Play It Again, Louie

As an ex-Orleanian (who spent a while playing the harmonica on the streets of the French Quarter; who taught boxing to the boys in the now-closed Milne Boys Home where the orphan, Louie Armstrong, was housed; and who did a stint in the local parish jail), I'm enjoying the new HBO-TV drama series, "Treme." It basically shows the struggle for respect and justice by the working class of New Orleans in the months following Hurricane Katrina and interwoven with the theme of Crescent City music. Lovers of the Big Easy will understand and appreciate "Treme," but I fear that outsiders who dislike N.O. will have reinforced their view of the city as Third World and inhabited by nothing but backward baffoons.

Ant Misbehaving

I don't understand economics. I don't understand how Wall Street and General Motors are doing much better, when national unemployment remains so high, and people are increasingly losing their homes. Things are bad. They're bad because so few jobs are available. Unemployment is so bad, the worker ants in the four large ant colonies in my backyard have been idled.

Delaware Punch Drunk

I'm still in Seine after all these years. By now I've learned that Delawareans can be as wacky as people in Berkeley or Hollywood or Austin. Did you know that at restaurants here the customers aren't expected to ask for Coke, Pepsi, or 7-Up but for Delaware Punch? And that citizens here can, and many do, bid at public auctions on their license plates for their vehicles? Because of the fact that Delaware was the first colony to achieve statehood, locals want their plates to have the least numerals possible---i.e., as close to "1" ("First in the Nation")---as possible. So some of them spend tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of dollars for sparse-looking plates on their cars.

I too joined the license frenzy. Armed with the book, "How To Win at Auctions," I attended my first public bidding session (I was simply assigned by first plate by the state). I think I was very successful, as I didn't have to pay too much. My new plate number is 673426.

Okliddles and Omterjacks

From the Whichever Comes First Department:
"He'll be haunted by not, not for the rest of his life, but until the day he dies."
(First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmon)

From the Excessive Honesty Department:
Attorney: "Were you freebasing the cocaine?"
Defendant: "No I bought it."
(courtroom testimony in Redding, California)

From the You Bedder Believe It, Sayz Mayor Chet Department:
"Village of Crestwood:
"English Is Our Language--
"No Excetions---Learn It"
(billboard erected by Crestwood, Illinois Mayor Chester Stranczek)

Good Ad Vice

"Stay thirsty, my friend."

Wipe Off That Smile

The little woman loves flowers. So I can imagine how much she lamented having "wasted" an entire, new, pretty bouquet upon the head and shoulders of our neighbor, Emory. You see, Jonka had Emory join her and me on our visit to the grave of her friend, Hortense, who died last week. When we three arrived at the cemetery and the grave site, surrounded by trees, birds, and the gray, solemn tombstones of others, Jonka began angrily swatting Emory with her bouquet in response to his remark, "Ahh, I've never felt so alive."

Bogie Would Be Proud

It made Pope Benedict quite happy. It was a piece of the chain which tradition says bound St Paul on a nearby island during one of his missionary journeys. The chain piece was given to the Pope by the Church leaders of Malta on Benedict's visit this week to the Maltan people. But, my Deep Throat at the Vatican tells me, what delighted B-16 even more was the other gift presented to him by a group of prominent Maltan laypersons: the Maltese Falcon.