Ghetto Jogging
I was glad that my DC area friend, my best buddy from childhood, showed up unannounced at my doorstep Saturday morning. He had jogged from Convention Center Blvd. up about twenty blocks of Canal Blvd., which is no small feat, but one I had seen him do in my imagination months previous. He survived it then and now. Saturday or Sunday mornings are probably best for it. I told him he was forever off the sissy list. That jog is a dangerous one but one that I've seen other non-urban oriented people do, and survive. I think surviving that jog without any altercation is possibly a thing that would happen as much as ninety percent of the time. The angle I'm still not accurately addressing is how the good times here roll parallel to the depravity and murder, without much of the latter bringing harm to the former. I think that is the story from here I'm trying to get but not getting right just yet. I had a great time with friends, moving around town freely and safely, drinking and eating well. But all around us people were committing the ultimate crime of killing their brothers. Not really a threat to those around them because almost exclusively the young men and occasional woman who die on the streets here die of point-blank gunshots to the head. Not that many stray bullets really and a person here who minds their own business has remarkable survival chances. Overall crime is down in NOLA, but murder is up 56 per cent. Just a reminder, old news, just a reminder, our urban youth are surgically assassinating each other at alarming rates. Still. This Jazzfest weekend set attendance lows records and you almost wish you could blame that on a fear factor affecting prominent whites--too much murder let's stay away (then of course somebody would take the problem seriously, smirk). But mostly people come here with the accurate assumption that everthing will be fine and some might even be completely unaware of how close they are to the real thing. Six murders over three days during Jazzfest. Two of them very local to Jazzfest commuters. And several more specific to the area over the previous month. I don't have a point about it, I just like lining the disparate possibilities up next to each other. As for jogging in or near the ghetto--surviving real threats may be good for the heart. Exercise some caution.
Jim, "big time spooky " was a reference to a description of a recent NOLA shooting. It happened in a high school & one of the kids interviewed said the school was a good place to do a gang related assasination because they are away from NOLA police scrutiny. The school rent-a-cops don't mess with this shit ,the kid said... big time spooky.
I got ya, yeah, that was John Mac HS, some of the kids I used to write about go there. It's about four blocks from the Dumaine house, ten from here. The school shootings get a lot of press, but for this area the only thing unique about the John Mac shooting was that it happened in a school. 15--20 year old black males shooting each other is a common and ongoing horror in NOLA (and obviously in many larger cities across amurica). Lately about one a day, then three in one day, then two. Then a break, then it starts again. At a pretty high rate for over twenty years now. Big Time Spooky yes, not a bad title.
During one of my stays in New Orleans I counted the shooting stories in the Times-Picayune. It worked out to one violent death per day over a 7 day period. Each shooting was about poor people killing other poor people. If middle class white kids were dying at that rate, the Marines would be recalled from Baghdad to save America.
Most of the shootings were up close and personal, as Jim described. One was a drive by in which a family having a BBQ was shot up by stray bullets.
Down the block from me, people complain about neighborhood kids stealing oranges. Down the street from M, a neighborhood kid shot and killed a cab driver in front of a crowd of witnesses.
The school shooting had a similar audaciousness. Most of the killings I've read about happen in the dark, or in houses, away from prying eyes.
shooting map
Notice the central blue area (District 1) with a lot of yellow dots. These District 1 dots represent unsolved shootings, mostly in the Treme, in the first half of '02. Thirty six shootings in twenty six weeks. And none of them solved at the time the map was generated.
And we're spending billions to rejuvenate Baghdad?
We stayed off Rampart this year (again), and ventured out for seafood boil at King Roger's a couple of times. Reminded me of walking almost a half mile to go 5 blocks in East Oakland doing the "good-block, bad-block" shuffle to avoid known bad boys and bad scenarios. We walked up to the store just in time to see the street-fight erupt on Rampart & they just walked it right into traffic. That was a savvy move that saved one guy a worse beating. The fight didn't have anything to do with us, so we went in and got our crawfish. It did make me wonder what it'd be like to have to run that gauntlet everyday, tho'.
For sure, Rampart is a great example of good and bad entertwined. Stay lucky.
