GO HAWAII! I like them for their underdog-turned-mighty status, but I also hate the Georgia Bulldogs, as does virtually anyone who ever had to work in downtown Athens on a football Saturday. Win or lose, the fans were always assholes. I also like Hawaii because, win or lose, they've rented out the entire Delachaise for a victory party tomorrow night. Chris is doing a "Pig-Pickin' Luau."

My pick for the Super Bowl is Green Bay vs. New England, with the Packers beating Satan the Pats. That's not my wish, of course, but it's my prediction. Right here and now!

You know what I really don't look forward to over the next couple of days? All the blog posts announcing to the world that the blogger DOESN'T CARE ABOUT THE SUPER BOWL.

I don't care that you don't care, and furthermore, if you're compelled to post about it, I don't believe that you don't care. Allowing it space in your journal indicates to me that you aren't indifferent to the event; you're actively offended by the fact that so many of us lunkheaded, beer-swilling, junkfood-gobbling, jockstrap-sniffing sports fans do care. And that's fine. But fuckin' say so; don't bore me with posts about your sublime indifference.

Now me, I say I don't care about the movies, but in fact I do; I'm actively offended by the very existence of most of them, and by the fact that their overpaid shit-for-brains "stars" are actually considered important people in our society. I say "I don't care," but what I mean is that I don't watch or support them; I can't honestly say I don't care when my teeth go on edge every time I see an ad for some big moronic blockbuster.

But you know what? I don't make boring blog posts about it.

Usually.

Not more than once a year, anyway ... generally right around Super Bowl Sunday.



P.S. I like Seattle.

Just a few days after they began, bus tours of New Orleans East and the Lower Ninth Ward have been banned as "exploitative." I can certainly see this point of view, but that didn't stop me from writing to the district's councilwoman, Cynthia Willard-Lewis, protesting the decision. As I say, I reacted negatively when I first heard of the bus tours, but I've since come to believe that they can be a valuable tool to keep us in the public eye and heart. I grew up out East and I've written extensively about the Lower Ninth Ward. These areas are very dear to me, and the last thing I want is to see their few remaining residents hurt by gawkers and profiteers. However, people have been trying to exploit New Orleans for 300 years, and we've always managed to turn it to our advantage before. I think we could do so now. And for the record, I'd be happy to have bus tours rumble past my own devastated home if I thought it would help increase continued awareness of our plight.

I wish I had brought my camera to the House of Blues show last night. I could have shown you Al "Carnival Time" Johnson in his purple, green, and gold lamé outfit ... the Baby Dolls, three beautiful black women in their sixties (Antoinette K-Doe, Tee Eva of pie shop fame, and a third whose name I never got) dressed in short frilly dresses and crib caps, carrying light-up pacifiers ... Big Chief Alfred Doucette and Walter "Wolfman" Washington as seen from the upstairs balcony, jamming joyously ... the Big Chief in his feathers ... people dressed as MREs and wearing ball gowns made out of blue-roof tarps and an absolutely gorgeous winged, female Satan ... sadly, I was vain and only wanted to carry a tiny purse, so all I can do is tell you of these wondrous things.

Best Quote of the Night: "She's so angry, she drinks too much and keeps starting fights ... course, it's not like she didn't do that before Katrina."

Snottiest Quote of the Night: "So what do you do?"
"I help paint Mardi Gras floats."
"For Blaine Kern?"
"No, I work for a real artist."

Sillest Quote of the Night: "I'm off the sauce. I only had one Wild Turkey." (You can probably guess who said this one.)

This morning, proudly non-hungover, we drove out to the wonderful Nor-Joe's Imports off Metairie Road. Chris got a buttload of stuff for the restaurant and I got Italian fig, anise, and seed cookies (the first I've seen since the storm), smoked bacon cheddar cheese, pastel-candied chickpeas, bucatini, spicy anchovy filets packed in olive oil, a can of pasta con sarde seasoning (sardines, fennel, and raisins), a jar of tiny baby artichokes, dried pineapple rings, a squeeze bottle of "Spicy Chipotle Finishing Sauce" ... and a muffuletta. Everyone raves about Nor-Joe's muffulettas, but the only other time I had one, the garlic in the olive salad was rancid and I hated it. This one was excellent, possibly better than Central Grocery, which I consider to be the standard bearer. I hereby apologize to Nor-Joe's for having condemned their muffulettas in the past.

On the way out to Metairie Road, along the Washington Avenue Canal, I spied a ruined, flooded church. The last sermon advertised on the letterboard out front was, "WITH FAITH, WE CAN WALK ON WATER." This caused me to lose heart and remember that today is the one-year anniversary of Buddy D's death. I can't tell you how much New Orleans has missed him over the past year ... and yet, between the storm, the machinations of the black-hearted Scrooge Tom Benson, and the dismal performance of the Saints themselves, I've also heard it expressed many times over that maybe it was best that Buddy hadn't had to live through all that. I can't help it; I'm selfish, and I wish he had lived and was guiding us now as ever ... but maybe he is.

