If the first byte I heard was that Ann Bancroft had died, I could assume (even though I loved Ann Bancroft) that it was a relatively calm news day. A celebrity’s death is something symbolic instead of actual. It’s something we zoom in on when there’s nothing else going on. It can be stated in a single sentence, and elaborated with anecdotes of the person’s work, and how they affected pop culture, and we can take what that represents for each of us and privately run with it.

If the first thing I hear upon waking was introduced in a more complicated fashion, it meant something big had happened. The morning after London had been bombed, the interviewers and correspondents were rushed and frantic. It was one of those situation in which the more you heard, the more you realized how little there was to know. but someone had to be there, and reports had to keep coming, so listeners could stay up to date about the fact that nothing was new. And that was the news. I was forced to listen, to piece together what was going on, and I ended up staying in bed much longer than I should have because I didn’t want to use my need for a shower as an excuse to miss something that was actually relevant.

My NPR wakeups were in my Chicago days, all of a month ago. I don’t know the Bay Area number on the radio dial for NPR, and while it would be easy enough to learn it, I haven’t done so.

So I’ve found a sunny rock station to wake me up. The deejays are jovial and vapid, and the station is good enough, as far as the ratio of music to commercials are concerned, even though they can’t seem to go twenty minutes without playing “Teenaged Wasteland.”

They don’t deal with news events. At all. Unless you count cruel prank calls and updates on Tom Cruise’s love life “news,” that is.

So the other day, when my vapid local deejay awoke me with the words, “So, New Orleans is, like, GONE,” I knew it must be big news. He announced it with an air of disbelief verging on giddiness, and then he played “Teenaged Wasteland.”

Okay, yes, I’m going to mention the fucking hurricane. I’m sorry to be so aggressive about it, but I hate talking about current events, and I suck at it. Of course, this completely awful situation, and the way it is revealing the ugliest aspects of our nation, affects me. But, I hate writing about these things. It makes me feel self-righteous and self-conscious, and I can’t believe that I have anything to say that you haven’t heard already.

I have scant personal associations with New Orleans. What I know of the city, I’ve gleaned from literature, music, and movies. Tom Waits fondly references the city in many of his songs, which turn squalor into poetry. “Confederacy of Dunces” made it out to be a musical, colorful place. “Easy Rider” depicts New Orleans as the destination where Captain America and Billy the Kid engage in an orgy of freedom. New Orleans has a reputation of being a place where the air drips with sensuality. She’s thought of as a gleeful Gomorra, a place to where people escape so we can live out our sinful fantasies.

New Orleans is, indeed, a cultural cornerstone, full of tradition and legend and mystery. But, people live there. Her legend is created by families who have been there for generations, and until Katrina, probably had no intention of leaving. She is also an impoverished city, and a city dependent upon the tourist trade. I know we all joke about the gators and zombies in New Orleans, but who’s going to want to visit when there are reptiles attacking people in the flooded streets, and bodies are flowing out from their tombs? I can’t imagine what the aftermath will be like. It will take years for New Orleans to fully recover, economically, materially, and spiritually.

Christ. Thousand of people fled to Texas, for god’s sake. That’s desperation.

Oh, I kid. Sorry.

This entry is for Themarassa, who evacuated New Orleans last week with her husband, puppy, and toddler. Their house is pretty much destroyed. They’re all okay, but, man. I just can’t imagine. Admittedly, I don't know her very well. But I do read her diary, and I think she's cool as hell. My thoughts are with her and her family. It takes balls and brains to make it through something like this, and I applaud her bravery.

I love watching high-stakes horror movies where people are attacked by monsters or trapped by psychopaths, and the only possibility for the protagonists’ survival is to keep cool and sharp. I watch those films at the edge of my seat, and yell advice at the screen. I like to think I’d be able to keep my wits about me if my life, or the life of a loved one, was at stake. It’s fun.

Not so fun, in reality. Watching the news is exhausting enough. I can’t imagine what it must be to live it.

I’m about done here, because I’m starting to make myself uncomfortable. A friend of mine brought to my attention this page of links to my attention, which provides a comprehensive list of charities to which you can donate, if you can.

Again, it’s not my habit to either write about current events or pimp out charities, but man. This is fucked up. I’m sorry, there’s just no need to gloss over it with graceful phrases. If Celine Dion, Kanye West, and Geraldo Rivera can lose their shit on live television, I can afford to forego eloquence.

That was a shitty thing to say. I’m just gonna go.

In much less important news, I’m going to try to write here for a half an hour each day, probably in the morning. In the past, I’ve pieced together an entry over the course of a day, slowly; but I’m busy with school and work now, and don’t have the same luxury with time as I did before. A half hour at the beginning of every day will, I hope, be fun, and it’ll help me focus.

So, maybe no more two-week gaps between entries. I’ll try.

~ Last Five Entries ~

Concert in the Park - 10.03.05

Everyone Has a Fuckin' Opinion - 09.24.05

Pack of Ne'er-Do-Wells - 09.17.05

The Forks Have Spoken - 09.10.05

This meme's for the balcony, and the next meme's for the floor ... - 09.08.05

---

BUY JEN'S BOOK! BUY IT! DO IT!

---

BUY DEAN'S BOOK, TOO! YOU KNOW YOU WANNA! SERIOUSLY.

---

««« Chicago Blogs Webring »»»

---

email:

---

words © luvabeans, 2003 - 2004