If New Orleans were a bed -- a fairly apt metaphor to begin with -- it would be perpetually rumpled and unmade. Probably smoking a cigarette. And walking into a bar like the Chartres House Café in the French Quarter where vodka and tequila are served on tap. It certainly wouldn’t be in any kind of hurry. Although as of now, in early May of 2006, it might also be looking for a place to live.
“Experts agree that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and nothing says breakfast in New Orleans like a good drink.” -- Old Coffeepot Restaurant
The first post-Katrina JazzFest is happening in the Big Easy, and this time around it’s different. “There’s a drunk guy who’s really being a pain in the ass at table four, and I just can’t handle him anymore,” said the clearly shaken waiter to the manager at a restaurant in the Quarter. Susan, the manager, told him she’d find someone else to take care of table four. A number of people who have stuck it out here are living right on the edge, and it’s fairly apparent that right now it won’t take all that much to push them over.
“It is possible that Katrina was the largest hurricane of its strength to approach the United States in recorded history; it’s sheer size caused devastation over 100 miles from the center.”’ -- Wikipedia
Over 75% of the city was destroyed by a hurricane that swept into town eight months ago, but what the locals can’t get a fix on is why the recovery is taking so goddamn long. In the poorer black neighborhoods, it looks very much like recovery may never arrive at all. There is no way to understand what this place is like now without having a look for yourself. All of the images on TV simply don’t give you the real story. It may be too brutal for most Americans to want to know what is really going down here.
The real story is that the poorer neighborhoods are like ghost towns. At night, no light comes from the houses because nobody’s home. Restoration moves at a snail’s pace, and is happening only because of charitable efforts outside of those provided by any government agency. Every small service in these neighborhoods, everything we take for granted as part of life -- every bakery, auto repair shop, hair salon, tavern, dentist’s office, bar, take out food place, doughnut shop, corner convenience store and rib joint is simply… gone. So even if you had a place to move back into, there wouldn’t be anything around that would make it practical for you to stay. There’s simply no support system in place.
The real story is that our federal government knows that it’s much more profitable for a handful of prestigious American companies to wage a prolonged war. One in a distant, third world country with no defined enemy other than “terrorists” and “insurgents” that can go on as long as it remains profitable. There is no profit in helping impoverished United States citizens reclaim condemned structures so they can them turn them back into something that could possibly be called home.
The real story is that companies such as Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, United Technologies, Halliburton and GE collectively made billions of dollars destroying the infrastructure of Iraq. And now companies such as Halliburton, Bechtel, Aegis, KPMG and Lockheed Martin are collectively making billions attempting to put all the pieces back together again. Never mind that tens of thousands had to die along the way. We’re talking real money here, and from what I can see that’s left of New Orleans, that’s what matters today.
The irony for New Orleans is that if we had paid some of our very capable military-industrial giants to blow it up (or blow it down) we would have also had to pay the clean up crew to come in afterwards and bring things back to normal. Kind of like Berlin after WWII. But because New Orleans was taken out by the biggest storm surge in history – by mother nature – evidently no one in Washington has a clue what to do. For months and months, not a clue. Bush comes here to pay a visit, then gets on a plane and goes home. The destroyed, abandoned homes remain destroyed and abandoned.
So here we are in the middle of this, at JazzFest. Remarkably, the French Quarter is on relatively high ground, so the tourist center remains intact. It’s almost possible to go from the Quarter to the fairgrounds where the music happens without taking in the devastation. Almost, but not quite. You still have to pass by a hell of a lot of homes where nobody lives anymore.
Speaking of living, rents in this part of Louisiana have doubled and tripled in the past few months. That’s because there is so little housing left. Which has implications. Most people who want to return can’t afford to. And all the people who work in the hotels, restaurants, and Fest-related jobs can’t afford the new high-end rents either. So waitresses work double and triple shifts six days a week. People commute to minimum wage jobs from very far away. This is what happens in resort communities when rising housing prices force out the locals. Right now, this is what's happening in New Orleans, too.
