As posted August 18th, 2008 by Lord David

 

Like many Humid City readers, and fans of my own blogsite, I am still reeling from the recent murder of Jessica Hawk, a kind and loved Bywater resident. As commentary began to come in from her friends and family in Ohio, I found myself trying to explain exactly how such a horrible event could be seemingly shrugged off by city officials. No answer is forthcoming.

 

I also wondered why lesser violent crime, like the brutal hit and run that crushed Dave Gordon's leg (half owner/operator of Funrockn & Pop City), could go unanswered, while the police know the actual location of the vehicle involved, and the address of the perpetrator.

 

A young woman, a fellow artist, in fact, who lives not far from me in the Marigny, has alerted me to another situation, in which two young men are attacking bicycle riders in the marigny/Bywater area.
These are her words:

 

"Friday night around 11, I was biking home. At the intersection of St. Claude and Frenchmen, there were two black boys on bikes. One looked to be about 16 and the other one no more than 14.
They were on low rider new looking bikes. One had on a blue baseball cap, over sized white t-shirt, and long blue jean shorts. The other one was wearing a dark jersey of some type. They said nothing as I rode by them but one of them threw a heavy metallic thing at me and hit me in the spine in between the shoulder blades.
They laughed and took off. I thought it was an isolated incident until I talked with a friend who said that I am the 7th person she has heard of to be attacked in the Marigny/Bywater area. They have all reported two boys about the same ages. They seem to only be targeting people on bikes.
One guy was smashed up against the head with a slab of concrete and then they punted his head. They did not rob him, but I am afraid that someone is going to be killed soon. I was not robbed either. The intent seemed to be to hurt me and go. I reported it to the police, although they were less than interested."

 

 This then, seems to be the connective tissue between all of these stories of violence. As citizens of these neighborhoods, we are sometimes singled out to be hunted by local thugs, run down in the streets, attacked for no reason other than entertainment. The response of the police force is shockingly simple. They can't do anything about it without citizen involvement, and we we become involved, they still do nothing except put us at further risk, going so far as to ask a local woman to identify Dave Gordon's assaulter in front of a large group of his friends, knowing he would not be taken in to custody.

 

New Orleans has a Metropolitan Crime Commision, which oversees corruption and malfeasance of local government. I believe that these recent failures by the NOPD, at least in our neck of the woods merits their action. I urge each and every one of you to make contact, and let them know how you feel about living like fish in a barrel.

 

Mr. John Humphries has been receptive about hearing these complaints. Please be polite & concise. The Metropolitan Crime Commision can be reached by phone at: 540 524-7000 or toll free at 888 524-7001. The email address is: info@metrocrimeno.org  Simple letters can make a huge difference in large numbers.

 

I've also received an email from Baty Landis at SilenceIsViolence, letting me know that many citizens are outraged, like myself (read my posts about this), about Mayor Ray Nagin accepting an award for bravery and recovery from his millionaire developer friends. We are planning on assembling for protest. The Award Ceremony takes place Friday Night at the Ritz Carlton, at 7pm. I urge all who are interested to meet there for the Silence Is Violence protest at 6pm sharp.

 

This is a chance to make our collective voices heard. Contacting the Metro Crime Commision about the failure of our local police is a chance to tell your individual story. Please, do whatever you can to help make a difference. The life you save could be yours or that of one you love.

 

Lord David
Pirate & Artist
Skull Club
New Orleans
lorddavidtruth.blogspot.com
humidcity.com

I'm a bit older than some.

I remember when there was no internet.

Shocking, I know, but there was such a time. Today, people are on line everywhere, connected at coffee shops, bars, home & work, by blackberry, Iphone, et al.

And we have a phenomenon called Bloggers.

I think of myself as a writer, a columnist, but I suppose I fall into this categorey, as well.

One of the symptoms of Blogger Society appears to be Blog Wars, feuds of words, wherein various bloggers attack each other with what they believe is biting sarcasm, cutting edge one-up-manship, taunting and slander. What a huge waste of human potential.

Is this who we are?
Really?
At our fingertips is the greatest tool ever known to humanity, a conduit where we can come together, learn each others ways, circulate information…and we get adolescent ego tripping, like a bad rap movie?

Right now, you could be at the Benefit for Chris & Otter, witnessing some of the best music and art in New Orleans, helping some artists who had a bad turn.

You could be attending a roller derby match to help support the family of Hana Morris, a woman who lost her husband and has three tiny children. Her husband was a vibrant and compelling voice for us all.

You could be signing on to SilenceIsViolence. com, as yet another New Orleans youth dies, unprotected, in a hail of bullets.

Right now, a child is wondering if they should stay in school or sell drugs. A kid with a brain that could cure cancer is afraid of the crack dealers on the corner, and dropping out. A mother is trying to explain to her children why daddy isn't coming home from Iraq. Someone is so lonely they are staring down a bottle of pills, wondering who would notice. All of us, at one time, reach out, often too late, for friendship, for love, for hope. By clicking the keyboard we could find one another, answers to our questions, something like the truth, another way to go, another like us.

Instead, I find myself beset by this 'Biggie vs Tupac' Blogger mentality.

