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.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
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?
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