Oh Dog, you Sleuth!

I forced April to get her handwriting analyzed (oops! it was five dollars) and mostly it came out pretty crazy and mixed up. Though the analyizer lady does parties, which I think would be mega-classy.

The rest of Atlanta.

Here’s where Chris Lopez lived when he was writing all those Rock-A-Teen songs.

Thanks Ben, Millie and Sonji for showing me around, yet shame on you for not taking me to Cumberland Mall.

I forgot I had all of these pictures of Atlanta sitting on my computer. I feel like I was there twenty years ago.

So my sister arrived from Baton Rouge today for her first visit to Portland. She’s been living the refugee lifestyle for the last month and I really want to show off Portland to her in all of its non-catastrophe glory. One of the first places she went was Stumptown, which I thought was a good start.

Karen Lee, looking very “You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby”.

Somehow, in all the hundreds of hours I’ve devoted this month to keeping up with all things Katrina, I happened to miss the shocking news that Irma Thomas was performing today near my house. For $10. So sad.

Here are some new pictures of the Safari Club taken when Millie was in town last week. I think hers came out nicer.
At some point, a group of us is going to have to rent rooms at the motel across the street so we can go at night and stay up late singing karaoke on a stage lined with glitter curtains and mid-pounce taxidermied wild cats (see picture 2). It’s kind of a long windy road back to town, so I think the motel offers the perfect incentive to get all of your songs in and then have the after party back at the room by the pool.

Recent photos from the last month and half. I almost left nine rolls of exposed film in Juniors on Saturday when I was having breakfast. Gulp.

The Mother-In-Law Lounge in New Orleans has been frequently photographed and filmed in all the disaster coverage because it really sticks out from the rest of the neighborhood and because it’s an easy shot to get from the raised I-10 freeway that runs nearby.
I’ve been watching this footage wondering what became of Antoinette and her granddaughter, who she was making a lampshade for when Kim and I spent an evening at the Mother-In-Law at the end of July.
And here it is! Kim found this write up on a bulletin board and sent it to me (sorry to cut and paste it outright):

Antoinette K-Doe has left the city

By Dave Walker
TV columnist

Anyone looking for a hint, a ray, a glimmer, a whiff,
a glimpse, a flash, a gift of hope in the toxic rubble
of New Orleans got one Thursday morning on WWL 870 AM.

After making her stand for seven days in the darkening
heart of the city, Antoinette K-Doe, widow of Emperor
of the World Ernie K-Doe, had escaped Katrina and was
alive and well and thinking about rebirth.

Had, in fact, made her way to the Baton Rouge studio
of the United Radio Broadcasters of New Orleans to
tell her story.

The survival tale she told was harrowing, as they
apparently all are.

I paraphrase the details here at risk of botching a
few.

Stuck in Baton Rouge traffic (of course) when the
segment aired, I was unable to take notes, and
attempts to reach K-Doe through an e-mail address
mentioned on-air were unsuccessful.

But to a certain slice of New Orleans culturati, any
K-Doe news is good news, so I am glad to play the
approximate conduit, clarifying follow-ups to follow.

As I recall:

Antoinette rode out the storm inside the Peoples
Community Organization Center, reclaimed from what had
been Joe’s Cozy Corner only a few days before the
storm.

Or perhaps she was inside the Mother-in-Law Lounge,
the North Claiborne bar that has become a landmark
for international music pilgrims, as well as a bit of
a community center in its own right.

Her exact landfall location is the point on which I am
least clear.

With her was a 15-year-old granddaughter. Together,
they were adequately provisioned with food and water
for the siege to follow.

In the wake of Katrina’s attack, various
well-intentioned visitors encouraged K-Doe to move to
the Louisiana Superdome.

She’d heard the constant sound of gunfire and seen the
marauders in her neighborhood, knew of the danger and
lawlessness, but also knew from listening to WWL that
the Superdome would be worse.

So she stayed and survived a week of that, then
evacuated to Georgia.

Tracked there by friends, she was intending to follow
them to stable refuge in North Carolina at the time of
her radio interview.

She said she also intended to one day return to New
Orleans and restart her life there.

She said that the Mother-in-Law Lounge, a shrine to
the weird organic magic made by her eccentric husband,
will survive Katrina.

The legacy of the erstwhile Ernest Kador Jr., whose
1961 R&B hit ‘Mother-in-Law’ gave the lounge its name
and who the citizens of the city gave a beneficent
monarch’s funeral upon his physical death in July
2001, will survive Katrina.

Antoinette K-Doe has survived Katrina.

‘We will rebuild,’ she said on WWL.

Rebuild, K-Doe, rebuild.

My pictures of the bar can be seen here (scroll down).

My parents have ended up in Baton Rouge, where they’re now renting a place and where my dad has gone back to work. They’ll have no phone or internet service for the next three weeks. Ugh.

I also found out my uncle Curtis made it out of New Orleans okay. He was even at the convention center at one point!

Has anyone been following all the right wing spin on Katrina? It’s amazing.

Oh, and if I ask you to see a movie with me, please try to stop me! On Sunday, I saw The Constant Gardener, which was filmed mainly in Africa. There’s lots of scenes set in shanty-town slums that extend as far as the eye can see. The whole time, I’m thinking, ‘that’s going to be New Orleans.’ Then tonight I see War of the Worlds and the whole time I’m thinking, Katrina, Katrina, Katrina… and also, ‘those desparate housewife jeans Tom Cruise is wearing are ridiculous.’

I got word today that my uncle Bob (dad’s side) and aunt Donna (mom’s side) are okay after being out of communication since the storm hit. Donna was able to move back to Slidell, LA. It sounds like (haven’t researched this in detail yet) much of the city is simply gone. Her house remained intact as it was in North Slidell, which took a lot less damage.

As a new homeowner, I think I can understand the kind of deep emotional attachment a person can have for their house. But as a New Orleans native, I don’t think I could feel safe living there again. Even before Katrina, I felt like the declining infrastructure combined with the sharp increase in hurricane activity was pushing New Orleans into a very dangerous place.

Read this.

My aunt Marian is okay! Here’s an excerpt from an email received from my aunt Judy on Saturday: “Marian called this afternoon to report that she was heading out of New Orleans, on her way to Houston. She has been huddled up in the Crown Plaza Hotel, with a newly adopted family. Just as we predicted, she found some kindred spirits to survive this ordeal. They have all been clinging together for dear life since the riots, looting, fires and flooding broke out. Her car was parked on the 6th floor of the parking garage. When they left, she said the French Quarter was burning. She tried to get to her house to see if Curtis [her husband] is ok. She could not get through. The police told her that they had tried to get a Humvee to her neighborhood last night, but couldn’t get through. She had to leave without knowing if he is ok. Needless to say, she is in severe trauma. She is with her new “family” though, on the way to their relatives in Houston. ”

This amazing site has Realplayer and Quicktime links to a lot of the major moments of Katrina coverage including Kayne West’s (I didn’t think it was possible to like him more after he bitch-slapped rappers for their homophobia) brilliant appearance on TV on Friday night.

Even though it hasn’t even been a week since the death of New Orleans, the cable news channels have already lost interest. The weblogs on Nola.com are teeming with reports of the stranded and dying. Boingboing has been consistently covering Katrina-related stories better than almost any ‘major’ news outlet I’ve seen.