Sitting On My Porch Part Eighteen

This post is dedicated to my comrade James. He’s a Katrina refugee living in Idaho. He’s living proof that there are white Katrina refugees too and that black guys from the New Orleans public school system and white catholic school kids can actually get along. That’s contrary to what the cowards that leave comments on nola.com say. James when you read this I just want to tell you that the copter game won't open on my office computer.

This is going to be my last post until after the holiday weekend. Some friends are coming in town and I plan on reuniting my crew for the first time since Katrina. If that happens it means lots of Crown Royal so I won’t be in the mood or shape to blog about anything. Besides that it’s Bayou Classic weekend. It’s the time when guys like me who are not so young anymore pretend to run errands so they can drive downtown to look at college girls wearing their best outfits.

I will admit to being a bit sappy around the holidays. It's one of the few times of the year you can catch me in a genuine cheerful mood. I like hanging lights, buying a tree, drinking egg nog and all that good stuff. The only thing I can’t stand is those Lexus commercials that come on during the football games. You are sitting there watching the game and trying to figure out how to buy 20 gifts on a hundred dollar budget and this jerk on the commercial shows up with a Lexus wrapped in a big red bow.

Did I miss the inauguration and Barack Obama is already president? Where is George Bush? The same man who was jumping out of fighter jets and making speeches behind the Mission Accomplished banner couldn’t possibly lay low in the midst of this financial crisis.

Desiree Rogers is the new White House social secretary. She is the daughter of the late Councilman Roy Glapion. I know she lives in Chicago but we are claiming her for New Orleans. We need all the positive news we can get.

It’s a good thing the Saints smashed the Packers Monday (Sorry about that Maitri.). I needed something to break the recent string of bad news. There was the CNN special. There was this article showing that all of our kids are sick from living in FEMA trailers. We have also once again claimed the title as having America’s highest crime rate. What a news week!

I was wondering where all of our elected officials were while all of this is going on. Why do we seem to accept these things so quietly? This city is in desperate need of a pep talk. We think too negatively of ourselves and the behavior of our city leadership has made it worse than it’s ever been. Even the great inspector general who is hailed as a hero in some circles told CNN he doesn’t know how he wakes up in the morning when he has to deal with our city. I think that is counter productive that the man who is here to save the citizens money is on national television making sure we don’t have any other citizens moving here or visiting. We have to change our vibe. There’s a story in the newspaper this morning about how the area added 6000 jobs in October. This morning a person is looking for a job in another city that’s probably on the verge of a financial collapse in another part of the country. It’s all because we have made despair such a part of our daily routine that we can’t even accept a positive story like that anymore. I think we should name Lil Wayne as the city’s Goodwill Ambassador. We just have to make sure we have a translator there for the times he starts saying things no one can understand.

This song describes what I am feeling right now.