Yesterday, I got in my car with my family in tow and made a journey which I have not undertaken in a good eight months. We all got in the car at a ridiculously early hour (6:50AM) and got on the interstate, heading south for 2 hours. THERE I FIXED IT ARE YOU HAPPY? R.I.D.I.C.U.L.O.U.S.

We got to Lake Ponchatrain and picked our way across the delicate temporary spans that have been erected to replace the ones that fell into the water. We drove past Six Flags, admiring the brand-new automobiles at the dealerships. New before August 29, that is. The flood water came up to the top of the windshields on all of them. Brand new, beautiful Altimas, Mustangs, SUV’s, all ruined by this whore Katrina that has complicated life to the n’th degree for the last half year.

One thing that made me stare more than anything else was the total absence of life. Down here in the South, we have a bad problem with fireants. They make these wonderful Eeyore-grey hills on an otherwise-pristine landscape. If left uncontrolled, it becomes ant metropolis and they become sentient, eventually sacrificing your virgin daughter in a secretive midnight ceremony deep within the principal anthill temple/queen complex.

Okay, maybe I exaggerate a little, but the point is that you have to go outside and douse those suckers with anything guaranteed to kill them. In times past, gasoline was the cheapest poison of all, but now economy dictates that we have to actually buy ant poison. You bathe the hill in grains, and come out in three days to see what’s happening. You step on the antbed to see what occurs, and….nothing. Occasionally a sick ant will stagger out and then die, but for the most part the antbed is dead and devoid of life. (I am coming dangerously close to mimmicking the Dead Parrot sketch so I’m going to switch gears).

Well, that’s what East New Orleans seemed to be like. A dead, poisoned, and stepped-on antbed. Walmart is closed and barred up after it was looted. Sams was better yet torn down and is being rebuilt. Floodwater marks are everywhere. Garbage on the sides of the interstate. I saw a nice couch just sitting there. Things that have NO PLACE being there, but the water left them there, so no one is picking them up, least of all Mr. Ray Nagin. My wife bought me a “Willie Nagin and the Chocolate City” tshirt in the French Quarter, and despite my better judgement am wearing it today.

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We wandered down past Dumonde to the flea market. There are still empty stalls, but my God, there is life! There is fruit being sold! Kettle Corn cooking! Spices and hot sauce being pushed out of crates! I smelled shrimp boiling and there were cold beers to be enjoyed, pulled right out of the ice! (Nevermind that it was 34F with a high wind chill factor downtown)

The silver vendors were back, and that was what concerned us most, for my wife and I are constantly haggling with the jewelry folks in the flea market there. We go several times a year and just disappear, not telling anyone. Well, we bought some lapis lazuli pieces, and the vendor noticed my license. He asked how we had fared, and I told him that we were the hardest-hit inland county, no lights for 3 weeks and all that good stuff. He nodded in a pained gesture, biting down on his lip, and reached over to shake my hand. After a few moments of silence, I turned to leave. He stopped me and gave me a warm “Welcome Back, sir.” That set the tone for yesterday. My guitar case now has a “I (heart) NO la” sticker festooned across the front, right by the Mississippi State University and below Bert and Ernie stickers.

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I know people who like to imagine themselves as cultured, but felt no pain when they watched N.O. sink into utter chaos. One of them went so far as to declare that he had “never lost anything in New Orleans” and that it was better off being abandoned to the advancing Gulf of Mexico.

The same beauty of that city, the magic that makes people flock there like blowflies to excrement…it’s what made me feel saddened. I am ticked off just like the rest of my statesmen due to the media’s moronic decision to completely ignore Mississippi’s plight, opting instead to film the idiots in Louisiana who refused to leave. But how can you NOT be upset when you notice the Musical Mesopotamia of the US being sacked like some ancient capital falling to the Barbarian Hordes? I was assaulted at work and in the local paper by these morons for weeks afterward who implied that NOLA was destroyed as some part of God’s will. Remember, you DO have a colleague who shares your views. Wait, make that two: Al-Zawarhi and his comrade in stupidity, Bin Laden. The very people who cause you and all of your ilk to voluntarily be spied on and wiretapped on in the name of ‘protection’. YOU AGREE ON SOMETHING. Scary, huh?

MY family and I enjoyed a spectacular trip to New Orleans yesterday. We spent money and took pictures and did what could be done. GET DOWN THERE AND SPEND MONEY, PEOPLE. DRINK BEER AND ALCOHOL. EAT FOOD, BUY TRINKETS, SPEND THE NIGHT SOMEWHERE. It’ll be appreciated I’m sure.