Three weeks before the Festival, they still didn’t have electric power out at the fairgrounds. All the tickets were sold, all the hotel reservations made, but no juice for the music. And then, a week or two later, power was restored. People came. A hell of a lot of people came. Which says something for how a lot of us feel about New Orleans. If you truly love music, it’s very hard not to love this town. Where I come from – San Francisco – people carry massage tables out on the streets. In New Orleans, people carry cups of beer. It’s different here. There’s a spell that permeates everything. It’s less refined. Less pretentious. Less hectic. As much in the body as in the mind. More playful. Less judgmental. More how life should be. Of course, the real question is what will New Orleans be when it recovers?
“New Orleans is the most religious place I have ever been, even though much of the population is profoundly profane, pagan and steeped in the seven deadly sins and some others not even listed.” - Tom Piazza
Oh. And then there was the music. This was the first weekend of JazzFest after all. We were here to listen to the music and dance, right? We knew that the town had been almost obliterated, but we were here to get a buzz on and maybe get lucky and have fun… right? This question rambled through my mind like a streetcar running east and west under a crescent moon. Is it OK to let loose and have fun in a place where so many have been so monstrously tested? How would you feel if poisoned water surged down the street and then rose up to cover the roof of your home? And then no one came for a week or so? And then nothing was happening in your neighborhood eight months later?
So, in response to all this, the musicians played. And they played as though they understood that one of the most important powers that music has (among its many) is the power to heal. The power to lift people above what appear to be dire circumstances. Plague. Pestilence. Famine. Flood. Heartbreak. Lack of faith. Hurricanes. And there was one who came here and understood that his role was to be preacher to masses. And he decided, you know, it just might be time to rise to the occasion. Because it was certainly clear that no one else was honestly doing that. There were a number of brilliant performances, but something hard to pin down was missing. Something spiritual. Something having to do with salvation and redemption. So perhaps Bruce thought, OK, I’ll do it. And the mind-blowing performance that followed was a result of someone consciously making the decision to give what was so very badly needed.
Bruce Springsteen’s new band was, to put it mildly, astounding. All 20 members played as if this was their last time to make music on earth, even though it was in fact, the large ensemble’s first official performance. It was no small coincidence that the songs of Pete Seeger they played happen to be about faith, suffering, and overcoming insurmountable odds. It was the perfect set at precisely the right moment in time. There was one rather appropriate Springsteen song as well:
"There’s a blood red circle, on the cold dark ground
And the rain is falling down, The church doors blown open.
I can hear the organ’s song. But the congregation’s gone.
My city of ruins. My city of ruins
Now the sweet veils of mercy. Drift through the evening trees.
Young men on the corner. Like scattered leaves.
The boarded up windows. The hustlers and thieves.
While my brother’s down on his knees.
My city of ruins. My city of ruins
Come on rise up! Come on rise up!
Now there’s tears on the pillow. Darling where we slept.
And you took my heart when you left. Without your sweet kiss
My soul is lost, my friend. Now tell me how do I begin again?
My city’s in ruins. My city’s in ruins.
Now with these hands. I pray lord.
With these hands. For the strength lord.
With these hands. For the faith lord.
With these hands. I pray lord.
With these hands. For the strength lord.
With these hands. For the faith lord
With these hands. Come on rise up!
Come on rise up! Rise up."
- My City of Ruins, Springsteen
It was hundreds of years of black culture that made New Orleans what it was. The intermingling of African heritage with French and Cajun traditions that gave the city its musical heritage, its spirituality, its cuisine, its comprehension of mortality, and the soul that has all but vanished from every other American metropolis. But now that the nation’s leaders have turned their backs on the disenfranchised black citizens of New Orleans—the very purveyors of the culture who made the city unique – it’s hard to tell what the next incarnation of this magical place will resemble.
In five years, it could look a lot more like a theme park. It could be a hell of lot whiter. Recorded music might play from tinny speakers in sanitized bars filled with unknowing tourists, rather than out on the streets by living musicians. The descendants of the people who created it. Who knows where they will be?
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