneasy truce between the colors being so closely confined and sealed to boot. I wondered what terrors the opening of the box would unleash. Would they behave? I recalled finding a Yellow Penway ™ Crayon in the street a few days earlier; it was broken in three places, obviously the victim of turf wars.
I read the box. Did you know that in Easton, Pa. there is a factory that makes Crayolas? And, that you can call them toll free at 1-800-crayola for a seventy five-cent coupon off your next purchase, you can tour the factory if you ever get up that way, and that, no, they are NOT made by Oompa Loompas. I called them, and they told me that stuff. They have a website, and, of course, it’s www.crayola.com. I also called their marketing firm (not toll free) and I’m awaiting a call back or press package or something.
See, isn’t that better than dwelling on the fact that a third of the adult population of New Orleans can’t read above fifth grade level? How smart does that make you?
****************************************
I finally decided to open the box. I mean, hell that’s more important than the fact that less than half the registered voters actually vote here (and only a fraction of those eligible even register).
First I stood the box on its head for a couple of hours to disorient them. I don’t want any oriented crayons, not on my watch.
And then for the moment of truth.
***********************************************
I opened the box slowly, carefully, with extreme trepidation, forgetting to breathe.
“Holy Cannoli” I exhaled, “they’re in four smaller boxes and there’s no rhyme or reason to their distribution!” I said to no one in particular. The cat eyed me suspiciously from her perch atop the computer printer. I cleared some space on the desk, dumped the crayons out and tried to make some order, or at least get some sense. I started by looking for ‘patterns’ and some emerged.
The Greens were outnumbered, the Red family that drifted into the Oranges held the power, Yellows are almost extinct having inter bred with every other color. Purples were uppity; Silver was being treated like a red headed stepchild, while Black and White simply did not give a shit.
The colors will boggle your mind. There’s Orange, Red Orange and Yellow Orange. There’s Macaroni and Cheese, Purple Mountain’s Majesty, Timberwolf, Asparagus (looking a little overcooked if you ask me), Tumbleweed and Granny Smith Apple! I kid you not. There’s even a color called Bittersweet; I had wondered about that.
But, it was the family of the Blues that blew my mind: Cadet, Turquoise, Pacific, Sky and Robin’s Egg Blue. Cornflower, Cerulean (?), Periwinkle, Blue Green (not to be confused with Green Blue), and of course Blue. I wondered how many shades of the blues there were, and, would B. B. King be able to sing about them all?
Putting them back (in order, of course) I didn’t see Aqua Marine and there were no flesh tones of any ethnic group in evidence. My neighbor assures me that there’s a box of ninety-six out there and has intimated that the next time she leaves the French Quarter she’ll look for it for me. As a hard core Quarterite, I live with the shopping policy that: “If it’s not found in the French Quarter, I don’t really need it”
There, that’s easier than trying to figure out why it seems that The American Dream is being filmed in Myopic-Vision and is being directed by Frederico Fellini, from beyond the grave; hang on……, I thought I just heard Raw Umber telling Olive Green to “Stop whining and get a !@@##$$%%*8* Job!!”
It’s time to reseal that box, there is such a thing as too much information. And besides, who’d believe me?
Friday, August 22, 2008
New Orleans Beer Drinkers Blues
Po-boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Beer Drinker’s Blues
Or
Yuppie Scum Are Out To Poison Me
I stopped off at The Royal St. grocery store with bated breath. ‘The whisper on the street’ had it that Schlitz beer had been sighted (“The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous”). I planned on having one of my favorite lunches: a ‘Tall Boy’ and a frozen burrito, yum yum!
Oh, sad day. Oh, bitter disappointment. Oh, sad singin’ and slow walkin’. Oh, wailin’ in the wikki-yup.
Yes, Schlitz beer had been in, but it had been a one shot thing. Now what they had was an esoteric, eccentric line of far fetched, far flung ‘designer beers’ with the gamut of multicolored Abita’s as vanguard and foreign ‘non alcoholic’ beers bringing up the rear. By ‘non alcoholic beer’ I mean: any beer that no self styled alcoholic would drink! Can you imagine any of your friends saying: “Boy, I went on a bender, and did those Coronas f--- me up! Missed two days of work after hitting the Dos Equis, musta been the limes!”
Nonononono! MY friends would be more apt to say: “Leon, found Schaefer at the ‘Pac ‘n Sac, Pic ‘n Pay, Put It In A Bag ‘n Git Outa Here’ store and bought ten cases! Four of us watched the Twilight Zone marathon, thirty pounds of boiled crawfish and didn’t even know what city we was in!”
Let’s get it straight from the gate; I’m an American. My beer is American, I smoke Lucky Strikes (non-filter), I chew Dentyne gum, I drink coffee with all the caffeine I can get AND half and half AND PLENTY OF SUGAR. I wash with Palmolive soap, I use Colgate toothpaste and when I want a mint, I go for LifeSaver’s, End of story.
***************************
Thirty years ago I worked for a man that was to become my mentor. It was at a country club in Denver and he had a keg of beer on tap in the walk-in refrigerator for the cooks. The beer was (and still is, when you can find it) Pabst Blue Ribbon. He said that it was the first beer that he had thrown up on and that was good enough for me. Since then, PBR has been, and remains, my beer of choice. Why? I like it. And, you know what? I have a slogan for that brewery: “Pabst Blue Ribbon--- It works!!”
Also, PBR comes in a nifty red, white and blue can. What can be more American than that? But, what is a red blooded American supposed to do in a world of beers that include weird ingredients (like berries fergodsakes) as incentives for doing what all beer drinkers are about (getting drunk)? Naturally, in direct opposition to this, I look for and buy when I can, American traditional, brewskis.
Anyone who is well over the drinking age (such as moi) can remember when the beer you drank was the beer that was brewed close to where you lived, made with the local waters. It wasn’t until the giant breweries started mass marketing that you started to get swill that came from afar.
Beers like Rhinegold and Ballentine and Oarlocker in the north. Black Label and Schlitz and Miller High Life in the mid west. Hamms on the left coast, and others. We knew where we were by the beers that were favored.
I come from a very disciplined family, if any of us kids acted up at the table, our mother would reach across the table with her soupspoon and whomp us, admonishing: “just drink your beer and shut up!”
I also come from a family of religious drinkers; not only do we drink religiously, but my mother told us that when God created beer, she put it in packs of six so that we would be aware that that was a portion. You can’t go wrong with a parent like that; although go wrong I did, it wasn’t her fault
************************************
Be that as it may, Falstaff, Regal and Jax beers are a thing of the past here, even Dixie is no longer brewed here (Blackened Voodoo beer? Gimme a break!). Rolling Rock, to my taste, is the closest thing to a traditional American beer that you can get and still be in a class joint.
I have a personal boycott going with the Bud and Bud products since the seventies when I found out that they were major funders of marijuana busters in Humbolt County, so they’re out. Miller will never taste the same unless it’s in that clear bottle. ‘Lite’ beer I dislike on princable, just as I disdain ‘sugar free’ anything. Red-Dog is for curb sitters and breakfast brown baggers. Busch and Miliwaukee Best are for ‘old man crotch scratchers’ (and is a Bud product). Foreign beers I’ll drink in foreign places, thank you. And the day that I willingly pay more money for a non-alcoholic beer than regular ones, just shoot me.
Tell me why I should want to drink beer any color, going in, than I want it coming out. Tell me why I should want a Thirty two-ounce can of beer???.
Have you even noticed that finding beer in twelve ounce cans has become a rarity? If you have, then you didn’t tell me. What’s gone wrong in this world? Barqs is even claiming to be a ‘root beer’! What’s up with that?
I was passing that newsstand on Decatur St. and saw the sign in the window proclaiming the availability of a gazillion beers. Do they have PBR? Nooooooo. Why bother?
And now, ‘the whisper on the street’ is that Coors is going to start brewing here. Hello! What, I ask you, am I to do?
In heaven there’s a barmaid that serves icy mugs of American beers for a buck. It won’t get much better that that.
By
Phil LaMancusa
Beer Drinker’s Blues
Or
Yuppie Scum Are Out To Poison Me
I stopped off at The Royal St. grocery store with bated breath. ‘The whisper on the street’ had it that Schlitz beer had been sighted (“The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous”). I planned on having one of my favorite lunches: a ‘Tall Boy’ and a frozen burrito, yum yum!
Oh, sad day. Oh, bitter disappointment. Oh, sad singin’ and slow walkin’. Oh, wailin’ in the wikki-yup.
Yes, Schlitz beer had been in, but it had been a one shot thing. Now what they had was an esoteric, eccentric line of far fetched, far flung ‘designer beers’ with the gamut of multicolored Abita’s as vanguard and foreign ‘non alcoholic’ beers bringing up the rear. By ‘non alcoholic beer’ I mean: any beer that no self styled alcoholic would drink! Can you imagine any of your friends saying: “Boy, I went on a bender, and did those Coronas f--- me up! Missed two days of work after hitting the Dos Equis, musta been the limes!”
Nonononono! MY friends would be more apt to say: “Leon, found Schaefer at the ‘Pac ‘n Sac, Pic ‘n Pay, Put It In A Bag ‘n Git Outa Here’ store and bought ten cases! Four of us watched the Twilight Zone marathon, thirty pounds of boiled crawfish and didn’t even know what city we was in!”
Let’s get it straight from the gate; I’m an American. My beer is American, I smoke Lucky Strikes (non-filter), I chew Dentyne gum, I drink coffee with all the caffeine I can get AND half and half AND PLENTY OF SUGAR. I wash with Palmolive soap, I use Colgate toothpaste and when I want a mint, I go for LifeSaver’s, End of story.
