Matt

Mais sobre a cidade, e um puco sobre a comida

2007-01-15T23:44:39Z

January 14, 2007 - Sunday - Dona Sara's

São Paulo is growing on me. I'm not quite so disoriented anymore, having started to recognize the connections between streets and neighborhoods around this mega-city. I even am growing a rudimentary sense of how to get around by bus, though taking taxis remains the easiest and safest way to travel at night. The Metrô, of course, is easy to get around on, and it's not even as far from Dona Sara's as I thought: the Consolação Station on the Linha Verde is about a fifteen minute walk away.

Today we had an obligatory CIEE excursion to the historic center of SP. Although I was skeptical at first, I quickly came to appreciate the information that our very knowledgeable tour guide had to offer. She took us to the Pátio do Colégio, a reconstructed 16th century Jesuit building considered the place where SP was founded. Originally, the city was important only as a base for converting Indians and for resting after completing the long climb from the coast to the elevated plateau. It wasn't until the 20th century that SP was forced to industrialize (after imports from the US and Europe were cut off by two world wars) and became Brazil's dominant urban center. We also went to the Brazilian stock exchange, Bovespa, where we watched a 15 minute 3-D movie encouraging investment. Interestingly, there was not a black adult in the movie. I couldn't decide if this was a thoughtful or negligent omission, whether it was reflecting the way Brazilians see themselves or the way they want foreign investors to see them. The concept of the "token black", or even the "token mulatto", doesn't seem to exist here. I took this as more proof that the idealized "racial democracy" doesn't exist; this is a country where people accept that money belongs to white people. In a country of 180 million people where 45-50% are Afro-descendents, I'm sure there's at least a handful of black stock investors. Whoever produced the video, however, certainly didn't want anyone else to realize that. Then we went to the top of the not-quite-beautiful Art Deco Banespa Bank building (designed to look like the Empire State Building; SP has had New York envy for a long time). The view from the observation deck was spectacular: 360° and buildings in every corner as far as the eye could see, except for in the far north where green mountains marked the border of the city. Breathtaking.

After the historic tour, we went to a Sushi buffet in Liberdade, the huge Japanese neighborhood. This brings me to my next point, which is about food.

Food is abundant, cheap, and delicious here. Plenty of steak and chicken, with excellent green vegetables, potatoes, tropical tubers, cheese, and bread. Brazilians have a voracious appetite for sweets, and drink juice with every meal (passion fruit and orange juice are big, but you can find any other flavor under the sun). Chocolates and pastries are everywhere. On sunny days everyone has an ice cream cone in hand. Dona Sara is herself a very good and enthusiastic cook, and I love sitting down to eat my two meals a day with her. Food and meal times are a pleasure here.

In Brazil, it seems there is no greater sin than to waste food. What is on your plate, you must eat. What is on the table must end up on someone's plate. At the end of a meal, there will be no edible anything remaining in sight. That half of a chicken cutlet you didn't want could have fed a poor person! Dona Sara told me, "Tenho dor de perder comida", literally, "I hurt when food is lost", and that she used to give leftovers to beggars on the street. There is always someone in need, she said. Because wasting food is such a grievous offense here, Brazilians have embraced the "por kilo" buffet, where you get as much food as you want and pay by weight. This encourages people to get only a little bit of food and go back for seconds after having cleared their first plate. Though I've always been skeptical of buffets, they've been of such quality that I'm now a big "por kilo" fã (as Brazilians spell "fan").

More later.

edenrugcenter @ 2007-01-10T15:55:00

2007-01-10T17:59:16Z

January 9, 2007

So, I'm in São Paulo, Brazil, at my first homestay. I'm staying with an 89 year old woman named Sara Landesman, who lives in the upper-middle- to upper-class neighborhood of Higienópolis (a 19th century real estate development name meaning "Healthy City"). Dona Sara is a wonderful woman, very active, very intelligent, very elegant. She is Jewish, as are many residents of this area, and her apartment building is named after Oswaldo Aranhã, the Brazilian statesman who, in 1949, lent his and his nation's support to the foundation of the Israeli State. This neighborhood is renowned for its luxurious and sprawling "Shopping" (pronounced "Show-peeng", which means mall), and for the Parque Buenos Aires. Dona Sara herself is of Argentine extraction, having moved to SP from BA in 1963. She is therefore helping my Spanish as much as my Portuguese, as she seems to speak more Portunhol than either of the two. Rather than "Eu vou para a casa agora" (Prtg.) or "Yo voy a la casa ahora" (Sp.) she says something like "Zho vou pra la caza ahora". This is not helping me to develop a Paulista accent, but causing me to roll my r's like an Argentine. Tant mieux, as I think I would rather leave Brazil speaking like a Bahian anyway.

