Katrina Update #79Katrina Update #79Thomas Nuendel is not listed in the people section on this web site because, strictly speaking, he is not a "Katrina" person. That is, he was not living in New Orleans when the storm hit. At the time he had moved to Virgina. Thomas is a folk musician (he was the violin player at our Anniversary party in 2004), an excellent cook (he had a stint as head chef at Coop's Place during a period Jason was gone), and a good friend. He visited New Orleans recently and wrote a piece for the local paper back in Virginia, which he has allowed me to publish here:
It's hot, dammit...
It's hotter than Pavaratti in a corduroy suit at an all you can eat buffet. The Abita Restoration Ale seems to help, either because it's cold, or because it's making me not care anymore. Business at Coop's Place on lower Decatur Street seems much the way it did in July of 2004, when I suffered through a sweltering summer in that kitchen. Locals fill the bar stools checking out the Saturday night special menu. The plates and bottles thump down on the bar, the juke box pounds out my latest DJ attempt — a bipolar mix of Charile Parker, Twisted Sister, Dave Brubeck, and Journey. Over the accumulated din of jukebox, conversation, video poker, shouted drink orders, pool table arguments, and overloaded air conditioner, my friend Joey manages to shout "Let's step outside!" We stumble out into the moist, musky embrace of Saturday night in the French Quarter. It almost feels like nothing has changed, but we all know better than that…
Despite having to shower eight times after walking out to the porch to pick up the Times-Picayune, it is one of my favorite times to be here. The town is quiet — just the locals trying to scrape through the summer. No one asking me for directions to Bourbon Street as I walk around the Quarter. This summer has been tougher than ever around here already, and it seems bound stay that way through Halloween, the next big tourist holiday. There are fewer conventions down at the Convention Center, which New Orleans counted on to boost summer business. I've yet to see a cruise ship docked down on the river, either. For businesses already neck deep in post-Katrina recovery, it is a difficult time. The feeling here reminds me of when I played holiday gigs in New York City the winter after 9/11. A "we're here, we survived, but we expect more trouble" sort of feeling. It would be hard not to be nervous, being in hurricane season again with the levee the project still underway.
Well, it's hotter than a rhino's rump here, which is par for the course, it being New Orleans in mid July and the most quiet time of the off season. I have been staying in my Mama's vacant apartment in the Bywater, about 20 blocks out of the Quarter, closer to the Ninth Ward, the scene of the worst devastation during Katrina. This is my old neighborhood — the last place I lived before moving to Fredericksburg in June 2005, before Katrina. I remember when my girlfriend and I decided not to evacuate during our scare with hurricane Ivan. A friend told us her brother in the National Guard said they shipped more than 5000 body bags to New Orleans as preparation for disaster. He also said it if it looked like the city was going under, the levees in the Ninth Ward would be blown to save the Quarter and uptown. Whether or not this information was accurate, in retrospect it seemed like an eerie early warning. I was horrified, but not surprised by how events played out during Katrina.
After living here for a decade (when I wasn't on the road as a traveling musician), I guess I have a strange sort of survivor guilt about leaving when I did. This is my second trip home P. K. (let's just abbreviate post - Katrina from now on, shall we?), I've been here longer, and seen and heard a lot more than when I was here in late January. Driving in from the Northeast, some of the more shocking damage becomes evident. Even before reaching the city, I see hundreds of FEMA trailers that never made it here, sitting in fields helping no one. New Orleans East, the sprawling the middle-class housing suburb, is post-apocalyptic and completely abandoned. All over town, there is a mix of purple "Welcome Home" signs put up by the city for returning residents and "for sale" signs. The "for sale" signs are more numerous, many of them offered by their owners. It is an estimated that a third the city's population will not return home.
Most houses still bear the spray painted "tag" of the rescue crew that checked it, a large "X" with information marked in each quadrant, for instance "TXTF" standing for Texas Task Force, "9-6" marking the date of the search, and the number of people rescued. Some folks have repainted and intentionally left the mark visible, like a tattoo or badge. Rent has doubled in most places, and that is a big deal down here. Four years ago I lived in a nice one bedroom apartment on St. Philip Street in the heart the Quarter for $525 a month. It sounds amazing, considering that the NYC equivalent of my apartment maybe in the East or West Village would run upwards of two grand. Low cost of living around here was part of what made the Big Easy easy for me and many of my family.
The average income has gone up as well, but it certainly hasn't matched up with rent increases. During my stay in January, I was told that Burger King and McDonald's were offering close to ten dollars an hour, with a $3,000 signing bonus if you agreed to stay for a year. Still, most fast food places have not re-opened. It is easier to get a po-boy than it is a Big Mac, one of the more positive aspects of P.K. New Orleans. The work force required to run Mickey D's and the like no longer lives here, and there are so many good employment opportunities in the rebuilding effort that I don't see them opening soon. The Ninth Ward supplied a lot of the kids that worked the fast food jobs, and nobody will be moving back there anytime soon. Lack of low cost housing has kept people from returning, many people that gave the city a lot if its character, including musicians and artists of all sorts. I read of Habitat for Humanity building a Musician's Village to offer low cost housing to returning musicians, but I heard that players were being turned down because of bad credit.