***************************
Thirty years ago I worked for a man that was to become my mentor. It was at a country club in Denver and he had a keg of beer on tap in the walk-in refrigerator for the cooks. The beer was (and still is, when you can find it) Pabst Blue Ribbon. He said that it was the first beer that he had thrown up on and that was good enough for me. Since then, PBR has been, and remains, my beer of choice. Why? I like it. And, you know what? I have a slogan for that brewery: “Pabst Blue Ribbon--- It works!!”
Also, PBR comes in a nifty red, white and blue can. What can be more American than that? But, what is a red blooded American supposed to do in a world of beers that include weird ingredients (like berries fergodsakes) as incentives for doing what all beer drinkers are about (getting drunk)? Naturally, in direct opposition to this, I look for and buy when I can, American traditional, brewskis.
Anyone who is well over the drinking age (such as moi) can remember when the beer you drank was the beer that was brewed close to where you lived, made with the local waters. It wasn’t until the giant breweries started mass marketing that you started to get swill that came from afar.
Beers like Rhinegold and Ballentine and Oarlocker in the north. Black Label and Schlitz and Miller High Life in the mid west. Hamms on the left coast, and others. We knew where we were by the beers that were favored.
I come from a very disciplined family, if any of us kids acted up at the table, our mother would reach across the table with her soupspoon and whomp us, admonishing: “just drink your beer and shut up!”
I also come from a family of religious drinkers; not only do we drink religiously, but my mother told us that when God created beer, she put it in packs of six so that we would be aware that that was a portion. You can’t go wrong with a parent like that; although go wrong I did, it wasn’t her fault
************************************
Be that as it may, Falstaff, Regal and Jax beers are a thing of the past here, even Dixie is no longer brewed here (Blackened Voodoo beer? Gimme a break!). Rolling Rock, to my taste, is the closest thing to a traditional American beer that you can get and still be in a class joint.
I have a personal boycott going with the Bud and Bud products since the seventies when I found out that they were major funders of marijuana busters in Humbolt County, so they’re out. Miller will never taste the same unless it’s in that clear bottle. ‘Lite’ beer I dislike on princable, just as I disdain ‘sugar free’ anything. Red-Dog is for curb sitters and breakfast brown baggers. Busch and Miliwaukee Best are for ‘old man crotch scratchers’ (and is a Bud product). Foreign beers I’ll drink in foreign places, thank you. And the day that I willingly pay more money for a non-alcoholic beer than regular ones, just shoot me.
Tell me why I should want to drink beer any color, going in, than I want it coming out. Tell me why I should want a Thirty two-ounce can of beer???.
Have you even noticed that finding beer in twelve ounce cans has become a rarity? If you have, then you didn’t tell me. What’s gone wrong in this world? Barqs is even claiming to be a ‘root beer’! What’s up with that?
I was passing that newsstand on Decatur St. and saw the sign in the window proclaiming the availability of a gazillion beers. Do they have PBR? Nooooooo. Why bother?
And now, ‘the whisper on the street’ is that Coors is going to start brewing here. Hello! What, I ask you, am I to do?
In heaven there’s a barmaid that serves icy mugs of American beers for a buck. It won’t get much better that that.
New Orleans Restaurant Rumors
Po-boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Restaurant Confidential
Or
That Man’s Nuts! Grab ‘em!
*******************************
Okay, by now we all have graduated from Gossip Central and are ready for courses in Rumor Control. Soon you’ll be able (with my help, of course) to move on to Hearsay University with, shall we say, impunity; to go forth, unchallenged among the unsuspecting, with insider traded information about local eateries.
I’m not talking about the basic skinny on restaurants like underpaid kitchen staff, lack of health benefits, tough working conditions, chefs that can go from zero to ballistic in four seconds, bounced paychecks, alcohol and substance challenges (not abuse, only the challenge of keeping supplied), and wait staff that are required to come to work ready to kiss everyone’s ass from the dishwashers to the Chefs before they even get to the customers.
I’m talking about, for example, this conversation that I had recently with a cab driver friend that is Professor Emeritus of Hearsay U.
Moi: “So they shut down that brothel on Canal St. and the Madame is gonna name names, one of whom, rumor has it, is a local Chef. I wonder who he’ll turn out to be?”
Prof: “What do you mean HE? It could be --------------! You know She’s a nymphomaniac, don’t you? It could just as well be her!” (You know who that is don’t you? Not to worry, the answer to these and other gems will be given towards the end of this sermon. I promise)
*******************************
Okay, now that you’ve cheated and found out who the nympho chef is, let’s get on to some more juicy stuff. Test your knowledge and ability to pick up the ‘whisper on the street’ by answering these:
1. Name three French Quarter restaurants that have just or are about to lose their leases and close.
2. Name the restaurant that, when the waiter thinks that the customer is a bit drunk, will add drinks and food to their bill (to be shared by the waitstaff).
3. Name that place that as a prerequisite to being assigned to lucrative table sections, sex with the owner (or his son) is required.
4. When installing the new computer system, at this high profile joint, it was necessary to teach the staff to read and write as some had been actually drawing pictures previously. Where is it?
5. Where do residents go to peer into windows, after closing, to watch the rodents frolic on food counters?
6. Name the restaurant that the management takes a percentage of waiter’s credit card tips (off the top) and if you complain….you get fired.
7. Where do they lace fried chicken with lye as a rat poison?
8. Where is it a common kitchen occurrence to see the ceiling drip into the salad dressings? The soup?
Now, you see, if you ask a waiter those questions they’ll probably look at you like you’re stupid and rattle off at least three answers, for each question, right off the top of their pointy heads. Ready for more?
9. Where are insects such a common factor that if you watch the kitchen as they send out your lunch, you won’t be surprised to see the waitress flick a roach from the cutting board?
10. Smoking while cooking? Sweating into your food? Spitting into the trashcans? Excessive drinking on the job? Paying off the health department? Not having current licensing to operate? Too easy!
11. Discrimination by gender, ethnicity, age, or the size of your-------? Where have you been?
12. Sexual (and other) conduct that can be viewed as ‘misconduct’? That subject goes so deep that you’d have to have a seminar to explain to the uninitiated the complexities of social and sexual politics that occur behind swinging doors. Neither pros nor cons come into play here (we’ll save that for the seminar), it’s there. Has been. Will be.
13. Is it rumor or truth that the Chef of this restaurant is part owner of that building (on Chartres and Toulouse) that is suffering demolition by neglect? The (possible) answer is at the end of the article.
14. What white tablecloth restaurant’s customers had the occasion to be served by the bartender working in her bra and undies for about an hour a coupla weeks ago and why?
15. Name the latest DWIs, adulterers, breakups? Who am I not talking about?
********************************
Restaurants are virtual Galapagos Islands of human behavior and to categorize and extrapolate and rationalize, let alone try to explain that aberrant behavior would take a combination of Messieurs Freud, Darwin and Rodgers (Roy, Fred, Buck and Will). The question remaining is how come that in the year 2002 no one has thought to change that mentality? Answer: It has been tried over the last hundred years to bring sanity to that chaotic world, but thus far, has met with little success. Why? Simple. The restaurant business attracts weirdoes, misfits, transients, runaways, renegades, idiot savants, non-conformers and those of us that are just plain perfect. We know that it’s not Kansas, Toto; but, to a lot of us, it is home.
Well, so what’s one of the main things that keeps restaurant staffs going besides the chance of the elusive hundred-dollar tip, drinks before, during and after work or being gluttons for punishment? Living on the edge, you know, where things happen! Where else can you hear things like: “She got him in the liquor room while he was on the ladder taking inventory and you know how small that room is; took down his pants and did him right there! Said that it was part of his job!” or “Yeah, they (the owners) did a drug test on the staff and they all failed!” or “He came in to work and they had changed the locks, he’d been stealing, from his own restaurant for almost a year!!” or “I swear, I saw it with my own eyes(!), they took the ladle out of the turtle soup, beat the rat to death, you know, blood (?), and then put the ladle back in the soup!” (Guess where this occurred?).
In any case, here’s the answers to the questions (and in some cases, names of places I’ve added to throw you off the track just to keep things interesting): Antoine’s, Arnaud’s, Bayona, Brigtsen’s, Brousard’s, Café Marigny, Central Lock up, Cobalt, Commanders, Court of Two Sisters, Déjà vu, Elizabeth’s, Embers, Emeril’s, Felix’s, Frank’s, Gabrielle’s, Galatoire’s, Giovanni’s, Grill Room, Indigo, Jaeger’s, K-Paul’s, La Crepe Nanou, Le Rouge, Mr. B’s, Morton’s, Muriel’s, Napoleon House, Oliver’s, Outback, Pat O’s, Pelican, Peristyle, Quarter Scene, Redfish, Remoulade, Santa Fe, Vaqueros, Victor’s, Wolfe’s, Zoe or none of the above?
Oh, and our lascivious, lewd, lustful, libidinous, lecherous, licentious Lady? Ooops! Out of space.
By
Phil LaMancusa
Restaurant Confidential
Or
That Man’s Nuts! Grab ‘em!
*******************************
Okay, by now we all have graduated from Gossip Central and are ready for courses in Rumor Control. Soon you’ll be able (with my help, of course) to move on to Hearsay University with, shall we say, impunity; to go forth, unchallenged among the unsuspecting, with insider traded information about local eateries.
I’m not talking about the basic skinny on restaurants like underpaid kitchen staff, lack of health benefits, tough working conditions, chefs that can go from zero to ballistic in four seconds, bounced paychecks, alcohol and substance challenges (not abuse, only the challenge of keeping supplied), and wait staff that are required to come to work ready to kiss everyone’s ass from the dishwashers to the Chefs before they even get to the customers.
I’m talking about, for example, this conversation that I had recently with a cab driver friend that is Professor Emeritus of Hearsay U.
Moi: “So they shut down that brothel on Canal St. and the Madame is gonna name names, one of whom, rumor has it, is a local Chef. I wonder who he’ll turn out to be?”