São Paulo is a huge city, but I don't think that I've quite grasped that fact yet. It's very spread out and the buildings almost never attain heights greater than 25 floors. It's very dense, however, and one only occasionally glimpses a view of the city's enormous expanse from between a gap in the buildings at the top of one of the many numerous hills. I knew SP was located 800m above sea level, but I hadn't expected it to be quite so hilly. There is no flat land here, only varying degrees of up and down. Good for the leg muscles. Also, there is absolutely no rhyme or reason to the map of the city, and there are frequent intersections of five or more streets going in every which way, leading maybe miles, maybe meters. The bus maps are impossible to follow, and the subway only covers a small expanse of the city's territory. Higienópolis's station has not been constructed yet. The buildings are predominantly skinny, tall modern rectangles with many windows. In Higienópolis, many are covered in tiny shower-like tiles; in less chic neighborhoods, the buildings are concrete. Some modern buildings are quite interesting if not beautiful. There are only a few scattered remnants of the olden architecture of the city, which must have been quite beautiful before the Paulistas' drive to modernize led to massive citywide demolitions. Dona Sara told me how owners of mansions on the Avenida Paulista would demolish their own houses during the middle of the night to thwart preservationist laws so as to make way for the construction of the endless skyscrapers. On that concrete avenue, the banking capital of South America and Brazilian equivalent of Wall Street, only 6 mansions remain. The numbers don't seem to be much better in other parts of the city.

The air here is thick with car pollution, and the buildings are streaked with grime. However, there is evidence of the natural beauty that existed before the city was built. Parks like Buenos Aires and Trianon on Av. Paulista seem like remnants of the Atlantic rainforest, lush with palms and huge trees and vines (though of course these parks are meticulously manicured to look like that). My first night in Brazil, the drive to the Airport Marriott (say "Mah-hee-AW-tchee") in Guarulhos, an industrial suburb, seemed like any other highway outside of a city. The area was unlit and not quite developed and I could only see the the terrain was quite hilly and pitch black. The next morning, upon awakening, I was disoriented and forgot where I was. I rolled over in bed and opened my eyes--outside the window was a rainforest! I leapt out of bed and ran to the window, and saw that indeed there was thick tropical growth as far as the eye could see (I must have been facing away from the city), punctuated by oil tanks and billboards and laced with highways. It was quite a thrill. However, as I quickly discovered, the forest does not play a big role in the life of São Paulo. This is--as much as any place I have ever seen, on a level with New York City--a concrete jungle.

What I did not expect from São Paulo was that it is not as rushed or as unfriendly as people made it out to be. When people are rushing they are still moving slower than most Americans (certainly slower than Penn students) and the "mad crush" on the Metrô was not nearly as intense as I expected from a city of 20 million hard working individuals. If this is Brazil's least friendly, most driven city, I can't even imagine what Bahia must be like. Of course, it is not hard to perceive that Paulistas, like New Yorkers, have a certain superiority complex, considering everything within their respective countries that is not the primate city at least backwards or at most unnecessary. Upon learning that I will be spending most of my time in Bahia, Brazilian responses range from, "Oh, they really like to party there, you'll have fun," to, "Hmm. Good luck with that. I like my infrastructure here in SP, thank you very much." We'll see. I feel already that Bahia, more than SP, is the place for me. I need some natural beauty in my life, and a beach would be nice. Besides this city is intimidatingly large and quite difficult to navigate, though I'm starting to get my bearings. It probably will just take some time. Maybe it's because I've been hanging out with Americans, or maybe that's just the way this city is, but I hardly feel like I'm in another country. I kind of expected Brazil (at least SP) to be similar in many ways to the US, but the extent to which that expectation has been realized has been a disconcerting surprise.

All told, my biggest response to Brazil is no response at all. I have neither as many observations as I expected nor as many emotional reactions. Maybe I really haven't seen that much; maybe SP really isn't all that like Paulistas claim; maybe I overhyped the entire country; maybe I'm jaded; maybe (hopefully) I just haven't seen anything yet. I don't expect this dull sensation I have to last, but so far ennui has been my underwhelming response to what I've seen. I'm awaiting my first "Wow". Is it just around the corner?

edenrugcenter @ 2006-04-17T02:06:00

2006-04-17T06:07:02Z

Life's really not that bad.

At least I was freed from bondage in Egypt. I could still be making bricks for Pharaoh's cities.

Happy Passover!

edenrugcenter @ 2006-04-17T01:35:00

2006-04-17T06:05:26Z

I guess it's time for me to start writing again; it's been kind of a long time, and I miss the feeling of having said something in text.

Also, I figure more and more that whatever I end up doing with my life will benefit from good writing skills. For this reason, I've signed up for a creative non-fiction writing. I'm toying with the grandiose notion of composing an oeuvre of engrossingly evocative travelogues and insightful, reflective, interesting personal essays, but I need to practice.