We didn't bother with our usual New Year's Day black-eyed peas and cabbage for luck and money, as they didn't work last year ... or maybe they did, since we didn't die, most of our animals didn't die, and kind readers kept us afloat with donations in the wake of the storm. However, we just weren't up for messing with it. Instead, we listened to the Saints game (they lost, which is good because they've had such a horrible season that all we could hope for at this point was one last loss to give us a higher draft pick ... unfortunately, the Houston Texans also lost, so we won't get the #1 pick), then went over to visit Louis and Elly, two friends who just got back to town after a harrowing four-month evacuation to Chicago, then Baltimore. Now I'm home and planning to stay up most of the night working on revisions.

It occurs to me that I should have added one last item to the meme I invented: Last Apology You Owe. I owe one to anybody who sent us a donation or message of support after the storm and didn't get a thank-you or other reply. I knew I couldn't answer every e-mail and postcard, but I really did try to write to everybody who donated or sent a gift; however, between the dialup connection at my mom's and the general madness of that period, I know some must have slipped through the cracks and I feel terrible about that. If not for these donations, we wouldn't have been able to get a new (used) car or, most likely, return to New Orleans until ... um, last week, possibly, since that's when our flood insurance check and my on-delivery advance for Soul Kitchen finally arrived. And if not for all the people who contacted the ASPCA and other animal rescue groups about our cats, I'm not at all sure they would have been saved. So if I didn't thank you personally, please forgive me and accept my thanks now.

On the first day of the new year, things are still very rough around the edges here in New Orleans, but we're getting through it. We live on a sort of island of normalcy in the midst of the devastation. In our neighborhood there are people, restaurants, lights, services. Then you drive into other areas and it's bleak, broken, dusty, crusty, gray, empty horror. We don't know if the levees will be repaired to any acceptable degree by the beginning of the next hurricane season. I've received an invitation to a horror conference in Bremen, Germany in late June, and I'd love to go -- I've never been to Germany, Bremen looks like a wonderful place, and I could easily take a side trip to Amsterdam, where I haven't been for over five years -- but I am agonizing over whether or not to say yes because, though early, it will technically be hurricane season. If K had come a month earlier, when I was in Australia, I almost certainly wouldn't have been able to get home; I might not have known whether Chris and the animals were alive for days or even weeks. On the one hand, I know I can't live my life around these fears. On the other hand, it's damned hard not to.

As Chris Rose wrote in his column today, "The only thing worse than being in New Orleans these days is not being in New Orleans."

Saints win! I don't like this trend, though, of people in San Antonio trying to prematurely claim the team, holding up banners saying SAN ANTONIO SAINTS and such. No better than a bunch of goddamn vultures if you ask me. Worse, actually, because vultures are made for a purpose and they serve it; they don't gloat. I've always liked the fact that the New World vultures' Latin family name, Cathartides, has the same root as catharsis; by cleaning up the world's carrion, they provide catharsis (cleansing) for the very earth.

I almost got in a fight today! We drove up the road to Bogalusa to get some things at the Wal-Mart -- and can I just say that once this crisis is over, I hope never to step foot in another Wal-Mart? They came through admirably in the aftermath of the storm, but I am as sick of them as I've ever been of anything. Due to the fact that it's just over the Louisiana state line, Bogalusa does have daiquiris and Catholics, but it's still firmly in Bibleland. Anyway, as we pulled into the parking lot, I saw an SUV with one of those "MARRIAGE = (STICK-FIGURE MAN) + (STICK-FIGURE WOMAN)" bumper stickers. I rushed over and started defacing it with my handy-dandy Sharpie, which is admittedly a shitty thing to do, and something I wouldn't normally stoop to -- the moron troglodytes have as much right to express their ugly opinions as I do to display my SUPPORT ALL MARRIAGES bumper sticker -- but today I was just not in the mood. As I scribbled, a dough-faced grit princess walked by and said, "I'm awna call the cops!" "Go ahead, redneck," I said. She turned around and looked at me, and I gave her my Shaquille O'Neal game face, and she went on into the Wal-Mart to buy her industrial-sized package of diapers or whatever, and I went on into the Wal-Mart to buy my carpet-covered cat tower, and that was that. I kind of hoped I'd see her again so I could say, "Where's those cops?", but probably it would have been unwise.

So that and the Saints' win were my big excitement for the day. It's a pathetic existence, it really is. Tomorrow we'll drive to Kenner and spend the night with my dad, and Tuesday morning we leave for CHICAGO, CHICAGO, CHICAGO.