The compound is under construction. Gathering enough plywood, galvanized tin and used trailers takes time, not to mention stockpiling all the shotgun ammo, canned goods and bourbon.
I've run in three of them, and it's an amazing experience. Two of my friends are running this year to raise money for charity, and if you have a moment check out their donation sites and throw them a couple dollars. Honestly, donating online is incredibly easy, and how many chances do you get in this life to do a little good while you're still sitting around in your bathrobe eating cheetos?
Many of you already know Amy Guth through Bigmouth Indeed Strikes Again or her literary blog Chicago Subtext at Chicago Now. She does volunteer disaster response work for the Red Cross, and she's running to raise money for them.
I ran my very first marathon with Patrick Sheehan, and I slowed him down horribly. I owe him. He's a detective in a nearby department. He's a good guy from a good family, and he and his sister are running with Team in Training, to raise money for leukemia and lymphoma research.
I'm still happily exhausted from last night's fundraiser for the New Orleans Public Library Foundation. We got home well after 1 in the morning, and ended up sleeping until 10:30. Ahhhh.
Amy Guth raised $4,000 in one night, and she is to be mightily commended. Watch her blog, because I'm sure she'll be posting a bit once Pilcrow ends tonight. I was thrilled that, in the end, I could use my powers for good by providing an armed escort to Ms. Guth when she deposited the proceeds at the bank. At one point one of my daughters asked if I was drunk, but then realized that it was just that my eyes had taken on that watery just-about-to-cry look that I get sometimes when people start talking about New Orleans.
What a wonderful night. I ended up bidding on, and winning, a rebuilt book from author Timothy Schaffert. He had re-worked a library copy of The Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters with some doll parts and an antique key. My youngest fell in love with it. After the auction Mr. Schaffert stopped by and chatted, and my daughter told him that his rebuilt book reminded her of the movie Tideland. I think he took that for the compliment it was intended as.
Katie Schwartz... Katie Schwartz! She's now part of our family, and we look forward to her return in October. I wish I'd had more time to talk with her friend Jonuel (I think that's the spelling?) because he was engaging, witty, and a great conversationalist. Meeting Katie and her friend, and seeing the response that Amy Guth got to her inaugural Pilcrow outing, reminded me of the experience we had at Johnny Yen's birthday party last weekend. In all cases I was impressed by the ability of good people to draw other like souls to them, and the gift it is to be able to introduce people, and turn strangers into friends.
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So now, how do we enjoy a day with nothing to do? (yes, I know about the pile of wood chips, pipe down, ok, I'll get to them tomorrow when I'm done commemorating our war dead.) Here's how we spend a day like that. We cook pork, putter around, and drink something tasty.
Right now we have 6 pounds of boneless pork ribs grilling over hickory smoke in back. According to MizBubs the back porch smells like a restaurant. I made fresh barbecue sauce, which I think came out pretty well, and she's made a huge bowl of Maw-Maw's slaw, an Emeril Lagasse recipe involving cabbage, kale and homemade mayonnaise. There's a pound of fresh asparagus waiting to be grilled, and ice cream from Capannari's.
Nothing is ever as simple as you think it's going to be. Before the wood chips can be toted to the back yard, there's weeding to be done. And the creeping charlie was pretty thick in some spots, and then there were the weeds that grew through the boards in the back deck, and between the stones off the back porch, so that meant a trip to Homeowner Hell for some vegetation killer, and in between there's phone calls from work...you get the picture.
I finally got to work hauling chips, and after about 30 or 40 wheelbarrows full, this is what the pile looked like. Time to drop the blinds I think.
So far the best thing about today was a phone call that interrupted my work. My eldest came outside with the phone and a funny but pleased look on her face. "Dad, it's Katie Schwartz!" No shit! The delightful Ms. Schwartz called to say hi on her way to her fabulous downtown hotel, giving me a perfect excuse to drop the shovel and bullshit on the phone a little. I was dying just listening to her talk--she's a hoot.
Well, like I told her when she apologized for taking me away from my chores, considering the size of that pile it didn't matter if I worked another 10 minutes or another 2 hours. The rest will wait until tomorrow.