So it's back to you, LiveJournal, old buddy old pal.

But what do I write about? Angst, it's too easy. I could complain about my indecision about the immediate future: what to do this summer? I could end up in Peru, farming in an Incan village for 6 weeks. But honestly I'm intimidated by the prospect, to the point of embarassing paralysis. And the longer I wait, the less the chance of me getting my act together grows. So it'll be another lost opportunity, and another long, hot, sweaty summer in New Orleans.

But a long, hot, sweaty summer with a good job, I should hope. For all my big talk about defending New Orleans, and of being "the future of the city" I've so far done very little to actually make a difference. For all my preaching the superiority of the culture of New Orleans and the threat to its very existence, what have I done to make it live on? I'm such a northerner up here. Always rushing, on a schedule, ignoring people on the street. Hell, a cute guy seemed to want to strike up a conversation with me today (not hitting on me, he was likely straight), and I rushed away, busy busy busy, got places to be people to see. What the hell is that? I resent the concept so much, and the behavior comes so easily to me. I appall myself. What kind of New Orleans cultural missionary am I? I tell myself: "Oh well, I only act like this because I live here... When in Rome, you know... If I was somewhere more interesting, with warmer people, I would be warmer, more interested." Well, I tell myself that, but it's bullshit. There's really only the here and now, and my behavior here and now matters as much as it would elsewhere or elsewhen. I'm embarrassed constasntly by my foul mouth, and my screaming at bad drivers. I'm full of road rage.

I've become a pessimist.

I feel so different from the way I used to feel, when life seemed--not easy, exactly--but good. It's hard for me to say life is good. It seems like life is a series of greater or lesser misfortunes strung together with calmer interludes. It's been a long time since I felt genuinely satisfied. I wonder if that is a byproduct of the onset of adulthood, or if this is just a blue phase. Will I ever reclaim that feeling of all-around contentment? I kind of doubt it. The world is a threatening place to me. I even feel bad enjoying warm weather, because warm weather leads to warm oceans, which lead to active hurricane seasons. And when it's not hurricanes, it's tsunamis or earthquakes or tornadoes. Or war. Or flesh-eating disease.

So now what? I talk myself into these funks too frequently. It makes it worse to realize how different my worldview is now from the way it was. Boy have I changed.

I can't say anymore. If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anythign at all.

I miss high school still.

I miss my family more.

I miss my innocence!

(Oh, apt clichés... So much for good writing)

edenrugcenter @ 2006-03-30T22:28:00

2006-03-31T03:28:57Z

edenrugcenter @ 2006-02-18T19:49:00

2006-02-19T00:52:03Z

GIVE ME MARDI GRAS OR GIVE ME DEATH!!!!

I can't wait to get home and dance on the street with my people!

Also, I'm listening to Aha's Take On Me, and thinking about Mirell and high school and parties at Mirell's and smoking weed at that playground by her house. Those parties in a major way captured the essence of my high school experience.... Ah memories.....

edenrugcenter @ 2006-02-18T12:21:00

2006-02-18T17:25:06Z

Gah, livejournal is too conducive to passive-aggressivity. It's foolish of me to post cryptically, expecting the message to get through to whomever its meant for. And posting impulsively isdangerous to one's wellbeing. And it puts all that private shit out in the open.

I don't know why I like the whole world knowing my business... I do, though.

LJ breeds narcissm. I knew it. Read my first entry.

edenrugcenter @ 2006-02-17T17:57:00

2006-02-17T22:57:37Z

That last entry was immature. It's gone-ish.

edenrugcenter @ 2006-02-13T20:18:00

2006-02-14T01:18:54Z

Okay, this is old, but it's still funny.

****

From The Onion:

WORLD NEWS:
CLINTON DEPLOYS VOWELS TO BOSNIA

Cities of Sjlbvdnzv, Grzny to Be First Recipients

Before an emergency joint session of Congress yesterday, President Clinton announced US plans to deploy over 75,000 vowels to the war-torn region of Bosnia. The deployment, the largest of its kind in American history, will provide the region with the critically needed letters A,E,I,O and U, and is hoped to render countless Bosnian names more pronounceable.

"For six years, we have stood by while names like Ygrjvslhv and Tzlynhr and Glrm have been horribly butchered by millions around the world," Clinton said. "Today, the United States must finally stand up and say 'Enough.' It is time the people of Bosnia finally had some vowels in their incomprehensible words. The US is proud to lead the crusade in this noble endeavour."

The deployment, dubbed Operation Vowel Storm by the State Department, is set for early next week, with the Adriatic port cities of Sjlbvdnzv and Grzny slated to be the first recipients. Two C-130 transport planes, each carrying over 500 24-count boxes of "E's," will fly from Andrews Air Force Base across the Atlantic and airdrop the letters over the cities. Citizens of Grzny and Sjlbvdnzv eagerly await the arrival of the vowels. "My God, I do not think we can last another day," Trszg Grzdnjkln, 44, said. "I have six children and none of them has a name that is understandable to me or to anyone else. Mr. Clinton, please send my poor, wretched family just one 'E.' Please."