Prof: “What do you mean HE? It could be --------------! You know She’s a nymphomaniac, don’t you? It could just as well be her!” (You know who that is don’t you? Not to worry, the answer to these and other gems will be given towards the end of this sermon. I promise)
*******************************
Okay, now that you’ve cheated and found out who the nympho chef is, let’s get on to some more juicy stuff. Test your knowledge and ability to pick up the ‘whisper on the street’ by answering these:
1. Name three French Quarter restaurants that have just or are about to lose their leases and close.
2. Name the restaurant that, when the waiter thinks that the customer is a bit drunk, will add drinks and food to their bill (to be shared by the waitstaff).
3. Name that place that as a prerequisite to being assigned to lucrative table sections, sex with the owner (or his son) is required.
4. When installing the new computer system, at this high profile joint, it was necessary to teach the staff to read and write as some had been actually drawing pictures previously. Where is it?
5. Where do residents go to peer into windows, after closing, to watch the rodents frolic on food counters?
6. Name the restaurant that the management takes a percentage of waiter’s credit card tips (off the top) and if you complain….you get fired.
7. Where do they lace fried chicken with lye as a rat poison?
8. Where is it a common kitchen occurrence to see the ceiling drip into the salad dressings? The soup?
Now, you see, if you ask a waiter those questions they’ll probably look at you like you’re stupid and rattle off at least three answers, for each question, right off the top of their pointy heads. Ready for more?
9. Where are insects such a common factor that if you watch the kitchen as they send out your lunch, you won’t be surprised to see the waitress flick a roach from the cutting board?
10. Smoking while cooking? Sweating into your food? Spitting into the trashcans? Excessive drinking on the job? Paying off the health department? Not having current licensing to operate? Too easy!
11. Discrimination by gender, ethnicity, age, or the size of your-------? Where have you been?
12. Sexual (and other) conduct that can be viewed as ‘misconduct’? That subject goes so deep that you’d have to have a seminar to explain to the uninitiated the complexities of social and sexual politics that occur behind swinging doors. Neither pros nor cons come into play here (we’ll save that for the seminar), it’s there. Has been. Will be.
13. Is it rumor or truth that the Chef of this restaurant is part owner of that building (on Chartres and Toulouse) that is suffering demolition by neglect? The (possible) answer is at the end of the article.
14. What white tablecloth restaurant’s customers had the occasion to be served by the bartender working in her bra and undies for about an hour a coupla weeks ago and why?
15. Name the latest DWIs, adulterers, breakups? Who am I not talking about?
********************************
Restaurants are virtual Galapagos Islands of human behavior and to categorize and extrapolate and rationalize, let alone try to explain that aberrant behavior would take a combination of Messieurs Freud, Darwin and Rodgers (Roy, Fred, Buck and Will). The question remaining is how come that in the year 2002 no one has thought to change that mentality? Answer: It has been tried over the last hundred years to bring sanity to that chaotic world, but thus far, has met with little success. Why? Simple. The restaurant business attracts weirdoes, misfits, transients, runaways, renegades, idiot savants, non-conformers and those of us that are just plain perfect. We know that it’s not Kansas, Toto; but, to a lot of us, it is home.
Well, so what’s one of the main things that keeps restaurant staffs going besides the chance of the elusive hundred-dollar tip, drinks before, during and after work or being gluttons for punishment? Living on the edge, you know, where things happen! Where else can you hear things like: “She got him in the liquor room while he was on the ladder taking inventory and you know how small that room is; took down his pants and did him right there! Said that it was part of his job!” or “Yeah, they (the owners) did a drug test on the staff and they all failed!” or “He came in to work and they had changed the locks, he’d been stealing, from his own restaurant for almost a year!!” or “I swear, I saw it with my own eyes(!), they took the ladle out of the turtle soup, beat the rat to death, you know, blood (?), and then put the ladle back in the soup!” (Guess where this occurred?).
In any case, here’s the answers to the questions (and in some cases, names of places I’ve added to throw you off the track just to keep things interesting): Antoine’s, Arnaud’s, Bayona, Brigtsen’s, Brousard’s, Café Marigny, Central Lock up, Cobalt, Commanders, Court of Two Sisters, Déjà vu, Elizabeth’s, Embers, Emeril’s, Felix’s, Frank’s, Gabrielle’s, Galatoire’s, Giovanni’s, Grill Room, Indigo, Jaeger’s, K-Paul’s, La Crepe Nanou, Le Rouge, Mr. B’s, Morton’s, Muriel’s, Napoleon House, Oliver’s, Outback, Pat O’s, Pelican, Peristyle, Quarter Scene, Redfish, Remoulade, Santa Fe, Vaqueros, Victor’s, Wolfe’s, Zoe or none of the above?
Oh, and our lascivious, lewd, lustful, libidinous, lecherous, licentious Lady? Ooops! Out of space.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Music in New Orleans
Po Boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Fair Game
Or
The Way That Jazz Goes Down
I’ve come to believe that memory inhibits creativity and spontaneity. I kind of know this from experience; at least I think that I do.
For example, decades ago, a younger me, down on my luck, took a temp job as a dishwasher. I was sent to a club to bust suds.
There I was, up to my elbows in plate scraps, bemoaning my fate, when through the kitchen wall (adjacent to the audience) came the sounds of a gifted jazz artist and… viola, I had an epiphany. I was there, yes I was, (or at that time I was here, the lines kind of get fuzzy). And I was actually being paid to listen to one of the all time great performers of my time!
I remember this, and I remember Ahmad Jamal coming into the kitchen to scam a bite and me feeling special and a part of it all. I remember it like it was yesterday.
From that moment forward, I became a musiholic. I ate, slept, woke, dreamt, and lived music. No artist was too obscure, no venue was out of bounds, no form was ignored, no rolling stone was unturned, and I even put a full Nelson on Willie.
I started to, and still do, listen to Dylan and Dvorjak, The Beatles and Beethoven, Tom Waits, Aretha Franklin, Doctor John, Otis Redding, Neil Young, B.B. King, The Spinners, Smokey Robinson, Clyde McFadder, Eric Satie, Bessie Smith, Peggy Lee, Marvin Gaye, Nat Cole, Elvis, The Dixie Cups, The Grateful Dead, The Doors, Vladimir Horowitz, Mendelssohn, Santana, Brubeck and a thousand other artists that you can but hope in your dreams to appreciate.
Listen up! I was actually paid to tend bar and see Miles Davis perform, not once but a half a dozen times (at least)! Top that!
But, I also recall Jazz Fest being twelve dollars, phone calls being a nickel, bus rides being a quarter and my pay being not much more than it is today.
Where does that leave me? I’ll tell you. In a quandary and quagmire. Am I still gonna try my damnedest to get as much time off from work to blow my hard earned to be out there at the Fair Grounds to cram more music into my already overloaded skull? You bet your sweet ass I am!
Do I understand why thirty five years of profit can’t be accounted for so that prices go up, tickets become more inconvenient to procure and Mother Nature more unpredictable, for the privilege of seeing performances by legends of the music world and be actually there when they do their thing? Yep.
Every year I make whatever sacrifice it takes to be there or be square. Sure, there are forces at work beyond my control or understanding that put on the greatest show on earth; but I’ve got to be there! My life, my soul and my heart beats to the sounds of Johnny Vadokovitz (SP) on drums at the Jazz tent. The Dixie Cups and The Dixie Chicks melt my shorts and to be in the Gospel Tent is truly a religious experience. And I’ve got to be in the audience! This year, as in all previous, The New Orleans Jazz And Heritage Festival will not be televised …Jazz Fest is LIVE!
My policy is to get tickets and worm my way into as many and any hours that I can squeeze in, I pour over programs and maps, make the necessary strategic plans to see my favored performers and then upon arrival scap it all and go where the sounds take me. And I travel light, fast and able. There’s gut in my strut, glide in my stride and no shame in my game.
Okay, I hate the car lot in the space where a stage should be, I don’t understand why the beer doesn’t give me a buzz or how come this year they’re going to build bleachers for high rollers to get a better view than us shmucks on ground level. I don’t know why thirty something’s carry poles with flags and travel in packs. I wonder why folks buy tickets and then claim real estate with blankets, folding chairs and tarps and treat you like a trespasser and interloper should you tread on their sacred ground. I also can’t fathom why people carry so much gear with them, like chairs and backpacks and jungle fashion. And you know what? I don’t care.
In my own warped mind, I don’t think that they really get it. This is not Survivor Twelve, it’s the friggin’ Jazz Fest!
Dig this; a few years ago my step was losing its pep, my ocean was losing its motion…my get up and go was getting’ up and goin’. So I spy this rain tent, you know, one of those misting places that you stumble upon and can never find again?
So I go in out of the din and the glare and all of a sudden it gets quiet; I mean real quiet. The fine mist of cool jetted water is not quite wetting me as much as it is centering me. I can hardly make out the shapes of people around me but I’m sensing that there are them and we’re headed in the direction of this light at the end of the tunnel, if you will.
Nobody’s in a hurry, so naturally I’m not either (you know, go with the flow..?)
So, I’m cruisin’ thinking everything’s cool and this light is getting brighter, all of a sudden I can see the forms in front of me and we’re headed for this opening and we get closer and closer and it starts to open up……SHAZAM!!
The sounds of people having a great time, music all around us, the sun is shining and I smell food cooking. My body temperature welcomes the Sun’s rays and I believe, yes I do, that I have just gone to heaven!
Every year I start my Festin’ with a dozen raw oysters and the hoisting of a beer to my loved ones who’ve passed on or merely passed on by and hope that their heaven is at least as good a time as mine will be; and like I said: be there or be square. See you at the Fair.
By
Phil LaMancusa
Fair Game
Or
The Way That Jazz Goes Down
I’ve come to believe that memory inhibits creativity and spontaneity. I kind of know this from experience; at least I think that I do.
