Wow, there are so many things I could write about here... it is crunch time again, I have to have the journal in tonight... I could write, as I promised before about Palooza, (and I'm sure I will make a mention or two before the end) I could mention my (thankfully) uneventful trip from Minnesota to Charlotte... but why?
Riki and Jef will I am sure let you know what you need to know about the opening weekend of Charlotte, and the closing weekend of Minnesota (Which was wonderful BTW).
I'm sure I will do some more Heather gloating, as I promised... but the most interesting thing by far that has happened to me this month was my trip to Louisiana... to the heart of America's greatest Natural disaster... I'm gonna throw in too many Photos, and Let Andy our webguy decide what you guys get... Let me get you to the trip first.
Palooza was great, I loved the show and was proud to a part of it, a producer, and writer of it as well as a promoter, a salesman, and an actor in it. This is going to be the best Video we have ever done... lovely.
Heather was there... dressed-up, glamorous and glowing... she was the most amazing thing, and settled my nerves when I was most stressed. I honestly admit I played most of the show to her... I was proud to be her man that night. And tickled that she was there.
 I'm dating the hottest babe at 'Palooza |
 Two very pretty girls at the after party - notice I am wearing Heather's lipstick! |
 Soothing my nerves |
Drove to Charlotte... easy trip. Set up our campers, our new stage and concession carts. Checked out the theater for Palooza in Carolina... did some Television and Radio promos
Still love Charlotte, it is one of my favorites... and if ever I settle down, this is certainly the front running city. Love the area the fair is in, and being treated like a star everywhere I go.
Set up our rose concerns for the year...
Had opening weekend, and our second... then while everyone else rested, took the long annual trip down to Louisiana.
Each year I have to go to LA to repair, maintain, and set-up my maze. Due to Boo and Broo, and Student days, after the second weekend was the only time I could go.
I am expanding my gaming empire at the Louisiana Renaissance festival. This year I also have a Test of Strength / Hi Striker... You know what I mean: step right up, swing the giant hammer, and ring the bell.
I ordered the base, and the hammer from the company that makes them, some great signage from a local artist, ordered the fifteen foot track of steel from my mother's Machine shop-owning boyfriend... I just needed a skilled construction guy to build it with (okay, for!) me. I took my good friend Jamie Harvey
I brought my camera and my pocket memo-recorder... not realizing how important it would be. Just five weeks after the hurricane struck, I drove into the heart of the most damaged areas. Here are some of my notes from the trip:
As I started out... Highway out of Charlotte:
- Saw a dead dog beside the road, his leg torn off and deposited a hundred feet up the road. Formerly pretty dog, large Sheppard, healthy looking... someone loved him. On the one hand - how tragic that this formerly living creature is now no longer. On the other hand it was just a piece of meat. I have seen photos of people turned into less savory bits. You can find websites and newsgroups which show people the same way. There is a website called Thatsfuckedup.com where you can get access to the porno within merely by posting photos of the dead in Iraq. We are all meat.
- I want to remind you that before the failed, Texas oil man, and the former CEO of Halliburton were in charge - gas was a buck-and-a-quarter a gallon. We had two twin towers (intact) and we weren't having a generational war with anybody. Please bring-back the blow-job and cigar president!
 The brilliant Jamie |
Jamie is a construction guy: big, terminally stoned (kind of a bad influence on me there) slow speaking... and ever so easy to underestimate. I consider myself pretty bright, educated and politically savvy... but this man had brilliant thoughts and inputs on so many broad topics... some of which did border on conspiracy theories... and had a library of facts that he could access effortlessly... This big fella who works with is hands was nothing short of brilliant... And made the trip really pleasant. He slowed the trip down a little... had issues to take care of in NC before we could leave... but without him I would have no Test of Strength.
- Five weeks after the storm, and at seventy miles an hour, deep inland on interstate 10. The signs of the damage are pretty frickin impressive. Downed signs and blue-tarped roofs everywhere. [click4pic] God apparently hates the Deep South, and this is the Bible-Belt. Draw your own conclusions.