Because now it's time to get ready to go hear Schwartzie read at the Fixx, and my eldest daughter is coming with. Sadly, MizBubs is slaving away at the library until 10, and youngest is swamped with year-end homework.
I've been blogging nearly 2 years now, and I really enjoy it. Along the way I've met some really swell people, and there are eveen more that I haven't met, but feel like I know well enough to consider friends.
There are a lot of you out there with a lot of talent. I mean, really. There are some creative people out there and they've got commercial ventures that deserve recognition. I've been meaning to promote these for a while, but just haven't gotten around to it. Until now. I'd love to see any of the people I'm about to mention get rich from their art and their hard work.
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First there is Jin, proprietor of Uniquely Yours Pastry Shoppe. Let me tell you something--she is one hawt cheesehead, and she is an absolutely magnificent pastry chef! My introduction to her art was the Black Pearl:
Dark Belgian chocolate ganache is infused with a perfect balance of organic black pepper, ginger & wasabi. Dipped in more dark Belgian chocolate, then rolled in toasted black & white sesame seeds for crunch.
Doctor Monkey Von Monkerstein has an amazing collection of postcards (if you're lucky you might even get one in the mail), and a taste for vintage communist propaganda. He's one talented monkey, and he may be the Compound's favored candidate for president in 08. Here's the thing, though--he's also a writer! I read his first novel, Trouble DeVille, and I've been bogarting it ever since, which has kept Splotchy from reading it. Dr. MVM's debut novel is a complicated southern mess, replete with bible thumpers, lesbians, white supremacist webmasters and plucky independent bookstore employees. I told him that I was impressed with how many plot lines he was able to weave together, coherently, since my attention span barely allows me to finish typing this sentence. There's gunplay, and a cute gal with a gun on the cover, which I love. Click here to see how you can order this book.
Splotchy is, I think, one of the smartest, cleverest and funniest bloggers around. Plus I happen to know he's a truly decent fellow, and does good works when he's not entertaining us all. He's making a movie, too, but I can't plug that because he hasn't shot it yet. But here's what I can plug: his fabulous line of iSplotchy gear, available for purchase right here.
What can I say about Katie Schwartz? Schwartzy, as I think I'll start calling her, since she calls me "Bubbsie". She makes me blush because she repeatedly uses the "c" word and all. The reason I mention her is that she's got a book coming out soon, and if it's half as good as her normal musings on this and that it's going to be awesome. Look for her upcoming book Emotionally Pantsed from So New Media in the next few months.
Becca from No Smoking in the Skull Cave lives here in northern Illinois, and yet we have not met her. She has excellent taste in pinups and exploitation movie posters. Her blog is occasionally not safe for work--as a matter of fact, I can't read it at work because it's filtered--but that's another reason to love it. Becca is an artist and has a business called Wink Studios. Recently we did some remodeling, and I bought MizBubs this original drawing for her tiki bar:
Becca was a pleasure to do business with. If you get a chance to buy one of her drawings, do it.
Write Procrastinator is, as you may have guessed, a writer. I like his style. He has given me one of my favorite phrases:
That's it for now. I'm off to beautiful Springfield, Illinois, my least favorite city in the midwest, for the 2008 Illinois Police Memorial. Our honor guard will be participating in the memorial ceremonies. This year the memorial falls on May 1, which is usually celebrated here at the Compound with labor songs, red banners and maybe a trip to the Haymarket Martyrs Memorial.
We didn't make it to the 2nd District at Napoleon and Magazine, but we did head to St. Bernard Parish.
St. Bernard Parish lies just east of New Orleans. It's a middle and working class parish, full of modest homes, businesses, chemical plants and oil refineries. If you like shrimp, a lot of your favorite shellfish comes from there.
It's also the home of the Chalmette Battlefield, where the Battle of New Orleans was fought. The battlefield has recently reopened to visitors, but there's not a lot to see there. Here's a view from behind the American lines, looking out toward the British:
We drove east into St. Bernard after eating lunch at Elizabeth's, home of praline bacon. When I went down there with Splotchy and MizBubs' sister and brother in law, we stayed in a tent city next to the Chalmette Battlefield and spent our days gutting a couple of houses whose owners had signed up for assistance from the parish.
