Gentilly Girl- a part of the 99%

May 3, 2008

The Second Time on the “Second Lines”…

Last Saturday, a major dissing of our Cultures and Traditions here in New Orleans went down: Da’ NOPD broke up a Second Line, a Jazz Funeral, in the Treme last Saturday. (Of course the local paper didn’t report on the event until the wee hours of the morning today.) This was as the mourners had finished and were walking to a place to share the Repast at a Community Center.
For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of this kind of funerary rite, here’s what it entails:`a procession heads toward the ceremonial place of passing (could be a business, a fishing hole, a certain park or the cemetery.) A brass band leads the folks playing dirges. When the selected place is reached, the words are said and the departed is ready to move on. Then the band strikes up a different beat and the mourners start to dance in order to help their friend move on to the other World. “Dancing them Home” is also a way to stop the tears and just remember our friend as we continue through day-to-day life. We are a Family. We take care of our own.
Once the Second Line is done, the folks gather in places and share food, drink and stories about the departed. Some members of the “Family” might be at one place, others at others. But this is usually how it goes down.
This is a Sacred ritual. It is rooted in Culture and Tradition, Respect and Humanity. This act is seen as essential by many of us as part of our Heritage and our City. Events such as this define us as a people and a Culture, the continuation of what has been for many, many years. As a Native I will say now: “This is part of our Birthright, our being a part of the Life that moves through the heavy damp air as it sways the Spanish Moss on the oak trees. Here is where we came from and in the fullness of time where we shall return. The muddy waters of Old Man River, the clays in the swamps… the scent of cypress trees… all of these things are also part of us. We dance the Dance of Life, knowing full well the fragility of the living, and we will not give our ancestral ways up. This is our home and these are our Traditions. This is OUR Dance.”.

This is why what happened last Saturday is an attack and an affront to the Culture of New Orleans. It is orchestrated by those of money and power. Our city is badly damaged by the Federal Flood, and they want the land for speculation, for those who would buy a condo near the French Quarter in order to “celebrate” three days once every year at Mardi Gras. To break the back of the old Cultures in order to be able to schedule and charge for every little thing we locals do as a matter of course. To make their way our way. These are the desires of malignantly evil creatures.

These are the carpetbaggers, those who swoop down when the we are hurting and gnaw on our bones even as we die. They only see New Orleans as a cash register, not the living entity that it truly is. Our Life, our city’s Life, is something they can never know. The Spirit of Place can never enter them because they cannot “feel”.

New Orleans belongs to Her people and they to Her. Native or adopted, it doesn’t really matter: we are all infected with Her elixier… the “Water of Life”. Our strange little anachronistic bastion of the Old World infused with the desire to just be ourselves in the midst of American Culture gone crazy. The reminder of what could be, if only one accepts it.

One paragraph of the above article caught my eye:

“Snuffing Saturday’s parade was an “attack on the culture,” the same culture that gave birth to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, said Wilson’s longtime friend, Jerome Smith. He found the timing ironic: At about the same time that police had scattered an authentic funeral march, near Esplanade and Claiborne avenues, Jazz and Heritage Festival-goers were lined up behind a band at the Fair Grounds, ready to follow a second-line recreated for tourists.”

Need I say more?

Senn Fein

************************************************************************************************

Perfesser Ashley Morris, a determined lover and defender of New Orleans and Her Culture passed one month ago yesterday. I can almost hear him ranting about this. He did have his Second Line, and he’d be pissed that someone else couldn’t have their’s.
We have established a fund to help his family through this rough period in time. Please donate.

April 29, 2008

The Lost Neighborhood Lives!

Today the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center (GNOCDC), released their repopulation maps for the city. The data is based on mail deliveries to addresses, LRA Grants received and those selling their home to the Road Home.

What I found from this map is that our little neighborhood is doing far better than I had expected. There are only four sell-outs, and from the numbers of folks receiving LRA Grants, it looks to me that we should have 95% of our folks home and into their houses soon. (Can’t find my block-by-block house count currently) As our little area has been occupied since 1821 (not the houses, but the properties), this makes me very happy.

