brangelina and glowing pink boxes in the lower 9th

Half way through dinner last night our friend Rose called to say that we should fill our car with people and come immediately to the lower 9th Ward for this art exhibit, concert, and fundraising benefit she was attending. It’s going on now and involves large glowing pink boxes representing houses that Brad Pitt is going to build, she said, so hurry.

Brad Pitt has founded a nonprofit organization called Make It Right. Partnering with a variety of other organizations (architects, private-sector corporations, 9th Ward community organizations), they're going to build affordable and ecologically-sound houses for Katrina victims in the lower 9th Ward. Last night was their kickoff event and benefit fundraiser. They're starting goal is to build 150 of these homes, and last night alone they raised enough money for seven. At the moment, there are 150 pink house-sized tents covering about a five block area of the lower ninth Ward. At night they are lit from within and without, and you can see them as soon as you crest the bridge over the Industrial Canal. Scattered among the tents are small blue points of light that look like candles or stars, one for each resident of the Lower 9th Ward who died in the floods. They're also three or four viewing platforms set up come each about two stories tall. The display is definitely best viewed from above.

Because it’s New Orleans, I was completely unsurprised to hear excellent live music as we walked through the neighborhood towards the stage. I was surprised, however, that the music wasn't jazz but rock and roll. Specifically, 1950s rock. After we listen to the second song, I narrowed it down even further. It appeared to be a Jerry Lee Lewis cover band.

We climbed to the top of the viewing tower, taking in the sites and absently listening to the music. Gradually it occurred to me that this was an awfully good Jerry Lee Lewis cover band. Quite exceptionally good. And the crowd, though small, was really extremely excited about it. Much more excited that I would have expected the New Orleans audience to be about a Jerry Lee Lewis cover band.

And then they started to play Great of Balls of Fire. The entire audience went crazy. Things started to fall into place. We raced down the stairs, heading for the stage as quickly as we could. The guy at the keyboard looked to be about 80 years old. I stood there gaping. This was not a cover band. We were listening to Jerry Lee Lewis himself play his hit Great Balls of Fire, live in New Orleans in the lower 9th Ward, from a stage less than 20 feet away from us.

Then he played The Twist, and it was totally awesome. We twisted. That man can still rock.

Unfortunately, I didn't actually see Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie, though we knew they were there. We left to go home to bed before they came out (I've got a bit of a cold). My friend Melinda stayed longer, and she did see them both. In fact, she was standing right behind them during the final performance of the Neville Brothers (who we also heard play). Angelina was holding one of the babies. Melinda has pictures -- blurry pictures, but pictures nonetheless. I'm trying really hard to get over the fact that I missed my opportunity to meet the second most beautiful personal alive (#1 being my beautiful wife) in order to go home and go to bed because I have a cold. There’ll be other opportunities to meet Angelina Jolie, right? Sure! Of course there will be.

This photo by Melinda:



And these by Erika, of course:

corporate volunteers galore

Well, the Phillip Morris employees smoked a lot. No big surprise. Especially considering that the 30+ volunteers we had at Ms. Evelyn's house were not just any Phillip Morris employees, but were the people in charge of ensuring that Phillip Morris cigarettes were prominently displayed and actively sold throughout the Gulf Coast region. They loved their jobs. They loved "pushing tobacco" (their phrase, not mine). They had some rather amazing ethical blinders on, and I spent most of the day wryly smiling and keeping my thoughts to myself.

They were perfectly nice people, of course, who got a lot of work done (I was in charge of reinforcing the structural supports of the 2nd storey floors), and who donated a big pile of money to keep the work going. Much appreciated. If big businesses are going to make money in evil ways anyways, they might as well give a lot of that money to worthy causes. I'd rather take money away from evil businesses than from companies whose money could be used within their own fields in good ways. For instance: Monday was another big corporate project. 100 environmental consultants from a company called RMT came from all over the country to help out at another public school. They didn't donate additional money, though, because they are constantly reinvesting their money into researching better environmentally-friendly technologies. I like that. I think that in many ways that's just as important as investing money directly in these houses. So I'm glad Phillip Morris gave Hands On a big cheque and RMT didn't.

The RMT employees were absolutely fantastic workers. Remind me that if I'm ever doing a volunteer project, I want to recruit engineers. By lunchtime we burned through all the scheduled projects for the day (I was in charge of a raised-bed planter), and they improved our plans and processes the whole time.