For example, decades ago, a younger me, down on my luck, took a temp job as a dishwasher. I was sent to a club to bust suds.
There I was, up to my elbows in plate scraps, bemoaning my fate, when through the kitchen wall (adjacent to the audience) came the sounds of a gifted jazz artist and… viola, I had an epiphany. I was there, yes I was, (or at that time I was here, the lines kind of get fuzzy). And I was actually being paid to listen to one of the all time great performers of my time!
I remember this, and I remember Ahmad Jamal coming into the kitchen to scam a bite and me feeling special and a part of it all. I remember it like it was yesterday.
From that moment forward, I became a musiholic. I ate, slept, woke, dreamt, and lived music. No artist was too obscure, no venue was out of bounds, no form was ignored, no rolling stone was unturned, and I even put a full Nelson on Willie.
I started to, and still do, listen to Dylan and Dvorjak, The Beatles and Beethoven, Tom Waits, Aretha Franklin, Doctor John, Otis Redding, Neil Young, B.B. King, The Spinners, Smokey Robinson, Clyde McFadder, Eric Satie, Bessie Smith, Peggy Lee, Marvin Gaye, Nat Cole, Elvis, The Dixie Cups, The Grateful Dead, The Doors, Vladimir Horowitz, Mendelssohn, Santana, Brubeck and a thousand other artists that you can but hope in your dreams to appreciate.
Listen up! I was actually paid to tend bar and see Miles Davis perform, not once but a half a dozen times (at least)! Top that!
But, I also recall Jazz Fest being twelve dollars, phone calls being a nickel, bus rides being a quarter and my pay being not much more than it is today.
Where does that leave me? I’ll tell you. In a quandary and quagmire. Am I still gonna try my damnedest to get as much time off from work to blow my hard earned to be out there at the Fair Grounds to cram more music into my already overloaded skull? You bet your sweet ass I am!
Do I understand why thirty five years of profit can’t be accounted for so that prices go up, tickets become more inconvenient to procure and Mother Nature more unpredictable, for the privilege of seeing performances by legends of the music world and be actually there when they do their thing? Yep.
Every year I make whatever sacrifice it takes to be there or be square. Sure, there are forces at work beyond my control or understanding that put on the greatest show on earth; but I’ve got to be there! My life, my soul and my heart beats to the sounds of Johnny Vadokovitz (SP) on drums at the Jazz tent. The Dixie Cups and The Dixie Chicks melt my shorts and to be in the Gospel Tent is truly a religious experience. And I’ve got to be in the audience! This year, as in all previous, The New Orleans Jazz And Heritage Festival will not be televised …Jazz Fest is LIVE!
My policy is to get tickets and worm my way into as many and any hours that I can squeeze in, I pour over programs and maps, make the necessary strategic plans to see my favored performers and then upon arrival scap it all and go where the sounds take me. And I travel light, fast and able. There’s gut in my strut, glide in my stride and no shame in my game.
Okay, I hate the car lot in the space where a stage should be, I don’t understand why the beer doesn’t give me a buzz or how come this year they’re going to build bleachers for high rollers to get a better view than us shmucks on ground level. I don’t know why thirty something’s carry poles with flags and travel in packs. I wonder why folks buy tickets and then claim real estate with blankets, folding chairs and tarps and treat you like a trespasser and interloper should you tread on their sacred ground. I also can’t fathom why people carry so much gear with them, like chairs and backpacks and jungle fashion. And you know what? I don’t care.
In my own warped mind, I don’t think that they really get it. This is not Survivor Twelve, it’s the friggin’ Jazz Fest!
Dig this; a few years ago my step was losing its pep, my ocean was losing its motion…my get up and go was getting’ up and goin’. So I spy this rain tent, you know, one of those misting places that you stumble upon and can never find again?
So I go in out of the din and the glare and all of a sudden it gets quiet; I mean real quiet. The fine mist of cool jetted water is not quite wetting me as much as it is centering me. I can hardly make out the shapes of people around me but I’m sensing that there are them and we’re headed in the direction of this light at the end of the tunnel, if you will.
Nobody’s in a hurry, so naturally I’m not either (you know, go with the flow..?)
So, I’m cruisin’ thinking everything’s cool and this light is getting brighter, all of a sudden I can see the forms in front of me and we’re headed for this opening and we get closer and closer and it starts to open up……SHAZAM!!
The sounds of people having a great time, music all around us, the sun is shining and I smell food cooking. My body temperature welcomes the Sun’s rays and I believe, yes I do, that I have just gone to heaven!
Every year I start my Festin’ with a dozen raw oysters and the hoisting of a beer to my loved ones who’ve passed on or merely passed on by and hope that their heaven is at least as good a time as mine will be; and like I said: be there or be square. See you at the Fair.
Ya Ka Mein in New Orleans
Po-boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Live Nude Girls!
Or
Further Signs of Life in the Gumbo Republic
Notes on possible topics for this month:
1.Tenants rights in New Orleans: Forget it, there are none.
2. Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters: Patronizing the local economy
3. Lucky Dogs and Englishmen: Wagon the Dog
4. The four families that own the French Quarter: Better not.
5. Concierges and kickbacks: Whoops, did I say that?
6. Controversial stoop sitting: The last Black family in the Quarter.
7. Holding up the cab drivers: Who owns all the Taxi licenses?
8. Big Business Behemoths: The death of the small shops.
9. Trading paradise for a prophylactic: Trashing our treasures.
10. Would you buy a used car from this man? Big Brother is Alive and Well:
Forget it! Let’s discuss something serious, this is, after all, the Restaurant Guide. Let’s talk about Ya-Ka Mein.
Ya-ka Mein is not a restaurant, at least, not that I’m aware of. Ya-ka Mein is a something to eat that very well may be of local origin. I’ve never seen it anywhere else, so, who knows?
It’s not a snobs dish, it’s not for the ‘Upper Crust’ or the Hoy Polloy. It’s a working person’s affair, a culinary adventurer’s adventure, a true foodie’s food. Tom Fitzmorris disses it. Sara Roahen adores it. Mathew at the N.O. J&H Foundation calls it a ‘heritage thing’. Dudley at Zatarain’s described working on the river at Elysian Fields and ‘going in to the neighborhood’ for it at lunchtime. Brett Anderson was unavailable for comment at this time. Linda Green demonstrated it at Jazz Fest last year, bless her heart. Ya-ka Mein.
There are probably hundreds of places in New Orleans to get Ya-ka Mein, (spelled Yet-ka mein, Jakemein, Yakamay, Yatka-mein, Yet Gaw Mein, yakameat, Ya-ka Mein, Yakama or ‘Old Sober’) and, I haven’t been to them all…yet.
Legend has it that a hundred years ago New Orleans had a viable Chinatown around South Rampart St. near Tulane Ave. It butted up against a thriving African American living, shopping and entertainment district. Allegedly this is where a street kid, later known as Sachmo, cut his chops running errands for prostitutes, crossing the borders of these ‘hoods for little packages of…………. could it have been………….opium?
I like to think not. I like to think, though I’ve been wrong before, that he was getting take out, possibly Yakamay. {and to think, that nowadays, all that the musically gifted children have to look forward to is NOCCA— how the mighty have fallen} J
With the disolution of our neighborhoods (we also had Jewish, Irish, German, Italian and Greek ones that likewise evaporated) the dish was dispursed like the lost tribes, and only kept alive by the poor, the hung over, the corner markets run by Asians serving Blacks.
When I have guests in from out of town, you know, my peeps, I take them on eating tours (what else?) of our city. No, not to places that the average bo-hunk gets ripped at. I take them on street level tours. Items like Muffalettas at Louigi’s, meatloaf at the Café Reconcile, pickled pig lip ogling at Robert’s ($12.71 a gallon!), alligator sandwiches at Royal Street Gro, gumbo at the corner of Broad and Banks, Lucky Dogs, and Busch in a brown bag with a pack of Zapp’s. They’re all here for the taking, but not the breaking (of your pocketbook).
Ya-ka Mein is different. I kinda keep it to myself. Why? Because if word gets out, those hot shot Chefs with their high falutin’ ways are gonna ruin a good thing. I just know it. And to my way of thinking, we have enough variations as it is. Do I want to see “Duck confit and lobster Ya-Ka Mein with poached quail egg, foix gras and beluga caviar pasta….$24.95 I certainly do not!
But wait! What’s that you say? What is Ya-ka Mein? Listen Woddie, if you don’t know, you better ass somebody!
Oh, you’re assin’ me. Okay, here goes: Ya-ka Mein, whatever way you spell it is a noodle soup of oriental extraction containing a variety of dead animals (pork, chicken, beef , shrimp, etc.) seasoned according to the deviation tendencies of the perpetrator behind the stove, and invariably compoundly fractured (garnished) with a whole hard boiled egg. Y’erd me?
Sometimes it’s reeeeal garlicy, sometimes it’s reeeeal vegetably, the noodle may vary, the animals may change with the season. The prices are generally between three and four bucks for a one quart cup. Most times you get it at a place that caters to low income folks. You may come across it in a joint with a few, or many, tables; invariably you will be served a very hot broth with noodles, a hard cooked egg, spring onions and packets of soy sauce. Variations beyond these point are infinite.
Where do you get it? Usually the sign outside will say something like ‘Plate Lunches-Po Boys-Chinese Food-Fried Seafood Platters’ etc. That’s the call to go ‘check out’ a new source. Don’t worry, it’s cool, you’re on a mission from….. me.
As I sit here, I’m having a quart from Manchu.
Not a place for the faint of heart, Manchu is located at the corner of Claiborne and Esplanade, their Yakamein is first rate, with a great kick of cayenne. While there, check out the wine selection to see what the other half drinks.