Eight more days to go and we move back into our darling home. Yard still looks like crap, but ya’s gonna do?

February 16, 2008

I’m Getting a B’Day Present

Filed under: Federal Flood,New Orleans,Our House,Rebuilding — Tags: , , , — Morwen Madrigal @ 4:51 pm

WHOO HOO! *does cartwheels*

We are moving back into our home at the end of this month. It will have been 30 months since Betts and I slept in our house. Things won’t be finished there when this happens, but we’ll have enough ready for us to be able to use the place. One bathroom will be finished, same goes for the kitchen, our offices and the bedroom.

I can’t wait to see how our construction crew deals with us being around 24/7, much less having to deal with the katz bouncing off the walls. (Thank goodness that they are painting this week: I don’t want the walls “textured” with cat fur.) And we also have to remember not to walk around in bras and panties. *giggles* Hell, we need curtains! I don’t wish to be seen in the office windows as a Hollywood Hustler second story display ad.

The first thing I’m cooking in the new kitchen will be two huge vats of seafood gumbo, followed by a vat of clam chowder. Betts will want some escargot, I just know it. Being back in that kitchen will be a salve to the last 30 months of Hell.

When the gameroom is finally finished I order the billiards table. This is becoming so much fun: getting to decorate the house our way, not the way the boys did before we bought the place. It’s a bright and airy space. And this time, it is all us and no one else’s. We get to make the changes that we wanted to do in the 8 short months we owned the place before the Flood hit. (Sadly, the yards are going to take a long time to fix up… they look like Godzilla and King Kong held a wrestling match there.)

Finally, we are going home.

February 11, 2008

Looking Back… (A Memory)

Here is another look back at the first few months post-Federal Flood here in New Orleans. At the time Betts and I were in SoCal, and the only way for me to “be with” Gentilly was to use an e-list.This letter started a movement to build a community association, and ultimately it did. (Just not exactly my version of the dream.)
(posted to Docudharma)   GentillyGirl :: Looking Back…
Maybe it’s just a melancholy nature, maybe it’s inherent memory of things, but I’ve started looking back at some of my writings  post-Deluge and what has become of my observations. Maybe I’m just searching old ammo to try to stop what I am beginning to see in the UNOP (Unified New Orleans Plan stuffs, especially the limited performance demographically within these “meetings”.I wrote this to Gentilly After Katrina on Samhain, 2005. These are my thoughts that helped to start the GCIA. Now that all of us in the city are in Phase Two of the rebuilding torture, I hope that this reminds us all of what we aspired to accomplish when we got involved with the recessitation of New Orleans.

Dear Gentilly folks,

In Life, we all must live within the circumstances of
our own individual existences… that’s a given. It IS
the way of the World.

For those who for whatever reason will not return, may
you find peace and prosperity in a new place. May it
bring you joy, and may the hurts of what happened to
New Orleans and yourselves be soothed over the coming
years.

Myself… we’re going back, even if it means that our
little house becomes Imladris, the “Last Homely House”
on the edge of a modern day Dresden. Our lamps will
shine, and yes, I will be heartbroken to not see a
mirroring gleam in the shadows, but we will go back
home.

Many of us shall.

Yes, even with our limited resources and years
remaining, putting our lives into the hole so to
speak, we will return to rebuild this city, and it
will become the wonder of the 21st Century. New
Orleans shall become the example of what can be done
when the Spirit is called upon. It will be a memorial
to the soul of a wonderful collection of people that
the modern world rarely sees: New Orleans culture.

This is what makes up “History”, and anything less is
an insult to the memory of those who built the place
and survived through almost three hundred years of
various misfortunes and Blessings.

I stated this concept before on this list… those who
wish to rebuild must band together in order to survive
the next few years. We need to have the strength that
comes from a chorus of voices in the face overwhelming
odds and modern-day demands. Vox clamantis in Deserto,
(the Voice crying in the Wilderness”), will not
suffice in our situation.

