For the last two days I was caught up watching the miners rescue on CNN. I don’t know that was so fascinating to me. Everyone seemed to be into it. I think that’s because there’s so much negative news and stories of despair people were really tripping out off the fact that these guys actually survived. I like the way Chile but their flag and colors everywhere they could just to let you know that they did it all themselves. It was fun to watch.
Today my mayor is going to present the next city budget. Giving the current financial situation my expectations are simple. I will be happy if parking too close to a fire hydrant isn’t a 700 dollar fine or we are not down to once a month trash collection. I live in New Orleans East so it might be every three months for us. Other than that I am bracing for sacrifice. I’m willing to accept anything as long as he does announce a new board or commission. College administrations’ time is already stretched too thin.
I have been really bored by the midterm election coverage since the campaign started the day after Barack Obama was inaugurated. There are only so many times you can listen to the same thing over and over before it gets on your nerves. I just want the Republicans to hurry up and win so we can see if they actually have the guts to mess with Social Security and Medicaid. At this point I am tired of equally guilty people placing blame on one another. I just want someone to do something constructive.
The new issue this week is the mysterious donations to the 501c4 political organizations. Why is this a big deal? American companies make investments and send money and jobs to other countries every day. The majority of the investments of the rich everyone wants to keep tax cuts in place for go overseas. You knew once the Supreme Court said companies could get involved with campaign finance this was going to happen. Is there any American with an education higher than the sixth grade that still believes regular people have anything to do with political campaigns outside of the voting itself?
If you follow the Tea Party and honestly think that the 50 bucks you and your co workers sent in to your local senate candidate really had something to do with that ad he or she is running every fifteen minutes on television and radio you are very naïve.
If you are a President Obama supporter that really thinks enough old black people in the south sent in 20 dollar donations to help him beat Jon McCain you are very naïve too.
As long as there is no real campaign finance reform every politician elected will have to answer to someone other than the people who actually voted for them. All you can hope for is that the person you voted for doesn’t owe a corporation that wants to send your job to Asia or South America.
This Brett Favre story about him sending pictures to this lady was worth the daily updates about him thinking retirement. Did he take them in the mirror of the bathroom like people do on Facebook? If he doesn’t come back to lead the Vikings to the championship the Saints stole from them this never happens. I want to thank Brad Childress for having no faith in Tavaris Jackson and the three teammates that came down to Hattiesburg to beg Brett to come back. Is Drew Brees having the Madden Curse?
I want to give a shout out to New Orleans’ own Ron Washington the manager of the Texas Rangers for leading them to their first ever playoff win. First I said I would never join Facebook but I went back on that. Then I said I would never join Twitter and I went back on that. My track record isn’t good but I have another vow that I am sure I will keep. I will never ever ever watch Glee. I don’t care if they have a Tupac tribute episode next season I’m not doing it. I have to draw the line somewhere.
In response to the BET awards I watched the other night which featured a performance by Antoine “raping everybody” Dobson and my obvious bias to anything New Orleans, I endorse this video.
Big Cliff thought me how to tie my own tie when I was 11 years old right before my sixth grade graduation. I remember that because it was the first time I did it myself and it took about five tries to get it lined up properly. Those are the kind of things that come back to you when you get older and read stories like this one. It’s also the kind of thing that gave me a blueprint on how to behave and carry myself. I know a lot of young black men in our city don’t have that at home or even another man close to them that give it to them. When my daughter Gabby graduated from Kindergarten there was a bunch of little boys when ties around their necks that weren’t tied. A few of them were with their daddies and that made me depressed. The two little boys whose ties I fixed still speak to me when they see me around the school. I take a little pride in passing that down even though they probably can’t remember how I did it. That’s okay. I would go back every time they needed to dress up to show them again.
It’s necessary to admit that as a community we are really starting from a basic level of just showing some of these young men things like how to tie a tie but we are. There’s two ways we can handle it. We can sit around and shake our heads while we wait for the super hero to fly in and instantly change the social issues that leads these kids down the wrong road. That option is not going to work. The other thing we can do is take one or as many as your life can handle and try to show them things that may make them look at life differently. That’s why I finally joined the mentoring program. I learned too many things from great men in my life to let it go to waste. You can’t change where they live or what circumstances they were born into but sometimes simple things like being able to stand in the mirror and fix your clothes like a man can give you just enough self worth to look into other options besides the street life.
