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The Editors, with homies Joe Rick Howard & Matt Suazo, at the Katrina Anniversary/Virgo Birthday Party.
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It was such a good show last year that this year they flew back months early in order to depict stories for the afterparty, "Katrina Anniversary" spots meant to occupy roughly 30% of the news cycle for the week. They were instructed to secure contacts, logistics, and prepare feeder clips for longer programs to be aired in prime-time slots later in the week. Location scouts sought the perfect Flooded Black Home, preferably in the Lower 9th Ward: "institutional poverty, general pathos." In Lakeview, they sought a different scene: White Suburban Home with Devastation Next Door, "regrowth hampered by political inaction." The first provided the necessary empathy, and connected with the most graphic images from the previous summer's debacle, deeply hammered as they were into our skulls; the latter would appeal to our economic sensibilities and secure a coveted and prosperous demographic.
A clip was culled, a teaser meant to trigger our countrymen's hunger for controversy. With days of footage, it was easy to find a verbal blunder, a sound bite worthy of generating a wide viewership. On a smartboard in New York, an equation was scripted beneath the heading "September, 2006":
"X+(Katrina 1 Year Anniversary + 9/11 5 Year Anniversary)= $ C.R.E.A.M.,
where "X" = C.Ray.
The clip was dropped in the middle of the week's news cycle, and led up to the weekend News Magazine's full fifteen-minute segment. 11.5 million watched; the program came in third, below two separate airings of "America's Got Talent" and just before "CSI: Miami". The segment's writers receive commendations for securing the fickle interests of the nation and for providing a comfortable segue to next week's news cycle, the five year anniversary of our fair Republic's darkest day. In other conference rooms, similar stories were penned. "New Orleans has suffered, and suffers still, in part for its grave misfortune of geography, in part for its historically incompetent administration, its status as top-tier banana-republic, its Dirty South whodies and Baptist wailing," and popular opinion was formed.
On the Anniversary of the Apocalypse, the President arrived at his press conference, urging Congress to issue more money for levees to be provided by a larger stake in off-shore revenue; applause ensued. Thank-yous were issued to faith-based groups' assistance in gutting houses; the Army Corps was commended for its hard work in the same breath as Parish governments and law enforcement. An earnest statement of encouragement that New Orleans should seize the opportunity to improve its schools was issued; a librarian was singled out. Scholarships were offered to allow students access to private, religious education; entrepreneurs were offered Go-Zone legislation, securing low-interest loans: opportunity knocks. Corporations were encouraged to return and told to “be fair." Promises are made to improve infrastructure, so that the city may achieve their potential through the traditional, mystical union of small government, market love, and religious supervision. In short, a cleaner, more efficient colonial regime.
At the same time, at a prayer service elsewhere in the city, C.Ray took the mic and publicly thanked the workers and residents rebuilding the ruined metropolis, before plowing headlong into the well-tilled fields of the Old Testament. Trumpets sounded as he plowed through his oratory, and in his well-inflected voice he sowed all our destinies together through the tale of Neimiah and the walls of Jerusalem, before depositing his moving harvest in a community-action dream fulfilled and driven in the absence of federal assistance. We will be purified, he suggested, by our suffering, and emerge from ruin all the more clean and righteous by our self-reliance. His speech moved the crowd to stand and issue modest proclamations of respect. He was followed by a temperate secular humanist, who was followed by a preacher who is fully pro, whose Baptist cadences wove a fascinating metaphor of birth, encouraging us to "Push!" for all those issues of social justice which the city has always been sorely lacking. Slowly, masterfully, he incited the crowd, the cut of his Italian suit emphasizing the intensity of his movements. From the labor pains of the past year's challenges, he delivered us into a brighter world of opportunity, and the crowd goes wild. Later, a Buddhist Abbot closed the event by chanting a memorial prayer, and it was all over.
On August 25th at 1:45 AM, a man emptied his murder-gat into another man outside the offices of NOLAFugees.com (New Orleans' 3rd Most Popular Blog). The company car took a bullet. Isle of Denial, 12th Ward UPT: four blocks from Magazine Street, "the commercial heart of the city." This crime went unreported. On Labor Day weekend, various reports indicate 8, 11, 13 people shot. This past weekend, no less than four shot, plus a local media personality accused of 2nd degree murder.
This issue, NF#16, drops on Monday, September 11th, 2006. Spike Lee's film has aired on HBO, and is still available "On Demand". The media has come and gone, off crafting ammunition to win our hearts and minds. This week, when someone inevitably asks you "Five years ago, where were you when you heard the news?" you'll remember for sure. You'll remember, like people remember where they were when they found out Kennedy was shot, or Lennon, or Reagan, or the Challenger went down, or O.J.'s Bronco, the L.A. Riots, the sinking of the Maine.
At NOLAFugees, we ask you "Where were you a year ago today?" The show was over, and after the show, the afterparty goes off. National Guard roamed the streets, and at the afterparty, and you could drink in Molly's until sundown with the international press, firefighters, and cops from all over. The city was a wonderland of ruin, and you could safely piss in the middle of Prytania Street, should you so desire. The shelters of last resort had been emptied, so maybe you were safely evacuated to varying degrees of comfort, welcome, and humiliation. No matter whether you were here or re-loadicated, you were in an alien place, a refugee from a national, natural disaster and living under the authority of a foreign power. Here, wild dogs roamed the city, covered in toxic dust. Elsewhere, you were confronted with the sympathy of a nation that viewed your home as, good or bad, an aberration. MRE's were probably new to you, and with delight you fired up the hydrogen packs and spread the coveted jalapeno cheese. Blamed or praised, C. Ray had given voice to the rage and sorrow you felt (now, j'accuse! j'accuse!). The greatest migration in the history of the Republic had occurred, and you'd either watched or lived the nightmare footage broadcast worldwide, ad absurdum. You most likely were not considering the four year anniversary of anything. You were victim of a tragedy that could only have occurred due to gross incompetence, (yours or others), so terrifying is the randomness of bad weather. If you let it go, for a moment you could see with absolute clarity.
Now the show is long ended; with the passing of the anniversary of our undoing, the afterparty and its paparazzi have rolled out as well. Depending on your proximity to last year's show, life has changed in ways great and small, and if you live in New Orleans, it is the hotel lobby. The concierges have let us know they are out of Cris and that our rooms will be ready shortly. We are scheduled to have a rebirth, but faith, like truth, is optional in a city like ours. In the absence of truth, NOLAFugees will continue to blur the lines in the hopes we all may see more clearly, because after the original, it’s probably this.
Joe Longo, J. Lofstead
Editors, NOLAFugees.com