Take a look at the banality of what passes for life in
most of our cities… cold, cruel, and cultureless.
Everything is the same, and everyone has the same
nameless identities. They are all exchangable and
discardable.

Does that sound like anything we had here in this
city?

Is this all that Life is supposed to be?

Shall the cheap triteness of Post-Modern civilization
be the only thing that our descendants ever know?

Doesn’t work for me, just as it doesn’t work for many
others.

The problems of Old New Orleans, (graft, corruption,
enforced poverty, segregation.), in many ways have
died with the Katrina disaster. New visions will lead
to a better city, a city where every human being, no
matter who or what they “are”, will be welcomed and
valued. A place that is truly a “City upon a Hill”.

It can only happen if we speak and act, not the fools
and stupid concepts that led us to this disaster over
the many decades…

We are the ones who can create an equitable society.
We shall be the people that control their destinies.
We are the Spirits that will say, “No more”, to those
who just use folks up and throw them away.

All of us, no matter one’s particular situation in
Life, are worth more than that.

Let’s get this baby up and running, rebuild Gentilly,
and help restore the Spirit of the city we all love
and cherish. I’m ready.

Her Blessings!

Morwen Madrigal,
Sugar Hill

February 7, 2008

The Summer of Our Discontent

Filed under: Federal Flood,Katrina,Louisiana,Memories,New Orleans — Tags: , , , , — Morwen Madrigal @ 10:13 pm

I’m going back and looking at the last few years, and like many others here, I’m bringing back past posts because they are still relevant.

This is from July of ’06:

This song has been driving me crazy all night… won’t go away:

LAND OF CONFUSION- Genesis 1977


I must’ve dreamed a thousand dreams
Been haunted by a million screams
But I can hear the marching feet
They’re moving into the street.

Now did you read the news today
They say the danger’s gone away
But I can see the fire’s still alight
There burning into the night.

There’s too many men
Too many people
Making too many problems
And not much love to go round
Can’t you see
This is a land of confusion.

This is the world we live in
And these are the hands we’re given
Use them and let’s start trying
To make it a place worth living in.

Ooh Superman where are you now
When everything’s gone wrong somehow
The men of steel, the men of power
Are losing control by the hour.

This is the time
This is the place
When we look for the future
But there’s not much love to go round
Tell me why, this is a land of confusion.

This is the world we live in
And these are the hands we’re given
Use them and let’s start trying
To make it a place worth living in.

I remember long ago -
Ooh when the sun was shining
Yes and the stars were bright
We walked through the night
And the sound of your laughter
As I held you tight
So long ago –

I won’t be coming home tonight
My generation will put it right
We’re not just making promises
That we know, we’ll never keep.

Too many men
There’s too many people
Making too many problems
And not much love to go round
Just tell my why
This is a land of confusion.

Now this is the world we live in
And these are the hands we’re given
Use them and let’s start trying
To make it a place worth living in.

This is the world we live in
And these are the names we’re given
Stand up and let’s start showing
Just where our lives are going to.

Phil Collins wrote this during the last days of Detante to reflect his dissatisfaction with the rulers of both sides of the Cold War. I see this as a perfect illustration of what we all here on the Gulf, and New Orleans in particular, face every day. We are in a war, a cultural war, a war of values.

We live in a little part of the world that is very different from the rest of Amerika. Our slice of Life is not exactly like that of the outsiders. It’s not Civic pride (Heaven forbid!), but a sense of what we are a part of: that which is as if the Spanish moss grows upon our limbs, the Delta mud cakes on our feet, breathing the heavy air and stirring a bubbling cauldron of gumbo. The folks in our lives gather around… the buzz of voices is unstoppable. People dance in enticing ways… children run around in circles away from the adults. The smoke from the cook fires drift lazily to heaven.

