When the Saints Go Marchin' Out

From The Economist
June 28th

As gigs have become more frequent, musicians have begun trickling back, but many still have mailing addresses elsewhere; the clubs have been rebuilt, but their houses remain ruined. The Soul Rebels Brass Band, a younger ensemble that incorporates funk, R&B and hip-hop into the Dixieland tradition, is now based in Houston. Only two of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band's eight members have returned to the Gentilly neighbourhood, where most of the band lived before the hurricane.

And two years after the hurricane, donor fatigue is setting in. The New Orleans Musicians' Relief Fund (NOMRF), another organisation that helps displaced musicians, is preparing to release an album for the two-year “anti-versary” in August. The album will be called “Redefine 8/29”, referring to the day New Orleans was evacuated. Jeff Beninato, the musician who founded NOMRF, says that the title could not refer directly to the hurricane. “If they hear Katrina, they'll think, ‘I don't want to hear that; that's old news.’”

But spare a thought for that most iconic of New Orleans institutions, the funeral with music. A brass band playing sombre dirges leads the mourners and the body tearfully through the streets, from church to cemetery. The body goes into the ground, and the tone changes: the music becomes upbeat, and the mourners turn to revellers, celebrating the life of the departed. Neither Dixieland nor New Orleans is yet a corpse, of course, but nowhere else is quite as adept at wringing joy from tragedy.

Where You At Mule?

New Orleans’ own Al “Carnival Time” Johnson’s birthday is today, as well as World Refugee Day, and Al has achieved the ultimate musical coup - his song title in his name. New Orleans has its own set of anthems, with “Carnival Time“ as the pinnacle. Al is now an evacuee, (refugee if we take the word at its most literal meaning), among thousands labeled Katricians by Houston’s mayor. As nicknames go, that one is lousy. New Orleans is a town of quality nicknames. Griper, Barbecue Dave, Afro, and Rev. Goat.

Rev. Goat’s name stands for Go On And Try, and he once nicknamed me Foxy Lady. It involved a stalled car, a white shirt and some ass walking by in a thunderstorm yelling, “Hey, Foxy Lady!” Thankfully it never caught on, although he kept it up for 10 years. Goatey is now displaced at Kinky Friedman’s ranch in Austin after staying at Levon Helm’s place in Woodstock. A man of many talents, he just finished writing the mystery novel, “Shallow Graves.”

In 1992, Goat ran for President with the slogan “Vote Goat – We Want Our Money Back.” Joe Walsh was his running mate, and 100,000 citizens did vote Goat. His post-hurricane description of the levee failure, quoted by Dr. John, was “New Orleans didn’t die a natural death, she was murdered.”

Dr. John’s MySpace site says, "I am heartbroken over all of the displaced people from the hurricanes and the NEW ORLEANS disaster. If you wanna help send assistance to the New Orleans Musicians Clinic, New Orleans Musicians Relief Fund, or the Voice of the Wetlands."

The Nite Tripper’s continued dedication to New Orleans is a wonder. His blog also includes a link to “Where You At Mule,” which I will go out on a limb and describe as the most unique New Orleans music video of all time. Everything about it makes me homesick, especially that hat.



“Where You At Mule”’s answering refrain is: “I tell you I’m coming home.” It’s something hundreds of thousands of us would love to say before long. So buy a New Orleans evacuee a beverage today – it’s our holiday.

NOMRF Kicks Off Its Summer of Love Campaign

Our New Orleans Musicians Relief Fund is kicking off its Summer of Love Campaign. All summer long, bands are invited to pass the bucket, contribute a buck a ticket, whatever they can spare for displaced New Orleans musicians.

Forty years after the original Summer of Love, NOMRF.org's pledge drive is helping displaced New Orleans musicians around the country.

The top band supporting New Orleans Musicians will have a song added to the NOMRF Download Project, and will be invited to our Anti-Versary commemoration in New Orleans on 8/29. The NOMRF Download Project, almost ready for release, includes "How's Your House" by Ian Hunter ("All The Young Dudes"), and other amazing tunes.