Said Sjlbvdnzv resident Grg Hmphrs, 67: "With just a few key letters, I could be George Humphries. This is my dream."

If the initial airlift is successful, Clinton said the United States will go ahead with full-scale vowel deployment, with C-130's airdropping thousands more letters over every area of Bosnia. Other nations are expected to pitch in as well, including 10,000 British "A's" and 6,500 Canadian "U's." Japan, rich in A's and O's, was asked to participate, but declined.

"With these valuable letters, the people of war-ravaged Bosnia will be able to make some terrific new words," Clinton said. "It should be very exciting for them, and much easier for us to read their maps."

Linguists praise the US's decision to send the vowels. For decades they have struggled with the hard consonants and difficult pronunciation of most Slavic words. "Vowels are crucial to construction of all language," Baylor University linguist Noam Frankel said. "Without them, it would be difficult to utter a single word, much less organize a coherent sentence. Please, just don't get me started on the moon-man languages they use in those Eastern European countries."

According to Frankel, once the Bosnians have vowels, they will be able to construct such valuable sentences as: "The potatoes are ready"; "I believe it will rain"; and "All my children are dead from the war".

The airdrop represents the largest deployment of any letter to a foreign country since 1984. During the summer of that year, the US shipped 92,000 consonants to Ethiopia, providing cities like Ouaouoaua, Eaoiiuae, and Aao with vital, life-giving supplies of L's, S's and T's. The consonant-relief effort failed, however, when vast quantities of the letters were intercepted and horded by violent, gun-toting warlords.

Eat me, Philadelphia Weekly

2006-02-11T02:07:20Z

Stupid Philadelphia Weekly (a newspaper approximating Gambit Weekly)... Just because they are liberal and are published and read in a large city, they think they are witty. They think it is daring and expressive to say "fuck" in every sentence of an article. Worse, every single article -- regardless of its purported topic -- is in fact a diatribe against the national Republican party. Now, I dislike the GOP as much the next [sensible] person, which is to say a lot, but come on: for a newspaper that is supposed to focus on the life of Philadelphia, its obsession seems beat and immature, not to say forced and unintelligent.

It's just another reason Philly can't qualify as a real city. This city-life/"news"-magazine is too self-conscious to pull off anything interesting or relevant or genuinely funny. What does that say about our citizen publishers, our citizen writers, our citizen readers? Methinks Philly won't be a great city till this rag is done away with.

Samples:

(From a cover article called "Screw Fatso", which explains why Philly should venerate Revolutionary War hometown-hero Thomas Paine over our usual favorite Ben Franklin aka Fatso. Their reasoning: Ben is obviously a tool of the mind-controlling right wing, while Paine has been blacklisted by the history Nazis as a radical.):
"The trouble with Paine is he makes all the founding fathers look bad... And although modern Tories of all stripes -- from Reaganite Republicans to wild-eyed right-wing libertarians -- have claimed Paine as their own, in the end Paine is the American revolutionarywho can't be defanged, forced into a business suit, shrinkwrapped and sold to the masses as a Stepford revolutionary...
In short, the guy fucking rocked."

(Same article, complaining about the lack of Paine-related monuments around town.):
"Nothing worth a historical marker. Not like around the corner, where you'll find, carefully preserved, the remains of Ben Franklin's privy. God help us if we should forget to sanctify the place where Unka Ben shat."

THIS IS NOT JOURNALISM! This is the work of a degenerate, one who unfortunately has access to a printing press and the reader-population of a major metropolitan area. God help Philadelphia.

*****

PW's one saving grace: they print Dan Savage's brilliant sex-advice column, Savage Love (it's nationally syndicated, so PW can't really claim it as its own).

An example of Dan Savage's genius, wherein he replies to a letter from a woman whose boyfriend left her to become a born-again Christian, but whom she dreamt might in fact be gay:

"First, my condolences. It's always a tragedy when someone close to us succumbs to fundamentalist Christianity. But there is hope. There are many, many ex-fundamentalist Christians out there, and they're living proof that the fundamentalist Christian lifestyle is something a person can successfully leave behind.
As for your dream, I suspect it's a case of wishful thinking. What woman wouldn't prefer to think that her ex-boyfriend dumped her for hot, sweaty cock and not for some fuckwitted religion?"

Dan Savage is God.

edenrugcenter @ 2006-02-01T01:32:00

2006-02-01T06:33:04Z

I smoke too much these days. Lots of cigarettes and weed. I haven't smoked this much since the summer before freshman year. I feel sick.

edenrugcenter @ 2006-01-26T02:56:00

2006-01-26T08:34:51Z

I can't really sleep very often these days. And I sigh too much. And sometimes, when I close my eyes, I shed a tear or two. It's not that I'm not having fun with life, because most of the time I am. It's just sometimes overwhelming to consider how hard life is for most people most of the time.