Much of St. Bernard Parish is still a ghost town. No one has moved back into the two houses we gutted. I talked to a neighbor of one of them, and he said the homeowner took her Road Home grant and relocated. So had most of the other people in the neighborhood. A lot of people don't want to move back as long as MR GO stays open, making it possible for the next storm surge to again flood the area.
MR GO, the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, was built in the 60's as a way to allow ships to pass from the Mississippi River directly into the Gulf of Mexico. It's now more than 3 times wider than was originally intended, and it acted as an expressway channeling floodwaters into St Bernard Parish during Katrina. The Army Corps of Engineers has plans to close it, but the government is dicking around, and it remains open as I write this.
We drove back west into the lower 9th ward, and I showed the girls where the levee had broken. When I was there in March 2006 (nearly 8 months after the hurricane) the neighborhood looked like this:
One of the things that impressed me, in September 2005 and in March 2006, was how many people had hoisted American flags, either as they left or as they stayed and tried to get help. A defiant and poignant reminder: "HEY LISTEN! WE ARE AMERICANS, AND WE WILL NOT GIVE UP!"
I took this picture of a church just a few blocks from the levee in March 2006:
Here's how that church looked 3 weeks ago:
Most of the wrecked houses have been demolished and removed, but there are still some streets that are impassable because of debris. Now the neighborhood looks almost rural:
A short distance away from where this picture was taken we came to a haunting sight. The block had been cleared of all its houses, and looked at first just like a vacant field. Looking closer, there was a row of concrete stoops and driveway pads, one after the next, stretching the entire length of the block, each one representing a home and a family that was no longer there.
The instant I got the girls out of the car to stand and take it all in I felt like an asshole for asking them to do it. Everyone went silent and the silence stayed with us for a long time after we got back in and drove off. I wish every American could spend just a few minutes here, and maybe for a moment understand how profoundly we failed our own citizens. And maybe want to do something to help.
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New Orleans is in trouble.
For a first-time visitor to the French Quarter or downtown, you'd never know the difference.
Get outside the tourist area, and look around. The lower 9th ward resembles a war zone, and the middle and working class residential neighborhoods lakeside of St Charles are only partly populated. The population is about half of what it was. And the shitheads and criminals are back.
Just after the police announced that violent crime is down compared to this time last year, six more murders were committed over the weekend. According to this story in the Times-Picayune, rates for armed robberies spiked 25%, and assaults increased 33%. No one is exactly sure what to make of it all. No one's even sure of how to calculate the figures, since no one agrees on exactly how many people live in the city now. The NOPD says it's about 318,000 while another study estimates the population at 300,000. The police say they're "having a horrendous time dealing with the mentally ill". This is attributed to the loss of hundreds of hospital beds designated for mental health patients.
I met a young woman in a bar who told me about getting robbed on the street a couple of weeks earlier. A friend of hers had been robbed in the middle of the afternoon by an assailant wielding a shotgun. Almost everyone I talked to had a story about getting robbed or having a house or car broken into. I've never been anyplace where I've heard more people talk about crime.
There have always been gutter punks hanging around the lower quarter every time we've visited. It seems like there are a lot more of them now. They don't add anything to the atmosphere, I'll put it that way. There's nothing like seeing able bodied white kids sitting around begging when there's so much work to be done.
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Rich people like the French Quarter. We saw several for sale signs, and most of those signs were from Sotheby's. The lower quarter seemed almost deserted at times--you could tell that the buildings were occupied, but no one was around. A lot of property owners appear to be absentees. For all the Nick Cages and Brad Pitts buying real estate, few of them appear to be really living there year round. So where do all those shop clerks, and hotel staff and waiters and waitresses who work in the French Quarter serving tourists like us live? Not where they work, that's for sure. Rents have skyrocketed. Part of the charm of the French Quarter has been that it is a residential neighborhood. Now it seems in danger of becoming a ghetto for tourists and the very wealthy.
The vibe was different. I wasn't sure if it was me, because I'm a cop, bordering on paranoid, who distrusts and dislikes almost everyone. But my kids sensed it too. A certain wary, worn-down feeling. Some bursts of anger out on the street that I hadn't seen before--traffic disputes, drivers leaning on their horns and yelling. It wasn't much compared to what you see in a city like Chicago on any given day, but it seemed sadly different for New Orleans.
