In a nutshell

The weekend was splendid.

Pilcrow Lit Fest wrapped up with Opium's Literary Death Match and the Rebuilt Books Auction. Yours truly got appointed AV geek for a day and worked the microphones and lights for the event at the ViaDuct Theater. I am not in the habit of attending readings, but I'm going to start. There is something really cool about hearing people reading their stories. As a bonus I got to hang out with Amy Guth, her hub and a couple of friends afterward at the Silver Cloud Bar & Grill. I have a soft spot for that place because MizBubs, girl genius, once re-designed our kitchen and living room on the back of a cocktail napkin there years ago.

Sunday afternoon was my niece's first birthday party, and that was a blast. My brother and his wife throw a good party, and I waddled out of there fat and happy.

Sunday night we made our way over to the Tiki Terrace after a power nap, and had a few drinks at Retro Zombie Tiki Terror. The event was co-hosted by Kitty Zombie (an amazing character!), ChicagoZombie.com, ZombiePinups.com and Zombie Army Productions. Our very own Nora made a few clams doing zombie makeup, and then to top off the evening she won the zombie pin-up contest! Behold, zombies at the tiki bar in all their splendor:

Since it was Sunday, you know there were cocktails. And the Sunday Afternoon Cocktail was (of course)

The Zombie (recipe from this story about Beachbum Berry)

1 ounce fresh lime juice

3/4 ounce unsweetened pineapple juice

3/4 ounce papaya nectar

1/2 ounce applejack

1 ounce dark Jamaican rum

2 ounces Barbados rum

1 ounce light Puerto Rican rum

1/2 ounce 151-proof Demerara rum

tablespoon powdered sugar

Shake everything--except Demerara--with ice cubes. Float Demerara on top of drink. Garnish with mint sprig, pineapple cube skewered between red and green cocktail cherries, and a pinch of powdered sugar sprinkled all over.

Today we managed to get out into the yard to work on the annual de-whitetrashification. We repaired some loose stones on the front porch, weeded, cut the lawn and cleaned up the herb garden. While I was working on the porch, MizBubs, girl dynamo, got the idea of repairing and sprucing up our bird bath:



Finally, as a bonus, since today felt like a Sunday we had another cocktail. Today's 3-Day Weekend That Feels Like A Sunday Afternoon Cocktail was:

The Mint Julep

8 mint leaves
2 tablespoons simple syrup
3 shots of bourbon
crushed ice

Tear up the mint leaves and place in the bottom of a tall glass. Add syrup and muddle (the handle of a wooden spoon works well if you don't have a muddler). Add bourbon and stir. Fill the glass with crushed ice and stir again, garnish with a sprig of mint. Enjoy!

Party like it's 1959

Party like it's 1959...that's what the promoters of Retro Zombie Tiki Terror promise on their web page:

On Sunday, May 24, get ready to party like it’s 1959 at RETRO ZOMBIE TIKI TERROR!, a night of zombie fun set in the tiki wonderland that is The Tiki Terrace in Des Plaines, IL. RETRO ZOMBIE TIKI TERROR! will feature a Polynesian floor show, Zombie Pinups Beauty Pageant, Zombie Costume Contest, raffles, prizes, zombie movies, tiki tunes and, of course, delicious tiki drinks!

Tentative itinerary (subject to change):

• 6:00 - 10:00 : All ages welcome!
• 6:00 - 8:00 : Socialize, eat, drink and be scary!
• 8:00 - 9:00 : Live Polynesian Floor Show
• 9:00 - 10:00 : Booze & Shmooze
• 10:00 : Kids, go home - 18+ after 10:00
• 10:00 : Zombie Costume Contest
  Guys & Dolls, come dressed in your zombie finest and compete to win fabulous prizes!
• 11:00 : Zombie Pinups Beauty Pageant
  Ladies, put on your sexiest classic pinup outfit and your most gruesome zombie make up, and compete to win awesome prizes! Judging will be based on quality of make up / effects and costume. All contestants will be photographed for a special gallery at ZombiePinups.com; to get an idea of what we’re looking for, visit the gallery at ZombiePinups.com, and start planning your character NOW!

Enjoy fine food, tiki drinks, classic music, zombie movies and other Chicago zombie dudes & dames in between events! Every ticketholder gets a raffle ticket, so you never know when you’ll win something spectacular.

Tickets are $15.00 in advance, $20.00 at the door. Ticket does NOT include food or drinks. The Tiki Terrace has a full menu of Polynesian-themed food.

RETRO ZOMBIE TIKI TERROR! will take place from 6:00 pm to 2:00 am on Sunday, May 24, at the Tiki Terrace, 1591 Lee St., Des Plaines, IL 60018, approximately 4 minutes north of O’Hare International Airport. Tiki Terrace is located at the NE Corner of Lee/Manheim and Oakton.

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "gee, I'd love to go to a retro zombie tiki event, since it would give me a wonderful opportunity to show off my vintage threads, but I have no clue how to get that living dead look that all the cool kids go for nowadays." I feel you. Luckily for the zombie makeup challenged, Nora will have a booth set up at the event and will be providing zombie makeovers for a small fee. Tell her Bubs sent you. Hope to see you there!

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Pilcrow Lit Fest will be wrapping up on Saturday night with Literary Death Match and the Rebuilt Books Auction at the fabulous ViaDuct Theater.

MizBubs and I will be there soaking it all in.

So there you have it folks--two opportunities to drink up in swell surroundings.

That's it for now. I've got a couple of projects demanding some attention, so I won't be around for a few days. Until next week, please stand by.

