The Old Lady And The Kid On The Bench

Friday I was headed back to my car after dropping off some papers for work. I walked past this older lady and told her good morning. She said good morning too and then stopped me. She came close to me and said “Go ask that young man over there why he’s not in school today. You’re a man go ask him.” Sitting a few feet away was a young kid about 11 years old minding his own business. He didn’t look too tough these days you never know what’s going on in the minds of these kids. It’s different when you are in a controlled environment like a school function or a mentoring event. Those kids expect interaction with the adults around. You can get into their business without much fear of confrontation. This lady was asking me to go up to this young man and ask him why he’s not in school like I know him already. There was a possibility that when I asked him he would respond “you ain’t my daddy!” Then I would have had to respond to that because I can’t have some kid talking to me any kind of way and now I’m caught up in a conflict around some kid’s truancy and bad manners all because I wasn’t raised to ignore what the old lady told me. It would have been even worse if his mama was close enough to hear and got offended by me asking him. It always seems to be that the parents with the kids causing trouble always seem to be the most upset when someone tells them anything.

There used to be a time where old people had so much unquestioned authority that she could have asked him why he wasn’t at school and why I wasn’t at work and we both would have had to answer out of respect. That would still work on me every time because I stick to the traditional family hierarchy but you can’t be too sure about the kids. She was right that I am a man and this is my community so I should be worried about why he wasn’t in school. It was my job to ask him so I went on over there. It turns out he is on fall break. Charter schools take days off that we are not used to. She waited by the elevator until I gave her an answer and once she was satisfied she went upstairs. The kid just set there on the bench looking confused. I went to my truck being thankful that it didn’t lead to any confusion. I guess we have to be willing to risk the confusion to keep these kids in check.

Back to Regularly Scheduled Blogging

Yesterday evening I was sitting on my sofa going over a few data reports for work when my text message alert went off. It was my friend sending me a message from his job and it went something like this….

“What’s up Cliff? You are slipping. You haven’t had a blog post since September 24. I went to look for something thought provoking to read at work and you have the same old stuff up there. WTF? I better have something to read tomorrow!”

First of all, two weeks is not that long to update a blog. I’ve been busy with work and trying to figure out how so many people with New Orleans Public School education can use words I have never seen before when we are playing Words with Friends. I know they are cheating but won’t admit it. Some people go six months without any new material and still get more hits than a lot of people. Secondly, how square have I and my friends become when we are looking forward to blog posts. That’s sad commentary for our personal lives.

I’ve been missing out on a lot of things since I haven’t been posting regularly.

The Saints went 3-1 beating Houston and Jacksonville.

Archbishop Hannan passed away.

Steve Jobs passed away as well at the age of 56. Steve Jobs was a man that created technology that changed the world but couldn’t do anything to stop cancer. Cancer is still the worst thing on the planet by far.

The state of Louisiana sold the naming rights of the Superdome to Mercedes Benz and Tom Benson gets to keep all of the money. He’s not doing too shabby for a man that didn’t want to bring the team back to New Orleans. I was holding out for the Deal N’ Doug’s Used Cars Dome but I guess he couldn’t compete with Mercedes for advertisement dollars. It may surprise some people to hear that I am in favor of this deal.

Professional teams are playing in stadiums all over the country with corporations names attached to them. The Jacksonville Jaguars play in a stadium named after a company I never heard of. I don’t think they are getting their money’s worth. The other reason I am for it is that this is a crazy state and you never know who’s going to be elected and what their agenda is. The next governor could be some good ole boy that doesn’t like New Orleans or the Saints and may want to end the payments the state makes to the team. If Mercedes is giving up enough money to keep that from being an issue then I am all for it. We need to find a company to do the same thing for the Hornets so they can be more stable and stay in the city. I think Deal N’ Doug can afford the arena’s naming rights.

Some concerned citizens decided to start a protest by occupying Wall Street. It took a few days for the media to pay attention but once they did it started spreading to other cities. There was an Occupy Nola march in downtown New Orleans yesterday. That group should have just went to Tom Benson’s house and walked around the block because he’s the only one getting corporate love around here.

I was listening to talk radio at my desk one day this week and I heard a caller mention this and it made a lot sense. You hear some people say that corporations move jobs and money overseas because the corporate tax rate in America is too high. At the same time we are debating whether or not to raise tax rates on the wealthy and corporations because they aren’t paying their fair share. Corporations are paying too much AND too little taxes. Those two things can’t be true at the same time.

Hank Williams Jr. messed up Monday Night Football and cost himself a lifetime paycheck from Disney by running his big mouth about the president. Hank caught the disease that makes some Americans compare President Obama to an evil tyrant who tried to destroy an entire race of people for no reason because they don’t like some of his policies. I call it the Glenn Beck Infection.

You can disagree with the president without playing the Hitler card. Now all my rowdy friends won’t be coming over on Monday nights anymore. I know Disney is going to overcompensate and do something dumb. We are headed to a Monday night game with the intro done by the cast of The Suite Life On Deck and it’s all Hank Williams’ fault.


I'm giving Deal N' Doug the free advertisement because I love his jingle and I want his name on the New Orleans Arena. He can sing this song right before the Hornets' players are announced.

Sitting On My Porch Part Seventy Three : A Long Winded Weekend Edition

Life these days can be confusing for a person that thinks the way I do. My code in life is that your actions have to match your words. Sometimes the words come first in form of ideas and then your actions have to follow that. This is the basis on how I judge people and give them respect. Whether or not I agree with them has nothing to do with it. I have tried to apply that to myself especially since I put my thoughts on this blog for public view. I never want to be put in a situation where I look like a hypocrite.

For instance, I could myself look good by telling how wrong guys are for hanging out in bars and strip clips. Everybody would be giving me compliments and telling me what a great guy I am. I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing that because when my bills are paid and everyone is taking care of, it’s not out of the realm of possibility to find me and my friends sitting a table in a place like that with a few adult beverages. I stay honest with myself and leave that kind of moral high ground to folks like my dad. It seems like he’s never been out without my mom since about 1970.

The other night I was watching the Republican debate on Fox News and the moderators asked a question about foreign policy. Rick Santorum went on to answer about how we should be spreading democracy and American freedom all over the world! The crowd started cheering. A few minutes later a gay soldier asked a question by video from overseas about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. The crowd that was cheering for spreading American democracy started booing the soldier. Rick Santorum said he would reinstate the policy if he becomes president because serving in the military has nothing to do with sex. Gay people in the military don’t want to be able to come out to get some action. They are probably getting that anyway. They want to be able to come out because this is supposed to be a country with freedom to be who you are. That’s the kind of thing I can’t respect.

