THE DOCTOR IS IN
My Poor Noble Painted Lady, My Sweet New Orleans, once again at the crossroads between
the Old and
New Worlds.
Tabula Rasa.
Clean slate.
A chance to start again.
Rebuild. Rebirthed. ReNew Orleaned.
Down in the Quarters, all seems normal. Quiet, but normal. Art hangs on the fence
by the
Cathedral. Restaurants hose down the sidewalk in the morning.
But there is not a single vegetable vendor left in the French Market.
No band in the Square. Here and there a blue tarp.
Mardi Gras Day, our Beautiful Krewe of WooHoo!
(
http://www.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=38268444/a=28850837_28850837/t_=28850837)
rolled throught the Bywater and the Quarters, spreading confetti, beads, cheer and
wildflower seeds everywhere. There were more tears than usual down by the river,
and the frenzied dancing on Frenchmen went into the dark as we rolled our new float
home and had a nightcap at Coops. (
http://coopsplace.net)
And all was right with the world. Until Ash Wednesday arrived and we went East to
spread more
cheer and wildflower seeds at the Rainbow Kitchen down below New Orleans in Saint
Bernard Parish.
All is NOT normal. Half the city is gone. Uninhabitable. Toxic.
There are practically no groceries to be made below Elysian Fields, no apartments
available, garbage and debris everywhere.It is ugly and still smells.
But this is the chance. The big chance for the City That Care Forgot to Remember
to Care. Tourism and gambling are not coming to the rescue. New Orleans needs to
create a real economy, based on the arts culture, music, and trade of this once
great port city. Until then, New Orleans is a third world city, in need of all the
skills and tools of survival in the wilderness.
Here is what my friends who are staying in New Orleans need.
Clean Organic Soil by the truckloads
Hydroponic garden setups
Seeds
Solar Panels for power and hot water
Water Purifiers
Bio Diesel setups
Composting Toilets
Generators
Bicycles and carts
green building materials
Small boats
The Rainbow Family and Common Ground need volunteers who have their own RVs, trucks,
tools, and skills.
The New Orleans Musicians Clinic continues to be my personal favorite charity if
you have spare cash.
Everybody- Plant a garden this year. Give the excess to your local food bank.
Re assess your own survival kit.
Get to know your neighbors.
Buddy up.
The road ahead is looking rocky, and washed out in places, but as my Krewe has recently
discovered- together, we ALL get out alive.
DR
http://royalrounders.com
da dates
***************
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If you would like to see any of the new videos or the Brand NEW NEW NEW slide show
of 9th Ward New Orleans #3 (6 months after Katrina) check out
http://chrisvids.org/pink_houses.html
If you were considering a copy of American Storyteller Vols I &II – the 2 vol
CD complete with computer enchantments such as 3 short films - NOW would be a very
good time:
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/cchandler3
Check out my film partner Karen Kilroy's Impeachment shop:
http://www.cafepress.com/nomorein2004
****************
We look forward to returning to the mid Atlantic and North East.
Boston, P'Town, Albany, Baltimore, DC, Allentown, PA then to the west coast this
summer
***************
T.H.E. .M.U.S.E. .A.N.D ..W.H.I..R.L.E.D. .R.E.T.O.R.T
Hey everybody,
It's that time of the month again.
There is nothing funny to say. So if you were looking for a funny newsletter – maybe
check back next month. I hope my humor will have returned.
Below the balcony where I sit - on the sidewalk along St Claude - there is a mannequin
torso seated in a wheel chair. She evokes a memory of the streets here in New Orleans
just 6 months ago when the bodies in wheel chairs were not mannequins. In this case,
hot rod tail pipes extend from the chair to the street, and she is blindfolded with
yellow "Bio-Hazard" tape. She is made entirely of the flotsam and Jetsam
still littering the urban beach head now that it is low tide in the By Water. Across
the street in the Neutral Ground amongst the piles of refrigerators, mattresses
and plaster that line St Claude is a succession of white crosses made from lath
board ripped from the gutted houses and a tombstone made of gutted plaster. They
are both part of an exhibit called "Toxic Art" at a gallery that sits
at the very edge of a neighborhood known as "The By Water" before crossing
the bridge at the industrial canal into my old neighborhood – the 9th ward.> The
exhibit serves as a reminder that until only very recently the bridge served as
a military check point.