I want to give a shout out to the mayor for participating and being a mayor of the people no matter what color or background. Stuff like this helps bring the city together. I want to give props to Andre Perry who puts actions behind his words. The next time something like this is going on I want to be in on it. I would love to show a young man the Harris method for tying a tie and why I believe in the proper use of a good pair of suspenders.
Over the weekend I watched a lot of football. It had to be at least ten different games. On ever local station a game was on I must have saw this David Vitter commercial about Charlie Melancon with the illegal aliens receiving a warm reception at least 20 times. I heard on cable news last week that several senators around the country were going to use this exact same commercial and just change the name of the democratic senator they were running against.
First of all David Vitter doesn’t need to do this since most of his district is just going to vote for him because of President Obama. Congressman Melancon never stood a chance. Secondly, I find this commercial very disappointing. Senator Vitter is from South Louisiana and we are supposed to be a lot more creative than just using the same hate mongering ad everyone else is using. The least he could have done was spiced it up a little with some local stereotypes.
How about when the illegal aliens come through the gate five brothers with dreadlocks and their pregnant girlfriends with four other kids wearing ChocolateCity shirts with Ray Nagin’s picture on the front start dancing to bounce music while holding a FEMA check?
That’s the kind of use of stereotypes I could appreciate. Hopefully, next time if he gets a real opponent he can dig deeper than he did this time around.
The Saints play Arizona Sunday afternoon. The Cardinals will be starting a rookie quarterback. Despite the injuries we have, I’m not worried about this game. Instead of analyzing this week’s game I want to talk to the fans and give them a little reality check. Last week after a usual close game with the Panthers there were people talking about how awful we looked and discussing whether or not fans should be worried. I even heard a few boos during the game. It’s time to break out my favorite Saints game story.
There was nothing more frustrating than being a season ticket holder during the Haslett/Brooks era. The difference between the Mike Ditka years and the Haslett years is that during the era of Mike Ditka I knew we weren’t going to win. We were outmanned and outcoached. I’m surprised that last team he had here didn’t go 0-16. The Haslett era after his first year was nothing like that. Every year we had a chance to make the playoffs but we just didn’t do it. Those teams were bipolar. We could blow out a team by 20 points one week and then lose the next three games by 30. What made it even worse is that the coach used to get pissed off at the fans for acting like they were unsatisfied and the quarterback used to not seem to be that bothered about it either. I’ll never forget the final game of the 2002 season when all we needed was one win with three games left and we tanked all three including the last one to Carolina when Aaron Brooks arm was about to fall off.
During the 2004 season we played a home game against the Denver Broncos. This was the season that the team started 4-8 and then decided they wanted to be good and won the last four but didn’t make the playoffs. By that time the frustration with the fans had reached a fever pitch. During the first quarter of that game the Broncos almost ran for 100 yards in that one quarter alone. I think they finished with about 96 yards. My cousin David was at the end of his rope and by week 10 he was so delirious he was pulling for the Broncos to reach the century mark. What made it even worse is that it seemed like the Broncos ran the same two plays over and over and they worked every time. Well, at some point in that game we were down by double digits. I don’t remember the exact score at the time but the Saints made a touchdown. The entire Superdome broke out in a second line dance. That led to the highlight of my season ticket experience when my cousin in the midst of all those happy losers started his rant. All I remember is the first two lines…..”We live in a city with some ignorant motherf!#Kers! Don’t they see the scoreboard?” I wasn’t celebrating a touchdown to keep the game close either but I was too busy laughing at him to look upset.
Now, if we can spend our money and dance through all of the foolishness in the past we can’t be tripping about a 3-1 start after a Superbowl winning season. Saints fans I am begging you in the name of all that we have been through with the team and personally. Don’t let success turn us into a bunch of assholes. We got a real coach and GM that work together. The coach has a great staff. The players on this team act like they were raised here and the quarterback let you guys suggest names for his new baby today. Everyone needs to relax and not let ourselves turn into Jets fans. We don’t want to be obnoxious like they are. Let’s enjoy this era.
This post is named the way it is because I didn’t intend to write it. The server crashed at work today. I have internet but everything else is unavailable. I needed to do something to keep from falling asleep………
It’s a beautiful day outside today. New Orleans has been on a winning streak as far as weather is concerned. I decided to take a ride at lunch with my window down and enjoy the breeze. It was reporting time at work so I have been locked in this office all day plus taking work home to try and get everything looking good. I’m still fine tuning the process so we won’t have to do that all the time. This instance has been better than the previous ones so I got a chance to take it easier. The kids have fall break from school right now so I took a long way to work this morning. I have been taking the stairs in the morning and usually I am here before everyone so if I need to pause between floors or give up and catch the elevator before my floor no one knows. Because I was later this morning I ended up taking the stairs with our CEO. Now, she takes the stairs everyday and weighs 100 pounds soaking wet. Now I had to walk and talk with her and try not to throw up while my chest explodes. I survived but it took me 20 minutes to recover. I’m encouraged by that because it would usually take an hour. I’m winning.