I could have respected him if he said that since he doesn’t want to give gay soldiers the freedom to be who they are he’ll make them exempt from having to go and risk their lives to give people in other countries the kind of freedom they can’t have in their own military. If he did that I would think he’s stupid but at least I could say he has conviction.

Stuff like that is the reason why even though I don’t agree with most of what Ron Paul says I respect him.  He’s the only guy that gets booed at a debate for how he feels and doesn’t backtrack on anything. That happens every debate while Mitt Romney attacks a healthcare philosophy he damn near created in Massachusetts. This always seems strange to me. I’m going to give Ron Paul a compliment. No matter what you think of his beliefs, his supporters never get cheated by having to watch him turn on his own principles just to win a poll. We could use more people like him accept for the wanting to take government back to the 1800’s part.

Issues of the world are complicated. I followed the Troy Davis execution story waiting to see if someone was going to step in and stop it to at least review the information and make sure that they were killing the right man. When no one did and the execution was over I felt a strong sense of sadness at the fact it seemed like the justice system was not working.  I am not a fan of the justice system because I think it is bias towards young black men. We need to fix that by keeping ourselves out of the system so the chances of another Troy Davis story happening again are minimal. At the same time we have men in our community like Telly Hankton that are so dangerous that the chief of police himself went to sent in on his trial just to see if he was really going to get convicted so his officers wouldn’t have to deal with him. Guys like that can’t be out here on the streets with the rest of us and a lot of them are too far gone for rehabilitation. Some of us may not like the current system but our community isn’t quite safe enough to pretend we don’t need something to keep some of our failures away from us.

The Saints play Houston this week. The Texans are not a rival in the minds of Saints fans the way Dallas is. It might be a more personal game because since 2005 Houston might as well be called Western New Orleans.  There are some folks here that have a strange feeling about Houston. Some of it is jealousy because they seem to have the money and progressive nature we can’t seem to master. The other part is frustration because no one talks about this but a lot of the people who stayed in Houston after the storm were hardworking and productive.  Don’t get me wrong a lot of good people came back home too but the thugs came back with them in full force.  Houston is too big for my taste but I have no problems with the city or its people because if they hadn’t opened up all of the Astrodome people may have been sitting on that interstate even longer. I pull for the Texans when they are not playing the Saints.

On the football side of things the Saints defense finally held a team under 20 points for the first time in a long time. We are either ready for another Superbowl run or the Chicago Bears have the worst offense in the league. Houston ran through our first team defense in preseason like they weren’t even on the field. Tomorrow we will find out if that was just preseason and the defense is ready to play well or if we should be looking at the schedule to see how many teams have prolific offenses and count those as a lost. This game will tell everyone a lot about where the season is headed because it’s too late now to fix the roster. I’m going to say the Saints score enough to win and come up with one big play from Darren Sproles in special teams to pull the game out. Darren Sproles is making all the preaching I did against the Bush trade look silly. If he scores every week I don’t mind being wrong.

Saints 31 Texans 27

Matters of Redemption

I’m watching the Philadelphia Eagles play the Atlanta Falcons right now. This is the first time Michael Vick has played in Atlanta since he went to prison. The Eagles were there before but he was a backup then.  There are a few people in #7 Atlanta Falcon jerseys. I figured there would be. Other than the fact he’s playing the Falcons I don’t care if Michael Vick wins this game. This post isn’t really about him. This post is about how we as a community look at redemption.

There’s no doubt that Mike Vick is a polarizing figure. There are some people that are going to always love him and others that will always hate him. Either way he does represent something that Michael Irvin mentioned on the NFL Network this morning. Michael Irvin was talking about how the African American community is built in a spiritual place that embraces the idea of redemption and how a lot of people in our community have latched on to Mike Vick because he represents that. 

Michael Irvin was right. The black community loves stories of redemption. It goes along with our journey in this country. We love to see it when someone beats the odds. There are a lot of people in my city who have had some serious obstacles to overcome. There is nothing that brightens my day more than running into someone who I know was on the edge of losing it all and came back. Usually the person doesn’t come back to start for an NFL team like Michael Vick. We are just happy to see some of our people getting up in the morning to go to work at a regular job. That alone is enough to make you cry sometimes.

The only negative aspect we have in our praise of redemption is that we don’t spend enough time trying to prevent one another from getting into places that we have to fight so hard to get out of.  Sometimes I think we focus too much on the end of the story and not trying to prevent the beginning and the middle. Many of the things we have to redeem ourselves from are a product of bad choices and avoidable circumstances. As much as I get inspired when someone beats the odds and finds their way back to the world I am equally depressed when they fall.

I don’t want to downplay what anyone has done to better themselves and change the course of their life. I just want more focus on how we can make sure as many people as possible succeed without having to go through anything. I would much rather have my friends going through life without criminal records and failed drug test trying to make things happen then always having to try and make something out of nothing.
Everybody’s not Mike Vick coming home to the Eagles or Lil Wayne getting out of prison to make records. Those guys were in prison with hundreds of brothers who have to start from scratch if they ever get out at all. The best thing we could do for them is keep them out of trouble to begin with. Not having as much drama in our lives may make our testimony a lot less exciting but our lives may be better for it.

Another Summit To Save Our Sons

Tomorrow morning at 10:00 AM the city of New Orleans will host a crime summit hosted by Mayor Mitch Landrieu. It’s called the “Saving our Sons Crime Summit”. Somehow I didn’t hear about this summit until this week and I made other commitments for Saturday morning so the city will have to forgive me if I can’t attend. I promise to make up for it by doing something productive. 

I really want to try and make it because I am interested in seeing how things go with the mayor involved. I went to the last meeting of the minds at Cohen High School and listened to men give passionate speeches about what’s going on in the streets. I remember that night well because there was a period when everyone went out into the hall where tables were set up to sign up for different things that would help out. I signed up for a mentoring program and the people never called me. I would put them on blast and mention their name but since they never called I can’t remember. I ended up working with the Volunteers of America Mentoring Children of Promise program and I will be getting another little brother as soon as work isn’t so hectic so I can give him some real time. 

