New Orleans in August

My brother, Smelt, is involved in a project about New Orleans and Katrina. Telling Their Stories: The Lingering Legacy of the Katrina Photographs


He happened to win a prize or two for his work on Katrina. It makes a great story, but I can't tell it without revealing his identity. He wouldn't care, I don't think, about being related to Menopausal Stoners since I believe he's introduced me to his associates as My Sister the Menopausal Stoner. The thing is that Buzz Kill would probably still be bent out of shape about the blog if he could connect it to my real name, and once I'm connected to my brother, then the jig is up.

As it happens, the reason Buzz Kill finally moved out of the marital residence is that he found a story I had written titled, "The Jig is Up," which involved a black man with a dick like a mag light. Since we're coming up on the anniversary of that event, which blew apart that year's Gemini Party in addition to the remnants of our marriage, I would hate to cause another commotion - especially when it all coincides with our wedding anniversary. Wedding anniversaries can be a sore spot for divorced couples - pretty much like the anniversary of Katrina is going to be particularly sore for New Orleans this year due to the Gulf of Mexico being killed by BP and our national addiction to fossil fuels.

The family is having a jamboree in New Orleans in honor of Smelt at this event which is on August 21, 2010. I want to go because (1) I love going to New Orleans, especially when my dad is picking up the tab and (2) I want to see what's going on with the oil slick in August when shit will have totally hit the fan.

Right now, shit is barely stirred up and BP is paying for all kinds of PR to calm the natives. That's pretty easy in America since so many people already believe propaganda is news. Jaded J saw folks in Nebraska flying Confederate flags from their SUVs in line to buy gas from BP - and most likely they're not oil executives. You expect that bullshit in Houston. In Houston, you're always having to dodge a long line of limos filled with the Bushes, the Bin Ladens and their OPEC buddies headed up to George Herbert Walker's place in College Station - home of the Texas Aggies.

I figure there will be no shrimp in sight by August except the ones from China that are steeped in antibiotics. Costco sells them at a good price. You can make gumbo with chicken. Etouffee, too, but it's not the same. Who knows whether the teabaggers and the end-of-times crowd will still be hollering "Drill, baby, drill," in August or if a few of them might have begun to wake up and smell the crude in the coffee.

There have always been liars - big, fat liars. I'm having to shove that fact in my son's face right now since he's very friendly with a number of Israelis and was inclined to believe the Israeli party line about the Gaza Flotilla. He was stunned to hear that the activists were killed execution style. Now, I have no illusions about peaceful Palestinians - but the fact remains that the Israeli government is 100% wrong. Anyone who hogs water in a desert is a dick wad, if you ask me, and the Israelis have been hogging water for decades. The Israeli Government sucks.

Sadly, we suck too.
If We The People didn't suck so bad, people would have paid attention to Jimmy Carter's repeated call for an Energy policy that ended our dependence on fossil fuels. The gas lines were in 1979. Now it's 2010 and We The People guzzle more gas than ever as a result of listening to Ronald Regan and countless Republicans all spewing the same profit driven bullshit.

A few of us did pay attention to Jimmy. As it happens, my dad was in charge of Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign in Houston, for all the good it did anyone. More Middle Eastern bullshit there, too.

Oil, War in the Middle East and Israel. We can't really say Same Old Shit since the shit is worse now. We've killed the ocean. The coral reefs in Florida will be damaged from chemical compounds spreading in the oil plumes deep under the surface. These toxins are supposed to evaporate in shallow water. They drift undersea like a spreading virus. (NYTimes, Plumes of Oil Deep in Gulf are Spreading Far, Tests Find).

I'm frankly surprised that anyone considers it news that the oil spill is spreading toxins. Anyone who has ever tried to cool down the water in the bathtub so it doesn't boil your ass the second you get in knows how water circulates, for crying out loud. The Gulf Stream simply complicates it all by spreading the oil all the way to England - conveniently avoiding Haley Barbour's shores. Big Oil Cheerleader Haley Barbour is currently trying to convince Mississippi businessmen that BP will compensate them for lost revenue. If the Alaskan model applies to the Gulf, then they can expect ten cents on the dollar.

When I visit my parents in the Houston Suburbs, we are occasionally trapped on Sunday mornings when services are over at the Baptist Church That Ate The Neighborhood. The church hires off-duty cops to direct traffic while SUVs pour out of the parking lot onto the street, many with bumper stickers that say things like: God is my Co-Pilot. I have always hated those people, but when I think of the oil spill, it's like they all lined up to moon us treehuggers and spewed their collective diarrhea into the Gulf.

If they are happy eating their own shit, I don't care. But I hate it that they have made us eat their God-fearing, Bible Thumping, Water Boarding, Dick Cheney loving, Gas Guzzling shit on a sandwich.

Maybe Gaia really will rise up against them, so that by 2012 they will have fizzled like vampires on a sunny day. The way things are going these days, there's bound to be a plague. A plague upon Imperialists and the self-satisfied religious fanatics who follow them like Satan's minions.