NOMRF operates with no rental overhead, and keeps expenses to a bare minimum to stretch each donor's dollar. We've helped hundreds of displaced New Orleans musicians with cost of living grants since the levees broke with the 501c3 charity founded by and for displaced musicians.

Some recipients use their grants to get home, purchase instruments or replace recording equipment - others use the funds to survive wherever they are now. The New Orleans Musicians Relief Fund has been supported by Amos Lee, Wilco, the dB's (founder Jeff Beninato's former band), Dr. John, Jesus H. Christ and the 4 Hornsment of the Apocolypse, REM and many other New Orleans music lovers.

NOMRF benefits continue to come from locales including Helsinki, DC, L.A., NYC, Chicago, Baltimore and London. That's how the Fund continues to help hundreds of New Orleans musicians rebuild their lives.

So show New Orleans the love! Details on the NOMRF Summer of Love Campaign are available at nomrf.org, myspace.com/nomrf, neworleansmusiciansrelief.blogspot.com or by writing jeff@nomrf.org.

Time to Face the Music - Evacuee Scanning Headlines

Reprinted from: the Huffington Post

Today's mainstream headlines are either feast or famine for evacuees. When they are bad, they are very, very bad, but when they are good, they help keep us above the bubble.

The Golden Beignet Of the Day goes to USA Today. One story was on the federal judge who told FEMA to stop trying to take evacuees' money back until the agency can clearly tell people why. FEMA is looking to recoup $485 million. I know people who got these letters. It's one more ingredient in the recipe for a nervous breakdown -- at best.

The other USA Today headline was on the fact that the National Guard is running low on local equipment and probably won't be able to help with hurricanes to the degree it did in 2005.

A third story, posted on NOLA.com, is the failing weather satellite. It means more evacuations with less certainty -- 110 degrees and 12 hours to drive 50 miles with a car full of pets and family photos, if any survived. I would like this story to bring the billionaires who fund weather satellites forward. We need a James Bond-type weather obsessed genius, but in a good way. Dr. Yes.

Fourth, and this headline is a heartbreaker for evacuees whipping out the paper in the coffeeshops of their new towns, "Katrina Evacuee from New Orleans Accused of Child Abuse." Between that and the 10 percent who practiced poor trailer maintenance, how demonized do we as a subgroup need to be by the wires?

Our New Orleans Musicians Relief Fund has received hundreds of applications from around the country, and it's sad to think that each of them is subjected to the increased climate of blaming the victim.

I wonder how residents of tornado alley would feel about "Woman Who Was Once in a Huge Tornado Accused of Something Horrible (AP) A woman, who moved away from an area which has been hit by huge tornadoes, was accused of horrible actions." As a whole, it feels like 8/29 evacuees are starting to be seen less as victims of a catastrophic levee failure and more as Katrina tax dollar talking points. The sad fact is that the Road Home Program has imploded. Thanks for sending down your money. We didn't get it.

The final headline, in Medical News Today, was that catastrophic events can affect the quality of a person's sleep. So watch for my local paper's headline, "Katrina Evacuee from New Orleans Still Having Trouble Sleeping."

In the event of a slow news day.

A Modern Stone Age Family

A few months ago while my dad was still able to leave his nursing home, the family spent an afternoon in our apartment. As Jeff and I were describing our last trip home to New Orleans, Dad spoke up.

"In the south, if you just pull over for gas and they always say, 'Aahm Gawnna Kiillll Yeeeew,' " And he made the most menacing scowl, I had ever seen. For a non-scowler, it was epic. As the the warnings got more dire, we were eventually all in tears.

More tea dad? "Aahm Gawnna Kiillll Yeeeew." My gentle dad was sharing this final cautionary tale against stopping for gas in the south. There is nothing funny about the possibility of getting popped at a gas station. And yes, crime is on the upswing. Everyone I know has been affected in some way. It was just the randomness and the enthusiasm of my dad's final advice.