With the extra time in the afternoon, Petra set the horde of un-tasked volunteers to creating sidewalk murals. She did an absolutely amazing job pulling great easy mural ideas out of nowhere, managing paint and brush supplies, preventing paint spills, doing quality control, and directing ongoing cleanup. I don't think many people could steer 80 strong-willed, intelligent grown men (and 2 or 3 women) toward painting the alphabet, the solar system (with proportional distances), the water cycle, hopscotch, a creative calendar/clock, etc. with such success. The kids and teachers were thrilled with her project far and above everything else we did. They called the main sidewalk "the new information superhighway," and thanked her for giving the kids a fun way to play, for making it so "the kids can't help but learn, just by walking around," and most touchingly "for making this look like a real school now, not like a prison camp."

two cemeteries and a lounge

One of Hands On’s first projects was to rebuild and renovate the Mother-In-Law Lounge. The late founder Earnie K-Doe was quite a character, as is the current proprietor, his widow Antoinette K-Doe. Ms. Antoinette is a frequent spokesperson for Hands-On, and her best friend is an historian who used to lead tours of many important sites in New Orleans. Consequently, I got an excellent tour of two of New Orleans’s most gorgeous and notorious cemeteries: St. Louis #1 and St. Louis #2!

The cemeteries are awesome. They're like ornate marble and/or lime-washed mini-cities of dead people scattered around in the middle of the larger city for living people. I had a lot of fun taking pictures that attempt to convey this idea. It's easy to see why they’re New Orleans icons.

My favorite part about the cemetery is the culture of ancestor reverence that surrounds them. People have tombs that have been in the family for generations. A lot of them are in disrepair, but some of them are clearly well maintained and frequently visited. People use the tombs as an anchor in grief. The customs and rituals involved in caring for the tombs provide a communal social model for maintaining a relationship with departed loved ones. From what I hear, the cemeteries on All Saints Day resemble nothing so much as a family reunion/cocktail party! Grief in New England is usually a private, individual thing. In New Orleans the experience is shared much more broadly with the community as a whole, and for all that is no less personal, and seems much more joyful.

I want a little city of y’all around me when I’m dead, and I want parties held at my tomb every year, ok? You can bring my favorite foods and tease me from the other side of the veil. Be there or be square!

(photos by Petra)

powow

On the 23rd we went to the Louisiana Indian Heritage Association's annual fall powwow, which we’d read about in the newspaper. The moderately terrible weather (really rainy and rather cold) made for pretty small crowd, but the gathering was all the more intimate for its small size. It felt rather like being at someone else's family reunion. This is unsurprising, since in many ways a powwow IS a family reunion with a community outreach component. Everyone was very laid-back. The MC told stories and jokes, unhurriedly moving people through the afternoon's programming. People strolled around visiting each other and the few hardy vendors who had stayed despite the weather, or relaxed at picnic tables in the pavilion. The dancers prepared themselves -- and their elaborate clothes -- at a leisurely pace, pausing here and there to catch up with old friends.

Judging from the clothing, the people came from a much wider variety of tribes than I had expected: Louisiana, certainly, but people were also wearing clothes typical of tribes from the Great Plains, Southern California, and northern Mexico. The languages spoken, Creole included, were just as mixed. Most surprising of all, to me, was to see clothes I recognized from the tribes back home in New England -- Wampanoag and Pequot, if I’m not mistaken! The kid’s clothing frequently reflected that of their parents in color and ornamentation. I found that very endearing. Also the way they frequently danced with their eyes fixed on their parents feet, clearly working hard to get the steps right.

And then we met a celebrity! The MC kept teasing one of the performers about being famous movie star. Because of the teasing tone, I assumed he was joking. He was, but I discovered when I went over to her display table that she actually is a big movie star! Irene Bedard, to be precise. We meant to get a picture of ourselves standing with her, figuring our younger cousins especially would be excited to here that we've met the woman did the voice of Disney's Pocahontas, but we forgot. Sorry.

The powwow was held a campsite in Robert, LA, which is on the other side of Lake Pontchartrain. This meant that we got to cross the really really long Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. I’ve wanted to do that since we came down here, and I was delighted to finally have the excuse.

I was really glad to get a chance to meet some people from this culture that has so profoundly shaped New Orleans. Yay powwows!

audobon zoo

We found more alligators for Erika, big ones this time. Fortunately, there were many other animals around to distract her, and I didn't feel compelled to double-check the trunk of the car for reptilian stowaways when we left at the end of our visit. Highlights of our zoo trip were definitely the:
1) white tiger asleep with its feet in the air and its whiskers twitching, clearly dreaming about chasing small elephants,
2) adult sulcatta tortoise roaming around the Discovery Walk, who reminded us of Khalil,
3) pair of bobcats adorably washing one another’s shoulders,
4) strange and beautiful white alligators, whose lack of normal pigmentation is do not to albinism but a different genetic mutation: they are leucistic, and their eyes are bright blue.
5) primates. Always the primates.