I asked my mom: "Is this all there is? Just trouble after trouble, and difficulties, and misfortunes?" And she said, no, well mostly, but that there are good times in between. I guess I know that's true. It just feels like I've been on a low streak for a while. Maybe that means I'm due for an upwards swing.

There is good news in my life. I'm really enjoying class this semester: most of the readings are interesting and I've got a nice balance of insane professors (who claim to have the FBI out to discredit them, Janet Monge) and brilliant ones and a few combinations. I found employment, making mad money at the Info Desk of my dormitory, which I start on Saturday. Natasha found me, her, Ellis, and Mark a cute place to live next year, on Delancey St (maybe the only brightly colored street in West Philly -- our house is orange with black trim). I'm in good shape (although now that I smoke weed again my lung capacity is diminishing), and I got a good haircut.

It's weird though. I have saudades of my parents, of how they used to be -- that is to say, young and energetic and fun and obviously in love with each other in that young way... it's mellowed out for them a bit, and they spend a lot of time rolling their eyes at each other. It's kind of hard to watch. I don't think on any level that their marriage is in jeopardy, but it's rough water their sailing through these days. I guess it's to be expected with hurricane stress on the brain. I mean, that's probably my biggest stressor also.

Especially considering the government hates New Orleans, and hates black people. At first maybe I was willing to give the US the benefit of the doubt, thinking they would get their act together and eventually provide the necessary assistance to one of its urban cultural gems. They haven't yet, and it seems unlikely that the Feds really will. The rejection of the Baker Bill by dear old George was a real blow to my soul. Ellis put it best: "Katrina is a very emotional event, and the government has just not responded with any emotion." They don't get it. The more time that elapses, the more hopeless and delusionally forgetful I become... Intellectually I doubt the city will ever recover, but in my heart I pretend like everything is going to be alright.

I hope to God Mardi Gras isn't too morbid. I don't think it will be, but it very well could. I can't wait to see everyone, and to be in my city's damp moldy air and buttery light. As much as Philadelphia is growing on me (and it is, thanks to my fake ID, and to the outrageously uncharacteristic warm winter weather), it feels like a compromise. New Orleans is my true love, I guess...

To summarize, I'm at a weird point right now. I feel at once like I'm in a deep broad slump, and that fun is to be had at school and in Philly and at home. The two conditions are not mutually exclusive, I'm learning. I guess life isn't as bipolar as bad times punctuated by good ones; it seems more likely that good and bad are always superimposed on each other, only to different degrees at different times.

It kind of hurts me to be alone these days... I miss having a boyfriend; the more I think about it, the more likely it seems that fulfillment comes in other people. I feel incomplete, and I want someone to fill me out: what I mean is, say I'm 80% (or whatever figure) of a complete person. I need another 80% person to come be with me, and we not only fill out the missing twenty percent of my individual and his, but surpass the limitations of one person... Do I make sense? It makes sense to me, but it's 3:30 am and I'm babbling.

I want to be in love with someone who's in love with me. I want to get married and raise my children. It's a little juvenile and very romantic of me to assume that that will bring all the meaning to my life that I seek, but that's how it seems. That companionship, that melding of two people into a unit that can't be broken, that's such a beautiful thing... I think that's what is missing in my life. Ah, love... where are you?

Babble babble babble....

I'm losing my mind................

Chris Rose is brilliant. Ray Nagin, ehhh, not so much.

2006-01-18T15:55:56Z

I love Chris Rose:

****

"Does anyone have an everlasting gobstopper?"
By Chris Rose
Times-Pic, Jan 18, 2006

I wake up in the Chocolate City mad as hell.

It's like this: I'm supposed to be on vacation this week, cooling my heels, and then our mayor, Willy Wonka, loses his grip in public again and that's hardly headline news in and of itself, but this time he really lets one go.

I mean, he really gasses the place up, if you know what I mean. Now, how am I supposed to sit this one out?

First thing I do, I follow the mayor's lead and call Martin Luther King Jr. Of course, it takes a while to get through because he died in 1968 so he still has one of those avocado green rotary dial phones on his kitchen counter and no call-waiting.

As you might imagine, his line was pretty tied up Tuesday morning.

"King!" I holler when I finally reach him. "What in blazes are you thinking? You're writing speeches for Wonka, and the best you can come up with is 'Chocolate City'? Meet me at CC's Coffee House, bruh. Pronto. We gotta talk."

"I'm tired," he complains. "I had a big day yesterday."

"We all had a big day yesterday, King," I tell him. "Eleven o'clock. Be there."

Then I call God.