Is our culture an anachronism? I don’t think so. It’s like so many cultures I’ve witnessed whilst travelling the world. Here in New Orleans, all of us are Creole, a living culture. The world can go to shit and we will still be here.

The oil flow stops and there goes the great cities. The highway system will become unused, people will not be able to reconnect with roots, can’t escape the living hell around them. They will be confronted with having to make real connections with the folks around them. Re-invent the social wheel, so to speak.

That will never happen here. I’ve only been home for four years, no family in the area, and there is so much Spanish moss growing on me… blows my mind. Like most others, I’m stuck in the hot Delta mud. We all are. New Orleans grows on you. It fills you, and then you cannot stop living here. Yes, we are fairly poor, have crooked politicians, but we have each other.

Walk down the streets in most of our towns and watch the little kindnesses, the recognitions that we are a part of our whole: New Orleans or the Gulf. Imagine walking into a bar and seeing a Creole shrimper, a gator-trapping Cajun, a Mexican worker, a Drag Queen, two lesbians, a professor and a transsexual having an indepth conversation about the various forms of Jambalaya or the Blues. Where your bartender answers to Miss Love. And then you can get on a bicycle and speed through the Quarter and the Marigny saying hi to folks you know even at 4 A.M.

Stroll down any street in the city, and you will see a Granny sitting on her porch: “How are you today Ma’am?”, “I’m fine honey-child. How about you?”, “I’m doing good Ma’am… take care.” She may invite you to her porch for some ice tea or lemonade, pretty much no matter who you are. I know this to be fact here.

Now this is why this is the Summer of Our Discontent. We are in very grave danger of of being destroyed by benign neglect. We are 35 days from the anniversary of the levees breaking. Our streets are a mess, two thirds of us are still in other parts of the country… many of us cannot start working on our homes yet, and the few others here need reparations for their losses. Most of our Medical/Psych facilities are gone. Same goes for our retailers.

Streets are littered with garbage and construction waste. Little white trailers abound, sans power. Broken trees and street lamps are everywhere. It rains and streets flood. If something catches fire, it takes airdrops of water to fight the conflagration. Schools are fenced off, broken windows and all.

The projects are slated to be torn down, even when the displaced are willing to live there because it means being HOME.

Our levees are still not up to par, and the Corps is falling behind their protection timetable every day. The Administration guts the Corps’ report on the failure of the levees in order to continue their funding of an unjust war. FEMA keeps scaring folks with announcements of ending rental aid in foreign cities. Many of us are going broke trying to restore our lives and homes as the State drags it’s feet. Our local guv’mit plans a freakin’ glittery Gala celebration for the anniversary of the storm and flood while people are in gutted, un-powered homes, in the heat and swarms of mosquitos, hoping to be able to finish the repairs.

All the while, we are entering the danger time for this hurricane season.

This didn’t happen in NYC after 9/11. Same goes for San Francisco post Loma Prieta. (Iknow, I was there.) Why is this?

We are an island of sanity in a B/S sea of Southern conservatism. This is Bush’s back-handed way of fucking us for not supporting him. (The Bay Area suffered a similar fate under Raygun and Daddy Bush for their voting habits.) The PTB want goose-steppers in this town. They can come and “sin” all they want, but we will vote for reprobates and criminals of the GOP persuasion.

My thought on this? ” FUCK YOU!, TWICE!”

We ARE New Orleans, and this is the Summer of Our Discontent. You have been warned Fuckmooks.

Sinn Fein!

I Am Torn

This Saturday will see us voting in the Primaries for Campaign 2008 here in the Gret Stet.

I am fucking torn. Do I vote for my hero John Edwards in order to give him, and by extension the Gulf Coast, leverage at the DNC, or do I vote for Barack Obama? This really sux.

In a way I see this as something we have to do every moment in Life: choose between our hearts or our minds. My heart screams for the thoughts and cares that Edwards expressed, but my mind says to vote for Barack in order to stop HRC.  (and no I can’t just do a coin toss on this one.) Yes I’m concerned about my Country’s future, but I MUST be adamant about getting the Gulf Coast fixed and prepping for what’s coming in the Future.