What we're up to this weekend

It can't always be tropical drinks in exotic destinations with fellow bloggers. Next week we'll be attending as much of Pilcrow Lit Fest as we can, and the weekend of the 23rd-24th brings, in rapid succession, Pilcrow's finale, my niece's first birthday party, and a Retro Zombie Tiki Terror party (more on that later.)

But for now, it's garage sale time. This is the weekend for the annual Mount Prospect Garage Sale: 500 + garage sales in one weekend. You can read more about it here.

We cleaned out (mostly) the basement and (pretty much) the garage, and we'll be peddling our crap on Friday and Saturday. We'll be taking Sunday off to go to church and then sacrifice a hog.

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Mark your calendars now for Sunday, May 24th. The Chicago Horror Society is presenting Retro Zombie Tiki Terror! at the Tiki Terrace in Des Plaines. There will be drinks and contests and pinups and zombies, and a certain lovely and talented young woman will be working the event. Come out and party like it's 1959. You can sleep in on Memorial Day. More info here: Retro Zombie Tiki Terror!

Slap-happy Sunday

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.

And MizBubs, bless her, decided to make today's Sunday Afternoon Cocktail: Sangria!

1 bottle of rose wine
1 bottle of Pinot Grigio
1 Cameo apple
1 Valencia orange
1 pint of blackberries
1 cup of triple sec

• Chop the apple and orange, and place in a large pitcher with the blackberries
• Add the triple sec and let sit for a while
• Add the wine, stir, and refrigerate for one hour
• Serve over ice and enjoy
  

Bottoms up!

Show the Pilcrow some love

If you're in the Chicago area, and you'd like to maybe have some fun and also contribute to a good cause, I got an idea for you.

Why not come to the Fixx Coffee Bar at 3053 N. Sheffield, Chicago, Saturday at 8:00 pm? It's a reception and fundraiser for the New Orleans Public Libraries, and a whole bunch o' hep authors will be auctioning off their rebuilt books.

Pilcrow Lit Fest is doing workshops and events all weekend, but this is the only one I can attend. Let's get together, hang out, talk with some writers and have a few drinks. Come on--you know you want to. I even put a little New Orleans music in the widget over there to help put you in the mood.

Alright, enough with the wood chips already

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.

End of the day

I hope everyone had a decent weekend.

Contrary to what I posted earlier, MizBubs did not just want a drink and a smoke and to be left the hell alone today. Nor did my mom. So we forced them to gorge themselves on sushi and ice cream cake, then I got my better half home and plied her with champagne.

Yes, the Sunday afternoon cocktail today is champagne. Served in a wine glass, not a flute, because a flute just doesn't hold enough and we were too lazy to keep getting up off the couch for more. Here we sit, watching Bobby Flay and some blonde chick cook pork shoulder. I just watched two of the throwdown judges describe themselves as "certified barbecue judges" and I thought...hmm, how does one become a certified barbecue judge? I must find out.

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So MizBubs, relentless girl dynamo, worked her ass off this weekend prior to Mother's day. Our youngest celebrated her 16th birthday by having a few friends over, and we had to get the house into shape. Our place was still looking pretty disastrous from having a few rooms painted while I was out of town. We spent Saturday morning cleaning like crazy before I left for work, and before the teenage girls arrived.

We made a few changes in the living room and tiki bar, and honestly I can't wait to have some of y'all over this summer to hang out, eat and drink with us. I'll spare you the before pictures and just go right to the good stuff.

This is how it looks from the kitchen, walking back:



Here's the youngest, reclining:

A friend of mine had an early 60's hi-fi console that he didn't want. I got it from him in exchange for a bottle of Cabo Wabo tequila. We've always wanted a big-ass tropical plant, and MizBubs ran out today to IKEA and treated herself to a Majesty palm tree for $15.



The shelves behind the tiki bar got cleaned up and reorganized, and I put some thrift shop record album covers up on the wall.

And here's the tiki bar, with all the crap cleaned off it:



So here we sit, sipping our champagne and contemplating our next move. There's a lot in the pipeline, I'll tell you.

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I thought I'd done a pretty thorough job of reviewing the current alligator issues facing us. Sure enough, as soon as I sat back and felt satisfied, a new threat emerged. Fortunately, intrepid law enforcement intervened and disaster was averted:

Burglary suspect caught driving with alligator passenger

Yes, that's correct. A police officer stopped a car for driving erratically, and it turned out the driver had just committed a burglary. He had also dragged an alligator out of a ditch and stuffed it into the backseat of his car, where it remained until the officer stopped him. Alcohol was involved.

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So what's going on this week? Well, I'm making some big personal changes to shake this malaise I've been suffering and get back into running shape. I'm a physical disaster. I've been putting off visiting my allergist, I'm prone to wheezing, and I weigh more than I have in years. All this starts to change tomorrow. So that's good. I got a few projects to work on, including some honor guard stuff. Hopefully I won't ruin anyone's Memorial Day like I did last year. I'm working on another corporate training gig that may put some cold cash in my pockets.

And we're only a couple weeks from Pilcrow Litfest. Come on, folks, we're almost there. Someone throw a few dollars their way so I can take that widget off my page. It's slowing things down.

Thanks.

Hard Times

Now for the hard part. The sadness.

I knew it would hit me at some point.

I planned on taking MizBubs and the girls to show them where I worked when I went down there with some brother officers after Katrina, and I wanted to show them the houses we gutted in St. Bernard Parish in March 2006.

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:

ROAD HOME DETOUR

Owners of homes the government built on contaminated soil are running into bureaucratic snags in selling their homes to the state

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:

The FBI is looking into ties between Jackson and a friend who was paid $392,000 by HUD for work as a construction manager in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina

How long, Lord?

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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:

New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity

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:

St Bernard Parish project

Musician's Village

Donate Online

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.