He slipped away over Mother's Day weekend. This Father's Day I have his legacy of giving to remember him by. It helps inspire us to keep the New Orleans Musicians Relief Fund rolling when it seem like no one cares anymore. Dad sometimes offered Thanksgiving Day dinner for anyone in our small town in the lobby of his Christian bookstore. Generally he fed little old ladies who were happy for a day to socialize. He traveled the world with mission work, every continent but Antarctica.

And at the end he fought an admirable battle against the ravages of Alzheimer's Disease. As a doctor, he could figure out all-purpose social phrases like, "How are things at the office?" no matter who he thought you were. Wherever he was, he would tell you his office was in the basement.

In the last year, Dad was finally wheeled in front of enough nursing home television sets to absorb pop culture and it offered him more conversational shortcuts. After a lifetime of reading the Bible, I found him with a People Magazine and he waved it at me angrily muttering, "Celebrity Cellulite!" Then he came across the ultimate conversational shortcut. "How's dinner Dad, do you like the chicken tonight?"

"Yabba Dabba Doo," he answered with a grin.

When the wonderful New Orleans trumpeter James Andrews second lined to dedicate his grandfather's belated gravestone, the band marched behind him playing for no apparent reason, "Flintstones, Meet the Flintstones," as they entered the cemetary. That's when I knew I would probably never see Dad again. We made it back to Illinois too late to visit with him one last time, but he gave me the gift of a lifetime learning from the finest person I have ever known.

So Happy Father's Day wherever you are, Dr. Ray. We were a modern stone age family.

New Orleans Musicians Relief Fund Suggests Direct Flight - Paris to New Orleans

We're thinking Paris Hilton needs to get to New Orleans when they spring her and start giving back.

Huffington Post LINK

NOMRF Adds A Latte Link and Thanks Little Steven

The New Orleans Musicians Relief Fund is adding a latte link - because this summer every dollar counts. So if you're wired enough already, skip today's latte or tea and contribute $5 to a New Orleans musician who needs help getting through a long, slow summer. With half the population still gone, gigs are hard to come by and the rebuilding funds are slow in coming.

NOMRF Latte Link.

Also, thanks to our friend Mike Mills of REM, check out this week's New Orleans Musicians Relief Fund link on Little Steven's Underground Garage.

Feel free to repost this - the $5's could add up to a lot of help for New Orleans muscians.

Why I Won't Be Invited to the State Farm Pool Party

Katrina Billboard Blasts Big Insurance in its Own Back Yard

The New Orleans Musicians Relief Fund, Inc., an independant grass roots nonprofit, has not taken donations from big insurance, big oil or big anything. Just amazing musicians and music lovers from around the world at NOMRF.org.

Remains of Barry Move Up the East Coast

It’s a displacement thing, that NOLA.com can still get a spit take out of me before I read the story. “Five teens killed” was today’s story, but it was a recap from last summer. And “Remains of Barry Moving Up East Coast” was not about Barry Cowsill, found last winter in the Mississippi.

We watched Entertainment Tonight’s child star coverage when Barry first went missing, and tried to identify whether he was the blurred image from the Convention Center while evacuated to a stranger’s home in Milwaukee. We would have followed the search on CNN but the stranger offering her home for a month didn’t have cable. It saved us from staying glued to cable news which probably didn’t cover the story any more than Entertainment Tonight.

Found four months after the storm, Barry was brought up the East Coast to his family home in Rhode Island for a memorial. Accompanying him from New Orleans was his sister Susan Cowsill, Barry’s equal in turning any stage into a living room and making you want to get as close to that voice as possible. She describes the strong wind that blew just as they were scattering his ashes, and Barry blew back in everyone’s face. If you knew him, you would expect nothing less.