The upper end of Bourbon Street, closer to Canal, is more porno'd out than it used to be. While Bourbon Street has always had its seedy strip clubs (Bottomless! Topless! Moderate Prices) there are now more in-your-face clubs like Hustler, Deja Vu, Little Darlings, and the girls are out on the street soliciting business. The strippers looked tired and disinterested as they stood outside the door, one foot propped back behind them on the wall. It was sleazy, and not really in a good way. At least now my kids know what a stripper with a beer belly looks like.
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Then there's the "recovery". I honestly don't know what to think. In some ways progress has been phenomenal, and in others heartbreakingly slow. I ran into a cop from St Tammany Parish at the ILEETA conference. He claimed (and I have not been able to find any figures for this) that for the amount of money pledged to Katrina recovery, and spent without anyone really knowing where it's gone, you could've cut a check for $1 million to every displaced family and be done with it. Like I said, I have no idea if he's correct, but it does look like the Bush administration has approached Katrina recovery with the same prudence and oversight that they've shown in Iraq spending.
This was a front page story while we were down there:
The article features a woman who purchased a town house from HUD as part of a low income housing project. The townhomes were built on a toxic dump, later designated as an EPA Superfund site. After surviving cancer, probably caused by the poisons she'd been living on, she lost her home when the levee broke. Now the Road Home program won't pay for her property because her home sits on contaminated land.
I guess we're all beginning to suffer from Bush cronyism and corruption fatigue, because I don't remember this story getting a lot of air time. The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) resigned, and is under investigation for awarding contracts to political buddies. According to this story in the Chicago Tribune:
Now, don't despair, because that does no one any good. New Orleans and the people who live there are keeping on. They are a stubborn bunch, and they're not about to just give up and let the city die. Me, personally, I feel like I owe them, for all the hospitality they've shown me, for the food, the music, the cocktails, the stories, you name it. So here are a few ways an average Joe or Jane can help out:
I can't say enough good about these people. You can click on that link and donate, or even better do like Splotchy and I, and get down there and volunteer. Build something. Splotchy is a mensch, he's been down there twice, but I aim to catch up with him this summer. Here's individual links to make it easy for you:
There. Wasn't that easy? I'm sure if you spend a little time you can find dozens of other worthy ways to donate time, goods or money. Please do, and if you find a good charity, please let me know and I'll include it in this list. Here's a good idea: plan your own trip to New Orleans! They'd love to have you, and it's probably one of the only places in the world where your tourism dollar actually helps. You can have a good time and participate in the rebuilding of a great city at the same time. Let me know if you go there, I know some good places to eat and drink.
Closer to home there's someone else who is doing her part to help out. Chicago's very own Amy Guth is organizing the upcoming Pilcrow Lit Fest, right here in Chicago May 22-25. They also has a blog with lots of neat interviews. The lit fest itself will be a blast--you'll get to meet loads o' cool authors, including the sweet and hilarious west-coaster Katie Schwartz.
Anyway, Pilcrow is asking for donations, and you'll find a little donation widget later in this post, as well as in the top right corner of this blog. Why? I'll just steal this bit of text from their site:
Why are we asking for donations?
Pilcrow has a small staff, dedicated to bringing together great writers and publishers in Chicago. Our fundraising goal on May 24 is to raise money for the NOLA Libraries through a silent auction of Rebuilt Books.
Creating and curating a festival takes lots of little things that take a little money.
Name tags, lanyards, printer catridges, a case of wine, cornbread muffins, and other odds and ends that haven't made our list yet.
Since many of our friends can't volunteer time, they asked to make it easy to donate money. And so we are using ChipIn. The goal? To raise money to throw the event which will raise, we hope, buckets of money for New Orleans Libraries.
Here's a link to the New Orleans Public Library "How To Help" page, detailing different ways to help out.
Thanks for doing what you can. My wife and my mistress both say thanks.