Yesterday I went on a field trip to the library. Those are always an adventure. There was another dad chaperoning with me from the other class that went on the trip. I thought that was real cool even though he didn’t help me carry that heavy ass cooler full of milks for lunch. Hopefully someone is fixing this man a big dinner or big breakfast. I was thinking this morning about how black people have this belief that you shouldn’t give praise and attention to men for things they are supposed to do like taking care of their kids and not going to jail. It might be time to change that because one of the problems we have with violence and crime is the fact that we have too many people in our community frustrated with living a regular life. If everyone is obsessed with getting their shine on we are never going to be able to deal with the issue properly because we have a long way to go before we can expect entire neighborhoods to make six figure salaries. These kids are very perceptive just like we were as youngsters. They know you can’t get a lot more attention being Sport T the downtown gangster instead of Terrance the dude that paints houses. We have to start showing some love to these regular everyday heroes so these little boys can learn that responsibility is sexy.
I have a real good Saints post to write later. I might sit outside and write it later while I smoke a nice cigar from Mayan Imports and enjoy the lack of humidity. I’m one of those people that have a favorite for everything but I will always try something different especially if I am being cheap and something is on sale. I tried some unknown brand of cigars the other day just because they were being discontinued and were on sale. It took Listerine, Scope, Colgate and Crest to get the taste out of my mouth. There’s a reason why things get discontinued.
Monday was the funeral of two year old Jeremy Galmon who was killed last Sunday in crossfire. By all accounts he received the type of send off usually reserved for New Orleans royalty. New Orleans has a strange way of showing pain sometimes. My family has been here since horse and buggies with streets paved with bricks so this is my culture to the bone. With that being said, I thought the services should have been a more low key event. I’m not mad because everyone out there had love in their hearts. I just couldn’t have dealt with all of that if it was my son.
I would love to tell you that the death of this baby is some kind of turning point in the war against violence in our city but I can’t do that. The reason why is because it seems like every year for the last twenty years or more a child has been sacrificed as sign of our community not getting it’s act together to curb the violence. I could close my eyes right now and at least five instances come to mind without much effort. Their stories come to me easily because each one has bothered me just like Jeremy’s murder. I think that deep down they bother the majority of the people in our community even if they don’t express it outwardly. If it was left up to us there would be no violence and no trouble but unfortunately it’s not.
The sad truth is that we have a subculture of individuals in our community that live in their own little world and there’s always something going on. They are so locked in to the code of the streets that I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t even know the community is coming together behind this baby’s death. It’s difficult for outsiders to see because we share the same neighborhoods and upbringing so they don’t know the difference. Those common bonds also make it difficult for us to deal with it because there’s a lot of emotion and history involved. After all the loss of life and pain we still haven’t found a way to separate ourselves enough from Ms. Jones to call and turn in her grandchildren. That makes it complicated and dangerous as well because her grandchildren know who was out there and what if they come after your family to keep you from calling Crimestoppers. That’s a death wish especially if the justice system is just going to release them right back to the street to come looking for you.
I want to be optimistic and think that the lost of this two year old changed that dynamic for the better and people will start coming forward like they did to find his killers. That would be good if it’s true. The only problem is that if more people come forward when something happens it means that more than likely someone else’s baby is no longer with us. It might not be a two year old like Jeremy but it’s still someone’s baby even if they are a teenager.
All my life I have been a foolish dreamer. Everyday I wake up and think about the day I am getting on the interstate and the Crimestoppers billboard with the faces of young black men wanted for murder are no longer needed because this violence is the thing of the past. Until that day comes I will be preparing myself to look at another picture of a kid that’s been murdered and trying not to give up.
Now let’s talk about some football. There’s a symptom of the Who Dat Fever that starting taking shape after the Superbowl. The casual fans have forgotten everything about last season and now expect the team to go undefeated. I made a comment during on my Facebook page during the 49ers game and real life friends of mine were questioning my manhood. It was getting ridiculous. Now that we have suffered a loss to our most hated rival, it’s time to admit a few things. One of the reasons I was so positive about a repeat visit to the championship game is because I thought we cheated time and won a Superbowl without a championship caliber defense. I figured if we added a few pieces on that side and kept the offense intact we would actually be better than the championship team from last year. Things didn't work out like I thought.