- Crossing a huge bridge over one of the swampy deltas in the state of Mississippi, come across a beached, HUGE boat, high and dry a smaller boat nestled beside it. Ironically enough this boat is named The Sea Horse or as Jamie says; "I guess it's really The Land Horse." [click4pic]
- To me the biggest irony is seeing all the signs for all the great shows upcoming at the Casinos ... in the few places where the signs have survived. Huge starts and great shows? Hah! There ARE no Casinos anymore.
- Jamie is amused at the ripped-off roofs and smashed houses [click4pic]... what's wrong with Jamie?
- Coming across through Gulfport, trees are thrown around like children's toys, of course we also see lots of signs of construction and repair
- The LOVE'S truck stop here on exit 31 in Mississippi is still function, booming really. Even with debris everywhere and the roof of its pumping island torn off business is bustling. The shattered and crumpled sign lies across the road tangled in a ditch. Gas is still being pumped.
- With all the debris and trash on the ground, all the discarded and windblown stuff, everything from broken pet carriers to roofing material to random shit - it's vile here. As Jamie likes to describe it, "It is like driving through the ghetto."
- The most impressive thing we have seen so far is this huge steel sign post ripped in half, by the force of the wind. Everywhere you look there are billboards bent over and destroyed [click4pic].You can read this a thousand times... and not get the full impact of it. "Debris and trees tossed about like toys" but until you actually see it, you cannot believe the startling impact of it all. "Holy SHIT! It is all bent over-and tossed about like toys!" It's just not the same.[click4pic]
- Ironically enough, as we are approaching New Orleans, we hear that president bush is there today... Oh thank GOD! I feel so much more safe and secure
- We end up seeing the most damage at the rest areas, there is one right on the MS border that looks like a bomb went off. Downed trees, blown over concrete structures... Jamie estimates 40 percent of the trees are wiped out. Me, I'm just impressed. I almost wish we had the time to cruise down hwy 90. That's closer to the shore, closer to where the REAL damage happened - but on the other hand I am glad we cannot.
- The only Logical explanation is that GOD hates rest areas. That's all we can come up with each rest area we see along our route is decimated... or maybe it is because rest areas are the only open space that you can see.
- As I-10 turns into I-12, and we move away from the coast ad further inland to Louisiana, the damage, while great - LOTS of broken trees - significantly lessens. This is how our little concerns in Hammond dodged the bullet.
- Believe it or not gas is actually cheaper in storm-ravaged Louisiana than in NOT storm-ravaged Charlotte. Admittedly some of it is taxes and whatnot... but isn't that ridiculous? And isn't it sad that I am excited that gas (diesel) is ONLY $3.20 a gallon?
We stayed at the home of a really good friend Jamie Hauser. She was in the thick of things during the storms... Helped evacuate babies from New Orleans by helicopter to the hospital in Baton Rouge. She is an interesting woman and an amazing hostess. We stay in her guest bungalow. Each night she offers us dinner, conversation and wine. We only get the chance to eat on the last night.
We arrive at the LA site, the first day around ten AM, and go directly to work. There is more work needed than we planned on in the maze. There are the games that the Tortugas own that needed serious attention, and that pesky T.O.S. to be built. There were many obstacles set in our path too. I was supposed to arrive to a prepared site with a telephone pole already sunk... My maze was supposed to be undamaged by the storm, and the Twins' games were supposed to be undamaged and safely stored... merely needing a little moving and rehanging of signs. HAH!
 Test of Strength base |
 The jungle of the Maze |
 Unexpected Damage |
Our days all began before dawn, and ended when there was no more light to see... after sunset. Hot, sweaty, dirty we headed to one of Louisiana's famous drive-through Daiquiri stands. Pleasantly warmed by the icy, fully alcoholic drinks we grabbed dinner at a nearby restaurant, headed a few miles up the road to Jamie's house, brief socializing and a shower, and off to sleep before eleven.
 Where everybody knows your name |
 Daiquiri's secret ingredient |
 After a hard day's work |
- At 7:05 in the morning we cross the causeway from Mandeville/Covington into New Orleans. So far crossing Lake Ponchatrain is lovely. It is a beautiful sunrise, and not much in the way of damage. Of course we ARE over water right now.
