Thoughs On The Coming Storm

Yesterday you could feel it in the air. The tension, yes, even the fear, that here we go again, almost to the day of Katrina and here comes another storm. People were out buying gas cans, water, flashlights, batteries, whatever they thought they might need. The shelves at the local Wal Mart were getting bare, shoppers were loading up buggies of food and bringing them to the check out counters. It's still too soon to know if we're going to be hit, but New Orleans is in the cone and at one point the track lead it straight to our door.

As customers came in the store yesterday the topic of conversation was of course the upcoming storm. No one was in panic mode yet, we still are four or five days out, so there's time. One woman came in and filled her cart up with water and than was wandering around, wondering what else she should buy. I suggested the little five inch tv/radios we sell for ten dollars. I've had one since I worked at Service Merchandise over six years ago. I remember after Katrina that little tv was worth its weight in gold. It works off batteries and during those nights of no power and when the darkness seemed to be engulfing it was nice to be able to turn that tv on and watch WWL talk about what was going on.

One couple came in and bought three big dog kennels. They were telling me that like all of us at Katrina, we thought we'd leave and be back the next day, they left their dogs home, expecting to be home the next day. Sadly their dogs didn't make it, so this time they were making sure their dogs went with them.

Another older woman came in and needed help with getting a cot to her car. Standing in line we were talking. She has taken on the care of an elderly lady with Alhemeizers. If they evacuated she wanted to be able to put the cot next to her bed so she could make sure the woman was ok.

The man buying a shotgun and looking for shotgun shells for personal protection. He wanted to make sure there was no looting going around his home this time. God, the amount of guns, handguns we have sold in the last three days. Everyone is arming themselves and to tell you the truth it scares me. I don't begrudge people protecting what's rightfully theirs, but so many guns are going out in so many hands that know nothing of how to operate a gun, and worse are basically scared of the gun, it's a frightening concept.

Going out for lunch and the person working the other side asking me if we sold gas cans and I said yes, but had to tell her that we were unfortunately out of them. Gas cans are one of the fastest going things right now. But I told her we were getting two "hurricane" trucks tonight and there was going to be four or five pallets of gas cans on them. Stopping in the store today, to go to a parish meeting on the hurricane, I saw that all of the five pallets of gas cans have already been sold, none left and wondering if she got her gas can.

Traffic is starting to get heavier. The news showed some scenes of bumper to bumper on the interstate as some are not waiting to be told to leave and getting ahead of the curve. From my meeting we were told they were going to start contra flow tomorrow at six. Contra flow is when they turn the interstates into one way highways, out of the city, to get as many people flowing out as quickly as possible.

The parish, the mayors are all waiting before they call for a mandatory evacuation, waiting to see what the storm does, where it goes. They have to call one at least 48 hours in advance, so it's a hard guess to make. Right now they're calling for landfall around Tuesday morning. But will it continue to turn west, or who knows, skip the wrong way for us. Unfortunately the right way for us is the wrong way for someone else. No one gets away untouched.

3 Years Ago...

3 Years Ago...the local IHOP still isn't open 24 hours.

3 Years Ago...there still isn't a grocery store in New Orleans East.

3 Years Ago...you can drive down the interstate and still see stores and apartments on the side, abandoned and falling down.

3 Years Ago...they just finally buried the last body from the storm.

3 Years Ago...people are still waiting for their checks from the Road Home program to help finish repairing their houses

3 Years Ago...people are still fighting with their insurance companies over whether it was "flood" or "wind" damage to their homes

3 Years Ago...people are still living in their FEMA trailers

3 Years Ago...

Happy Birthday Jack Kirby

Jack Kirby would have been 91 years old today. He died in 1994. I'm not going to try and list the characters Jack had a hand in creating, it would read like a list of modern comic books pretty much. Jack helped create comic books. No one working today in comics doesn't owe something to the King.