Of course, my call gets answered on the first ring, but it's some lackey working out of a phone bank in Singapore. We tangle a bit; she's giving me the runaround about him being busy and can she help me, and I'm wondering: What's with authority figures these days?

"Just who does he think he is, he can't take my call?" I say. "What, He's Dan Packer now? PUT HIM ON!"

I finally get him, and I calm down a bit because he's got that comforting voice, kind of like Barry White, but I'm still all dandered up and I tell him: "11 o'clock, CC's. We gotta talk."

He starts to make excuses, tells me he's got lunch at Ruth's Chris with Pat Robertson, but I'm all over him like white on rice.

Unless it's brown rice, of course.

I suppose it could be brown.

Anyway, I wear him down and he finally admits that he thinks Robertson is a lunatic blow-hard who's always asking God to take out some foreign leader or burn down a place like Oklahoma because there are sodomites reportedly living there, so he says to me: "All right. Chill, amigo. I'll be there."

So me, King and God all meet up and I'm ready to tear into these guys about the advice they're giving Mayor Wonka, who's gone all Shirley MacLaine on us and has had almost five months to compose himself since his multiple-meltdown and the best thing he could come up with was this?

We're standing in line to order, and I let loose: "All right, you knuckleheads, which one of you wrote the 'Chocolate City' thing?"

They are aghast at my strong language, "knucklehead" being the harshest term our mayor can come up with to describe the dirtbag, scumbag, dope fiend gangbangers who have run roughshod over this town for the past decade making us the Killing Fields of America.

Knuckleheads. Yeah, that's great, like they're the Three Stooges now. "Hey, I'm gonna cap yo ass with my 9. Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk."

Anyway, King waves me off. "Can we order before we get into this?" he says.

The barista, one of those bright and perky UPTOWN people -- and I think you know what kind I mean -- says "Hey, guys, what can I getcha?" and sure, she acts all Ladies' Auxiliary toward us but we all know -- me, King and God -- that all this white girl really wants is to grab up as much property as possible in the Lower 9th and build a couples resort and day spa.

Me, King and God -- we're not stupid.

King orders first. "Coffee," he says. "Black."

Well, do I need to tell you: The whole shop is paralyzed into the most uncomfortable silence you ever heard.

"Jesus!" I mutter under my breath, and God pokes me in the eye. "Watch it, knucklehead," he says.

The barista, she goes, "nyuk, nyuk, nyuk," and I'm beginning to think I shouldn't have gotten out of bed; I should have just stuck to my original plan to meet Kafka for racquetball at noon.

Coffee. Black. This King guy, he just doesn't get it. Then it turns out he's just joshing around. Suddenly he breaks the uncomfortable silence and screams: "I'LL HAVE A CREAM!"

And he starts wagging his finger all around like he's back at the Lincoln Memorial, and he starts yelling: "And my children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their coffee, but by the content of their character."

God, he cracks up at this. He starts nudging his elbow into my side and he's practically got tears in his eyes.

"What are you, Chris Rock?" he says. "That's hilarious, King. You are one loco dude!"

They do that knuckle-knock thing, and God orders. Café au lait -- who would have guessed?

So we sit and I ask them: "Guys, what's the deal? Wonka says he consulted with both of you before that blasted speech yesterday. Tell me you're not behind this Chocolate City thing. It's tearing us apart!"

King falls silent; he's eyeballing all the Uptowners like they're going to steal his hubcaps.

God pipes up: "Listen, hombre. Me and King, we had nothing to do with that speech. We told Wonka to go with a unity theme, black and white together as one. We did have this thing about Oreos in it, but we scratched that long before the final draft.

"Your boy, Wonka, that was all off the cuff, man. Extemporizing, you dig? He was off the script on that one. Completely off the reservation."

This gets King's attention. There's another uncomfortable pause as the whole place goes mute again.

"Sorry, cats," God says. "Poor choice of words. My bad. But listen: You people have got your race thing so screwed up down here that even I'm having trouble concentrating. You've got to get your house in order, folks. Your boy Wonka is walking around tossing matches on kindling. If you don't watch out, the whole place is gonna blow.

"And that will put us all out of work," he says, and he pushes his chair back and stands up.

"Gotta vamoose, bruh!" He says. "Been real, but there's mucho work to be done in the Chocolate City. Hasta la vista."

Silence again.

"All right, I'll take the bait," I tell him. "What's with all the gringo lingo?"

He looks at me like I'm crazy. He reaches into his wallet, grabs a card and hands me one before he rolls out the door.

The card, it says: "God & Sons Roofing. Reasonable Rates. Fully Insured. Habla Español."

I look at King. I stutter, "Did you know. . .?" But he's just shaking his head at me.

