When I was 17, my pal CW and I went with her mom to New Orleans to see the Rolling Stones play. Van Halen was the opening act. The venue? The Superdome. Before the show, we sat in a French Quarter restaurant and ate oyster po-boys and watched a waitress bolt across the floor and lock the door to keep some LSU frat boys from walking out on the bill. Later, we went to the concert, and I met an English journalist named Dave, who was 25, and I French kissed him that night. Then for the next year, we kept up, what in retrospect, was a disturbing pen pal relationship.
What does this have to do with anything? Today is September 5, and to quote the AP, Nola is “ a cesspool of physical ruin, broken lives and neglect.” More than 160,000 of the population, or 40% have left this once fabulous town.
I live in Las Vegas. The worst trash I have ever met lives here. Awful, terrible, soulless people who wouldn’t know their asshole from their fake tits. The best people I ever knew? Well, it wasn’t in New Orleans, but Lord, I knew some great folks there. They have scattered since Katrina. They live in towns like Baton Rouge and Monroe, places that may very well make Vegas look good. I don't live there. All I know? They are not what New Orleans once was.
Blame whomever you want for what happened after Katrina. I mainly blame George W. Bush because he’s so damn easy to hate, but let’s get this straight: if you voted for him, I blame you, too. for this and for Iraq. And if you didn’t vote at all, move to another country. Finland, Iceland, Poleand, wherever. You think the lesser of two evils means voting for no one? You are stupid and you know who you are.
This country, from the pols to the voters who elected them, have never let down one of its own more than it did with Katrina.
So here's my question to those of you responsible: Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?