Thursday Thirteen: 13 Music Biographies

This week I'm going to list 13 biographies of musical artists. I tried to pick a varied list. I could probably make a 13 just of books on Bob Dylan I have. Some of the same writers appear more than once, and a few names were on my list of music books from last week.

1) Down The Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan by Howard Sounes
2) Before I Get Old: The Story of the Who by Dave Marsh
3) The Beatles: The Biography by Hunter Davies (This was one of the first music bios I ever read, I remember checking it out of the library when I was still in school. At the time there weren't a lot of bios on rock and roll acts.)
4) Everything I'm Cracked Up To Be: A Rock and Roll Fairy Tale by Jen Trynin (Jen was basically a one hit wonder from Boston and this book is fascinating in her tale of her life as the next "Big" thing for a brief moment.)
5) Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zepplin Saga by Stephen Davis
6) Buddy Holly by Ellis Amburn
7) Shakey: Neil Young's Biography by Jimmy McDonough
8) Blue Monday: Fats Domino and the Lost Dawn of Rock N Roll by Rick Coleman
9) Glory Days: Bruce Springsteen in the 1980s by Dave Marsh
10) Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick
11) Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke by Peter Guralnick
12) I'll Sleep When I'm Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon by Crystal Zevon
13) Clapton by Eric Clapton (Eric doesn't white wash his life, he comes out as a complete jerk at times.)

Three Years Ago

Three years ago we watched this storm:



Now almost three years to the day we have this storm tracking this path:

Ted Kennedy at Democratic Convention

He was supposed to make a taped message for the Convention and if possible show up Thursday, but Senator Edward Kennedy was at the convention tonight.

Rain

After he made this video he got so much heat that he's pulled this video from just about anywhere it's been posted, so I don't know how long it will be on here. Isn't it nice that someone like this can weasel his way out if it doesn't rain. Pray for rain on Obama thursday, but if it doesn't rain that doesn't mean God supports him, it just means God didn't want it to rain.

Obama and his Vice Presidental Choice

Barrack Obama and Joe Biden.

Those That Don't Learn From History....

From USA Today:

Signs are emerging that history is repeating itself in the Big Easy, still healing from Katrina: People have forgotten what happened after the last hurricane, four decades ago, that caused catastrophic flooding and again believe the federal government is constructing a levee system they can prosper behind.

Go here to read the rest of it.

Want to go Crazy?

Try to change the color on the ball.

Found this over at Janey's blog.

Thanks a lot Janey...

Old School Fridays: Favorite Male Singer

This one caused me more than a few minutes of thinking. But in the end I have to go with the one male singer I never tire of. Bob Dyaln.

This meme was developed by Marvalus View and Ms. Grapevine. The rules are simple:

1. Anyone can participate; any music genre
2. Old School is defined as music created before 1999
3. No offensive words allowed, please use edited radio version
4. Post a video of your favorite Old School song to take us back down memory lane
5. Add your name to the meme list so that others can check you out
6. Have fun & don't forget to leave comments for other participants If you want to join in on the fun

Will Hoge In Accident

One of my favorite singers Will Hoge was injured in a traffic accident today. He was riding his scooter home after a recording session when a van failed to yield to a traffic stop and hit him. His is in Vanderbilt University Medical Center in critical condition but the doctors say they expect him to recover. Will puts out some of the best music out there and live he is in the top five of performers I have ever seen. The song is a live clip of him performing "Ain't No Sunshine."

Thursday Thirteen: 13 Music Books

Last week my plan was to list 13 musical biographies in this week's Thursday Thirteen. Well, that's the plan for next week. As I started to look for the books I realized I had a lot of books on the subject of music, so decided this week to feature some of them. I didn't include any information on the book, because most of them are pretty evident from their sub titles. A wide range of musical genres are featured in these books, from the blues, to rock to country. Any of these books are worth reading.