If you’re a stranger to danger, hop on up to Broadview, a smooth Yakama is made with asian pork and is redolent with green onions. While there check out other menu items: gumbo, boiled crabs, crawfish, shrimp, turkey necks, corn,and pigs feet (eat in or take out).
Uptown try Mama’s Famous Foods, truly a garlic lovers version
John’s Grocery on Touro and N. Rampart has it in two sizes as does Danny’s on Valence at Magazine (although theirs is alittle salty for my taste).
D&D between Desire and Piety & St. Claude has a kick of black pepper. Monica’s on Milan is sold by a man named ‘Pops’, who keeps a bottle of Sriracha handy.
Chinatown on Canal and Kimmy’s in the CBD both have plethoras of fresh veggies but no egg (go figure) I just saw that the the Moon Wok in the Quarter has it, expensive ($5.95) but I gotta try it. Someone recently mentioned that there was one place in Chicago…………that one may take me awhile to check out.
What I’m saying is that Ya-ka Mein is like a cullinary mugging, waiting around the corner, not frequent in better parts of town, almost brutal in its honesty and straightforwardness. You may get it at a secondline from the back of a pick up, or whipped up at a poker game by a recent Angola graduate, it’s a little thing, a small pleasure.
But, hey, when this Clark Kent gets home (provided there’s no eviction notice on the door) after working (provided the friggin’ Daily Planet doesn’t lay anyone else off) plus fighting for truth and justice (compared to what?) and looks in the mirror (as long as I remembered to pay my light bill) a lot of times all I see on my chest is a capital A (for Adequate-man) or an E (for Every-man); I long for a little thing, a small pleasure. Yat-ka Mein is that.
The Prophet once wrote: “Now go.”
By
Phil LaMancusa
Live Nude Girls!
Or
Further Signs of Life in the Gumbo Republic
Notes on possible topics for this month:
1.Tenants rights in New Orleans: Forget it, there are none.
2. Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters: Patronizing the local economy
3. Lucky Dogs and Englishmen: Wagon the Dog
4. The four families that own the French Quarter: Better not.
5. Concierges and kickbacks: Whoops, did I say that?
6. Controversial stoop sitting: The last Black family in the Quarter.
7. Holding up the cab drivers: Who owns all the Taxi licenses?
8. Big Business Behemoths: The death of the small shops.
9. Trading paradise for a prophylactic: Trashing our treasures.
10. Would you buy a used car from this man? Big Brother is Alive and Well:
Forget it! Let’s discuss something serious, this is, after all, the Restaurant Guide. Let’s talk about Ya-Ka Mein.
Ya-ka Mein is not a restaurant, at least, not that I’m aware of. Ya-ka Mein is a something to eat that very well may be of local origin. I’ve never seen it anywhere else, so, who knows?
It’s not a snobs dish, it’s not for the ‘Upper Crust’ or the Hoy Polloy. It’s a working person’s affair, a culinary adventurer’s adventure, a true foodie’s food. Tom Fitzmorris disses it. Sara Roahen adores it. Mathew at the N.O. J&H Foundation calls it a ‘heritage thing’. Dudley at Zatarain’s described working on the river at Elysian Fields and ‘going in to the neighborhood’ for it at lunchtime. Brett Anderson was unavailable for comment at this time. Linda Green demonstrated it at Jazz Fest last year, bless her heart. Ya-ka Mein.
There are probably hundreds of places in New Orleans to get Ya-ka Mein, (spelled Yet-ka mein, Jakemein, Yakamay, Yatka-mein, Yet Gaw Mein, yakameat, Ya-ka Mein, Yakama or ‘Old Sober’) and, I haven’t been to them all…yet.
Legend has it that a hundred years ago New Orleans had a viable Chinatown around South Rampart St. near Tulane Ave. It butted up against a thriving African American living, shopping and entertainment district. Allegedly this is where a street kid, later known as Sachmo, cut his chops running errands for prostitutes, crossing the borders of these ‘hoods for little packages of…………. could it have been………….opium?
I like to think not. I like to think, though I’ve been wrong before, that he was getting take out, possibly Yakamay. {and to think, that nowadays, all that the musically gifted children have to look forward to is NOCCA— how the mighty have fallen} J
With the disolution of our neighborhoods (we also had Jewish, Irish, German, Italian and Greek ones that likewise evaporated) the dish was dispursed like the lost tribes, and only kept alive by the poor, the hung over, the corner markets run by Asians serving Blacks.
When I have guests in from out of town, you know, my peeps, I take them on eating tours (what else?) of our city. No, not to places that the average bo-hunk gets ripped at. I take them on street level tours. Items like Muffalettas at Louigi’s, meatloaf at the Café Reconcile, pickled pig lip ogling at Robert’s ($12.71 a gallon!), alligator sandwiches at Royal Street Gro, gumbo at the corner of Broad and Banks, Lucky Dogs, and Busch in a brown bag with a pack of Zapp’s. They’re all here for the taking, but not the breaking (of your pocketbook).
Ya-ka Mein is different. I kinda keep it to myself. Why? Because if word gets out, those hot shot Chefs with their high falutin’ ways are gonna ruin a good thing. I just know it. And to my way of thinking, we have enough variations as it is. Do I want to see “Duck confit and lobster Ya-Ka Mein with poached quail egg, foix gras and beluga caviar pasta….$24.95 I certainly do not!
But wait! What’s that you say? What is Ya-ka Mein? Listen Woddie, if you don’t know, you better ass somebody!
Oh, you’re assin’ me. Okay, here goes: Ya-ka Mein, whatever way you spell it is a noodle soup of oriental extraction containing a variety of dead animals (pork, chicken, beef , shrimp, etc.) seasoned according to the deviation tendencies of the perpetrator behind the stove, and invariably compoundly fractured (garnished) with a whole hard boiled egg. Y’erd me?
Sometimes it’s reeeeal garlicy, sometimes it’s reeeeal vegetably, the noodle may vary, the animals may change with the season. The prices are generally between three and four bucks for a one quart cup. Most times you get it at a place that caters to low income folks. You may come across it in a joint with a few, or many, tables; invariably you will be served a very hot broth with noodles, a hard cooked egg, spring onions and packets of soy sauce. Variations beyond these point are infinite.
Where do you get it? Usually the sign outside will say something like ‘Plate Lunches-Po Boys-Chinese Food-Fried Seafood Platters’ etc. That’s the call to go ‘check out’ a new source. Don’t worry, it’s cool, you’re on a mission from….. me.
As I sit here, I’m having a quart from Manchu.
Not a place for the faint of heart, Manchu is located at the corner of Claiborne and Esplanade, their Yakamein is first rate, with a great kick of cayenne. While there, check out the wine selection to see what the other half drinks.
If you’re a stranger to danger, hop on up to Broadview, a smooth Yakama is made with asian pork and is redolent with green onions. While there check out other menu items: gumbo, boiled crabs, crawfish, shrimp, turkey necks, corn,and pigs feet (eat in or take out).
Uptown try Mama’s Famous Foods, truly a garlic lovers version
John’s Grocery on Touro and N. Rampart has it in two sizes as does Danny’s on Valence at Magazine (although theirs is alittle salty for my taste).
D&D between Desire and Piety & St. Claude has a kick of black pepper. Monica’s on Milan is sold by a man named ‘Pops’, who keeps a bottle of Sriracha handy.
Chinatown on Canal and Kimmy’s in the CBD both have plethoras of fresh veggies but no egg (go figure) I just saw that the the Moon Wok in the Quarter has it, expensive ($5.95) but I gotta try it. Someone recently mentioned that there was one place in Chicago…………that one may take me awhile to check out.
What I’m saying is that Ya-ka Mein is like a cullinary mugging, waiting around the corner, not frequent in better parts of town, almost brutal in its honesty and straightforwardness. You may get it at a secondline from the back of a pick up, or whipped up at a poker game by a recent Angola graduate, it’s a little thing, a small pleasure.
But, hey, when this Clark Kent gets home (provided there’s no eviction notice on the door) after working (provided the friggin’ Daily Planet doesn’t lay anyone else off) plus fighting for truth and justice (compared to what?) and looks in the mirror (as long as I remembered to pay my light bill) a lot of times all I see on my chest is a capital A (for Adequate-man) or an E (for Every-man); I long for a little thing, a small pleasure. Yat-ka Mein is that.
The Prophet once wrote: “Now go.”
Demolition by Neglect in New Orleans
Whatever Happened To Baby Shame?
By
Debbie Lindsey and Phil LaMancusa
***************
It started as a lark; it turned into a can of worms. French Quarter waiters, lounging in front of their job site discussing the demolition by neglect of the building across the street. A once beautiful four-story brick building, windows broken, missing and even a gaping hole where a window once was. Space where balconies had fallen and the precarious evidence of one about to follow its predecessors. Pigeons arrived and departed with the frequency of planes at a busy airport; we likened the decay to Bette Davis in her last major film role.
“How could somebody let this happen?”
“Who owns that thing?”
“Can’t somebody, shouldn’t somebody, do something about it?”
“You know, there should be a way for a person to sue a property owner for possession of their building when they let it fall into such disrepair; I mean, I have a hammer, I’ve got nails, I could do something!”
“Yeah, (almost sarcastically) we could put on a high school pageant and save the building like Judy Garland and whatsisname.”
“Mickey Rooney” I replied, “No really, I don’t see why I shouldn’t be allowed ownership; they take away kids and animals if you don’t treat ‘em right, why not a building?”
“This is a ‘National Historic Monument’ of a French Quarter, isn’t it?” Debbie returned, “but I bet you a nickel you can’t.”
*******************
We’re fortunate to live in a city that is large enough to house a well staffed city government while at the same time small enough to be personal about it. It is no chore getting an answer, or answers, concerning matters that we deem important about our living conditions. Unfortuately, we are large enough to have those matters, and their solutions, come under a heading of “not our department”. Case in point: demolition by neglect in the French Quarter.