Barry has a Wikipedia entry and if I understood Wikipedia, I would add more about his humor to balance out the child star, sudden loss of fame, suicide attempts and pseudonyms. His occasional name change was the smartest thing any child star ever attempted and Barry Scott often pulled it off. It may have bought him a few more years on the planet.

The Partridge Family was originally going to be the Cowsill family but their father pulled the plug when Shirley Jones came on board instead of Mrs. Cowsill. So he sold the rights to their life story of a traveling band and Keith Partridge got Barry’s life. When David Cassidy came to town Barry had a head of steam and wanted to challenge Keith to a rumble. After all, “He thinks he’s me but he just played me on t.v.” A little more Danny than Keith, Barry challenged everyone who loved him. You had to work at it

Like most of the lost souls who find a landing in New Orleans, he would fade away when the town no longer offered a couch, and come back when it did. When it was your turn to put him up, you started to eye the next stopover wistfully. Anyone who has a larger than life Katrina friend on their couch knows what I’m talking about. My husband Jeff, Barry’s former bandmate from The Stragglers, heard the best of Barry if the stars aligned and he hadn’t partied his voice into dust the night before.

It was easy to forget Barry’s contribution to musical history until you saw him on stage, and he would jump any stage he got close enough to. “The Rain the Park and Other Things,” (or “I Love the Flower Girl” if you know it from the commercial), got to #2 on the Billboard charts. Sometimes when he needed money, Barry would sell family photos. One was of the Cowsills all walking up the Vatican steps in their matching outfits to meet the Pope. They are so young it’s heartbreaking. It was at about the time they were singing about long, beautiful hair.

Barry was trying to get sober when Katrina hit. I hoped that he was Barry Scott again, somewhere out on the road. He probably would have liked to fade away like that, but instead was found face down in the Mississippi. Sculptor Jimmy Descant made a beautiful rocketship urn and included things found in Barry’s pocket, like his peace dove. Barry’s death was ruled a drowning from the hurricane. A plaque was anonymously placed on the Tree of Life in New Orleans, “to a true legend who died on the levee.”

We’ve posted his song, “Old Timeless,” on myspace.com/nomrf, and a podcast on nomrf.org as a tribute as the remains of Barry move up the East Coast again.

Lost Lincoln - It Was 151 Years Ago Today

"Generally, when he was speakin', he was cool and quiet and things all fit together, and when you come away you was calm - but your head was workin'; but that time up to Bloomington he was like - what's that the Bible calls it? - avengin fire" - yes, sir, that's it, he was like avengin fire." Roland W. Diller, witness to Lincoln's Lost Speech.

It was 151 years ago today in my evacuation location of Bloomington Illinois that Abraham Lincoln gave the best speech of his career and nobody took notes. I went to the museum and asked if they had a copy of Lincoln's Lost Speech. Never hurts to ask. They don't.

The speech has been credited for starting the catapulting him to the presidency and kicking off the Illinois Republican Party. We know Lincoln's flatboat trips to New Orleans were part of what influenced the speech.

During one of those trips, Lincoln ran aground in New Salem, Illinois and as he figured out a way to raise the flatboat and save his cargo, locals came out to watch. They invited him to stop by on his way back through, and he ended up moving there. Lincoln probably mentioned his patented invention to lift a barge that runs aground in his Bloomington speech "Discoveries and Inventions," but the wrong date was listed in the newspaper and the location was hard to find.

A plaque next to our local cafe says so. There's something inherently midwestern about not only commemorating the site of Lincoln's "Inventions" speech, but also why it was a flop. But there is also great encouragement to be found here.

After 10 years in New Orleans, I'm back in Illinois via Katrina. The courthouse museum hosted a costume gala for our musicians' nonprofit (NOMRF). Kelly's Bakery brought the food, A. Renee brought the wine, and we helped a displaced pianist who came down from Chicago. the Lincoln statue outside was resplendent with purple, gold and green balloons.