1) The Mansion on the Hill: Dylan, Young, Geffen, Springsteen and the Head-On Collison of Rock and Commerce by Fred Goodman
2) Romancing The Folk: Public Memory and American Roots Music by Benjamin Fidene
3) Are You Ready For The Country? Elvis, Dylan and the Roots of Country Rock by Peter Doggett
4) Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes From The American Underground 1981-1991 by Michael Azerrad
5) Mystery Train by Greil Marcus
6) Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues by Elijah Wald
7) Laurel Canyon: The Inside Story of Rock and Roll's Legendary Neighborhood by Michael Walker
8) Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung: The work of a Legendary Critic: Rock n Roll as Literature and Literature as Rock n Roll by Lester Bangs, edited by Greil Marcus
9) Lost Highway: Journeys and Arrivals of American Musicians by Peter Guralnick
10) Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock and Roll 1947-1977 by James Millers
11) Waiting For The Sun: Strange Days, Weird Scenes and the Sound of Los Angeles by Barney Hoskyns
12) South by Southwest: A Road Map to Alternative Country by Brian Hinton
13) Fortunate Son: The Best of Dave Marsh by Dave Marsh

Fonz Statue

Milwaukee unveiled a statue of the Fonz from Happy Days. When I was a kid this was one of my favorite shows. The Fonz is Cooool.

Backups

Ok, I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the most computer literate person in the world. I end up getting things done, but sometimes I'm not sure how I got where I wanted to go. I decided I needed to get something to back up my computer. Yesterday I updated my I Tunes and when I went to open the I Tunes to download some more music to my Ipod it vanished for a second and than came back. But for a brief second there I was afraid that I had somehow lost my I Tunes library....over 11,000 songs. Besides the amount of time it would take to download all these songs again, some of them I have no farther access to in order to download, buying them from others sites and such. So I decided that an external back up was in order. And today when visiting my brother he wanted to go to Circuit City and while there they had this particular Back Up on sale for $99.00. Normally it's $140.00 so I decided that this was a message to me, buy it now.

This is the one I purchased:

My Book® Home Edition™
External Hard Drives
500 GB, USB 2.0, FireWire 400, eSATA

Isaac Hayes

I know this is late, I was at my Moms when I heard that Isaac Hayes died, so there's not much I can say here, but I wanted to acknowledge it and leave a video.

Old School Fridays: Social/Political Songs

I discovered this meme over at Malcolm's page. The rules are as follows:

This meme was developed by Marvalus View and Ms. Grapevine. The rules are simple:

1. Anyone can participate; any music genre
2. Old School is defined as music created before 1999
3. No offensive words allowed, please use edited radio version
4. Post a video of your favorite Old School song to take us back down memory lane
5. Add your name to the meme list so that others can check you out
6. Have fun & don't forget to leave comments for other participants.

This week's theme is Social/Political Songs.

Ok, so what song did I chose? This actually required some serious thought. I am a big fan of social/political songs. I am one of those people that still believe that music can change the world. There were the obvious ones, such as John Lennon's "Imagine" or Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On?" or Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind." But one of my favorite songs is one that was the brain child of Little Steven. Little Steven was better known as Miami Steve from Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band. When he decided to go solo he became Little Steven. He decided to release a song about the problems in South Africa and decided that instead of putting it out under his name he would ask his friends to perform on it. At the time his friends included some of the biggest names in the music business. So here it is, "Sun City" by Artists United Against Apartheid.

The Ducks at the Peabody

The Peabody Hotel and the ducks.

Beale Street

Beale Street was a lot of fun, I wished we had more time to look around, but the rain chases us away. The first two pictures, after the Beale Street road sign, are not actually on Beale Street, but close by. The Rock n Soul Museum was pretty interesting. I have only one question: Beale Street is closed to traffic (except for traffic crossing over it) but no one walked in the street, everyone walked on the sidewalks. In New Orleans French Quarter where the streets are closed everyone walks on the street. (And in some parts of the city where the streets are closed some people still walk on the street.) Why doesn't anyone walk in the street?

Bambi

Driving through Shiloh Park look we what we saw. I was able to stop and roll down my window and take a picture before the deer decided that it had seen enough of us and bounded away. It was a magical day.