The French Quarter was deemed a National Historic Monument in 1966, and that makes us special. In a decision of The Historic American Building Survey by the Department of the Interior, Office of National Parks, Buildings and Reservations we were classified as a site that possesses ‘National Interest Concerning the History of the United States of America’. You can’t get more specific than that.
***********************
So what did we do? We held my telephone hostage for an hour or so one afternoon and tackled the job of inquiry. In the process, we received a vicarious tour of City Hall’s various agencies that protect The Big Easy from itself.
We first talked to Joyce at the main number who referred me to Environmental Affairs (EA). Cheryl, at EA had us call NORA (the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority and Ingrid (at NORA) directed us to contact Code enforcement, where we asked Ms. Turner about blighted property as defined by her department. “Unfit for human habitation” was her very succinct definition (Ingrid had told us earlier that ‘blighted’ was “not fixin’ on a property that they can”) and forwarded our call to Rene Sterncamp, her supervisor. Mr. Sterncamp, after hearing our story, told us that the matter was out of their jurisdiction because there is a business in operation on the property.
Subsequent inquiries included the City Attorney, City Planning, The Office of Blighted Housing Purchases, Environmental Affairs, Boards and Commissions, Safety and Permits, Councilman Jackie Clark’s office, Environmental Health Code Enforcement and The Historic District Landmarks Commission (whose jurisdiction, we were told, covers everything but The French Quarter!)
Two other names kept popping up: The Williams Research Center (WRC) at 410 Chartres St. and The Vieux Carre Commission (VCC) at 334 Royal St.
We visited the WRC and were shown the records of the property dating back to its builders Claude Gurlie and Joseph Guillot who helped shape New Orleans as architects, builders and developers. They were in business from 1795-1835 and left their mark, with their distinctive style, through the transition of Louisiana from colony to statehood. Some of their buildings of note are at 722 Toulouse St., the Tricou House at 711 Bourbon St., the Cottin House at 534 Royal St., the Vignie House at the corner of Royal and Orleans, Our Lady of Guadalupe church at 411 N. Rampart St., 613 Royal (home of the Court of Two Sisters) and the Gally House at 536-542 Chartres (known today as 540 Chartres). They also designed and built a convent for the Ursulines that was later demolished to make way for the industrial canal. The WRC also suggested that further information be obtained at the Office of property Management at City Hall.
Our visits to the VCC yielded further insights. Our meetings, although informal, with Marc Cooper and Hector Perera were instructive and educational.
Mr. Herrera, Chief Inspector and seventeen year employee, told us that, indeed, anyone could file a complaint against an owner of property in the French Quarter when it appeared to that person that negligence of that property was cause for concern. But, he added, Due Process often could not be completed to affect change. He cited examples at 601 Chartres, 528 N. Rampart and 540 Chartres (the Gally House). Here’s how it works, we register a complaint, the VCC sends out an inspector to verify and if just cause is found, a letter to the landlord, explaining the complaint and asking for compliance to remedies and communication, within fourteen days, to the VCC. If the citation is ignored, which he said in some cases it is, then the matter can be turned over to a court for legal action. This is where Due Process bogs down. To get a landlord to court a subpoena must be served and if that subpoena is not served then the landlord doesn’t go to court.
Mr. Herera explained that the people serving subpoenas, in most cases, had a hand full of them and if, for example, the landlord was ‘out of the office’, the paper was deemed a bad serve. You see, he said, the paper had to be served to the landlord or to the landlord’s home address. In a lot of cases it was either nearly impossible to find the landlord’s address, or the landlord couldn’t be served, for example, by Orleans Parish if they lived in another parish. Unless, he added, you could get ‘a favor’ by the authorities in that parish to deliver the subpoena.
Mr. Cooper (Director and sixth generation native) confirmed that a significant number of buildings were seriously neglected and that bringing a landlord to court was a challenge, but the VCC has only so much authority.
He allowed us to see the file on 540 Chartres and explained with the help of a map the significance of that particular building. We saw that a complaint had been filed on February 19th and it had been addressed to K&L Investments c/o NOLA Restaurant. We also saw at least twenty work permits that were for work that the tenant had taken responsibility for completing, mostly for safety and cosmetic issues. Mr. Cooper went on to say that the binding test of neglect was based basically on if, in fact, unwanted water was being allowed to enter the property. Water, he said was the root of all damage; with water came rot, insects, deterioration. I explained that it was common to see water dripping through the ceiling of the first floor business when it rained and he answered…”I know”. We found the people at the VCC not only helpful, but serious, passionate and dedicated to the work that they are trying to do, we also found that, if you scratched their surface, you could see a lot of frustration too.
While the files were informative they do not appear to reflect the extent of complaints and concern leveled at the VCC. For example: “I have heard you are investigating blighted housing in the French Quarter, especially the building at 540 Chartres. I have lived next door to this building at 534 Chartres since 1995. The building was in terrible shape then with broken windows and frames, collapsed stairs in the rear slave quarters. Since 1995 the condition of the building has rapidly deteriorated. I am acquainted with Marc Cooper and brought this matter to his attention several times. Not only is this a historic disgrace, I believe it is a health hazard and a public danger. I hope you will prevail in your investigation and attempt to remedy this long neglected situation. Sincerely, Robert Vehon.
At City Hall, where the records of all properties in Orleans is available to the public free of charge, it only took minutes to find the names on the document of conveyance -- the names of the landlords.
*************************
Architecture drew me to New Orleans. It wasn’t the food, it wasn’t the partying, it wasn’t the fun. Old buildings, any kind of old buildings are my passion. They can range from the mansions of St. Charles to humble shotgun houses; the stately structures of commerce or the funky corner groceries with their Bargs root beer signs. For someone in love with history as it appears in wood, brick and stucco I was weak-in-the-knees for the French Quarter. So, with one more nod to the overwhelming array of architecture throughout the city I will contain my homage to the Vieux Carrie and the one building that for me exemplifies all that once flourished and is now decaying.
There are roughly 2,000 buildings within the Quarter with the majority being of architectural and historic significance, with some more outstanding than others. At various times in history, this neighborhood and her buildings have come under threat of demolition. The building of our focus, our ‘poster child’ if you will, is among these 2,000 buildings; and, it has been for too long in grave danger. During our research into this building’s decline we have found reports of correspondence with the responsible (or irresponsible) party involved (or uninvolved) yet still the place remains in disrepair and decline.
The bottom line is: I have watched for too long this building falling to ruin, with second, third and fourth floors serving as a pidgeon coop. And the current owners, since 1994, seem to my eye, slow to act. Three months ago the second floor balcony fell off (fortunately in the rear of building and not onto a busy sidewalk). Perhaps this didn’t shock the owners into repairs since a similar situation had already occurred when the third floor balcony collapsed two years earlier.
In addition to housing pigeons, rain, rot and termites, this old home is used for ground level leasing. In direct contrast to the vagrancy of disrepair suffered elsewhere throughout this property there is a vibrant neighborhood bar on the first floor. It seems to be the only source of life in this neglected building. There is a common misconception that a building is owned by the business (restaurant, bookstore, bar, etc.) operating within. Public perception has often placed blame, incorrectly, upon tenants rather than the behind-the-scene owner. Ironically the tenants often care more and spend more on maintenance and repair than those bearing the holding title. Judging from the records, this appears to be the case with 540 Chartres. I get the feeling this blighted corner would be truly worse for wear without the occupation of the ground floor tenants. Empty buildings just seem to give up on themselves.
If this were the New Orleans Museum of Art and someone were to rip apart a canvas or smash a Rodin, immediate action would be taken. Why is there no yellow crime scene tape around this building?
******************************************************
This is not a who-done-it or guess-where. This is simply a matter of public record and anyone walking past the building can see for themselves history and art still in residence at 540 Chartres despite deterioration. And we will save you a trip to room W506 of the Office of Real Estate and Records on the fifth floor of City Hall. In April 1994, 536-42 Chartres (540 Chartres) known as the Gally House, built by renowned French architects Gurley and Guillot and zoned blue for major historical and architectural significance was purchased by K&L Investments L. L. D... represented by Hicham Khodr and Emeril J. Lagasse. Bam!
We called K&L Investments for a statement and we received one within twenty four hours. It was from Emeril Lagasse. The statement reads, and I quote, “When Hicham and I bought the building, we saw that it was in disrepair and had good intentions to renovate it. Then we began to look at the economics of it, and unfortunately it didn’t make sense at the time. I then had to prioritize my holdings and began renovating other properties throughout the city including Emiril’s Delmonico, Emeril’s Restaurant, NOLA Restaurant and our new corporate headquarters, Emeril’s Homebase, located at 829 St. Charles near Lee Circle” End of quote.
K&L Investments bought 540 Chartres St. in 1994 for $665,000.00. Would this be a low priority investment to you? Onward.
We were informed that Hicham Khodr phoned VCC about violations and said that he would begin making improvements. Mr. Cooper informed us, at least twice in our meeting with him on September 3rd, that his response was, and I quote again, “actions speak louder than words”.
In our estimation, seven years is quite a bit of time to recognize a problem and a need -- a four-story need. With this said, we hope, and will applaud Khodr and Lagasse if they begin to take as much pride in this historic building as with the high profile buildings that house Lagasse’s restaurants.
At the Time of this writing no permits for work on 540 Chartres St. have been applied for or issued.
By
Debbie Lindsey and Phil LaMancusa
***************
It started as a lark; it turned into a can of worms. French Quarter waiters, lounging in front of their job site discussing the demolition by neglect of the building across the street. A once beautiful four-story brick building, windows broken, missing and even a gaping hole where a window once was. Space where balconies had fallen and the precarious evidence of one about to follow its predecessors. Pigeons arrived and departed with the frequency of planes at a busy airport; we likened the decay to Bette Davis in her last major film role.