Lincoln was encouraged here, too. His friend Jesse Fell saw him walking on that same courthouse lawn and brought him into brother's office across the street to to request an autobiography for the campaign. Fell, the grandfather of Adlai Stevenson (who also ran for president from Bloomington because there's something in the water), had been hearing the excitement out East over the Lincoln wiping the floor with Douglas, the country's best known orator at the time.

Lincoln turned him down for a year, and when he changed his mind, he asked that, "If any thing be made out of it, I wish it to be modest."

It contained the following bit of his history, " If a straggler supposed to understand latin, happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizzard-- . . . The little advance I now have upon this store of education, I have have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity--"

He downplayed his oratory skills. He once acquitted a New Salem friend's son from a murder charge in the "Almanac Case," using the height of the moon to challenge a witness. Then he refused payment out of friendship.

Lincoln told Fell as to the note's briefness, 'There is not much of it, because there is not much of me."

Fell's family's office was a wall away from our apartment, so we wake up to groups of tourists with headphones peering up at our second floor window on the new Lincoln tour. They also visit the site of the Lost Speech. Of the speech, John Wentworth of the Chicago Democrat said, "I shall not mar any of its fine proportions by attempting even a synopsis of it."

By all reports, the press was either too enthralled to cover the speech, or Lincoln was censored for his early and fiery rhetoric. Whatever the case, no authenticated copy of the speech exists. Bloomington author and Illinois Supreme Court Reporter Isaac Newton Phillips in 1901 discounted a version of the speech written decades after the fact and reiterates, "We do not know what he said."

Druggist Ronald W. Diller, describes it in "Lincoln's Lost Speech, by Elwell Crissey. "I never knew exactly what did happen there. All I recollect is that a the beginnin' of that speech I was settin in the back of the room and when I come to I was hanging' on to the front of the platform. I recollect I looked up and seen Joe Medill [Chicago publisher] standin on the reporters' table lookin foolish-like and heard him say, "Good Lord, boys! I ain't took a note!"

"He knew what he was doing' that night," said Diller. "He knew he was cuttin' loose. He knew them old Whigs was goin' to have it in for him for doin' it, and he meant to show 'em he didn't care a red cent what they thought. He knew there was always a lot of fools in that new party he was joining - the kind that's always takin' up with every new thing comes along to get something to orate about. He saw clear as day that if they got started right that night, he'd got to fire 'em up, so he threw back his shoulders and lit in."

This was table-jumping, string bean Lincoln. All cheekbones because he had not yet taken an 11-year old's advice to grow a beard to lend him gravitas. Possibly the first campaign image consultant, and she did a bang-up job. The Lost Speech did not survive to be dissected, and it could have referenced anything. The courthouse burned to the ground at the turn of the century, much of the Lincoln lore burning with it.

It probably wasn't a religious speech. Upon finding out most of Springfield ministers polled against his candidacy he once said, "I am not a Christian -- God knows I would be one but I have carefully read the Bible, and I do not understand this book. These men well know that I am for freedom in the territories, freedom everywhere as far as the Constitution and the laws will permit, and that my opponents are for slavery. They know this, and yet, with this book in their hands, in the light of which human bondage cannot live a moment, they are going to vote against me. I do not understand it at all.'

There isn't much Lincoln was afraid to talk about. He shared a bed with his friend for years, as he later commented on to Congress when nominating James Speed for Attorney General. Lincoln said he didn't know James as well as his brother. "That is not strange, for I slept with Joshua for four years, and I suppose I ought to know." Historians are still arm-wrestling over the significance of the general storekeeper inviting Lincoln to share his bed when he came in to buy bedding. Don't know, don't care, but Honest Abe indeed.

A 19th Century candidate could be an acknowledged agnostic with a long-term bunk buddy, turbulent marriage, well of genius, streak of melancholy and love of poetry. But when you first ignited a firestorm against slavery, the pencils fell silent.

Some clues to the Lost Speech content may be found in this earlier letter to Joshua. "How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor or degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes"

"When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy," the letter concludes.