I was not surprised we lost to a healthy Falcons team. This is not last year’s Saints team. Last year’s team had three running backs. Tomorrow only one of those backs will be playing and he probably shouldn’t. Last year’s team was much more experienced in the defensive backfield with Darren Sharper instead of Malcolm Jenkins. I like Jenkins but there is no way he knows where to be the way Darren Sharper does after three starts in the NFL. When all three linebackers from last year played together they could mask some of the lack of athleticism. Now with Scott Fujita gone we are being exposed on the outside. Tight ends and passes to running backs are killing us. Plus, Roman Harper is not playing as close to the line as last year to help out in run defense and we are not blitzing as much.
You can also tell that some of the receivers didn’t practice with Drew Brees as much in the offseason because their timing is off. Now Drew’s knee is a bothering him a little and Pierre Thomas is banged up too. With the injuries and players not being on the roster anymore I think the next few weeks will be a roller coaster ride no matter who we are playing. I think the Saints will be a better team closer to the end of the year than they are right now. We are still good enough to win every game. If Hartley makes that kick then we escape last week. We are also missing enough people for every week to be a nail biter. I think 5-3 at the half way point will be good if we can hold on while Sean Payton figures it all out.
Tomorrow we play the Panthers. I have no jokes or sarcastic things to say about them because I believe Steve Smith searches his name on the internet looking for people saying anything disrespectful about him to use as motivation. He’s already been destroying the Saints for years and I respect and fear him too much. I love the way he plays I just wish he was in another division. We should be able to win this game with the current condition of the Panthers. Steve Smith is a bad man but I refuse to accept losing a game to a young Jimmy Clausen. I’m actually hoping for a big lead where maybe we can let Chase Daniel play and rest Drew’s knee. I don’t think we have the health on offense for that right now plus the Panthers can run the ball and that’s all you need to do now against our defense with a few short passes added in here and there. Teams are going to do the same thing until we stop it. I am going to call the score 21-14 Saints and hope no one else gets hurt.
Before I talk about the Saints I have a few lagniappe things to address. I was a little too busy at work this week to devote any of that time to blogging and my personal writing space at home has been temporarily taken over for repairs so I am late on this topic. Nowadays we spend a lot of time dogging leadership and finding out what they did wrong. We need to take a moment and give props when they do things well.
I thought Mayor Landrieu, Chief Serpas, and the community handled the Jeremy Galmon murder case about as well as you could handle something like that. I don’t there’s a happy ending possible unless he came back to life but quickly finding out who did it and supporting the family will hopefully make it easier.At one point during the week I thought the mayor was going to suit up and go make the arrest himself.There are some places in this world that can get by with a figurehead type of leader that delegates everything but New Orleans isn’t one of those places right now. We need a leader that’s going to get out there and put some work in. So far, I have no problems with the mayor in that regard.
I went to vote this morning at about 10:00AM and I was the only person that had shown up on my page by then. I’m pretty sure the turnout is going to be really low and that is unacceptable. I know we are disenchanted with politicians but even if you don’t like anyone running you should just go and sign your name on the roll. That way there might be another person who sees’s your interest and decides to get involved because he or she thinks they can win by doing what we want. What reason does anyone have to work on our behalf if we don’t really care? You may not like the system but it’s the only one we have.
I voted No to the NORD reform charter change because I don’t think the city can fund it properly or the business community will really invest financially in the neighborhoods mostly affected by this change. There's nothing I could see as evidence the business community is willing to do it. If they do and it works out I will admit I’m wrong. If nothing changes the way I expect that it won’t then I am going to be angry and talk bad about a lot of people. Either way I will give it a chance since the majority wanted it that way. Next week someone is going to start talking to me about how the shadow government is taking over and how those people will never do anything for the young black kids. Before they can finish I will ask them when the last time they voted was. If it’s been so long that they can’t remember I will ignore them because you didn’t care enough to vote on the kids then I don’t want to hear about your conspiracy theories.
Last night I was a little depressed. It’s not easy to have a murdered two year old on the brain. All you want to for awhile after that is hug your kids and go to sleep. When I got up and went outside this morning there was autumn air and I stood out for a minute. Living in the city is a bitch sometimes. All we can do now is support that baby’s family and try to save the rest of them in his and the other victims’ memory.