“How could somebody let this happen?”
“Who owns that thing?”
“Can’t somebody, shouldn’t somebody, do something about it?”
“You know, there should be a way for a person to sue a property owner for possession of their building when they let it fall into such disrepair; I mean, I have a hammer, I’ve got nails, I could do something!”
“Yeah, (almost sarcastically) we could put on a high school pageant and save the building like Judy Garland and whatsisname.”
“Mickey Rooney” I replied, “No really, I don’t see why I shouldn’t be allowed ownership; they take away kids and animals if you don’t treat ‘em right, why not a building?”
“This is a ‘National Historic Monument’ of a French Quarter, isn’t it?” Debbie returned, “but I bet you a nickel you can’t.”
*******************
We’re fortunate to live in a city that is large enough to house a well staffed city government while at the same time small enough to be personal about it. It is no chore getting an answer, or answers, concerning matters that we deem important about our living conditions. Unfortuately, we are large enough to have those matters, and their solutions, come under a heading of “not our department”. Case in point: demolition by neglect in the French Quarter.
The French Quarter was deemed a National Historic Monument in 1966, and that makes us special. In a decision of The Historic American Building Survey by the Department of the Interior, Office of National Parks, Buildings and Reservations we were classified as a site that possesses ‘National Interest Concerning the History of the United States of America’. You can’t get more specific than that.
***********************
So what did we do? We held my telephone hostage for an hour or so one afternoon and tackled the job of inquiry. In the process, we received a vicarious tour of City Hall’s various agencies that protect The Big Easy from itself.
We first talked to Joyce at the main number who referred me to Environmental Affairs (EA). Cheryl, at EA had us call NORA (the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority and Ingrid (at NORA) directed us to contact Code enforcement, where we asked Ms. Turner about blighted property as defined by her department. “Unfit for human habitation” was her very succinct definition (Ingrid had told us earlier that ‘blighted’ was “not fixin’ on a property that they can”) and forwarded our call to Rene Sterncamp, her supervisor. Mr. Sterncamp, after hearing our story, told us that the matter was out of their jurisdiction because there is a business in operation on the property.
Subsequent inquiries included the City Attorney, City Planning, The Office of Blighted Housing Purchases, Environmental Affairs, Boards and Commissions, Safety and Permits, Councilman Jackie Clark’s office, Environmental Health Code Enforcement and The Historic District Landmarks Commission (whose jurisdiction, we were told, covers everything but The French Quarter!)
Two other names kept popping up: The Williams Research Center (WRC) at 410 Chartres St. and The Vieux Carre Commission (VCC) at 334 Royal St.
We visited the WRC and were shown the records of the property dating back to its builders Claude Gurlie and Joseph Guillot who helped shape New Orleans as architects, builders and developers. They were in business from 1795-1835 and left their mark, with their distinctive style, through the transition of Louisiana from colony to statehood. Some of their buildings of note are at 722 Toulouse St., the Tricou House at 711 Bourbon St., the Cottin House at 534 Royal St., the Vignie House at the corner of Royal and Orleans, Our Lady of Guadalupe church at 411 N. Rampart St., 613 Royal (home of the Court of Two Sisters) and the Gally House at 536-542 Chartres (known today as 540 Chartres). They also designed and built a convent for the Ursulines that was later demolished to make way for the industrial canal. The WRC also suggested that further information be obtained at the Office of property Management at City Hall.
Our visits to the VCC yielded further insights. Our meetings, although informal, with Marc Cooper and Hector Perera were instructive and educational.
Mr. Herrera, Chief Inspector and seventeen year employee, told us that, indeed, anyone could file a complaint against an owner of property in the French Quarter when it appeared to that person that negligence of that property was cause for concern. But, he added, Due Process often could not be completed to affect change. He cited examples at 601 Chartres, 528 N. Rampart and 540 Chartres (the Gally House). Here’s how it works, we register a complaint, the VCC sends out an inspector to verify and if just cause is found, a letter to the landlord, explaining the complaint and asking for compliance to remedies and communication, within fourteen days, to the VCC. If the citation is ignored, which he said in some cases it is, then the matter can be turned over to a court for legal action. This is where Due Process bogs down. To get a landlord to court a subpoena must be served and if that subpoena is not served then the landlord doesn’t go to court.
Mr. Herera explained that the people serving subpoenas, in most cases, had a hand full of them and if, for example, the landlord was ‘out of the office’, the paper was deemed a bad serve. You see, he said, the paper had to be served to the landlord or to the landlord’s home address. In a lot of cases it was either nearly impossible to find the landlord’s address, or the landlord couldn’t be served, for example, by Orleans Parish if they lived in another parish. Unless, he added, you could get ‘a favor’ by the authorities in that parish to deliver the subpoena.
Mr. Cooper (Director and sixth generation native) confirmed that a significant number of buildings were seriously neglected and that bringing a landlord to court was a challenge, but the VCC has only so much authority.
He allowed us to see the file on 540 Chartres and explained with the help of a map the significance of that particular building. We saw that a complaint had been filed on February 19th and it had been addressed to K&L Investments c/o NOLA Restaurant. We also saw at least twenty work permits that were for work that the tenant had taken responsibility for completing, mostly for safety and cosmetic issues. Mr. Cooper went on to say that the binding test of neglect was based basically on if, in fact, unwanted water was being allowed to enter the property. Water, he said was the root of all damage; with water came rot, insects, deterioration. I explained that it was common to see water dripping through the ceiling of the first floor business when it rained and he answered…”I know”. We found the people at the VCC not only helpful, but serious, passionate and dedicated to the work that they are trying to do, we also found that, if you scratched their surface, you could see a lot of frustration too.
While the files were informative they do not appear to reflect the extent of complaints and concern leveled at the VCC. For example: “I have heard you are investigating blighted housing in the French Quarter, especially the building at 540 Chartres. I have lived next door to this building at 534 Chartres since 1995. The building was in terrible shape then with broken windows and frames, collapsed stairs in the rear slave quarters. Since 1995 the condition of the building has rapidly deteriorated. I am acquainted with Marc Cooper and brought this matter to his attention several times. Not only is this a historic disgrace, I believe it is a health hazard and a public danger. I hope you will prevail in your investigation and attempt to remedy this long neglected situation. Sincerely, Robert Vehon.
At City Hall, where the records of all properties in Orleans is available to the public free of charge, it only took minutes to find the names on the document of conveyance -- the names of the landlords.
*************************
Architecture drew me to New Orleans. It wasn’t the food, it wasn’t the partying, it wasn’t the fun. Old buildings, any kind of old buildings are my passion. They can range from the mansions of St. Charles to humble shotgun houses; the stately structures of commerce or the funky corner groceries with their Bargs root beer signs. For someone in love with history as it appears in wood, brick and stucco I was weak-in-the-knees for the French Quarter. So, with one more nod to the overwhelming array of architecture throughout the city I will contain my homage to the Vieux Carrie and the one building that for me exemplifies all that once flourished and is now decaying.
There are roughly 2,000 buildings within the Quarter with the majority being of architectural and historic significance, with some more outstanding than others. At various times in history, this neighborhood and her buildings have come under threat of demolition. The building of our focus, our ‘poster child’ if you will, is among these 2,000 buildings; and, it has been for too long in grave danger. During our research into this building’s decline we have found reports of correspondence with the responsible (or irresponsible) party involved (or uninvolved) yet still the place remains in disrepair and decline.
The bottom line is: I have watched for too long this building falling to ruin, with second, third and fourth floors serving as a pidgeon coop. And the current owners, since 1994, seem to my eye, slow to act. Three months ago the second floor balcony fell off (fortunately in the rear of building and not onto a busy sidewalk). Perhaps this didn’t shock the owners into repairs since a similar situation had already occurred when the third floor balcony collapsed two years earlier.
In addition to housing pigeons, rain, rot and termites, this old home is used for ground level leasing. In direct contrast to the vagrancy of disrepair suffered elsewhere throughout this property there is a vibrant neighborhood bar on the first floor. It seems to be the only source of life in this neglected building. There is a common misconception that a building is owned by the business (restaurant, bookstore, bar, etc.) operating within. Public perception has often placed blame, incorrectly, upon tenants rather than the behind-the-scene owner. Ironically the tenants often care more and spend more on maintenance and repair than those bearing the holding title. Judging from the records, this appears to be the case with 540 Chartres. I get the feeling this blighted corner would be truly worse for wear without the occupation of the ground floor tenants. Empty buildings just seem to give up on themselves.
If this were the New Orleans Museum of Art and someone were to rip apart a canvas or smash a Rodin, immediate action would be taken. Why is there no yellow crime scene tape around this building?
******************************************************
This is not a who-done-it or guess-where. This is simply a matter of public record and anyone walking past the building can see for themselves history and art still in residence at 540 Chartres despite deterioration. And we will save you a trip to room W506 of the Office of Real Estate and Records on the fifth floor of City Hall. In April 1994, 536-42 Chartres (540 Chartres) known as the Gally House, built by renowned French architects Gurley and Guillot and zoned blue for major historical and architectural significance was purchased by K&L Investments L. L. D... represented by Hicham Khodr and Emeril J. Lagasse. Bam!
We called K&L Investments for a statement and we received one within twenty four hours. It was from Emeril Lagasse. The statement reads, and I quote, “When Hicham and I bought the building, we saw that it was in disrepair and had good intentions to renovate it. Then we began to look at the economics of it, and unfortunately it didn’t make sense at the time. I then had to prioritize my holdings and began renovating other properties throughout the city including Emiril’s Delmonico, Emeril’s Restaurant, NOLA Restaurant and our new corporate headquarters, Emeril’s Homebase, located at 829 St. Charles near Lee Circle” End of quote.
K&L Investments bought 540 Chartres St. in 1994 for $665,000.00. Would this be a low priority investment to you? Onward.