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I was glad that my DC area friend, my best buddy from childhood, showed up unannounced at my doorstep Saturday morning. He had jogged from Convention Center Blvd. up about twenty blocks of Canal Blvd., which is no small feat, but one I had seen him do in my imagination months previous. He survived it then and now. Saturday or Sunday mornings are probably best for it. I told him he was forever off the sissy list. That jog is a dangerous one but one that I've seen other non-urban oriented people do, and survive. I think surviving that jog without any altercation is possibly a thing that would happen as much as ninety percent of the time. The angle I'm still not accurately addressing is how the good times here roll parallel to the depravity and murder, without much of the latter bringing harm to the former. I think that is the story from here I'm trying to get but not getting right just yet. I had a great time with friends, moving around town freely and safely, drinking and eating well. But all around us people were committing the ultimate crime of killing their brothers. Not really a threat to those around them because almost exclusively the young men and occasional woman who die on the streets here die of point-blank gunshots to the head. Not that many stray bullets really and a person here who minds their own business has remarkable survival chances. Overall crime is down in NOLA, but murder is up 56 per cent. Just a reminder, old news, just a reminder, our urban youth are surgically assassinating each other at alarming rates. Still. This Jazzfest weekend set attendance lows records and you almost wish you could blame that on a fear factor affecting prominent whites--too much murder let's stay away (then of course somebody would take the problem seriously, smirk). But mostly people come here with the accurate assumption that everthing will be fine and some might even be completely unaware of how close they are to the real thing. Six murders over three days during Jazzfest. Two of them very local to Jazzfest commuters. And several more specific to the area over the previous month. I don't have a point about it, I just like lining the disparate possibilities up next to each other. As for jogging in or near the ghetto--surviving real threats may be good for the heart. Exercise some caution.
- jimlouis 4-30-2003 5:20 am
Jim, "big time spooky " was a reference to a description of a recent NOLA shooting. It happened in a high school & one of the kids interviewed said the school was a good place to do a gang related assasination because they are away from NOLA police scrutiny. The school rent-a-cops don't mess with this shit ,the kid said... big time spooky.
- frank 4-30-2003 6:01 am [add a comment]
I got ya, yeah, that was John Mac HS, some of the kids I used to write about go there. It's about four blocks from the Dumaine house, ten from here. The school shootings get a lot of press, but for this area the only thing unique about the John Mac shooting was that it happened in a school. 15--20 year old black males shooting each other is a common and ongoing horror in NOLA (and obviously in many larger cities across amurica). Lately about one a day, then three in one day, then two. Then a break, then it starts again. At a pretty high rate for over twenty years now. Big Time Spooky yes, not a bad title.
- jimlouis 4-30-2003 6:20 am [add a comment]
During one of my stays in New Orleans I counted the shooting stories in the Times-Picayune. It worked out to one violent death per day over a 7 day period. Each shooting was about poor people killing other poor people. If middle class white kids were dying at that rate, the Marines would be recalled from Baghdad to save America.
Most of the shootings were up close and personal, as Jim described. One was a drive by in which a family having a BBQ was shot up by stray bullets.
Down the block from me, people complain about neighborhood kids stealing oranges. Down the street from M, a neighborhood kid shot and killed a cab driver in front of a crowd of witnesses.
The school shooting had a similar audaciousness. Most of the killings I've read about happen in the dark, or in houses, away from prying eyes.
- mark 4-30-2003 7:00 am [add a comment]
shooting map
Notice the central blue area (District 1) with a lot of yellow dots. These District 1 dots represent unsolved shootings, mostly in the Treme, in the first half of '02. Thirty six shootings in twenty six weeks. And none of them solved at the time the map was generated.
And we're spending billions to rejuvenate Baghdad?
- mark 4-30-2003 8:21 am [add a comment]
We stayed off Rampart this year (again), and ventured out for seafood boil at King Roger's a couple of times. Reminded me of walking almost a half mile to go 5 blocks in East Oakland doing the "good-block, bad-block" shuffle to avoid known bad boys and bad scenarios. We walked up to the store just in time to see the street-fight erupt on Rampart & they just walked it right into traffic. That was a savvy move that saved one guy a worse beating. The fight didn't have anything to do with us, so we went in and got our crawfish. It did make me wonder what it'd be like to have to run that gauntlet everyday, tho'.
- lucky4me (guest) 5-07-2004 1:43 am [add a comment]
For sure, Rampart is a great example of good and bad entertwined. Stay lucky.
- jimlouis 5-07-2004 8:26 pm [add a comment]