A friend of mine had her 19th nervous breakdown about a man she loves. It’s chemical, I told her. She made me a few CDs of new songs and one of them is a Pity Party from start to finish and it reminded me of my own CDs I made not too long ago – and the songs I listened to ad nauseum – one even supplied by one of the men who broke my…
When crime reached a high pitch fervor throughout the country two decades ago, crack was blamed. But studies are showing now that notions we took for granted like crack babies, didn’t really exist. What does exist is poverty and undernourished women giving birth to under cared for babies. There has been a lot of talk in New Orleans about why we have such a high crime rate. Corrupt politicians, police force, are to blame as…
Today it was in the upper 70s, I was on a call with someone in the Midwest who said when he left his house it was 8 degrees. Is that even a temperature? Hard to believe. I told him he might laugh last next time I am going through a 22 hour car ride evacuating for hurricane season. But just so you know, another beautiful day in paradise and that my friends is why we…
This from Silence is Violence: Community-led efforts and activities will be going on across town throughout Friday and Saturday. The following major activities will bring coordinated peace and social justice messages to downtown, uptown, and City Hall: 10am: Peace Motorcade, beginning at the intersection of North Claiborne Avenue and Gov. Nicholls Street. Nakita Shavers will lead this motorcade in memory of her brother, Dinerral Shavers, and Helen Hill, the two artists whose 2006 murders…
In all my rants against Whole Foods, I said that they tend to take smaller producers’ ideas and usurp them under their own generic brand. They did this with the tortas BUT recently they have added the original tortas back – the ones made by Rising Sun Farms – which are way more tasty than WF’s version. So retraction, they are only half evil.
My calendar is always booked – overbooked – multiple choices on each day. This month will be a trip to NY and Boston, February our friends from Croatia visiting us, my good friend turning 60 and not to mention Mardi Gras and our Puerto Rican friends visiting, March is back to New York, and T going overseas, and friends possibly coming, April and May Jazz Fest and my 50th birthday extravaganza, then June a baby.…
I began having serious back problems in February when the market was collapsing and when we were trying to get pregnant across oceans. All of it was enough to stress out the average bear but the drama bear felt it like a double load. I’ve tried everything – regular massage, DINA in Croatia (where he laid me a mat and interlaced his body with mine and begin doing gymnastics with me), drinking more water, a…
Yesterday, Mardi Gras began with Three Kings Day and our first King Cake and two parades. The one I wanted to go to was the Joan of Arc parade in the Quarter. But usually the first parade I go to is Krewe de Vieux, which doesn’t roll till February 7th, when Mardi Gras’s presence will be more pronounced here in New Orleans. When I lived in Puerto Rico, families would put chaffs of wheat and…
The Spanish Custom House was built c. 1784 and is one of the most significant historic buildings in New Orleans. The siblings of the deceased owners have had it for sale forever, but no one bit on the $1.9 million they were asking, and neither on the $1.3 million it got reduced to. I think they would have taken a cool million as things were growing worse in the economy but now, it is with…
There were a lot of people in New Orleans prognosticating that the downturn would not affect us because we were already hit with the one two punch of Katrina Rita and so we were so low, we had no place to go but up. Truth is that I’m hearing too many tales of woe around here – three people thus far lost jobs, one person had to cut back hours, small businesses feeling the sting…