- As we hit the New Orleans side of Lake Ponchatrain the state flower seems to be plywood. All of the buildings have sprouted sheets of the stuff, marring their faces. Broken glass litters the ground.
- Mall parking lots have become impromptu campgrounds there are nothing but repair trucks and RVs and insurance claims areas. Loads of businesses have signs declaring they are hiring workers. How intriguing. It really looks like a war zone here, no Jerusalem, maybe... but certainly no major American city.
- It is kind of surreal to be driving down this street that I have driven down literally hundreds of times before, and yet to realize that this is more-or-less ground zero for a national tragedy. [click4pic] For America's biggest national disaster.
- And yet here we are only two months after the storm, and the lights are on and many, many houses seem to be functioning and occupied. Perhaps not nearly the complete and utter destruction we were lead to believe. But I wouldn't want to live here!
- Jamie believes, as we hear about the cops beating down a sixty-four year-old man that the cops are inherently evil, and that you shouldn't go out at night unless you are looking to get beat-down... I am impressed by how much off the city is still working. I am a little more impressed by the massive floodwater piping I have passed so many times, now that I know what exactly it does.
- We drive by one of the more famous above-ground cemeteries here, looking just as stately, just as impressive - they're supposed to look a little damaged. Contracting trucks and emergency trucks are everywhere still and yet on some levels it doesn't look like it has changed much at all... Oh wait! Maybe I was wrong.
- I have never been aware just how poor some parts of this city are [click4pic]... which is shameful since I have been to some of the most depressed areas... I have known NOT to wander into some of the more dangerous sections near the quarter, but didn't know how widespread it was, or how abject. Looking at the damage, looking at the wiped-out houses and I realize that the places that were hit were where people didn't have SHIT anyway.
- Holy shit, I am going to drive RIGHT by the Superdome - and I am kind of excited by it.
- If you don't have problems with a little mold, now would be a great time to go real estate shopping in New Orleans.
- The smell of Mold and Rot and Wet is seeping into the truck through the closed windows as we drive by the superdome. We're elevated, but we're on one of the overpasses people were living on and under. The roof of the dome is just GONE. It is hard for me to think about all of the tragedy that went on here. Even without the incorrect reports of baby rape and murders, the scene must have been hellish. People's bodies were just sitting, sitting and rotting on these very overpasses just a couple of weeks ago. In a major American city, in the 21st century - How can I not be humbled?
- I'm torn with the interesting mix of not seeing enough damage to make this worthwhile, and suddenly seeing an entire building just flattened like a messy pancake. Yet the lights are back on, the city looks like it's working...
- On the day we drive over, the Army Corps of Engineers is happy to announce they have finally dried the streets of New Orleans from the TWO hurricanes - nice timing Ronn!
- Led Zeppelin called it: "When the levee breaks, honey you've got to move!"
- Here is one interesting misconception that just got blown away: I was lead to believe there was no damage on the West Bank of the Mississippi. The West Bank where my mother's other home is. There is SHITLOADS! If you looked on the map, like I did, you saw flooding in only two wards - and it's true... but how about the storm itself, Genius Ronn? Even without the Levee breaking this town took a beating. Blue Tarps on roofs are providing a strange splash of color to this drab and damaged city.[click4pic]
- Again I was never aware that this town was so poor, it is almost as bad as a third-world country - right here in the first world. For this observer, it is kind of hard to see what is storm damage, and what is ghetto poverty.
- Right now I wish I had stock in a tarpaulin company
- Ah capitalism. Coming into Gretna we see a huge sign that says Generators and Chainsaws for sale.
- The Denny's over here on the west bank is closed down, the windows blown out...
- Maybe there wasn't any flooding, but there was massive damage, Debris is piled up on the corners awaiting eventual pick up from the beleaguered city services. This place has always been filthy, but now - it's TRASHED!
- Maybe with all the FEMA money rolling in and Red Cross money and (most importantly) contracting money flowing in... maybe this place will get a rebirth
- My mother's boyfriend's shop apparently DID receive some damage - My mother is an honest-to-goodness, no joke, slum-lord... driving through some of the neighborhoods I almost feel embarrassed that she owns some of these buildings. Someone has to own 'em, someone has to provide homes and collect rents...