Some people may try to tie what happened yesterday to the second line that was going on a few blocks away. I don’t think the second line itself was the reason but there’s a strange mentality with some people in our city that will go to public events to be seen when they know someone is looking to them something. They don’t avoid trouble they look for it. You just never know where two groups like this will happen to meet and you don’t want to be near it when it happens. It takes a lot of experience to notice stuff like that and get out of harms way. Little kids don’t have that so I would probably keep mine home to protect them and me. If there are few more incidents like the kind that have happened lately the fees for police protection will start going up and the clubs that parade will go broke trying to pay it or not march at all. That’s a bad situation because the people out there drawing weapons in crowds don’t give a damn about preserving culture except for the destructive one they live in.
Issues like this make me want to vote Yes to NORD reform on Saturday but I am still leaning against that plan. I’m just going to come out and say it like it is. I don’t trust many “community leaders” in this city. I trust my mayor and I like him but I can’t tell you I have been swept off my feet by any of his appointments. If I knew his first deputy mayor would the former head of the LRA I probably would have had a tougher decision on Election Day. I don’t want to seem like I am picking on Mr. Koppin. I don’t care for any of the deputy mayors and I don’t feel bad about that because I voted for Mitch Landrieu and that’s who I want to be accountable to me. I’m pro NORD reform and anti charter change.
Why does the business community need a charter change in order to help the recreation department anyway? The Facebook dude just gave Newark 100,000,000 dollars for their school system and they didn’t have to put him on the school board. We are about to change the entire city charter just to ask for money with no guarantees.
If you live in the Iberville Projects you should have been planning on moving three years ago.
The federal government is going to start tapping into emails. I’m starting to think Barack Obama and George W. Bush chat on Gmail at night. Does that mean we can’t joke about blowing up shit anymore? I don’t know about my non black friends but I and my people love to talk about blowing up stuff. We’re going to have to think of something new before we shut down the spy server.
If you are a loyal card carrying member of the Democratic Party, aren’t you just a little embarrassed that the two people who may save you from total destruction in November are Jon Stewart and Bill Maher? After all these comedians have done I think the next logical step is to name Chris Rock Press Secretary. The world would still be challenging but everyone would laugh more.
I am watching Monday Night Football and just watched a GMC truck commercial featuring the Saints. It was so fly and heartwarming that I just realized what one of the problems has been so far this season (besides bringing back the black pants yesterday). The Saints get their own post tomorrow. I can’t write it tonight because the images of Tony Gonzales destroying our linebackers and secondary make it hard to concentrate on the screen.
I’m so glad the humidity is off of our backs for a little while. I hope it’s gone until the next six month summer starts in April. If we can make it through the rest of the hurricane season with the same luck we have had so far then I will be happy. I think I am going to sit outside tomorrow evening if the raccoons don’t run me inside. I’ll be glad to get some cool fresh air.
The Saints are now 2-1 on the season after losing into overtime to the Atlanta Falcons. They had a chance to pull it out Garrett Hartley, the hero of last years NFC Championship game missed a short kick in overtime. I was upset for a minute.
Around here in the New Orleans area the Saints bring everyone together. I’m sad to report that the positive feelings when discussing the black and gold having spread out to other things in our community the way the media tries to make it appear when talking about the football team. Game days are a great chance to block the problems out for a few hours but I spend the rest of the week thinking about the reality of the situation. What about the healthcare situation? What about the schools? What about the people out of work? Will the kids be okay and have a good future? These things dominate my thoughts to the point where I get upset because I can’t see the changes coming soon enough to feel better about the direction of the city. That’s why I use the football season to distract me.
Today a two year old boy named Jeremy Dalmon was killed after being hit by a bullet uptown this afternoon. Usually I would be tripping off the fact that the Saints can’t stop the run or get off the field on first down for the rest of the evening. Now I am thinking about this poor little kid that never got a chance to grow up for nothing. He just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong when someone decided to fire their weapon. That’s more depressing than 20 Drew Brees interceptions. We don’t know who shot this baby or why but it’s sad that our kids have to live through that. It’s even sadder that even the most concerned people in our community can’t figure out how to change it.
Garrett Hartley missed a field goal today in overtime and messed up the weekend for a lot of Saints fans. He’s young. He’s making a good salary and is a local hero from last year. He’s doing what he loves to do and has 13 more games to make up for missing that kick. Jeremy Dalmon never made it to kindergarten or got a chance to find out what he wanted to do in life. Because of that thought I don’t care about the game today anymore. My community is losing in so many more serious ways that I can’t give football any real energy tonight.
Reality checks usually with come with painful circumstances.
