Ahhh.... Young Love

... is really quite stressful it seems, as a New Orleans couple I (and the NYT of course) once noted in a blog entry in the aftermath of Katrina is now dead. Very dead. Dude first killed, dismembered and cooked (I shit you not) his best gal, went and made merry one last time, then hurled himself off of a high place. Good Gawd Awmighty, you sure made misery on folks with that storm, now didn't you?

And for all you sickos who keep hitting this blog with your Google "Zachery Bowen Addie Hall suicide pictures" searches, sorry -- you won't find any such horror here. Keep away ghoulish creeps.

Rest in peace Addie, hon. If that's possible. Your boyfriend was a gen-u-ine freak, so he can rot in hell. But I bet you'd heard that before, n'est pas?

Trying To Break Our Hearts

What is it about New Orleans that goes so far down into our hearts and psyche and changes us forever? The great songwriter, Randy Newman, offers his thoughts about this on NPR today.

Is there anything more plaintive than Aaron Neville singing Randy Newman's song, "Lousisiana 1927?" Neville's rendition is on the tail-end of the Randy Newman NPR interview today. He also sang it on Larry King last night.

Larry King has been very thoughtful and mindful of the musical legacy of New Orleans. He is closing each show in the aftermath of Katrina with a musical guest singing something New Orleans-related. Of course you have to be able to stomach the likes of Celine Dion on some nights, but it's worth the effort.

News, commentary and music all rolled into one show. Right up my alley. Now if they'd just put that human lightbulb, Nancy Grace, on there instead of the ancient Mr. King. I got a feeling she don't know nothin' 'bout music though. Been too busy with all that fancy lawyerin' and such. At least King has an oldtimers keen sense of music's relevance and importance in the cultural gumbo that was New Orleans.

Boy, the media lines are getting seriously blurry now. Thought for a moment I was reading The Onion, but this is actually from The NYT today:

"Some holdouts seem intent on keeping alive the distinct and wild spirit of this city. In the French Quarter, Addie Hall and Zackery Bowen found a unusual way to make sure that police officers regularly patrolled their house. Ms. Hall, 28, a bartender, flashed her breasts at the police vehicles that passed by, ensuring a regular flow of traffic."

Full story (sorry, no cleavage photo though) here.

And folks, I'm kinda burying this interview with an honest-to-God survivor of this horror, courtesy of an amazing Sista In Blogging, Jeneane Sessum, from right here in Hot'lanta. I give you fair warning - it will break your heart.

Soggy Vampires

No, New Orleans wasn't my city, but I sure loved to party there. It's where the pros go to hone their socializing skills... and now thugs, thieves, murderers, rapists, tormenters, drug addicts and pushers, any of the most rotten scum of the earth too. Who'd have thought we could top Haiti in the abject misery category? Only in America, folks.

Full disclose -- I just came off a week with ABC News here in the Atlanta bureau, headquarters for all of the ABC News operations and coverage in the Southeast. Areas of responsibility include Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, and Texas for some reason. In other words, all states impacted most by Katrina. It's the Hurricane Bureau, a place that exists to support cunning, aggressive, pretty-boy reporters as they hone their field skills and duke it out for on-air time. Personally, I'm digging that David Muir dude about right now.

There's really no place too miserable that money and initiative won't get you in and out of - with amenities even. Like RVs and a/c, water and some food and hot showers - and all the big-daddy electronics you could ever dream of. Only one thing's missing - Peter Jennings.

What the federal government couldn't get rolling on 'cause its ass is too enormously fat to jump when a pesky little bit of anarchy crops up, about five people in Atlanta managed to set in motion with a wave of some very high, Disney-related credit limits. Don't you just hate the "liberal" media? Or do you just secretly loath the rich and the corporate?

Of course I'm sure every terrorist intent on destroying our country is watching the pathetic response time by our clueless feds, or Friends Of W. Heck, I bet even Afghanistan could've raised and dispatched an entire naval fleet with which to invade our country by the time our Great Leadership decided to respond.

In case you missed it, ABC News was at the Louisiana convention center with cameras (NOT blogs) as the first National Guard troops went in to that special cess pool. But did our soldiers set to work aiding and assisting the wretched, sick, huddled, native masses languishing in agony there?

No, instead they immediately set to work like they were an elite, private security force (mercenaries spring to mind), escorting out a Spanish "diplomat" and his family who had been trapped there for days in some gross "diplomatic" snafu, trapped alongside the great seriously unwashed, i.e. poor people. Likely it was just some seriously covert operative on vacation with his mistress. Ooops!

And just to clear up the loose rhetoric flying around our heads, these people in New Orleans are not "refugees." There're freakin' fellow Americans fer chrissake.

Lemme tell you, the SuperDome sure didn't get one piece of lint in it when the Republicans were there in '88. The snaps below are me pretending to work that special event in those clueless times. Ahh to be young and foolish in the eighties, set loose in NOLA with a corporate credit card. Sigh... OK. OK. I'll stop now least I go off on one of my frequent nostalgia-fests right here and now.

Those Spaniards sure had some friends in high places, and it's a shame Bob Woodward, the heir-apparent being groomed to replace Peter (like that's possible), buried this political gem of video at the end of his opening package last night, September 1. I'm trying to find more on this sneaky little incident, but since no one gives a rat's patooty about network news anymore I'm afraid it may get lost amongst the severe shuffle that is this coverage operation. And that's a shame. All the best overtly-sincere-yet-kinda-fakey coverage money can buy, and all America wants is blogs and blather.

Blogs, in case you care, are not considered a real source of news in the real news world. They are referred to as "blather," along with Fox, CNN and any other news entity equipped mostly with alarmist, lip-flappers in air-conditioned offices somewhere in NYC. But even ABC News folk out in the field are allowed a very un-interactive blog of their own on the site, but no one gets to respond back. That's not blogging, folks. That's blathering.

What does it mean to not have money in America? Turn on Fox and find out. Look, there are poor people everywhere! Who'd have thought? Yes, these folk still exist in America. Particularly down south. We just all kinda forgot about 'em. Been soooo busy living the dream.

And if you have the grave misfortune of being poor in America, better use your last few bucks to move inland quick. Or at least until this "phase" of globally-warmed, apocalypse-related, oil crisis kickoff, Atlantic hurricane cycle of a perfect cluster fuck passes over. Or buy a bike. Or hell, just shoot heroin on a beach with smoke blowin' up your ass! We're all gonna live forever anyway, right? Why bother to do a goddamn thing? W's in charge and looking out for each and every one of us. Sleep well.

Personally, I'm hording all my money for the pending Goth Relief Effort telethon.