Is this who we are?
Really?
At our fingertips is the greatest tool ever known to humanity, a conduit where we can come together, learn each others ways, circulate information..
...and change the world.

Next time you start reading that crap, do us all a favor;
Turn it off & simply walk away.

Paint something.

Read a book.

Teach a child to play a musical instrument.

Roll on the grass with your dog.

Tell a stranger they're beautiful.

Find yourself….

Because this is NOT who we are.

Really.

I know you better than that.

You can do just about anything.

Just do what you dream.

Don't waste another second on this foolish game.

It diminishes us all.

And you deserve better.

 

Lord David
Pirate & Artist
Skull Club
New Orleans

 I happened to notice, as some of you might, that on the Skull Club homepage, the World Locator Map shows us as being on the West Coast of Africa.

 

 While I'm sure that's a lovely place, with great sunsets and sparkling beaches, we are not there.

 

 The Skull Club is in New Orleans. Read the homepage and you'll find out as much as there is to know. For you, anyway.

 

 There is some sort of issue with signals from computer companies and servers and routers and other little whiring boxes and giant corporate monsters beaming all over the place like bookies buying up your markers.

 

 Apparently, mine is surfing the Gold Coast.

 

Please continue to click on the map to represent your town or signal or whiring little box. If it pleases you, it pleases me. As long as I don't have to watch.

 

Thanks for your patience and understanding at this critical juncture in our relationship.

 

It means everything.

 

Lord David

Pirate & Artist

Skull Club

New Orleans

 

In the mountains of Persia, somewhere around the eleventh century, a young prince caused a small valley, high in the mountains, to be contained by a high wall. Here he had young men trained, as soon as they were able, in the art of killing. He supplied them with an endless amount of hashish, and the company of beautiful young women, so that they could pass their resting time in pleasure so great, they believed they were in heaven, and the young women, angels..

 

 As such occasion arose, he would send them outside the walls of his valley to kill a threatening prince or transgressing warlord, telling them that, should they succeed, they would be allowed to return to paradise. Should they fail and be killed, then still, his angels, they believed, would bear them back to paradise, all the same.

 

 These killers for the prince had a name.
They were called, because of their habits, The Hashisheen.
This is the root of the word we know today as 'Assassin',
and the beginning of that profession.

I know Myspace is a wank, a silly playground, a bathroom wall in our psyche waiting for more scribble, but it's also a ventilator, a steam valve, through which we throw imaginary bottles full of messages, wishes, regrets, etc., into the sea of collective thought.

 At least I do.

 

I must read a dozen bulletins a day, sometimes, saying 'I'm tired', 'I like nachos', 'I didn't finish my home work', 'Look at my webcam', etc. and the blogs are even more of a public diary.

 

I write verse, stories, political and social

commentary, and my favorite, satire.

 

Someone has started taking these things and forwarding them to people I know, saying. "look what he said about you."

 

If I want to tell you something, I'll do it. I'm far from shy. Anyhting I post here is for your entertainment, not an excerpt from my diary. Seriously.

 

If you're reading this, and want to misinterpret something I've written, go ahead. The thing about any creative work is that it's open to interpretation.

 

If you want to send these things to other people, my friends or yours, and tell them what I'm thinking and what I meant, you can fuck straight off. That's right, fuck off.

Especially when you do it annonymously.

What a cowardly piece of shit thing to do.

 

And if you think that you can shame or intimidate me into silence, not only are you completely insane, but the line forms about two miles back. So, in case you missed it, I said, "Fuck striaght off."

 

My sympathies to anyone who bought into this crap. Not for anything I've said or done, but for the fact that you chose to listen to such crap, and associate with assholes dressed as friends.

 

Please stop by for the next amusing anecdote, coming soon!

 

LD

DON'T STAND FOR BEING STOOD UP. 
  
  Have you ever been stood up? Had someone promise to come and take you
out, meet you for some reason, set a time & date and then just not show up?
No call, no reschedule, nothing? Even worse, you run in to them later, and
they're deeply engrossed in someone else, ignoring you completely? I have. 
  
And if you live in New Orleans, so have you. 
  
  Let's start with the President, Of the United States of America. Arguably the most powerful national leader on the planet. Supposed to have a hand in solving the world's problems. Well, besides that being a cruel joke all it's own, he told us he'd be back. He told us it would be better. He told
us we would get rebuilt. He stood us up, left us at the gate. 
  
  Then there' Ray Nagin, the second term Mayor of New Orleans, who makes his appearances as August 29th approaches, and, in his sense of duty, has decided not to run for Governor just yet, because the city might need him. How about finishing the job you have, Mister Nagin? The one that's still not out of the starting gate. The gate where you left us, stood us up. 
  
  In a more entertaining aspect is radio talkshow host Neil Bortz, broadcast on WIST, right here in New Orleans. He flew down to our fair city right after Katrina, is his cute little Cessna and told the station managers and employees that "he'd be back" like the Terminator. He never returned. The people at the station told me so, on the air. Yet, somehow, he got enough insight during his little visit to appraise our situation well. He frequently rants on his daily program, in a stylishly squealing voice, about Katrina Refugees. New Orleans is full of 'em. 
Sitting around waiting for a bag of money. Won't do a damn thing to help themselves, all they gotta do is roll up their sleeves and get to work. In the stood-up-date scenario, I suppose Mister Bortz is like the School Dork, who heard rumors about the girl, never dated her, but wrote nasty things on the wall, anyway. Like her, I have three words: Fuck off, creep. 
  