On this side of the bridge, it was only waste deep in water, but the other side,
is a different story. But still, here, the plaster and lath must be removed on this
side as well. I have been down here swinging a hammer in the hopes of getting this
spot in the by-water reopened. It was here that one could get passes to cross the
check point – often press passees printed and laminated in the gallery office, by
any means necessary, in the hopes of getting actual residents in to assess their
property. Also, it served as a key activist spot and independent media site in the
early days of the worst manmade disaster this country has seen.
Yes, I say manmade disaster. I repeat it like a mantra. It was not the hurricane,
the wind, the rain or any of the other ways God farts, It was a man made disaster. Like
a mantra, a man made disaster, but I digress.
The moment I arrived, we crossed the bridge into the 9th ward, something I could
not have done a week earlier without proper credentials. It is six months since
the hurricane and you can now go into most of the ninth ward, St Bernard Parrish
and New Orleans East. I went over with my friend Andrea, who runs the gallery and
is one of the many unsung heroines in this debacle. We went to take pictures - the
exact same pictures - she had taken 6 months earlier. Little has changed but the
water level.
She pointed to a cheap plastic stereo system lying in the middle of the many impassable
roads. She remembered it because she photographed it as it floated by six months
ago – it's speakers sttill attached floating behind the larger unit like little
dingys trolling the wake of a carnival cruise liner. And there it sits washed now
ashore untouched as if it had been beached upon a deserted Island instead of the
middle of a city street.
Whole houses block city streets. Over turned automobiles poke through piles of debris. Entire
lives piled upon other lives in a giant potter's field for the positions of the
poor. Framed photographs, children's toys, lawn mowers, kitchen sinks are ubiquitous. Doll's
heads poking from Piles of dishes, sofas, and abandoned bio hazard suits. A white
Ikea couch pokes from the driver's side window of an overturned Mack Truck on the
corner of what was Reynes Westborn. Refrigerators sit on rooftops.
You see something like that, and you first you think, "How did that get there?"
"Oh, Refrigerators float. Houses do not," I get it. It floated there. Then
you realize houses float too.
Almost all of the houses here are built above ground and many became rafts floating
away until they crash into another one – sometimes landing blocks away. Yes, there
are still houses on top of cars, on top of other cars, on top of other houses, with
cars on top.
There was a barge that broke loose – ((for those of you who are not river people
– a barge is about two city blocks long, or about half the size of one of the World
Trade Center towers) and floated a few blocks from the canal taking out everything
in it's path. It is slowly being cut apart and hauled away. It will be years before
the big money interest will sort out just who failed to anchor the barge. It will
be years after that that any of the home owners whose houses were run over by a
barge will see a dime. Not to mention the residents are scattered from Key West
to Anchorage. It is interesting – that it is the removal of the barge is the only
sign of visible progress. Well, except for that coming from grass roots organizations.
Ya see, that's the thing – a strange synergy is forming between the hippies and
the biible thumpers, and the locals. I have to admit as much as I identify with
the poorest of the poor, I can't say they have ummm…ALWAYS identified with me.
In St Barnard Parrish (immediately east of the Ninth Ward) the tallest building
is a giant geodesic dome. A colorful hand painted sign adorns the Neutral Ground
that looks more like it should be pointing the way to a show at the Fillmore in
1969 than anything than anything that could be in St Bernard Parish, Louisiana before
August of 2005.
The sign reads "Free hot food."
Judge Perez Road winds past miles of destruction and standing in the middle of it
is The Emergency Kitchen inspired by the Rainbow Family. There are no restaurants,
no grocery stores, very little infrastructure, and until last week, no banks. Also,
last week a Home Depot opened. The home Depot is also in a giant circus tent.
