Dangermond.org

I sent this email to someone today because I’m sick of the naysaying about New Orleans from people who don’t know jack shit about this city and what it was like pre Katrina and what it is like post Katrina:

Dear […..]

Re: Crime in New Orleans

Can I tell you something – this is being horribly over reported in the press everywhere and to the detriment of New Orleans. Does New Orleans have a crime problem – yes – the same one it has had for decades – it’s a black on black drug problem that needs desperate attention because it is killing off young black men. But it is no different then being in New York or any urban city.

The tourist areas are relatively safe and I say that like I say New York is safe or Moscow is safe. You don’t walk around at night on your own looking like a tourist. But I am in these areas and areas much less highlighted than these as a regular and feel comfortable.

I’m kind of starting to take it personal the anti-New Orleans backlash.

Really if I didn’t love this city I would say go somewhere else because I don’t think I want these people in my backyard with their negative and naysaying attitudes. I have a sign on my house that says Be Nice or Leave – and I mean it.

Y’all are going to have to come to your own conclusions about whether you want to come here or not, because honest to god [you] should come here to support this city, it is an important city historically, fundamentally, and spiritually to all of the United States and if petty people can’t see the forest for the trees than bless their hearts, they don’t deserve to come here.

My LG phone started shutting down on its own and so I went to Verizon and they ordered a replacement phone ($50) and had it sent to my house. Meanwhile, it arrived day before yesterday and so yesterday I took the phone for them to transfer my phone numbers. Then that phone turned buggy and by morning wouldn’t even turn on. So I went back to Verizon and they said oh yeah, that model is buggy. So then I bought another phone (Motorola $326 with adaptors) and they said they couldn’t get the numbers off my new old phone because it wouldn’t turn on. And they said I wouldn’t get my $50 back because after all, it was a replacement phone. Say what? On the way there I was convinced that I could wait about two years for iPhone to transfer to another carrier, but walking out of the store I was saying “iPhone, iPhone, iPhone” in my head. I walked over to the manager and told her my predicament and she said, I’ve been watching you, you have been so patient. Let me see if I can help. She then proceeded to find my old old phone, get the numbers transferred, and then process a $50 credit. She said thanks for your patience, you know patience is a virtue. In turn I told her that she had turned a negative Verizon experience into a positive one so that actually customer service is a virtue.

The original Whole Foods spot on Esplanade and Ponce de Leone, the long time community grocery that had patrons the likes of Lenny Kravitz, has become a real source of contention for us in MidCity because the big Whole Food – the one that is supposed to be so community friendly, but who left the community stranded without a grocery in order to open two obscenely huge big box stores – sold the market to Lakeview Fine Foods cum Market on Esplanade who put in a ton of money but not a ton of thought into running a small neighborhood grocery in a bohemian well-versed foodie community and then left it vacant wanting a bucket load of money because they had overspent – but the good news is that we have a new grocery and it should be up and running by next month and I CANNOT WAIT!

http://www.nola.com/business/t-p/index.ssf?/base/money-1/1182922309123780.xml&coll=1

When I was separating from S and B was no longer going to work on the house and N was going to help me and all of that mess was going on, B made the comment that he didn’t want to work at this house because it was filled with bad vibes. Wow.

Flash forward one and a half years, I ran into Gomez on the bayou this evening with his friends T&K and they wanted to come in and see the house. I took them on a cursory tour and when they were leaving T, a man of few words, slapped the mahogany column and said “There is good energy in everything here.”

I walked Arlene after supper tonight and as we crossed the Magnolia Bridge, we saw a group of people setting up chairs and pulling out of baskets – cheese, wine, bread, glasses – and it was a warm, breezy night with soft waves skimming the bayou – and all Arlene wanted to do was get back to the house.

J came with me to run an errand today and he said, “Ocho, thanks for coming to pick me up from school today.” What a sweetie pie! Of course, he didn’t want to get a snowball with me later, he wanted to get the snowball with his father who had promised him the snowball. But still a sweetie. Then he fell asleep and took an hour and a half nap while I drove around New Orleans letting him sleep. As usual the summer camp doesn’t let them get a good enough nap and he is so tired when he gets home that he just falls asleep in the car.

This is when I love my job – when all of the newspapers, trade journals and email alerts are sending X information and I speak to my sources and find out things are Y. That is when the plan comes together because why does the press look to sensationalize everything instead of seeing the nuances and then reporting on them? Anyway, it was a good day today – a day of reporting the nuances and shedding light on what the press obfuscated.

Driving behind a car today with a bumper sticker that read “I eat tofu, and I vote.” Is there some kind of anti-tofu candidate that I am unaware of?

Mom called tonight to tell me she no longer is working at the nursing home – said it was too much for her – ya think? – so that was about the only thing that made sense today.

I got home to an email from my attorney saying that my neighbors wanted damages for the heavy equipment that was driven over their driveway. I have no clue what they are talking about and told my attorney that. Then I opened my mail – a bill for my landscaping that was for three times the amount I had contracted for. I just shook my head in disbelief. Then I called the landscaper – he said, okay just pay me what we agreed because you live on Moss Lane and that is money and it is a calling card for me. What goes on? Moss is not money – it means you spent all your money, not like you have a bunch of it.