Even the T-shirts for sale in the French Market have taken a new political turn. There used to be "New Orleans – home of the go cup" and "I got stupid drunk and paid ten bucks for a Hurricane on Bourbon Street" shirts. Now the stands offer "Make Levees, Not War" and "My parents survived Katrina and all I got was this lousy FEMA trailer" shirts. I arrived in town the day before the Fourth of July, and patriotism, at least for the current administration, seems to be another casualty of the storm. New Orleans has always felt like America's dirty little secret down here anyway, and now that sense of being forgotten by our country has been reinforced further. There are Katrina tours that will take visitors to some of the harder hit areas of the city, which is a good and bad thing: good because people need to see it to understand and want to help, bad because it feels a little like morbid curiosity. I guess there's no stopping that mentality. That is the same group of people who rubberneck over accidents on I-10, linger over the obituaries in the paper, or vote for their favorite singer on American Idol. At least the Katrina tours are a real part of New Orleans history, unlike the ghost tours that sell silly tourists a bogus picture of the city.
I hesitate to critique too much, because the scope of this disaster is still so huge I can hardly get my mind around it. I have to believe it is possible to rebuild because I love it here, and wherever I go, this is the home of my heart. I have to believe it is possible because New Orleans is so valuable to our national culture. After traveling extensively in the States, I can say with firm conviction that there is no other place that remotely resembles it. As a cultural force, it has offered us (among many other things) Creole and Cajun cooking, voodoo, and jazz. The city itself has been a muse for countless writers, painters, sculptors, chefs, and musicians.
So what now? How do we rebuild without losing our character? Do we sell out the wasteland that is the Ninth Ward to casinos or Disney, and turn New Orleans into a safe, sterile, plastic facsimile of itself? How do we bring back the people and keep them safe? Could any levee system hold back a category five hurricane? It is hard to live here for long without knowing this wasn't the best place to build a major metropolitan center, but we can't turn back the clock and find those early explorers who were so sick and tired of dragging themselves through the bayou that the stopped here and tell them to get up and keep it moving, nothing to see here.
When you stand in Jackson Square in the center of the French Quarter, the Mississipi River is 12 feet above you. Most of the dry land in New Orlenans has been reclaimed from the swamp, you can't even bury the dead here because the ground will not hold them. It is difficult to fool yourself into thinking this city is safe from flood, or from crime or from the rabid heat of the summer. Therein lies some of the charm, this place is not for eveyrone, but those of us who call it home have a fierce devotion to it.
Anyway, it's hot here. Did I mention that? It's hotter than Hell's hotplate, hotter than Satan's cigar. When you walk out of air conitioning into the street, it feels like someone dropped a wool blanket soaked in gumbo off a balcony on you, and then hit you in the head with a hot iron. It is around three o'clock. Siesta time. Time to relax until the cool of the evening, when the sky turns that peculiar shade of lavendar, when the nightlife comes skittering out on the banquettes like palmetto bugs.
I will be here in the Quarter for the next few nights before I leave. I will also be there many nights when I sit out in back of the Bistro with a Stout after work and wonder about my family and my home. If I close my eyes and breathe deep, I will still smell the jasmine and honeysuckle, if I listen hard enough I will hear the clip clop of mules' feet and the warbling of the calliope down on the steamboat. New Orleans is still here, and her rebuilding is almost as hard as her tearing apart. Don't forget about her, she still needs all the help she can get.
If you are in Fredricksburg, VA, you can visit Thomas at the Bistro Bethem where he cooks and plays music – at least until he responds to that irresistable urge to return home to New Orleans.
- Janis went to the doctor this past Wednesday, and her recovery is going as expected. She still has hardly any energy, which is to be expected. So lots of sleep is the best perscription. She does have a bit more energy every day, however, and is starting to do a bit more work each day.
- Jason Palmer left Coop's Place (again) about a week and a half ago. He is going through a rough patch, with a bit of wanderlust. We went fishing together and he showed no signs of strife, but something happened at work. We don't know much more than that, but if you come to Coop's, he won't be heading up the kitchen any more.
- Joe Fontana got himself a major role in a motion picture that will soon be filming in New Orleans. He plays a murderer (which, in this particular case, is definitely NOT art imitating life).
- The Superdome's roof has been completely repaired a month and a half ahead of schedule. It's glistening white surface is yet another sign that New Orleans is on the road to recovery.
- No where but New Orleans. The city has issued a list of events it will host to commemorate the one year anniversary of the storm. On tap are appearances by Wynton Marsailis and Emeril Lagasse as well as special memorial events throughout the weekend, culminating with a "Rebirth of One New Orleans" fireworks display at 9:30 PM on Tuesday August 29, 2006. This is one of the reasons we love New Orleans so much. In the midst of such devastation and such resolve to make New Orleans a better place, there is always time for a party!
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