Fifteen-hundred meals a day are served from the Emergency Kitchen. They have showers
and laundry. They have a "Free Store" from which Relief donations are
distributed. There are "store managers" who sort and size truckloads of
donations while living in tents and tee-pees There is a yoga tent and even a sewing
room and an Internet cafe. There is nightly entertainment on a stage (musicians
climbing over each other to get scheduled.) Hell, they have Movie Nights with a
projection screen. There are pool tables in the doom. You should see the dread locked
pechuli wearers rackin balls with the Dixie Sugar gimmie cap old spice wearers. Dr
D and I were scheduled to perform there and while standing in the back of the food
line, the doctor hears a child tell her father, "Daddy, the line is real long
today, do you think they will have food for every one?" Needless to say, appetites
were lost.
But, the cross cultural phenomenon is impressive and works in both directions. I
am sure Chalmette residents will no longer cross the street when they see a face
piercing, and it did not take long for the hippies to figure out they were going
to have to learn to cook meat. And not unlike FEMA, the hippies should have figured
out that Ash Wednesday is not the best day to serve pork.
FEMA's just another word for nothing left to lose.
FEMA chose March 1st (Ash Wednesday, the day after Mardi Gras) to kick evacuees
out of hotel rooms. In case ya can't figure it out – it is pretty hard to get anything
done on Ash Wednesday in New Orleans. Also, they choose the day to stop the public
meal kitchens on the cruise-liners-turned-giant-relief-kitchens. It will be interesting
to see how that effects the volunteer kitchens in StBP. Good thinking guys. I mean
even George Bush, as he flew over that fateful August day he famously boasted he
had partied in The City That Never Sleeps Alone. He's a former drug user - he ought
to know and understand Mardi Gras. I mean, what use is it of have a former coke
addict in The White House is he doesn't even understand Mardi Gras. Apparently even
as a drunk George W is an amateur.
So, with these cuts – who is going to feed the people trying to rebuild the vast
areas of the city where there still is no food, limited if any electricity and water? FEMA
trailers that STILL have not arrived.
Well, that's the thing… The Red Cross and FEMA are coming to the hippies asking
them HOW they do it. The Red Cross and FEMA are located up the street – housed in
the StBP Convention Center parking lot and acres of adjacent land. It is a NASCAR,
Indy Car, Merlfest triple Feature full of trailers. Each one brand new, costing
more than 60 grand a piece – and these clowns can't come up with 300 hotdogs or
MREs (meals Ready to Eat) a day. BTW, civilians are not allowed to live in FEMA
trailers – government employees live in them.
But I have to say the trailers are a sight to behold next to the tee-pees. Construction
workers and locals, volunteers, and even red cross workers come to the tee-pees
to eat.
New Orleans officials have a storied history of corruption and waste – and rightfully
so – but compared to what is co coming out of Washington, DC these guys are purse
snatchers in a jail cell with bank robbers.
Further west in the heart of the 9th ward there is a blue house with a blue tarp
roof. The Common Ground Collective -
http://www.commongroundrelief.org/ - is one
of the few residencies in my old neighborhood, and doing astonishing work. They
are organizing volunteers to load dump trucks full of debris, they are helping the
neighbors find the right agencies for assistance and teaching people what plants
to grow. You have to understand, the soil, after an oil spill from Murphy Oil and
years of an industrial canal (and all of the implications) having overlowed – the
soil is dead. It is filled with arsenic. Sweet potatoes and other tubers have to
be planted and their output discarded. It is dangerous, sad and desperate. They
are doing terrific work, but, bless their souls, Common Ground is waste paper basket
next to the landfill.
It was desperate before. Now it is apocalyptic. I can't think of a nice, uplifting,
clever way to say it. Also, it is surreal. As if Revelations was written by Tom
Robbins. Ya see, because it just opened up to traffic, and the Mardi Gras tourists
are in town, the 9th Ward became a peculiar tourist destination".Let's see
honey, Preservation Hall, Congo Square, St Louis Cathedral, and the Lower Ninth,
then off to Bourbon."
I have never seen so many expensive cars in the lower ninth. Before Katrina, it
was a dangerous place. Now there is no one, yet there are blocks and blocks and
blocks of rich tourists stopping to take pictures. Well, not stopping, more like
slowing down by houses lying on there sides, snapping a picture and driving on. This
is the only place where I have ever actually witnessed murder (1998). I was afraid
of this place 6 blocks from my house. Now during Mardi Gras 2006, Mercedes and SUVs
with license plates from Ohio and Indiana festooned in purple green and gold beads
came the apocalypse.