We were informed that Hicham Khodr phoned VCC about violations and said that he would begin making improvements. Mr. Cooper informed us, at least twice in our meeting with him on September 3rd, that his response was, and I quote again, “actions speak louder than words”.
In our estimation, seven years is quite a bit of time to recognize a problem and a need -- a four-story need. With this said, we hope, and will applaud Khodr and Lagasse if they begin to take as much pride in this historic building as with the high profile buildings that house Lagasse’s restaurants.
At the Time of this writing no permits for work on 540 Chartres St. have been applied for or issued.
Aliens in New Orleans
Po-Boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Ouch, That Hurts
Or
Ground Control to Major Tom
“There are five nameless people that own the entire planet and move everyone around to suit themselves and their purposes”. This statement from a female life form (not unpleasant to look at) that had placed two imitation precious metal discs on a rim surface to indicate her challenge to a contest involving fifteen striped and solid colored spheres being hit with a non colored sphere by way of a long slender rod of wood. The intent of which is to propel those spheres, intentionally, into any of six cavities evenly spaced in a three foot by six feet flat green felt covered horizontal playing surface. I reminded myself that this was just another game of pool.
A hot August evening, a quiet, non-competitive game (against myself), my local pub (Molly’s on Toulouse) and sleeping late the next day had had me lulled into a sense of psychic rest and relaxation. Obviously, this was not meant to be.
In our native vernacular, I responded “So, where y’all from?” She replied that she was from a “planet so far away that I could string toilet paper from my front yard to Uranus (was there a pun intended?), multiply that length by a qua-zillion and not even come close to imagining the distance.” Or, “so fucking far away, it would make your head spin.”
Good answer, I thought, scratched the eight and invited her to rack ‘em.
“So what”, I said, “you’re here to take the planet away from us, free us from destruction, save us from ourselves…what?”
“Nah” she said, “we gave up on y’all, you’d be more of a pain in the ass than we’d care to deal with. I’m just the mop up team; we’re outa here. “Plus,” she added, “most of you’re ugly as hammered shit, and just about as dumb.”
I invited her home. She racked. I broke. Sank nothing. She ran the table, sank the eight in a three bank shot and said: ”sure”: and we were off.
I have a nice house, a clean house, a big house, and a safe house and here I am discussing my world with a brunette who appears to have the intelligence of a spanner wrench. Or not. In either case why would I invite a nut case or an alien into my home? Perhaps the moon was full. Perhaps the planets were mis-alligned. Maybe I thought that I’d get lucky. That’s probably the answer; and while I’ve been laid by a lot of loonies, getting in the sack with an alien would be a new one. Yep, that’s what it was.
Out on the street, I asked about that three-rail bank that she did on the eight ball. She looked at me sweetly and said: “It ain’t rocket surgery, Cap”. Then she touched me behind my ear and something she did shut down my horny honey hornet system. It was like a cold shower, but more effective. I decided that I’d best be polite, that system is usually on red alert twenty four seven, ask anyone that thinks that they know me.
Seated on my porch with the air as still as a tomb and the clouds playing hide and seek with another electrical storm, I asked her what she had found out about us as a race.
“First and foremost: your collective will to exert superiority over each other. Those who find themselves on the lower stratum react with hatred, jealousy and violence while those above keep an illusionary and precarious control by placing value systems and unreachable futile goals that they paint as the pot of gold at the end of the ass kicking.
Those in power wage wars based on greed and oppression using mortality, valor and the joke of an afterlife to brainwash the ignorant into fighting for them.
The very thing that you call ‘sport’ consists, in general, either in abnormal body exertion or the ability to hit, kick, throw, capture or club little balls and then run like hell!
You take finely shredded plants, wrap them in thin paper, put them in your mouth, set fire to them, and then inhale a smoke that you know will shorten your pointless lives.
You drink fermented beverages, aware of their destructive addictive-ness and call it ‘fun’; you injure each other physically, mentally, and emotionally in your homes, your streets and in neighboring countries. Are you catching this or should I go slower for your pitiful ineptness to grasp complex concepts?”
I opened my mouth to answer but she didn’t miss a beat
“You empty your ghettos to provide fodder for rich men’s wars, the last ‘Prince of Peace’ you had got nailed to a tree over two thousand years ago and no one has since been able to muster up enough people to say ‘STOP!’ Got it so far Dummy or do I have to draw a diagram?”
“Uh” I said but as you might suspect, she was on a roll.
“You climbed down from the trees ‘Psycho Monkey’ and took over the planet; since then you have done your best to lay it to waste. You pollute your bodies, your air, and your land, which incidentally doesn’t belong to you but to your future. Are you gonna say to your grandchildren: “Whoops, sorry kids; I forgot to take care of the planet that I’m leaving you?” You have got to have the intelligence of a tree stump to think that we want any part of this. Shit, we’d have to knock all Y’all off and start from scratch and basically, Buddy, that’s not our M. O.”
I asked her where she learned to talk like that. She once again turned on the charm and said: “tapes”.
She unfolded her tightly knit form from my Barco-lounger and said: “Well, hasta la vista, baby” and I begged her to stay, give us another chance; tell us anything that would help us.
She again gave me that certain smile and said “ believe seven impossible things before breakfast”.
By
Phil LaMancusa
Ouch, That Hurts
Or
Ground Control to Major Tom
“There are five nameless people that own the entire planet and move everyone around to suit themselves and their purposes”. This statement from a female life form (not unpleasant to look at) that had placed two imitation precious metal discs on a rim surface to indicate her challenge to a contest involving fifteen striped and solid colored spheres being hit with a non colored sphere by way of a long slender rod of wood. The intent of which is to propel those spheres, intentionally, into any of six cavities evenly spaced in a three foot by six feet flat green felt covered horizontal playing surface. I reminded myself that this was just another game of pool.
A hot August evening, a quiet, non-competitive game (against myself), my local pub (Molly’s on Toulouse) and sleeping late the next day had had me lulled into a sense of psychic rest and relaxation. Obviously, this was not meant to be.
In our native vernacular, I responded “So, where y’all from?” She replied that she was from a “planet so far away that I could string toilet paper from my front yard to Uranus (was there a pun intended?), multiply that length by a qua-zillion and not even come close to imagining the distance.” Or, “so fucking far away, it would make your head spin.”
Good answer, I thought, scratched the eight and invited her to rack ‘em.
“So what”, I said, “you’re here to take the planet away from us, free us from destruction, save us from ourselves…what?”
“Nah” she said, “we gave up on y’all, you’d be more of a pain in the ass than we’d care to deal with. I’m just the mop up team; we’re outa here. “Plus,” she added, “most of you’re ugly as hammered shit, and just about as dumb.”
I invited her home. She racked. I broke. Sank nothing. She ran the table, sank the eight in a three bank shot and said: ”sure”: and we were off.
I have a nice house, a clean house, a big house, and a safe house and here I am discussing my world with a brunette who appears to have the intelligence of a spanner wrench. Or not. In either case why would I invite a nut case or an alien into my home? Perhaps the moon was full. Perhaps the planets were mis-alligned. Maybe I thought that I’d get lucky. That’s probably the answer; and while I’ve been laid by a lot of loonies, getting in the sack with an alien would be a new one. Yep, that’s what it was.
Out on the street, I asked about that three-rail bank that she did on the eight ball. She looked at me sweetly and said: “It ain’t rocket surgery, Cap”. Then she touched me behind my ear and something she did shut down my horny honey hornet system. It was like a cold shower, but more effective. I decided that I’d best be polite, that system is usually on red alert twenty four seven, ask anyone that thinks that they know me.
Seated on my porch with the air as still as a tomb and the clouds playing hide and seek with another electrical storm, I asked her what she had found out about us as a race.
“First and foremost: your collective will to exert superiority over each other. Those who find themselves on the lower stratum react with hatred, jealousy and violence while those above keep an illusionary and precarious control by placing value systems and unreachable futile goals that they paint as the pot of gold at the end of the ass kicking.
Those in power wage wars based on greed and oppression using mortality, valor and the joke of an afterlife to brainwash the ignorant into fighting for them.
The very thing that you call ‘sport’ consists, in general, either in abnormal body exertion or the ability to hit, kick, throw, capture or club little balls and then run like hell!
You take finely shredded plants, wrap them in thin paper, put them in your mouth, set fire to them, and then inhale a smoke that you know will shorten your pointless lives.
You drink fermented beverages, aware of their destructive addictive-ness and call it ‘fun’; you injure each other physically, mentally, and emotionally in your homes, your streets and in neighboring countries. Are you catching this or should I go slower for your pitiful ineptness to grasp complex concepts?”
I opened my mouth to answer but she didn’t miss a beat
“You empty your ghettos to provide fodder for rich men’s wars, the last ‘Prince of Peace’ you had got nailed to a tree over two thousand years ago and no one has since been able to muster up enough people to say ‘STOP!’ Got it so far Dummy or do I have to draw a diagram?”
“Uh” I said but as you might suspect, she was on a roll.
“You climbed down from the trees ‘Psycho Monkey’ and took over the planet; since then you have done your best to lay it to waste. You pollute your bodies, your air, and your land, which incidentally doesn’t belong to you but to your future. Are you gonna say to your grandchildren: “Whoops, sorry kids; I forgot to take care of the planet that I’m leaving you?” You have got to have the intelligence of a tree stump to think that we want any part of this. Shit, we’d have to knock all Y’all off and start from scratch and basically, Buddy, that’s not our M. O.”
I asked her where she learned to talk like that. She once again turned on the charm and said: “tapes”.
She unfolded her tightly knit form from my Barco-lounger and said: “Well, hasta la vista, baby” and I begged her to stay, give us another chance; tell us anything that would help us.
She again gave me that certain smile and said “ believe seven impossible things before breakfast”.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