After Bush’s treatment of New Orleans post-Flood, I become very much a local Patriot. Our motto here is “Sinn Fein”. This is a hard row to hoe for me since I am a Patriot and a Veteran, but my part of this country must not be forgotten. I have traded my “America First” hat for a pirate’s tri-corner. My allegiance is to the Isle d’ Orleans, the Coast. This is the land of my people, and I have lived all along it. These last 29+ months have been Hell.

(been rereading some posts from ’06) Screw it, I’m voting my heart in the Primary, and I’ll vote for Obama in November.

I MUST stand for the folks along the Coast. (And Hillary, Bush-in-a-dress, ain’t getting my vote.)

January 28, 2008

Bad News

Filed under: Aside,Catz,Federal Flood,New Orleans — Tags: , , , — Morwen Madrigal @ 6:21 pm

I had to take Opal the Siamese to the Vet. She has probably a week or so to live.

I am fucking crushed. She’s been my friend for so many years… went through the Exile with nary a gripe (Not true… Siamese always gripe).

The next few weeks for her are going to be about the best of the best, and if I can make my magic work, even better. She’s a;most 21 years old. She has seen me through the best and the worst. She’s my budzo.

Please send good thoughts… I need a circle of power… I don’t want to lose my little girl. I want her to be able to live in her home, the flooded one, for one more time. I want to see her sunning in the courtyard.

BTW- Tomorrow makes 29 months since the Federal Flood of our home and those of so many others. May the Goddess damn any and all of the shits that have prevented all of us from returning home these many months.

November 20, 2007

Managing Projects: Not the ACOE’s Longsuit

Why doesn’t the ACOE dig big holes in Georgia so that they have reservoirs for the next batch of rainstroms, and just “dispose” of the clay wastes into our levees?

It’s not rocket science you medaled boys and girls of the Army Congenital Order of Engineers. I just saved you billions 0f Dollars, and you can do two good things at once. (Ya’s can do two things at once, right?)

Wanna bet the Feds will find a regulation about this idea that fucks it up?

November 12, 2007

FEMA Trailers Vanish!

Filed under: Federal Flood,FEMA,Levees,New Orleans,Rebuilding — Tags: , , , , — Morwen Madrigal @ 10:58 pm

Over the past week I’ve been seeing FEMA trailers being hauled out of the sacred “Lost Neighborhood” where our house sits. I kept thinking that something is strange since we didn’t have that many trailers in our neck of the woods and I didn’t notice any missing from the neighboring homes.

Well we went to visit “The House” to say hi and all, and then I noticed that an entire FEMA trailer park was gone. There were no craters signifying a meteor strike or wholesale abduction by aliens (FEMA and Shaw Group folks act like aliens…). There were no charred remains of those gaseous emergency shelters either. I figured that it was just magick, plain and simple.

The FEMA park filled Perry Rhoem Park, a football and baseball field that is the center of our neighborhood. So many folks showed up for the games, even if they didn’t have kids playing, and many would be grilling up goodies for all and sundry. It broke my heart to see the fields covered in white boxes on wheels… where would the kids play?

It turns out that there really aren’t that many kids around anymore. I still plan to do some fundraising so that the park will be better than before… a thank you to the fields for being a temporary home for so many folks, but when will our city have all of the various teams of short kids wearing huge shoulder pads or the little ones swinging a bat taller then themselves?

It is progress in the Post-Flood world here, but I will be very much saddened if the park doesn’t get used for what it was meant for very soon.

Crescent City Stories

Harry Shearer is still plugging away for New Orleans. These are wonderful vignettes of life post-Federal Flood here in the city.

I read everything that Harry writes about the area, but I missed this, so thanks to Chris Rose for the heads-up. I cried through all of them… tears of Joy.

I love New Orleans.

Once again, it’s Sinn Fein.

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