That’s just a personal issue with that particular part of the last meeting. In general I support the summit. My only concern is that the message there makes it to the kids that actually seem to be in danger. The people who show up to crime summits are usually not the ones that are going to do any crime in the first place. Maybe with the mayor involved the conversation will lead to a plan that will get the message into the closed in subculture of our city that probably has no idea there’s a crime summit going on because they are too busy focused on doing their own crimes. Those are the kids we have to get into some programs even if we have to force them into them. 

Mayor Landrieu has an underrated gift in how he communicates with people from all walks of life in this city. I think its part of the reason that although nothing has changed when it comes to influence and opportunity we haven’t seen any major public battles like we used to see when Ray Nagin was mayor.  If there is one thing to make me change my plans and go it will be to see if the mayor can’t stand up there and address some of the issues that need to be addressed to change some of the behavior of young men in this city. I want to see if the mayor can stand up there and tell those folks that if they just took responsibility for their kids and themselves that would cut the crime rate in half instantly without everyone getting offended and losing sight of the real purpose of being there. If he can pull that off there will be no need for anyone to run against him in when re-election time comes.

Week 1 : The Most Important Players For A Good Season

Tomorrow night the Saints play the Green Bay Packers to open the NFL season. I’m not going to kid myself into thinking this is a good way to start the season. Green Bay is a very good team. Their quarterback is an assassin. It doesn’t surprise me that so many people are picking them to repeat. I would rather open the season against the Bengals. That way if our defense isn’t quite ready we won’t get destroyed on a Thursday night when the whole country is watching. I’ve been through that once before against Peyton Manning and it wasn’t fun.

Win or lose there will still be 15 more games left. When I look at the season as a whole it’s difficult for me to figure out what I think the Saints record will be. This is not the same team that won the Superbowl two years ago and changing the roster is cool if you are getting younger and more talented but honestly I am not sure if that’s the case. I think we have a good team this year but how far we can go depends on a hand full of guys. Here are the most important Saints players other than Brees and Vilma in order of catastrophe if they get hurt or don’t play well.

1.    Malcolm Jenkins: He’s the most important person on defense besides Jonathan Vilma. Chase Daniel can hand the ball off and make a few throws if Drew gets hurt. We learned the hard way at the end of last year that if Malcolm Jenkins gets hurt the season is lost because there’s no one remotely close to his level of play. If he’s not in there it’s the Seattle playoff game all over again.
2.    Zach Streif : We won’t have to wait long to find out if our right tackle spot is going to be trouble all year. I think Jon Stinchcomb being cut had more to do with his physical skills declining than with Streif getting better. Nevertheless he’s got to play well because I think Charles Brown who was drafted in the second round of last year’s draft is a bust.
3.    Shaun Rogers: I wasn’t as excited about this signing as everyone else seemed to be. It just seems like his career should be better than what it has been. Plus he’s played for Cleveland and Detroit and I am not sure if he’s got a lot of concern for winning.
4.    Will Herring/Scott Shanle/Jonathan Casillas/ Martez Wilson: The two starters at outside linebacker coming out of a combination of these four guys have to be able to cover tight ends and make some plays. I thought this was the weakest spot on the team last year and it is again.
5.    Garrett Hartley and John Kasay: Last year one missed kick against Atlanta at home ended up being the reason we were playing in Seattle instead of having a home playoff game. Now Hartley’s hurt and our kicker is a 40 year old veteran who broke my heart so many times with the Panthers. Let’s hope he still has the leg and that it doesn’t come to him having to make a big kick before Hartley comes back. If he does have to make one let’s hope it doesn’t look like his kicks in preseason.

I don’t see any middle ground this season. We either going to win 11 to 12 games and win the division or we are going to win 5 to 6 and get young kids ready for next season. I am not going to make a prediction on the record because I want to say 12-4 but that’s more of my heart talking than anything. I’m just going to take this season week by week and see what happens.

You shouldn’t put much stock in preseason games but going by what I saw I want to say that the Packers will win tomorrow night’s game 31-21. However as a diehard fan, if you can’t be positive about the first game then when can you? I’m going with my heart and say Saints 27 Packers 21. That would be a great opening night. A good opening night would be a close came without Clay Matthews or Charles Woodson killing Drew Brees and Malcolm Jenkins not getting hurt.

I still haven’t decided on my new lucky game shirt since I burned the other after the Seattle wildcard game last year but I’ll have one by game time. I hope I don’t have burn this one too.

Sitting On My Porch Part Seventy Two

This post is dedicated to Geraldine 9/26/32 to 8/29/2005. I'll never be over it but I'll keep moving forward. Long live the Lower Ninth Ward.

I need to get this post done before college football gets in full gear this weekend and I fight flood waters to make it to my fantasy draft on Sunday. Plus, I have two epic Saints season preview posts to do this weekend if the power doesn't go off. It’s been a strange week around the city of New Orleans. That’s not the first time I have said those words. Monday was the anniversary of the weather event on August 29, 2005. I’m not in the mood to type the name this evening. It’s always a pretty somber and reflective day for most of us. It’s been six years so we talk about it less but inside it still stays with you. All week I've been thinking about my grandparents and that always puts me in a strange place where I want to make them proud and kick someone's ass on their behalf at the same time. My fifth act as a king of all humans is taking August off the calendar.

I guess Mother Nature decided to give us something to take our minds off all the water by covering the city in a big cloud of smoke for two days due to a marsh fire out in New Orleans East. I made a comment Monday morning that it smelled like burned collard greens outside. The smoke smelled really bad on Monday and then tried to choke the life out of everyone on Tuesday. In true New Orleans fashion there were some people who pretended like they didn’t smell anything and it was no big deal and another group of people who thought it was Armageddon. That made the whole situation a bit funny to me.

Once the smoke got everyone’s mind off of flooding we were presented with another tropical system that sitting outside of coast and waiting to mess up everyone’s Labor Day weekend. If it gets strong enough for a name it will be” Lee”. I’m hoping that it comes through before that and gives us whatever it’s going to as soon as possible. If no one home gets flooded and the Direct TV signal stays on long enough to watch the LSU vs. Oregon game on Saturday we should consider this event a win. I don’t want to downplay the seriousness of a tropical storm but we live in South Louisiana. We are going to get some kind of tropical weather. Give me a pain in the ass storm like this one with lots of rain over one that requires the activation of contra flow any time.

