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No, Really, I Am Working
What do you mean what am I doing posting in the middle of the day, when the clock's ticking. I KNOW the clock's ticking.
Those aren't your work clothes. I KNOW that. I had to run for materials this morning. (Be advised--they don't have the 36" window glass at Lowe's on Elysian Fields today, or glazier's points.)
I changed out of my non-work T-shirt into one of my thrift store button downs (I know that doesn't narrow it down very much) and walked over to Betsy's for lunch. Betsy had seen that T-shirt yesterday. I KNOW that blue on her interior walls is not that different from the blue on the Dumaine house, OK?, I don't know how it happened, it just happened that way.
What do you mean if I'm going to dick around all morning why didn't I also just stop by the Asia "Health Club" next to Betsy's, for a little "rub down." Please, don't insult me. You can't just walk into the Asian "Health Club." It is by appointment only.
There are four or five intersections between here and Lowe's with the stop lights not working again. Cool thing is, people here don't even freak over that, just accept what it is and from much previous experience over the last nine month's, just four way stop it.
Lowe's Elysian Fields store is bi-lingual now and the Benjamin Moore on Earhart is too, just to show you how we are embracing our new Latino workers here. I'm sure there are some exceptions but the Latino workers are very polite, and on a number of occasions at the Galvez Spur I've had the door held open for me. It is little things like that which warm the cockles of even the crustiest heart.
The weather? Warmish. Muggy as hell. That shirt I got out of the closet?, it was on a hanger but I suspect before it made it to the hanger it may have for awhile been wadded into a ball in the corner of the closet, and was quite wrinkly when I put it on. By the time I walked the block and a half to Betsy's though, it was wrinkle free. You know those little portable steam shooting de-wrinklers you see advertised on TV? You don't need those here in the summer. What? Oh yeah, it's still spring.
The Rally's on Broad, next to the Chevron, is rubble. Building and substantial concrete foundation, all but gone. Forward movement.
It appears the new film studio/teaching center may actually be happening, in that unused strip of land next to the Lafitte projects. Sort of exciting.
I have to go out and find glazier points now, either on Bourbon Street or Uptown, on Magazine.
Dumaine Street has been bustling with workers this week. House gutters, roofers, clean up crews, painters, trim carpenters, plumbers, electricians, yard workers. I just need a little break from all that ambitious behavior. What? Right, right, glazier points, and that 36" window glass for the front.
Is That The Color?
Whoever recently lost their upper respiratory congestion in the newly and ill-formed Louisville area, please contact me for immediate return. No ID required, but please bring your own phlegm bucket.
Was up at six yesterday and over to Dumaine to clandestinely run a cord from the temporary pole on the right side of Esnard Villa so I could power up my little spray rig. It will run off the small generator I have but not without over-am ping it. I sprayed the trim woodwork high and low and was done by seven so I retired to Betsy's for breakfast while the paint dried in the morning sun.
I had the special but done ala carte fashion because it being a holiday, they were not offering the special per se. It was about three dollars more expensive that way, which is not a complaint, just a report. I had ice-tea instead of hot coffee.
By eight I was back to Dumaine to start brushing the front weatherboards.
A crew of Mexicans had the previous day emptied the contents of the former Mama D's house onto the sidewalk in the neatest damn constructed debris pile I have ever seen.
This day the front man for the debris removal team working Memorial day at time and a half (26 dollars per hour) called out to me, while surveying the neat pile his crew would soon de-construct, remove all electronic devices, and then re-pile across the street. He called out to me--you painting that by yourself? I said yes, not giving Fermin any credit for the few days he helped me or for that matter those three New Yorkers and that solitary Californian, who spot-primed the front.
You a real painter, he said, in a tone that would easily accept the word painter being replaced by, man. Well, jiminy-fuckin'-shucks if that wasn't enough to make my already substantial-sized ego bloat to weather-balloon size and float high above Dumaine.
I crossed the street, and from the shade, sitting on the steps closest to the dumpster, admired my own damn work and conversed with a fellow worker man, about the ways of the world.
Later, BeBe came by to borrow a tape measure, and said, that the color? I said yes, is it all right, do you hate it? She said no she didn't hate it, it was nice, it gonna be real cute.
In the afternoon, Joe came by, which I had sort of been dreading, because I had a month ago let him pick some colors from a chart, and I did not end up using those colors but at the time had enthusiastically said I would. I changed my mind about his selected color scheme and was ready for his--hey man, that's not the color I chose harangue. However, when he came by he said, that the color? and I said yes and he said, that's good man, that's the color I like, (even though it is not even remotely similar to the colors he picked.)