I mentioned to MizBubs, over a delicious apres-work blueberry martini, that I had been tagged, and I explained the regrets theme. She replied that she certainly wouldn't want to share her regrets with other people, which surprised me. Turns out what she was describing as a "regret" was what I'd refer to as a mistake--basically, something I'd done wrong, someone I'd mistreated, some way I'd fucked things up. A failure. An embarrassment. Well, no shit, I don't want to discuss that stuff either.
You know that feeling that you wake up with when you wish you hadn't had too much to drink? Or danced like a monkey to Louis Prima, told a coworker "PIPE DOWN, FAT-ASS" and then puked three times before being delivered by a more sympathetic coworker to your front door at 3am, only to have your wife think you've suffered a head injury at work because she can't understand your pre-verbal grunting as you crawl up the stairs, and then you have to sleep until 3 in the afternoon the next day and you still aren't right, you know that feeling? Oh, wait, you don't? Well, anyway, that's not regret.
That's shame, and a sense of it is a healthy thing to have. Regret, in my opinion, not so much.
When I think of "regret" I think of sitting and wondering what if--not knowing what was behind that door you didn't open, what was down that side road you didn't take. I think of regret as a state of mind, a wistful way of looking back. It goes quite well with equal doses of melancholy and nostalgia. That's regret. And regret, especially in a middle-aged man, is (if you'll pardon me) regretful. I think of it as a potentially debilitating condition:
Main Entry:
2regret
Function:
noun
Date:
1590
1: sorrow aroused by circumstances beyond one's control or power to repair 2 a: an expression of distressing emotion (as sorrow or disappointment) b: plural: a note politely declining an invitation
That's the thing about regret: most of the time, you can't do anything about whatever it is you're regretting. It's over. Maybe you can try and do better in the future, hopefully providing yourself with fewer things to regret as you get older.
I have said before that I am a lucky man, and things have worked out better than I ever would have dreamed 25 years ago. For a good part of my teens and early 20's I never expected to live this long; I had a difficult time even imagining it.
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Truth be told, I don't have many regrets:
1) I'm kind of sorry I never joined the regular Army or the Marines when I thought about it in the early 80's. I was already in the Army National Guard, and I came close to going full-time at a low point when MizBubs and I were in splitsville. Here's the thing, though-- I know that if I had gone, MizBubs and I would never have reconciled, and never have married...and I have had nightmares about not being married to MizBubs. So I guess this is maybe a semi-regret?
2) I regret not taking risks and traveling when I was in my late teens and early 20's. I wish I'd ditched whatever crappy low-income job I'd had at the time, taken my chances and done something like hitchhike across Europe. When I visited Galway City with my family in 2003 I had a strange moment. I had an intense physical sensation of sadness; sadness that I had not visited there 20 years earlier as a kid.
3) There are a few friends I've had over the years that I feel pretty shitty about not keeping up with. Same goes for a few of my cousins, who I love dearly but hardly ever talk with or see.
4) Sure wish I'd learned to manage money better about 10 years earlier than I did. It's ok now, though.
5) I don't know how I could've worked this, but there are times I wish we'd started having babies sooner, had a couple more than we did, and that I hadn't had to work so hard when they were in grade school. I wouldn't mind having a few years in the mid-90's back again so I could be a better dad.
Non-regrets? I got a ton of those. Here's a few for a top 5:
1) My crazy stalker behavior at a parish carnival paid off, and eventually MizBubs married me.
2) I've got two smart beautiful daughters who aren't embarrassed to be seen in public with me.
3) I've had a great career as a cop. I've been lucky enough to have a job that is at once its own penance and reward. I'm making an income that in my starving art student days I would've regarded as obscene. I've gotten to save someone's life once or twice, I've helped put some very bad people in prison, and I've been able to comfort people who needed help. I think, overall, I may be a better man now than I was 20 years ago. Lord, I hope so.
4) I was able to have some really good conversations with my dad before he died.
5) Did I mention MizBubs and the girls?
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This was an interesting experience. I'm reluctant to tag anyone specifically, but I'd encourage anyone reading this to give it a shot.
"There was no point in looking back, fuck no, not today thank you kindly. My heart was filled with joy. I felt like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger; a man on the move, and just sick enough to be totally confident."