"Go figure," he says. "But it makes sense, when you think about it. His son's name is Jesus. The stepfather was a carpenter. All of them living in a Kenner hotel without electricity and running water like it's no big deal. It just goes to show, you never can tell. I guess you really need to be careful about what kind of assumptions you make about people."

We both take a sip and pause for a moment, and he adds: "And God, for that matter."

I nod at him over my tall glass of milk. "Now you're talking, King," I tell him. "Now you're talking."

edenrugcenter @ 2006-01-16T21:59:00

2006-01-17T03:18:32Z

What will it take?

Why at a second line parade in honor of MLK Jr's birthday must three people get shot? Come on, people, New Orleans has one (1!) shot at a true revival, and here we go sullying our reputation and terrifying would-be returnees. For all the misery of the past 4-5 months, it's been nice not to hear of endless murders and violent crime. Of course, if New Orleans is to come back, it must accept that crime will be a part of its fabric -- what city lacks crime? -- but come on, at a second line? With the whole world (and evacuated locals) watching? Why?

I think it's also fair to point out that these shootings, having occurred on MLK Day, illustrate that the new civil rights issue is not interracial but intraracial. I can't deny that there are gross (I mean that both in terms of scale and vileness) inequalities in terms of employment and education and pay (among other issues) that warrant universal attention and efforts to resolve them. But the worst problem I see facing black people in this country is the problem (rooted as it is in economic, education, familial hardships) is black-on-black violence! How can a person better themselves and their community when constantly threatened by violent crime? Just like voting rights and the right to dignity and equality that black people fought for in MLK's day, the black population of today must find its voice and unify to fight against at the very least the symptoms of poverty, the most painful and obvious of which is violent crime.

Mayor Nagin is right: God is angry. If he wasn't before the storm, he sure as hell is now. We have an opportunity here to build a better (in some ways... the beautiful decadence is lost for good) city, but it must be one without such horrendous crime statistics. If people can't behave civilly, I don't want them in my city. Isn't that what "civility" is, the quality of living harmoniously in urban conditions with others? Goddamn it, that's all I want. If you're gonna shoot each other, don't do it in my goddamn city. Bring on the trailers, but leave the guns behind. That's what I say NIMBY to. Don't shoot each other anymore, or you'll have me to answer to. Not to mention Mayor Nagin's God. And after last hurricane season, I don't think anyone wants to test the Divine Temper.

edenrugcenter @ 2006-01-15T03:34:00

2006-01-15T08:35:39Z

damn you. yes you. two months (even one month!) ago i would have been all over that shit.

how does stuff change so fast?

edenrugcenter @ 2006-01-11T02:28:00

2006-01-11T07:40:34Z

I never seem to learn my lesson. The teenage years are, in [large?] part, supposed to be about mistakes and what you learn from them. Although my teenagerhood is steadily approaching its end, I have not yet internalized the lessons of my previous mistakes. When a given situation goes awry, I make an effort to remember lo mal pasado, and to avoid it in the future. So, why do I still -- when situations rearise (as history does tend to repeat itself) -- predictably and consciously fail to base my behavior on the lesson I should have already learned?

Am I such a slow study? I don't mean to be a dick. I just am, I guess. Maybe I'll grow out of it in time.

edenrugcenter @ 2006-01-09T02:32:00

2006-01-09T07:33:37Z

I'm stoned as shit, and class starts tomorrow. I feel so unprepared and anxious. This is not an auspicious beginning.

Why can't I enjoy school?

Scheduling

2006-01-08T16:31:14Z

Fuck man! I just checked my schedule, and I will have class for 7.5 hours on Thursdays, from 10.30 to 8.30. I have two once-a-week classes on Thursday; I thought one of them was on Tuesday. And I really don't want to drop either of them. Hmmmm... We'll see how this works out.

As it stands now, I'm taking:
--The City: New Orleans and American Urbanism
--Intro to Human Evolution
--Freud and Psychoanalysis
--Societies and Cultures of Africa
--Migration and Multiculturalism in the US
--Rise of the Modern Visual Media

One of these will not make it, and I fear it will be the Modern Visual Media... I need it for the Art History minor, but it just sounds so damn unappealing. But dropping that doesn't make my Thursdays any easier.

edenrugcenter @ 2006-01-08T02:21:00

2006-01-08T07:27:04Z

What are these morons figthing about? I get home from a night out with Lauren and Pamela, my dear friends from Rome, to see a police blockade at 40th and Walnut. I ask a Penn police officer what was up, and he says, "There was a rumble, see, and these Chinese people were fighting these white people, they look like students." I shake my head and keep walking down 40th street to my dorm. I don't even get to Locust when I see, with mine own eyes, a gang o Chinese and a gang o Whiteys picking a fight. The worst thing about it was, apparently they had already arrested the Chinese guy, so now the lameass preppy Penn white guys were fighting GIRLS! Pathetic. This school attracts some of the biggest losers known to mankind. Who picks fights? Grow up! Or at least don't fight with girls. They're all pussies. What could the big deal possibly be? Why can't we all get along?

edenrugcenter @ 2006-01-07T19:09:00

2006-01-08T00:23:49Z

I'm oh so hungry. I want to drink this big fat bottle of wine I just bought with my fake ID.