Michael Vick signed a contract worth 100 million dollars this week after being in federal prison two years ago. Most black men can barely get a job digging ditches when they get out of prison and Mike Vick got a huge contract with guaranteed money. If that doesn’t make him appreciate his gifts I don’t know what will. People’s reaction to his rise, fall and rising again shows the different philosophies on life in our community. So many people are inspired by the fact he went to prison and came back to have success. I think they see a lot of their own family and friends in him. I was raised by people who would say that if he never would have been fighting dogs in the first place he would have 200 million right now and could do even more things for himself and his family. At the end of the day the best way to beat the system is to stay out of it.

On the flip side of that issue Betty Jefferson stole over a million dollars from the most vulnerable and needy people in New Orleans and all she got were 15 months of house arrest. The second best way to beat the system is to be a really good thief and always steal from poor black people. You’ll get to spend 15 months watching Young and the Restless for your punishment.

New Orleans City Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson had a few issues at a meeting in District E when she said that having Mitch Landrieu as mayor took her back to the 50’s and 60’s which were the glory days of New Orleans in her book. I’m not the type of person that jumps all over someone for a quote unless it’s Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh. In this case however the councilwoman is not going to get a pass because there’s no way she or anyone else has lived in this area all their lives and doesn’t know that kind of comment was going to piss off black people. The political climate in this country is too tense right now and she should be more careful. I tried to come up with a way to let her off the hook but I couldn’t.

Maybe to her the 50’s and 60’s were the golden era for New Orleans but if me and my friends went back in time and went out to eat all of my white friends would have a nice seat overlooking the French Quarter and the rest of us would be eating in the kitchen if we got that far without getting our asses whipped and going to jail. I like the mayor but he hasn’t done anything that great to make me get on board with going back to any days like that. If he gets a hospital open in New Orleans East and a Wal Mart somewhere I might reminisce on when Schwegmann’s grocery store was open but that’s as far back as I am going. Besides, I thought we were focused on going forward.

Seven Years In Blogger Land And I'm Still Here

On August 25, 2011 this blog made 7 years old. I'm old school. I'm a veteran. I've been posting a long time. You get the idea. I'm amazed at myself for still being this engaged despite my incredibly short attention span. The last few months I had been seriously thinking about retiring and hanging up my Blogger user id and password. I was all set to do it but then I changed my mind. I figured after years of coming up with new things to talk about a few times a week I had run out of ideas or the interest in the world around me to talk about anything. The real truth is that I am just getting lazy and distracted by things. I still love doing it so I'm going to hang around for a bit longer.

Yesterday I was this year’s Rising Tide Conference. It’s the perfect place to be for a blogger who needs a boost. A friend of mine was on the Brass Band Panel. When he saw me he asked what I was doing there. I told him I was there every year. He looked at my name tag and was like “What the hell is Cliff’s Crib?” I told him it was my website. He gave me a confused look and said “Cliff you gotta website?” He’s probably still confused today. The conference is getting bigger and bigger. It’s getting so big that now you can actually be there all day and not run into some of the familiar faces. That’s a huge sign of progress. It shows that blogs are still going strong despite the term for what we do being lumped in with every person who decides to leave a comment on a news story or anyone else that types a few words online.

What they do is comment on other people’s work. What real bloggers do is create our own voice. Sometimes we do a good job of that and sometimes we don’t. Sometimes people read it and sometimes no one notices. Either way I respect the people who go through the process and put themselves out there even if I don’t agree with them.

I remember how it was last year to be at the Rising Tide Conference knowing you won the Ashley Morris Award and couldn’t tell anyone. I thought I gave it away when my friends showed up and lowered the black/white ratio of the crowd slightly. I have my plaque sitting on a stand in my office at work. Winning an award for blogging is funny because one of the unwritten rules of the game is to try to not make things so serious. It’s hard to maintain that when people stand up and applaud your work.

This year’s winner is Dedra Johnson also known as G Bitch to her blogger friends. She’s a well deserving winner and I can assure you that her real life personality does not match the name of her blog. She’s good people and I am happy for her. Congratulations and I hope we are all around next year when a new winner is honored.

To all the other bloggers out there still coming up with relevant, informative and thought provoking posts keep doing what you do. I’ll be right there with you. I love doing it. Plus, you can’t put a price on telling someone “Google me” and actually have things show up during the search that don't involve arrests. You can’t put a price on that.

The Cost Of Young Men Making Dumb Decisions

Unless LSU has been hiding something for the last few years I feel comfortable in saying that Jordan Jefferson is a good kid. Nevertheless he and his teammates did a dumb thing by breaking curfew and it led to him and a teammate allegedly being in a fight which caused them to get arrested and suspended from the team. Young men do dumb things. They always have and they always will. I did some dumb things at that age. I made some choices that were so stupid and hazardous to my well being that I pass certain spots in New Orleans that remind me of a crazy night and feel like I should go straight to church and thank God that nothing happen to me. Nothing too bad ever happened. I always made it home jail and bullet free. I was never a bad guy and never looked for any trouble but when you make bad decisions the potential side effect is bad circumstances. Things could have gone either way. I am glad thankful they never did.

I’m sure Jordan Jefferson’s parents and coaches told him to be careful just like my parents used to always tell me. When I was 20 years old I would say okay but when the night is calling and the adrenaline is rushing you hear what they are saying but it doesn’t always stick. I went to a few places I shouldn’t have and been around some people who could have put me in danger. Kids do that all the time it’s just that most of them are not the quarterback for a major college football program.

I feel bad for the kids involved especially for Jordan Jefferson because he paid so many dues to get to this point and have it all blow up on him because of a few minutes of bad judgment. I don’t know what actually happened yet. It really doesn’t matter at this point. His football career is ruined and if LSU loses to Oregon next week everyone is going to blame him. If the entire season falls apart some fans are going to talk like he’s a mass murderer instead of a kid that got into a fight and that’s unfortunate.

Times have changed in our society. You could be the starting quarterback for your college or the first person to do well and make it out of your neighborhood and there will be just as many people out to hate you as there are to love you. You have to stay clear of places where there is the potential to have altercations with people because you can’t control that environment.