  Last night I watched a news crew across the street on Helen Hill's doorstep. Reporting on the New Reward. I told them that the news crews were there, too, when I asked Troy Carter & the NOPD reps to walk to Spain & Rampart with me. In front of the Town Hall meeting, they declined, saying
that we should report crime by email. The cameras watched me tell them that
somebody was gonna get killed over there by year's end if steps weren't taken. Helen was dead five days into 2007. 
Sorry Helen. 
We tried. 
We got stood up. 
Again. 
  
  Getting stood up on a date, or having a creep say ugly, untrue things about you is part of growing up. We've done our growing up here, I hope. We don't have to take that anymore. The realization that everyone is not your friend is a tough one, a rite of passage duly noted by Shakespeare &
Salinger, a catharsis that brings us to something new in & from ourselves.
Let's have one now, shall we? 
  
  The government is not your friend. From City Hall to the White House, they are not looking out for you. They are trying to get elected, stay in office, become power brokers, control your money, your country, your life. These elected officers are using you as a career move. 
  
  Neither is the corporate press your friend. They are selling fast food and diet pills, MTV and the New Fall Line to make you look as unique as everyone else, for twice the price. They are reporting sensationalist news bites to get ratings and assisting the political powers that feed them best. 
  
  Paris Hilton & Britney Spears are not your friends. They don't know you exist, and wouldn't let you carry their coffee if you somehow got past their security. They are junkies for your attention, spoiled beyond measure and clueless as to the state in which we live. Stop reading about them. Ignore them until they go away. 
  
  I could go on & on, but I believe you get the picture, so I won't. Why? Because I AM your friend. Really. How can you tell? Because I don't want anything from you. I want things for you. Like a better life. Less
hardship. The truth. Yes, the truth. The TRUTH. So here's a little bit right now,
just to prove I'm serious... 
  
You can have your life back. 
You can make things right. 
How, you ask? 
  
  Vote, for starters. But not the Old Way. The New Way. Learn who your choices are, from City Council to Congress and the White House. Go on line, or get a newspaper and read about them. What do they say they believe and how have they shown that? Does their voting record reflect their
commitments & promises? Did they steal stuff last time, do they cheat on their spouses or did they go to rehab? These are stupid romantic cliches for Hollywood Stars, not for the people who run your country.

 Are they career politicians, jumping from job to job in order to further their own
greed? This isn't Wall Street in the eighties, and a lot of those people went to jail, anyway. 
  Do they say they can get you special treatment? Even if they can, they do it by short changing someone else. The hell with that. Your dirty end of the stick will certainly come around. Maybe with the FBI in tow. 
  So, here we are. Where you knew we'd be eventually. You have to work at it. You have to get involved. You have to make a difference. Why? Because you can. Because it's not right to put people in formaldehyde ridden trailers, demolish their homes, tie their recovery money up in special interests, take their sons & daughters and send them halfway around the world to die in some god forsaken place while their families are forgotten in the Ninth Ward and Canal Street gets rows of palm trees. That's why. 
  And if that insanity isn't enough, then do it to be a friend to someone who needs one. There's a lot of that around. I know, I'm your friend. I may not know you, or ever have seen you, but I am. You're the one who got screwed by the electric company during the hottest months of the year, the one who
didn't get the job because you don't speak Spanish, the one who had wind insurance instead of flood or flood insurance instead of wind. The one that came back and found your job outsourced to cheaper lands where lead paint on your children's' toys is No Big Deal. You're the one who the magazines say is too fat, too short, too skinny, too black, too white, too poor, too old. 
  And you know what? I love you anyway. Each and every one of you. I'm sure you're a pain in the ass sometimes, too. Because you're just like me. An American in New Orleans trying to make it work. Someone who got stood up. 
  
  So here's the part where I ask for something. You knew it was coming.
Here it is. But it's not for me. It's for all of us. In fact, it's for you. 
Please, make a difference. 
Get involved. 
Have meetings at your neighbor's houses. 
Drink beer or coffee, or koolaid for that matter, and talk to each other like I'm talking to you. 
End this madness. 
Vote these assholes out of a job. 
Elect Ed from down the street, or Tibideaux from the Parish. 
Somebody who only wants what you want. 
A fair deal. 
  For God's sake, stop voting for crooks and thieves because you recognize their names. I've listened to guys in a bar name every player in the NFL and all their stats. Learn this much about the folks that hold your future, your children's future, in the palm of their hand. 
And act. 
Now. 
Take back your life. 
It's the only one you're ever going to have. Don't waste it, my friend.
And don't stand for being stood up. You're better than that. Aren't you? 
I certainly think so. 
  
Lord David 
Pirate & Artist 
Skull Club 
New Orleans 
skull-club@cox.net
humidcity.com