Zulu will roll this year! Though they agreed to change their route (out of Central City, I think is where it used to run), they will be second lining to the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club on Broad Street. Now, I usually spend my Fat Tuesday in the Bywater and French Quarter with the [predominantly white, artistic, gay, brilliant] Krewe of St. Anne, but methinks this is a year to stand in solidarity with New Orleans' black community and celebrate with Chief Zulu and his tribe.

Besides, for whatever reason, I have some attachment to the neighborhood around Broad Street. Of course, as a cracker, I'm not particularly familiar with it, but it does serve as one of my primary routes around the city, and I have been to at least a few second lines in the area (notably the Chief Zulu election party at the Autocrat Social Aid & Pleasure Club). It pains me to see the four foot high water lines down the entire drag, which, in the absence of the Old North Claiborne (ghettofied by the construction of the Interstate), seemed to be the most bustling commercial black area of the city... The neighborhood is (was?) far from being the most beautiful in New Orleans, but I liked it. It was kind of a snobbery thing--most whites didn't even know Broad Street existed, and I had this (mostly imaginary) relationship with the neighborhood. It made me feel more hardcore New Orleanian, I guess.

Kudos to Zulu for agreeing to roll, and to the city for allowing the second line to parade on Broad Street.

edenrugcenter @ 2006-01-06T23:09:00

2006-01-07T04:43:00Z

I want to be done with college.

I miss New Orleans terribly, and enjoy myself -- yes, even when the city is 80% destroyed -- more than I do up here. It's only been one slow night, but it's enough to see myself sinking back into the muck of Penn blandness and my own academic disinterest. I feel limited here; stuck in pettiness and snobbery and boredom.

If I lived in New Orleans I might not get anything done (and I think I would from time to time get sick of its smallness, especially these days), but I might be happier. I'm in love with New Orleans.

The houses behind The Saint (the LGD bar) and by the old St. Thomas Housing Projects are beautiful. Mixed income apartments, true to LGD style (I mean really pretty, not just knock offs). I want to live there. Make a statement, have a pretty house in a cool neighborhood, be home... Why am I cheating on the love of my life with -- of all places -- Philadelphia?

edenrugcenter @ 2005-11-30T02:37:00

2005-11-30T07:38:55Z

I don't know if I've ever been this accomodating. Yet, it feels really good. Frustrating, a little, but in a good way. Weird.

***

And, instead of apologizing for my recent cryptic posts, fuck you all, and I'll say what I want, damned if you understand.

edenrugcenter @ 2005-11-24T21:02:00

2005-11-25T02:41:46Z

It's nice to know that no matter how bad shit gets, I have my family. I love these crazy motherfuckers.

With whom else would I play charades, where to hint at "Meet the Fockers", my aunt said "Rhymes with: *sucks on finger*", and then procedes to *hump the air*. When I'm around my family, I feel explained.

I guess what I'm most thankful for this year is my parents and brothers. This year more than any other, I'm aware of how lucky we are to have each other and still be alive. Life is so tenuous and so fragile; it takes far less than a hurricane to take it away in a blink of an eye. Humans are small and weak; how lucky am I to have my favorite people survive around me? My luck (and yours) should always be this good.... Be it known I am grateful for and to those that love me and whom I love, and for the fact of life.

Even more amazing and thankfulness-worthy is that my grandmother -- the illustrious, the character, my greatest role model in life, who suffered so much in the past 2 years (illness, insanity, weakness, despair) -- seems better than she has since her decline began. I saw her dance, albeit briefly, today for the first time since I was in high school. What a thrill!

And as I shiver in cold cold New Jersey, I'm ever grateful to have grown up in New Orleans, to have known and loved that city as it was, to have had it form me into who I am. I can only hope that future generations of New Orleanians will be a fortunate as I have been.

And my friends are superior quality--fun and quirky and caring and funny... I would be lost without you all to party with and to spill my guts to. Thanks.

So, all told, despite the rough year that I've had (and it's been a doozy, full of the highest ups and lowest downs), I've got a lot to be thankful for. It feels really good.

*Happiness and love*

edenrugcenter @ 2005-11-19T17:42:00

2005-11-19T22:43:55Z

I have never wanted anyone to drop off the face of the earth as much as I do now. Death and destruction.

edenrugcenter @ 2005-11-18T19:54:00

2005-11-19T00:54:56Z

Tubby and I are made for each other.

I love this fuckin' website.

Tubbs: we're such nerds. (Editing is fun!)

http://theslot.blogspot.com