La, la, la…. I love riding my bike through the Marigny on days like this…. La, la, la…. Hey, Mrs. Leblanc…. Yes, bitch, I’m waving at you–even though you cussed me out last week at Big Daddy’s in front of half a dozen drag queens because you said I was ruining your video poker mojo…. La, la, la…. Yes, gutterpunks, I’m smiling at you–even though you ruined Flora’s years ago. Seriously, people: bathing is not a crime, but I’m moving patchouli to the Controlled Substance list…. La, la, la…. Aw, lookit that poor stray dog–is he wearing a collar? Maybe I should call the SPCA–but not the one in Jefferson Parish…. Hey, wait a minute! What the #$%@? What’s that thing up there, mounted on the telephone pole? Kit, enable macrozoom…. Now, go in closer…closer…. Well, I’ll be damned.

A surveillance camera. In my neighborhood. I’m not quite sure how to feel about that.

Frightened? Not exactly. As a predominantly residential neighborhood on the edge of a commercial district, the Marigny has always been a little dicey. I got used to that decades ago.

Violated? If it were mounted outside my bedroom window, and if New Orleans had the police force to monitor it, maybe. As it is, not so much.

Safer? As if. Having a camera in the neighborhood and having a working camera in the neighborhood are two completely different things.

Jonno, 1997

Ten years ago it became apparent that I could not live without Jonno and he could not live without me.

It was not an easy revelation. It was not simple, either.

For example: I was born and raised in the South. I had lived in New York for a time and hated it. I couldn’t cook. I had an ambivalent relationship with my small family. Jonno was my opposite in these and other matters, and it showed.

More curiously: it was not the first time I’d fallen in love with Jonno. Four years earlier, though, he hadn’t been interested. What motivated his change of heart? How could I rationalize my sudden good fortune?

I couldn’t. And yet there it was, plain as day.

As I left him on that crisp New York morning in 1997, having already changed my flight twice, I turned and saw Jonno waving to me from the corner of 9th and 23rd, waving every time I turned around, waving until I was blocks away, probably waving until my plane left the ground. And with some music that he gave me playing softly on my headphones–music that can still make me cry a little when I’m alone–I began quietly making plans for his move to New Orleans. I think he did the same.

Seriously, honestly, people: how does this stuff happen? And so quickly?

And so, although we haven’t had a ceremony, and in the eyes of most people we’re just a couple of guys who live together and have a house together and walk dogs together (on good days) and nap together (on bad days), this is when we celebrate our anniversary. In our own small way.

Happy anniversary, Jonno.

“The woman is lonely. Her vagina is cold.” Which sounds like Eve Ensler, but it’s way, way better. Yo, check it.

Thank you, Tyler. Dear goddess, thank you. And thank you Lee + Chris for helping me find it again after YouTube went all stupid.

In the early mid-90s, I owned a video called Denise Austin’s Rock-Hard Tummies. It featured Ms. Austin in spandex and sweatbands performing a routine of moderately strenuous abdominal exercises in front of a shocking blue backdrop and a half-dozen headless mannequins. The soundtrack consisted of a musak version of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean”. Looped. For 45 minutes. I think that’s longer than most Michael Jackson concerts.

I don’t know how the video fell into my hands, and I don’t know where it’s gone. Frankly, I’d completely forgotten about it until I saw this:

Clearly, the 1980s self-help home video workout aesthetic warrants further exploitation.

Yesterday, Ed from IronKnee sent over this Google Maps search suggestion. I’m still not sure how to take it. I mean, item #23 reads like a joke, but then along comes #24, which is all like, “I’m not kidding around–get to it, bitches!”

I don’t mean to bash the Times-Pic. Really, I don’t. But when they lob an easy one in the air, somebody oughta take a swing.

Case in point: on the front page of today’s Picayune there’s a story about a report issued Friday morning by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This is major stuff, people. You know how David Rakoff’s essays can make you laugh out loud? Well, this is the opposite of that. This is holy-crap stuff–holy-crap stuff, I might add, of significant importance to New Orleanians.

Now flip over a few pages for the editorials. There are three: one on judge Martha Sassone (okay, sure, that’s local); one on NASA’s Inspector General (okay, maybe, since there is a NASA facility in the area, although the editorial has nothing to do with that); and finally, this:

The White House’s annual State Egg Display ought to be above controversy: The Easter tradition, sponsored by the American Egg Board, is an occasion for state pride as well as product promotion.

But this year, a scandal has hatched. Each egg is supposed to be decorated by an artist from the state it represents. The Wyoming egg, however, turns out to be the work of a college student from Illinois.

The blow to state pride is bad enough, but the egg in question does nothing to further the cause of egg artistry. It features a clumsily rendered egg on skis. Maybe that’s because the creator wasn’t chosen for artistic ability but for family connections. His mother works for the American Egg Board.

— Times-Picayune

I’m sorry, what was that? An egg-decorating contest? With a teeny-tiny scandal attached to it? In WYOMING?

Why would anyone at the Picayune write/care about that crap? And perhaps more importantly, what kind of obscure, offbeat, ovo-centric news feeds do the editors subscribe to that would alert them to such a story? I mean, it’s not even a story in the first place. That shit doesn’t rate a press release, and it certainly doesn’t deserve to be picked up, even on the slowest news day.

My theory is that the Picayune is secretly run by a cabal of egg industry lobbyists. That, or they’re all just a bunch of fucktards.

“The strangest thing I’ve tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father,” [Keith] Richards was quoted as saying by British music magazine NME.

“He was cremated and I couldn’t resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn’t have cared,” he said. “… It went down pretty well, and I’m still alive.”

—ABC News, courtesy of The Bent One

1. So Google Maps is outdated, huh? It’s showing pre-storm images? Wow. That’s some serious investigative reporting, Times-Pic. I mean, it’s not like anyone at the New Orleans Metroblog clocked that shit, like, a year ago or anything.

2. Here’s an interesting idea from our flood-focused friends in the land of mayonnaise and french fries:

MAASBOMMEL, the Netherlands, March 29 — Anne van der Molen lives on the edge of the River Maas, by definition an insecure spot in a country constantly trying to keep water at bay. But she is ready for the next flood.

Excited, even. “We haven’t floated,” she said of her house, “but we’re looking forward to floating.”

Her two-bedroom, two-story house, which cost about $420,000, is not a houseboat, and not a floating house of the sort common across the world. It is amphibious: resting on land but built to rise with the water level. It sits on a hollow concrete foundation and is attached to six iron posts sunk into the lake bottom. Should the river swell, as it often does in the rain, the house will float up as much as 18 feet, held in place by two horizontal mooring posts that connect it to the neighboring house, and then float back down as the water subsides….

—New York Times

Of course, given the limited abilities of New Orleans’ contractors, we’d probably be better off just using water wings and twist-ties, but it’s a nice idea.

UPDATE: Apparently, someone’s listening.