That’s easy for me say now. I’m 37 year old dad with a career and an upstanding reputation. I’m so paranoid of something happening that I hardly hang out anymore because I am afraid of screwing everything up. When I was Jordan Jefferson and his teammates’ age I probably would have thought “All we have to do is go to the bar, meet some girls and have a few drinks without any trouble. We’ll be back in enough time to sleep a little before practice. No one is going to even know we left. What could possibly go wrong?” Ninety nine percent of the time that works. This story is the case of the one percent that it doesn’t work and you end up sitting on the sofa at your parent’s house watching television as some other guy leads your team out of the tunnel for the first game of your senior season. He should have just stayed in and went to sleep that night. I hope this makes him a better man as he gets older.

Some life lessons sting harder than others.

Farewell Mr. Fielkow

New Orleans City Councilman at Large Arnie Fielkow is stepping down to move to Chicago. He’s going to be the president of the NBA Retired Players Association. That sounds like a pretty cool job. I would like to wish the councilman well and thank him for his service to my city. I’ve never had an issue with Mr. Fielkow since he’s been in office. I didn’t like the NORD public/private partnership and even though I thought that plan was misguided and unnecessary I feel his heart was in the right place. He was just trying to help the kids.

In many ways the councilman’s story is the perfect example of a lot of our current residents. He’s not a native so he’s free of some of the baggage natives have. He came to town because of work. He and his family fell in love with the place so they decided to get involved and make a difference. There is more and more of this demographic around town. Most of them are cool and have a genuine concern for the city and all of its residents. Then there are others who are here to take advantage of our struggles and failures. They caught us at our most vulnerable and are trying to reshape our city for their own agendas.

I think Mr. Fielkow belongs in that first group. I would like to thank him for trying to do some progressive things to move the city forward and for never telling the world that everything here was going okay because we had a second line parade on Sunday.

Now comes the fun part because the councilman has to select an interim replacement and the council needs to approve that person. Then we’ll have a special election after that to elect a new councilperson. I haven’t made any predictions in awhile but I think whoever is selected for the interim post and how the rest of the council handles it will decide the next election. If there’s one more backdoor hookup to maintain a certain level of control by some members on the council then there’s going to be a pushback in the citywide race.

College Football Will Never Be The Same

I am a college football junkie. I'm one of those guys that watches ESPN U for signing day and follows the recruiting websites. I used to buy magazines all the time until the Internet made that unnecessary. When I was a kid I would rent every college football history book from the school library. I could hold my own in a trivia contest. After the Saints are done playing on Sunday my NFL interest start to fade a little. I can watch college football all day and night on Saturday no matter who's playing. I think it's the best level of football because of the tradition and the players. I don't really care about the BCS and all the money involved. I just want to watch the games. This off season there has been a few scandals involving players receiving benefits. People are acting like there’s a huge problem. I say the things going on are just the nature of a beast that’s been created and it’s not going back the other way.

You got these huge expanding conferences trying to generate more and more money from television contracts. Stadiums are getting bigger and bigger. In order to sell the ad time while the games are on and to sell the extra suites and seats in these giant stadiums you have to market the game in a way that expands it’s following beyond the students of the school or the people who live in the area of the school. That means you have to get the best player’s possible. You have to get players so good that football fans in Wyoming would have to be interested in the players involved in an LSU and Alabama game that they will tune in and CBS will give the SEC billions of dollars for the right to broadcast their games. There’s no way you can have that much money involved without any corruption and it’s foolish to think every player is going to sit there and be okay with that.

Things are even more confusing for the players because now there are college sports video games and other merchandising. When Reggie Bush was at USC you could buy a video game where #5 for USC didn’t have Bush on the back of the jersey but you knew he was supposed to be. I went to Ohio State’s website to look up the price of a jersey. You can get a replica #2 jersey for 59.95. I’m not saying Terrell Pryor was right for breaking the rules. I’m just tripping on people acting like he murdered someone for trading his own clothes for a tattoo.

If I was a world class football player coming out of high school I don’t think my parents would have let me accept any money to go to a particular school or any gifts from someone after I got there. I’m thinking that if I was 19 years old and looked around to see thousands of people wearing a jersey with my number on it I might think getting a few tattoos for one of those jerseys was fair especially since I’m the reason they are selling the jersey with that number on it anyway. I would get punished for doing wrong by the NCAA but when a system grows to a certain point the line between right and wrong gets blurred.

The media and the fans should just calm down and admit the fact that it will never be 1965 again when it comes to college football. As long as there is lots of money involved there’s going to be corruption and the players are always going to be the most susceptible to it. The glory days are not coming back so lets just accept it and enjoy the games on Saturday.

Sitting On My Porch Part Seventy One

School is in full swing around these parts. The little kids are going back to school and the big kids are going off to college. I had a talk with a friend that sent her son off to college this morning. She was real proud. I gave her props for getting him to that point but I wish the idea of young men from our community going to college was as routine as getting a driver’s license. It would be a great thing if the whole neighborhood was packing up and going away to school and it was no big deal.

I have written about 7 blogs to post here and left them in the drafts folder. I may get aggravated and not post this one.I look around and think to myself “What’s the point. The whole world is tripping and there’s nothing we can do about it.” No matter where I look all I see if foolishness. It doesn’t matter if it’s the super committee and the thought that I will be working until I’m 75 or parents in Louisiana killing their children, everything is out of order. Just Monday I drove children to a school within a block of a triple shooting that happen the night before. When it comes to worrying a conscious brother from New Orleans will become delirious trying to keep up with all the things on the agenda. I think that’s why I am tuning out of things more than before. Nevertheless we need to get back to a regular blogging schedule so let’s see where this goes.

Who really wants to pay attention to such foolishness as Steve Harvey deciding who’s an Uncle Tom or not? When did being totally happy with everything the president does become criteria for having your blackness questioned? That’s just crazy. I don’t know what Tavis Smiley and Dr. West’s full motives are with their poverty tour but I am sure speaking out for the poor isn’t Uncle Tom behavior. The truth is that if someone asks me I wouldn’t know how to exactly describe an Uncle Tom.

I don’t think anyone should be debating the president right now because he has his supporters so confused they may have to wait until after he releases his job plan and the outcome of the super committee to know if he’s a closet conservative, a pushover, or the greatest politician in the last 50 years. Emotionally I can only deal with the last two options. The first one would be so devastating to my community that we wouldn’t recover. The only thing that might save us is that so many of us are so blindly loyal that we wouldn’t realize the truth for 30 years anyway.

