Katrina

I have typically tried to keep the blog a light hearted affair. There are more than enough places online to gain detailed information about serious subjects or to read a story that touches you. I’d much rather make people laugh about the world that surrounds them and maybe, just maybe, give them something to think about at the end of the day. I can’t do that today. Not after spending much of the afternoon watching the news channels. Right now, I’m worrying about an event far away from me that I can’t control.

Everyone who knows me has heard of my love for the city of New Orleans. I wrote about it back in June when I took a couple of days off just to wander the city and put my life back on course. It is without question my favorite city in the world. It doesn’t exist in America, or at least not the America that everyone is confronted with on the television. New Orleans exists in its own little world, a world of art and music on every corner and more stories than you ever could hear. Andrei Codrescu once wrote that New Orleans collects stories from the rest of the U.S., they all just float down the Mississippi and end up collecting in the Quarter.

It’s really tough to describe what the city means to me. When I went through my rough patch earlier this year one of the thoughts that immediately came to my mind is that I have to make my way to New Orleans. Things will make more sense when I’m down there. It is a place that for some reason, whether it is a past life or just a shared mindset, I feel home whenever I am there. And that is why the weather reports are leaving me so concerned.

Hurricane Katrina is bearing down on New Orleans and the city happens to be under sea level and surrounded by water. Everyone I’ve ever met in New Orleans knew that the big one would hit someday, you just didn’t know when. This really looks like the big one. There is a definite chance that the entire city will flood tomorrow. Which worries me but does reaffirm my amazement at mother nature. Here was a storm that was barely together when it hit Florida (to the point that I felt perfectly fine making a bad 80’s music joke Thursday night) and now I’m wondering if in two days the city will be anything like the one that I remember.

Since I can’t control the weather I’ll do the one thing that I can do. If you’re reading this, please keep the residents of New Orleans and the surrounding areas in your thoughts and prayers over the next few days. Wherever Katrina makes landfall the damage is going to be immense. People will need all the assistance they can get. Until then, all I can do is hope for the best.



The five random CDs for the week:
1) Lucinda Williams “Essence”
2) Jack Johnson “Brushfire Fairytales”
3) Gomez “Bring It On”
4) Veruca Salt “American Thighs”
5) The Subdudes “Live at Last”