Even later in the afternoon and the shade is my blessing on the porch. I'm up on the eight foot step ladder painting the porch ceiling and Phillis calls from across the street, hey Jim, that the color? I said yes and she said, ohh, I like that, that gonna look real nice. Which is all good, because its she and Joe and BeBe that are going to be looking at it everyday.
It is similar but a bit more electric than the color it is replacing, of the blue/teal family, and I wanted it to be a sort of recognizable color memorial to all the boys that grew up there, under M's guidance. I want them to be able to pass by with pride, say, I planned my first felony up in there, or really, in many cases--that place was part of my saving. I would have been much worse off without that place.
In those days gone by, wrapped up thick in the middle of it, I never answered in the affirmative when asked--do yall think you are doing any good there? It was all so yet to be seen. But with the affording of a little distance and the re-acquainting with some of the boys recently, I can say that at least a few of the literally 100+ children who passed through that house, benefitted from the passing through. And there is something good about that, perhaps almost equal to being called a real painter/man.
Shadow Boxing
I started putting the finish coat on the Dumaine exterior today. It's very, uh, teal. I do not like being in charge of color selection. Anyway, it's pretty well prepped and the color won't be offensive to everyone and as a protective coating it will be good and the prep work to repaint at some future date will be miniscule compared to what I had to do, that is assuming the next person to paint it doesn't wait twelve years, like I did. Twelve years is too long to wait between exterior paint jobs.
The guy who came by a couple of weeks ago and vomited three times while talking to me, came by again today. He's on heroin, but pretends to be on something else. He did some shadow boxing (actually very impressively) and said he misses having people to fight with.
Hunter, a kid I have watched grow up in the ghetto over a twelve year period, came by today, first time I've seen him since being back, and he has grown into a very slick looking young man. Said he's working in the oil fields, or offshore, I can't remember. He was as glad to see me as I was to see him and he hugged me both on the greet and the depart. He's got him a nice little car.
Two more decomposed corpses found in vacant New Orleans' homes this week, nine months after the flood and three days before the official start of a new hurricane season. The death toll is now around 1,500.
The levees are in ok shape but not great shape and the best thing for New Orleans would be no Katrina sized storms this year.
The next best thing would be the rounding up and setting on fire of all high level insurance executives. All of you who have instructed your lackey employees to put up hindrance to those who are in need and have paid their premiums year after year, I hope, if you do sleep at night, you dream of being set on fire, because such things, in an imperfect world, do happen.
You Cannot Fail
This is a lot different than those first several months without electricity, sitting here inside Rocheblave with the central air blasting, and I don't know if I can stand it, but I think I can.
Today was my last day of work. I worked in Metarie and in Lakeview, got my last check, and said goodbye to Bossman, with whom I have worked a total of10 years.
In Metairie I finished the painting except for punch out, on a remodel/flood job for a new builder and he pays us 50 cents to a dollar more per square foot than our regular builder and came onto the job occasionally and said stuff like, it doesn't have to be this good, which is gratifying I guess, but I didn't do anything special for him.
In Lakeview, well I don't know what to say about Lakeview, you have to see it for yourself.
Lakeview, being a white middle class to upper middle class neighborhood, for me, ghetto dweller, is a bit shaking to my core, the visualization of how quickly an affluent neighborhood can, in wide swaths, take on the appearance of ghetto. But you know, I love the ghetto, so I guess it's not all bad.
I don't want my nephew and his wife and three young children, rebuilding in Lakeview, to frown too hard at the last paragraph because I think you are doing the right and courageous thing. Sissies have never made it in New Orleans. As you face your future doubts realize you will never be without what you truly need. What? No!, you cannot borrow a dollar.
I had to go get an extension cord on Dumaine this morning so I could spray some shoe molding at the Metairie job before the carpenters (bossman did not trim that job) put it down, and approaching the former kill zone at St. Philip and Dorgenois, I saw one of the chicken/rooster pairs rummaging around a debris pile. I am easily satisfied by free range ghetto poultry.
Three Friday's in a row my garbage bags have been picked up on Rocheblave, and I'm sick of it, this regular garbage pickup has got to stop.
I love New Orleans, but still, I'm leaving.
For those of you staying, embrace your mayor. That other guy with his promises was all wrong. Promises are a comfort to fools.
And if you get frustrated at the pace of recovery, get out and do something, any fucking thing. In New Orleans you cannot fail.