The real star of the New Orleans Audubon zoo, though, is the unique Louisiana Swamp exhibit. You go along a boardwalk that snakes through cypress trees draped in Spanish moss, past Cajun houseboats (donated, I think), and over a duckweed covered river full of -- what else -- alligators. If you’re ever in town, come here.

the high life

Petra and I got to live the high life for about 19 hours this weekend. Some of the Hands On staff surprised us by put us up in a super-shwank hotel downtown on Saturday night to thank us for our work here. We were delighted, and really greateful for the mini-vacation in such a beautiful place. While the outside of the building was boring, the interior was just gorgeous. It made contemporary design look GOOD. The photos don't begin to do it justice.

We enjoyed exploring the tucked-away lounges scattered about the hotel, luxuriating in the huge comfy beds and their amazingly soft bedding, watching Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire on the big TV, taking about seventeen hot showers each and trying all of the smelly soaps (sage and lemon! real lavendar!), playing in the glass-enclosed rooftop gym, and watching all of the astoundingly fashionable people file through the lobby.

In the morning, we walked across the street to Mother's, the city's best breakfast joint, and almost made ourselves sick eating so many butter biscuits. We also had fun introducing some British tourists to the glory of grits.

The whole thing was a wonderful break from the very basic, very communal bunkhouse we've been living in for the past month and a half. It was good to get back to our friends here, though, and good to be reminded that while luxury is fun, community is really where it's at.

superstars

We were interviewed on Nov. 29th by Peter Walsh, the host of Oprah's radio station, Radio XM 156 (Channel 1807 on Direct TV) about our reasons for coming down to New Orleans and volunteering. It's amazing to hear how they can wheedle and squeeze the cheese out of you. I cringe to hear what I said. But if you want to listen, it will be playing four or five times throughout the day Dec. 14th, and will be available online after that. To hear it you might need to sign up for the 30-day free trial of XM Radio Online, which you can do here. I'll put a direct link up here to the interview segment when it's available.

Our other media appearances coming up include articles written by me and Petra and photos by me for the Hands On New Orleans newsletter and for the Preservation Channel's website, as well as bit parts in a Hollywood reality TV show. No joke. One of our friends is being followed by a film crew, so we're in the background. We'll let you know more about it when we can (for instance, when they come up with a name for the show).

Basketball and Travelocity

Yesterday, Travelocity and their corporate partners (esp. Mastercard) sent 200 volunteers and a lot of money to help us fix up one of the terribly dilapidated New Orleans public schools. Petra was in charge of the murals. They looked fantastic. I was in charge of the basketball court and 25 volunteers to help make it happen. After days of hard prep work (see "dug a hole" below), the volunteers finally descended. It's pretty incredible how much work 200 people can do in one day, given good leadership. And it's pretty incredible how much mischief 25 corporate dudes can get into given about 30 seconds of inattention, 900 pounds of quick-dry cement, and a basketball. It was about 100 times harder than babysitting toddlers. It all ended well, with no injuries, very little poisoning (remarkable given the death mold, petroleum clay, and construction chemicals), and the whole school looking great. The kids and teachers are psyched. If you want to know more about the basketball court installation process, see the captions on the photos linked below.

Since so many of you have been asking, the weather has been absolutely gorgeous. 75 or warmer and sunny almost every day. I have a bit of a sunburn.

Another corporate project tomorrow. Construction. Phillip Morris. I.E. the tobacco devil. Rich devil, and giving us a lot of money. But still the devil. This should be fun.

Sorry for the lack of depth and meaning in this report, but I'm exhausted.

dug a hole

My friend Steve and I dug two and a half holes today. Well, I suppose we dug three holes, but one of them isn't deep enough yet. And there will be one more hole after this. The layers: gravel and blacktop pavement (2"), shells (12"), bricks and gravel (6"), sticky stinky oily bluegrey clay (40"). This is a lot deeper than you think it is. Add to this a lot of water that needed constant bailing, since this city is, of course, below sea level.

These holes are what we will cement the posts for basketball hoops into. Travelocity is sending 200 of their staff to volunteer at this school on Wednesday, and we're doing the dirty work prepping for that deluge of helping hands. Literally dirty. I'm covered head to toe in slimy oily clay. And I feel like jelly all over. I'm going to go eat now.

thanksgiving

Man, did we ever have thanksgiving. We had 50+ people for dinner (which Petra, I, and a Hands On New Orleans (HONO) staff person named Geneva cooked). The house was full of volunteers, HONO staff, New Orleaneans, friends, and families. We talked over dinner, and gave thanks. New Orleaneans talked of their gratitude for their lives, the roofs over their heads, and all the volunteers' help in not only rebuilding the city physically, but in rebuilding their hope. Volunteers, staff, and visitors gave thanks for the people who helped us come do this work, for the welcome offered to us by this city, for Hands On New Orleans' leadership and sensitivity in facilitating our work, and for the chance to be reminded of some of the things that matter most in this world: life, kindness, safety, patience, dedication, and community.

Thanks to all of you who support us every day. We love you and miss you. We'll be home soon.