Who really wants to follow the Iowa Straw Poll and the Republican presidential race? The whole thing is a joke because as much as Republicans talk about their values they don’t really want a candidate that far to the right. They are just dying for someone to rescue them from Michelle Bachmann and Rick “Long Wolf McQuade” Perry. Michelle Bachmann won the straw poll and although I think her and her husband or crazy and dangerous they seem to be legitimate in how they think. If the Tea party is right and the majority of Americans feel the way they do then she should win the nomination and the White House in a landslide. Why do the media seem to be ignoring her so much after the weekend?

Is there any website left on the internet that you can’t share with your Facebook friends?

New Orleans Saints post will start after the third pre-season game and I have a better idea of what the new team looks like. I’m just getting over the Reggie Bush trade so I am almost
ready to talk about them. I think this year I am going to blog about my fantasy team too just to have extra stuff to talk about besides the news. I have been in the same league since Hurricane Katrina and the reason is that it’s the most gentlemanly and respectful football league in all of America.

So the Jay Z and Kanye West album watch the throne came out last week and after listening to it over that time I am ready to give it four out of five stars. I couldn’t give it five because there was just a bit too much noise in some of the songs. I’m old school and like that boom bap sound. The best song is Murder to Excellence by far. It’s a good album that respects hip hop but it’s not the best song out right now. The best hip hop song out right now is Dee 1 Featuring Mannie Fresh in The One That Got Away.

Summer Vacation Keeps Getting Shorter

On Saturday I went down to the beach in Mississippi. I can’t say that was our end of summer event but it might as well be since school is starting already. Kids all over New Orleans are going back to school at the beginning of the hottest month of the year. I think the days of waiting until Labor Day to start school are over. I like to joke that if school started this early back when I was in elementary school half of my class wouldn’t have been there. I’m sure I would have had friends with two weeks worth of absences before they ever met the their teacher. I’m joking and exaggerating but there would have been a few people like that. Actually, there were a few people like that even though school started later. It’s just a small component of how we got to the situation we have in our city.

We are trying to break free from some of those problems now. That’s why as much as I want another few weeks to sleep later and make pit stops to drinking establishments on the way home from work I won’t make a big fuss about school starting today. According to state statistics black students in New Orleans are finally closing the achievement gap. I don’t know what this means in the long run for the community but it is positive. I wouldn’t be surprised if the smart people sent her to change our educational system decided that all of the kids need to be in school all year around to close the gap just a little bit more. If that happens we’ll just have to deal with it and do what we need to do. We need to get the kids in school now as prepared as possible to take care of themselves because the way things are going there won’t be any safety net to keep them from suffering if we fail.

I guess going to school in early August isn’t so bad. The kids now have a few things going for them that many of us didn’t have like working water fountains and air conditioning. It was hard to focus on reading and math when it was 100 degrees inside the classroom. The kids had a short summer but at least they will be cool at their desk.

Public or Private Doesn't Matter When You're Not Working

On the way in to work this morning I was listening to a discussion on the radio about private sector jobs versus government jobs. According to the gentlemen talking the nation won’t recover from its economic issues until the private sector has the freedom to do what it needs to grow and start hiring people again. There are too many government jobs.

I don’t have a government job but I work for an agency that depends on government money. That has its advantages. Your budget is pretty set in stone so as long as there is not a catastrophe you will get paid. You also don’t work any overtime so your free time is always there. You get to meet a lot of good people and feel like you are helping your community. You might even get to travel every now and then for a conference and free trips are good. All of that is cool as long as you don’t mind not getting raises for a long time or having to take a second job if you can find it. I work with a lot of good people but I wouldn’t say any of them are exactly getting rich.

When it comes to money nothing can compare to a good corporate job. The best thing about corporate jobs are raises and overtime. I’m one of those people that actually wanted people to not show up for work or needed a day off so I could take that time. I once made a killing just by covering shifts for LSU graduates during football season. Money making opportunities don’t come along like that in the non profit world. The benefits are better. The holiday parties are better. There’s usually a few perks here or there if you get in good with management. There’s also room for growth in most private sector jobs. I worked nine hours my first week of the first job I ever had and ended up in management. Mostly everyone at the agency I work for now has the position they are going to have as long as they work there.

If I had to choose the job I wanted for the next twenty years there is no doubt in my mind that it would be a corporate job. I actually agree with conservatives when they promote the value of the private sector. The only problem with the way things are in our country right now is that I had a private sector job that I never would have quit but one day I went in and was giving a pink slip with the rest of my team. I desperately wanted another job just like the one I had but when you are out of work five months and are trying to survive that love for the private sector goes out the window. You apply for everything hoping someone will call and you get back in the game.

I think most Americans just want to be in the game and working. I don’t think too many people care if their job is public or private as long as they can feed their families. If I knew anyone that turned down a government job out of principle even though they had responsibilities and no private sector jobs were available I would call that person a fool to their face. We are in this period where American jobs paid for by America somehow don’t reflect American values. If the political leaders of our country are going to start cutting programs as if there’s no jobs connected to those cuts and leave all of the hard working people affected out on the streets looking for jobs then they better make sure that there are enough private sector jobs to make up for it.

The question I don’t here anyone trying to answer is what happens if we cut all these programs from the budget and give all of the tax cuts to the private sector that they supposedly need to start reinvesting in America but instead of investing they deposit that money and use it to keep their management receiving record bonuses? What are regular citizens supposed to do if our own government is shrunk to the point it can’t help us and the job creators who get all of the tax breaks decide they would rather keep their money to themselves and not help the country grow? Why would Americans no matter what they believe let things go the way they are headed without a plan B?

What I Would Do To Solve The Budget Crisis

I’ve been following the debt ceiling debate and I keep hearing everyone talking about all the spending we are doing as a country. It’s supposed to be trillions of dollars we are kicking out with no regard to the deficit. I’m not saying anyone is lying about that. It’s just confusing because it seems like all I read about is state and local governments cutting everything because they don’t have money. Some governors like Scott Walker in Wisconsin said he had to take away collective bargaining rights from his employees just so cities and programs in his state could fix their budgets. If we have more spending that ever before then why is this necessary?

I broke my rule about not reading comments after reading stories on this topic because I wanted to see what other people were thinking about it. It seems to me like once of the biggest problems we have right now is that almost everybody agrees that we need to fix the problem but no one really knows exactly what we are spending money for. One person thinks we should stop foreign aid. Another person may say stop giving money to support illegal immigrants. Another person may blame the debt on housing subsidies and aid to the poor. The question we have to ask ourselves is that what happens if we cut every program that did any of those things and the debt was still out of control? I’m sure there are many people that think if you cut out these programs it would rescue the country from financial ruin and save their Social Security without any new taxes but I don’t think that’s true.