I only hope, that some of them will show their friends there pictures and it will
inspire them to come back, get out of their cars and swing a hammer.
"If I had a hammer."
Well, if you ever had a hammer, now would be a good time.
**************
Here is the slide show of the photos I took on my trip to New Orleans.
http://chrisvids.org/pink_houses.html
It is in Windows Media Player now (which also plays on Mac) and will be in more
formats shortly. Please tell your friends.
***************
Please check the web sites of emergencykitchens.com and
http://www.commongroundrelief.org/.
And toxic art
http://www.lartnoir.com/.
****************
Dr D and I are looking for work in the Northeast in late April and early May. The
schedule is below – if you have a house or know of a venue and would like to present
us – we would love to do it.
*****************
We are also looking for work on the west coast this summer.
******************
HERE'S DA DATES:
Friday, March 10th, 2006 7pm
Akron, OH
The Lime Spider
207 South Main Street
Screening of "9th Ward New Orleans" Video
at the Displaced New Orleans Musicians Benefit
for details see:
http://activemuse.org/pages/news.htm
Friday, March 10th, 2006 10pm
Chicago, IL
Something's In The Air But Not On the Airwaves
Chicago Independent Television - CAN TV - Cable Channel 21
Sunday, March 12th, 2006 6PM-8PM
Baltimore, MD
Mud Luscious Records and The Waterfront Hotel Present:
Chris Chandler and David Roe
Waterfront Hotel
1710 Thames St ,
phone: (410) 537-5055
Friday, March 17th, 2006 10pm
National USA TV
Something's In the Air / But It's Not on the Airwaves
Chicago Independent Television on
Free Speech TV, broadcast to 17 million homes on DISH Network
Saturday, March 18th, 2006 4:15PM
Cleveland, OH
Screening of Something's In the Air / But It's Not on the Airwaves
Cleveland International Film Festival
Tower City Cinemas, Tower City, downtown
buy advance tickets at
http://clevelandfilm.org
- we are in Independent Shorts Program 2
Sunday, March 19th, 2006 11pm
Chicago, IL
Something's In the Air / But It's Not on the Airwaves
Chicago Independent Television - CAN TV - Cable Channel 21
Friday, March 24th, 2006 8:30PM
Greenbelt, MD
The Chris Chandler and David Roe Show
New Deal
113 Centerway
phone: 301-474-5642
Monday, May 1st, 2006 8PM
Haledon, NJ
The Chris Chandler and David Roe Show
Botto House Labor Museum
83 Norwood Avenue,
phone: 973-595-7953
Saturday, May 6th, 2006
private workshop
Philadelphia, PA
The Philadelphia Folk Song Society Presents
The Chris Chandler and David Roe Show
For more information, please see
www.pfs.org
Sunday, May 7th, 2006 7pm
Worchester. MA
The Chris Chandler and David Roe Show
Java Hut
1073A Main Street,
phone: 508/752-1678
Tuesday, May 9th, 2006
The Chris Chandler and David Roe Show
Waltham
Wednesday, May 10th, 2006
Provincetown, MA
Bob Weiser Presents
The Chris Chandler and David Roe Show
Thursday, May 11th, 2006 tbd
Boston, MA
The Chris Chandler and David Roe Show
Split Bill with David Rovics
check back for details
Friday, May 12 - Sunday, May 14, 2006
Darlington, MD
The Chris Chandler and David Roe Show
Susquehanna Music and Arts Festival
2564 Silver Rd
Saturday, June 3rd, 2006 time tbd
Albany, NY
The Chris Chandler and David Roe Show
Rosendale Cafe
Saturday, June 17th, 2006 8pm
Telford, PA
The Chris Chandler and David Roe Show
XFEST 2006 : (country creek winery)
133 Cressman Road ,
phone: 973 809 1930
Saturday, July 15th - Sunday, July 16, 2006 8pm
Tinmouth, VT
The Chris Chandler and David Roe Show
SolarFest
12 MacNamara Road
phone: 802 235 2718