- There has definitely been some damage here. Shops blown down [click4pic], trashed-out hotels still doing some semblance of business, the McDonalds only open for limited hours and only thru the drive thru
- If the damage is this intense - and it really fucking is - where there wasn't flooding, I can only imagine the scenes where it was under the muddy waters.
- There is a lot of human, or American defiance going on here... signs everywhere declaring "Yes, we are open!" do business with us. [click4pic] Damn I am really moved by the devastation.
- The only thing more prevalent than damage is the 'Now Hiring' signs... What an interesting renaissance this place is going through.
- A huge collection, rows and rows of trailers in a vacant lot... serifs posted out front. FEMA? Workers? It remains a mystery to me still
- Something we have learned from this trip is that signs for McDonalds are apparently the least storm-resistant signs in the world.[click4pic]
- Jamie thinks that sign companies and roofers are the ones that are really going to make out... Me I still think that the guys who produce tarps are making out best.
Jamie and I worked like fiends... him: slow and methodically and highly skilled. Me: hard-working and driven. He commented last time, and this as to how surprisingly hard-working I was... it's different when it's your money, your time, your businesses. I don't play. Scruffy, and dirty and tired... and because of the Tortuga games we had to stay half a day longer than we desired... rather than being able to leave on Thursday night we couldn't go until Friday around noon (arriving Friday night back in Charlotte - MUCH after midnight). But Thursday we dined with our hosts, and learned a lot about there varied and storied history and travels. Hance (one of their sons) was also there on the final evening.
 The Hausers and Jamie, all at dinner |
- Sat chatting with our hosts Bob and Jamie Hauser, Hance, and our intrepid Jamie. We chat about Bali, and Stockholm, Singapore... they have been everywhere:
- Bob: Mexico, Costa Rica, British Virgin Islands, Netherlands, Switzerland, Russia, Malaysia, Indonesia,
- Jamie: Canada, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Germany, East Germany (when there still was one) France, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Bali, Russia, Singapore
- We eat sloppy chicken, (boneless chicken) cold pizza, had a great Malbec last night, and finish our meal with a Portuguese port...
- Jamie (the builder, not the nurse) thinks I am pretty, which makes me uncomfortable, We share a room... He says in clarification, "Start each day by looking in the mirror, and saying 'I'm pretty'."
- Then he makes fun of my teddy Bear.
The work all got done, the T.O.S looks great and strong and has a great location. The maze is finished, the Twins' games are in place and their flooring platform repaired... Tired, and sore we made it back to NC in time to work the weekend, get caught up on Twin Biz, and then do three days of Kids weekend... aaaaaigh!
 A tired, dirty, scruffy Ronn calling Heather |
Finally let me mention two very funny things about my swanky sweet girlfriend:
I was talking to her awhile ago about expensive, versus in-expensive wines... I have had Château Lafitte's in Vegas at Jef's wedding, as well as some of the expensive wines with Jef and Ken Wilson, or other various times in my life. My favourite wine is still only $20 or less a bottle. (Seghesio's Sonoma county Zinfandel - if you must ask). Most wine publications will point out that by-and-large there is never a reason to spend more than 20 smackers a bottle... I was explaining this to my adorable little Asian girlfriend, and my fondness for some inexpensive wines... and without any trace of irony my slightly nymphomaniacal girlie says, "There is nothing wrong with a little Yellowtail!" (heheheheh - I heartily agree!)
In another conversation about sex (we do occasionally talk about other things... but rarely) I was letting her know that while it might be uncomfortable and unpleasant to have to wait to fool around - since (though I flew her out for opening weekend of NC) we are currently separated by half a country... it would be sweeter for the waiting. I explained to her that waiting to be with me was like waiting for Christmas... the presents right there under the tree, but you have to wait to open them... giggling she asked, "Can we at least shake the box a little?"
Ladies and Gentleman, we have a winner.
Alright - seven pages and a trip through a modern historic event. Still loads of photos to upload... and I have oodles of more work to do.
I fly Heather in this weekend for Boo and Broo...
I have some other questions to answer... can you wait till next month?