When Governor Jindal in Louisiana took office he started cutting money to all the social service programs and many in this state were happy but as we are finding out those programs were just a drop in the bucket of the state’s budget and now we have to make harder choices. I think this may also be true in America as a whole because the president can’t be willing to discuss cuts in Medicare and lose his advantage in that argument unless he knows that’s the only way to fix the budget without upsetting the big campaign donors and lobbyist by raising taxes back to where they were before the Bush tax cuts.

I think the solution to this problem is for the public to get a complete breakdown of exactly where our money goes. I know you can go online and probably find that but it needs to be broken down clearly for everyone that doesn’t have the time to do a lot of research can pick up the paper and read it. I'm not talking about a pie chart with general categories like defense and discretionary spending because those are vague enough to be used to fool the public. I'm talking about a program by program dollar amount. I don't think that's an unreasonable request since the future of the country is at stake and we are passing massive debt to our children and grandchildren. I want to know where the money's going so I can tell my grandchildren why grandpa doesn't have Medicare.

We should look at just how much do we spend on farm subsidies, defense contracts, foreign aid, social programs, infrastructure, and everything else that depends on federal dollars. We can throw in there how much money we take in from revenue and how much we miss out on because of tax loopholes and other breaks. Our government should make that public and give everyone two weeks to study it. Then, the leadership in Washington should all get together for a public meeting broadcast in prime time and have a serious discussion about what to cut and how to increase revenue. Having the debate this way with all of the information out in the open would eliminate the rhetoric and divisive tactics.

For all we know the government could be spending more money to build an amphibious drone robot to fight the war on terror than we are on all the social programs put together. We need to make decisions based on all the money we spend and not just the few things that get discussed in the media. Maybe if we did it my way we would find that there's enough money coming in to take care of one another but we are spending it on things that no one in any tax bracket think makes a lot of sense. Maybe there's not enough money but at least after we look at everything and need more revenue people won't think it's going to buy poor people new cars or something silly

If this happened it would bring Americans together for a discussion based on facts and not rhetoric. It would probably end political talking points on both sides. It would straighten up the budget for real and expose the power of lobbyists leading to serious reform that the public would demand to keep this situation from happening again. Since all the good things I just mentioned are the same reasons that the powers behind the scenes would never go for it, I guess I am going to stick with my position based on self preservation like everyone else and say TAX THE RICH! I don’t hate rich people or spend any time worrying about what they have but since we haven’t been giving any options besides taxing them more or destroying our own safety net it leaves me with no choice but to pick the side that's going to benefit me.

If you made it to the end of this I would like to invite you to read this post by Drake. It describes exactly how I feel about this debt ceiling drama.

Sitting On My Porch Part Seventy

A young man who I consider a brother and friend was just became principal of his own school in Mississippi. He’s coming a long way from the rough streets of Uptown New Orleans and daily journeys from Clark High School to the Riverwalk. Congratulations Principal Brister. I’m proud of you. Stay focus and be humble. I wish all my friends had things like this going on.

I consider it a blessing to have such a diverse group of friends and associates. There’s nothing negative about knowing people from all walks of life. I have conservative friends, liberal friends, Black Nationalist friends, and friends that don’t care about any of that. One thing all these people have in command besides knowing me is that I have never had a conversation about the debt ceiling with any of them. Why is this still going on? If the banks were too big to fail doesn’t the debt ceiling have to be lifted on behalf of everybody? Isn’t the country as a whole too big to fail? Why can’t we just raise the debt ceiling and then work out all the other issues while the country still functions?

I would like to welcome Wal Mart to the old Gentilly shopping mall. I still don’t know why residents voted no to Wal Mart the last time but I am glad they are going to finally do something. The Gentilly mall used to have a lot of different stores and businesses in it but it’s been six years since Katrina and I don’t think anyone was coming back. We might as well let Wal Mart and their money come in and do something with the space. At least some of us won’t have to spend ten dollars of gas to drive for a pair of socks anymore.

I have a prediction. In less than three years Twitter will fall apart because all of the people with so much to lose will realize it’s not worth it arguing or sending pictures of themselves to someone sitting at the bus stop. It’s going to take about three more public figures to fall before the domino effect starts. I’ll be retired from blogging by then but will come back just to gloat about how right I was.

The fan reaction to the NFL players because they didn’t vote for the owners’ proposal really baffles me. First of all it was a lockout. The players weren’t trying to get anything extra. The owners opted out of the last deal. Secondly, people act like if the players were to all of a sudden start playing for half of what they do now that would somehow make the owners stop rising ticket prices and beers wouldn’t cost 12 bucks. These are the same people that think if we keep cutting rich people’s taxes they will hire the rest of us. NFL players make a lot of money but it’s nothing compared to what the owners take in. Drew Brees makes a lot of money but it probably equals up to what Tom Benson makes in interest alone for the year. I’ve been watching NFL network almost everyday since this lockout started and haven’t seen an owner catch a touchdown yet. Let the players take a few more days to make sure they are comfortable with the deal. Losing a week of preseason won’t hurt me as a fan.

I’ve been at work all week trying not to catch a case and learning how to work Spotify. Thanks to them I was about to sit at my desk today and listen to the entire EPMD catalog for free. I don’t download too many applications to my work computer but as long as you can listen to all this music for free and I don’t turn on my system to find a virus with some naked lady dancing in the corner of the screen it’s all good.

This is what I was listening to when our accountant and business manager were trying to ask me about an invoice. EPMD saved my job and possible my freedom.

The Window Washing Kid At The Intersection

For the past few weeks at the intersection of Downman Road and Chef Mentuer Highway in New Orleans there’s an old school sight. A young man between the ages of ten and twelve years old is standing out there washing car windows for a few extra dollars at the stop light. The first day I saw him standing in that busy intersection during rush hour traffic I wondered what the hell he was doing out there. You don’t see little boys his age doing that anymore. He’s always clean and neat so I don’t think he’s out there trying to eat or anything like that.

Maybe he’s trying to get some extra money for his school shoes. The shoe peer pressure can be rough at that age so I can understand that. He could be trying to buy a new video game or fresh skateboard so he can roll around like the rest of the young cats I see. Just the fact that he’s trying to earn it made me start giving him my extra dollars and change even though I don’t want washing my windows. As a matter of fact I have seen him collect a lot of money and I haven’t seen him wash a window yet. Last Friday I seen a big dude with redneck tendencies in a truck with oversize tires give him a five dollar bill and he couldn’t even reach the windows of the work truck he was driving.

He’s learning a valuable lesson even though he might be too young to fully understand it. The lesson is that no matter what you look like or where you come from most people respect work ethic. Working hard and doing your best everyday won’t stop you from having problems but it will open the door to other opportunities and keep you out of trouble. I hope he makes enough to get whatever it is he’s out there for because that will be a good positive reinforcement.

What happens to a lot of young black men is they older and gets caught up in what I call twisted dignity. The reason why it’s twisted is that is based on money and not values. We’ll look at a guy washing windows or doing odd jobs to make his money legally as a fool and worship some well paid hustler who’ll shoot our parents if the money is right. We have to reverse that in order to calm some of these kids down and get them to not feel so hopeless about society so they will care about living and in turn will care if the rest of us live or not. Until they start caring our community will never be safe from the violence that goes on now.

I’m a little jaded but the things going on in our society right now and it’s possible the bar for me being encouraged is so low that I am reading too much into that kid standing out there and washing windows. That’s very possible but we live in tough times in a tough city. When I see that kid I think to myself that he won’t make a lot of money but at least he’s not out there at night waiting to stick a gun in my window. That thought makes me wish there was a 1000 more kids like him cleaning windows, cutting grass, washing cars and whatever else they could do to stay out of the cemetery and the penitentiary.

I’m giving that kid a dollar for as long as he’s out there and I catch the red light. I’m trying to hold on to all of the optimism I can.

I Need Football

It might be an understatement to say that so far 2011 has been my best year from an attitude standpoint. I haven’t been a happy person. I thought I had writers block but I realized that I just didn’t feel like posting about 90% of the things going on because all of my opinions kept coming back to “people are stupid”, and “this is a dumb ass idea”. No one wants to blog those conclusions over and over. People get tired of reading negativity all the time. I get tired of feeling it. That’s why I can’t wait until football season starts.

I know the NFL is close to getting their collective bargaining agreement worked out and even though they are the highest level of the best sport in the world I wasn’t just talking about them. I’m ready for pro football, college, high school, little league and any other level in between those. I want to be distracted by something that feels like a life or death situation but it’s really not.

I make no apologies for being totally obsessed with the sport during the season. My daily routine is packed with enough responsibility to make up for the four or five hours of TV and Internet I devote to football once I get home. It takes me back to being a little boy and stuffing towels in the shoulders of my Spiderman pajamas for pads and running touchdowns like George Rogers and Dalton Hilliard through my shotgun double house. That’s where my mind goes when the game is on. I can block out debt ceilings, budget cuts, failed hospital plans, bills, crime, my parents aging, the kids education, levee protection, hurricane season, job security and all the other things that make me want to drink and cuss.

I can’t wait to go to the park around the corner and watch the kids play during the week. I can’t wait to catch a high school game on Friday and hope Clark High School makes it to the playoffs. I can’t wait for SEC football on Saturdays and the week Les Miles calls a triple reverse on fourth down. I can’t wait to watch an Alabama game and wonder what Nick Saban says to those parents to get them to send their sons to play for him without any violations. I can’t wait to see Nebraska in the Big 10. I can’t wait for the prime time game on Saturday Night when Brent Musburger (the greatest announcer ever) says “You are looking live!”

I can’t for the opening Thursday night game when the Saints send Green Bay a message that we won’t go quietly and we want our title back. I’m looking forward to the media still keeping the Brett Favre flame lit until about week 10. I’m ready to enjoy a Bart Scott interview like this one. I’m ready for secret man crush on Troy Polamalu and Ed Reed to continue while wishing they were Saints. I’m ready for Malcolm Jenkins to end my man crush with both of them and make me glad he’s here in New Orleans instead. I’m ready to tell everyone how overrated Matt Ryan is. I’m ready for giving ready Bush one more chance and being one of the few people left on the bandwagon. I’m ready for Drew Brees winning his second MVP and beating Ray Lewis and the Ravens in the Superbowl.

September can’t get here fast enough. I just hope the government isn’t shut down by the time the season starts and there’s no money coming in to cover my paycheck. That situation would put football to a test not seen since Katrina.

Riverfront Fireworks Blog

The feeling of not wanting to be around people can hit me at the wrong times. The latest episode of that came this weekend which is messed up because it’s one of my favorite times of the year. I didn’t do anything Saturday or Sunday because I just didn’t have the energy. I could barely keep my eyes open most of the time while lying on the sofa doing nothing. I felt really lazy and I was upset with myself but I never got up to do anything either. Besides a quick run to Taco Bell I had accepted the fact that Monday was going to end up the same way.

Somehow I got talked into going out to the riverfront and watching the 4th of July fireworks display. I was aggravated when I first got out there because I had to walk three blocks. Once I stopped sweating so much from the walk and got comfortable I took a look around me and checked out my city.

First of all the city always looks great from the riverfront. You almost forget all the drama that lies beyond that. Every demographic was covered. There was a Hispanic family to the right of us. There were a few hippies behind us. On my left were two middle aged white families with matching red white and blue shirts on. Then about 40 people from the hood pushed their way to the bottom of the levee for a good spot and no one told them anything because there are rules to living here. It was almost like waiting for a Mardi Gras parade without the obnoxious tourists.

There was a guy dressed like Uncle Sam walking through the crowd. The Natchez riverboat passed through while the ferry went back and forth. There was an even a second line band that passed through followed by a bunch of people that can’t dance. I felt like I was trapped in a real life episode of Treme. All we needed was Kermit Ruffins playing the Star Spangled Banner on top of Jax Brewery.

Right before the sun went down I looked to my left and could see the Claiborne Bridge. I thought about how from the steps of my Auntie Anna’s house on Tricou Street you could see the entire fireworks display without having to be bothered with all those people and since she’s gone and so is the house there’s no way that’s going to be happening again. That still bums me out and it probably has a lot to do with why sometimes I just tune out the world during holiday times since Katrina started. I’ll stop thinking about that kind of stuff one day.

Despite all my issues and aggravation I was glad that I went. Everybody had a good time and the kids out there really enjoyed themselves. Plus, I have always been into fireworks and the show was cool. I guess hanging out with random local folks isn’t so bad sometimes.