These thoughts were rising to the surface the year before the speech. He was running against the Know-Nothings so that part of the speech probably wrote itself. I like to think that at some point he said, "Stop owning people now," but it's all pure conjecture.

"His speech was full of fire and energy and force. It was logic; it was pathos; it was enthusiasm; it was justice, equity, truth, and right set ablaze by the devine fires of a soul maddened by the wrong; it was hard, heavy, knotty, gnarly, backed with wrath," said Lincoln's last law partner William Herndon who described it as the best speech of Lincoln's career.

"In ten minutes he was about eight feet tall; his face was white, his eyes was blazin' fire, and he was thunderin, 'Kansas shall be free!' 'Ballots, not bullets!' 'We won't go out of the Union and you shan't.'" Diller described. That last line is the only part of the speech universally agreed upon.

"Generally, when he was speakin', he was cool and quiet and things all fit together, and when you come away you was calm - but your head was workin'; but that time up to Bloomington he was like - what's that the Bible calls it? - avengin fire" - yes, sir, that's it, he was like avengin fire," Diller added.

Slavery has long been abolished but every era has its elephant in the room. At the dawn of this year's hurricane season, New Orleans could use another great orator with the Mr. Go oil barge canal aimed like a bullet into the heart of our city. And hundreds of thousands of us are not home.

A New Hampshire music festival this fall benefiting the New Orleans Musicians Relief Fund will be up the road from the Primaries No matter who makes the speeches this time, I promise to take notes.

Because we are long overdue for more avenging fire.

Jazzfest Pictures Worth 1000 Blogs

It took a month of Sundays, we're slow unpackers, but here's our festival season photo series. NOMRF's Gambit Big Easy Award recognition, a Katrina-delated artist's wedding reception, Jessie Hill Day, Musician Open Houses, froglegs with Wardell, it's all in there.

We welcome any summer benefits you can dream up, but first put on a festive song, pop a cold Abita and play the slideshow. It is dedicated to Richard Spector, whose friends missed him at the Fest.

New Orleans Musicians Relief Fund Slideshow.

Mother's Eye

* Reprinted from the Huffington Post


I've been meaning to compile a Mother's Day tribute, and just pulled into my Midwest evacuation location after a productive New Orleans Musicians Relief Fund month back home at Jazzfest.

My mother has always been funny, odd, unpredictable - there aren't enough adjectives. She could kick a football across our half-acre front yard. She can still kick as high as a Rockette for no apparent reason. My husband points out that I do the same thing.

Last month when I was checking mom into an Alzheimer's ward, she thought it was a girls' dorm because my dad's Alzheimer's ward is on the other side of the hallway. "I'm a basket case," she whispered. "Then you're finally going to right place!" I said and it seemed to cheer her up. Before checking into the facility, she asked for a 5 minute head start to make a break for it and run for the woods. The woods wouldn't know what hit them.

Here are four things I'd like to thank Mom for. They've instilled my values, for better or worse.

Trips to the wars.

Johannesburg and Soweto as Apartheid was ending. Jerusalem and Beirut during the Arab Israeli conflict. Rhodesia and Zambezia when they were having the war over Victoria Falls. Now it's Zimbabwe.

Most of my childhood trips involved at least one moment of thinking, 'Now, this ain't right."

Thanks for the disaster evacuation preparation.

The roller rink.

Our small town rink closed in the summer and mom stored the candy and soda in a basement freezer. For the most part, snacks were fish from our pond or whatever the farmers were planting in the side field that year - rolled wheat, soybeans or raw sweet corn. But all summer long, I'd sneak down to the freezer which wasn't grounded and get a jolt of electricity every time I reached in for a Snicker's bar.

Thanks for the diet help.

A pony.

Her name was Pepper, my dad being a doctor and a would-be gentleman farmer with 40 acres and one horse. Not unlike kids who promise to take care of a dog but don't, the winters got longer and colder, and we hated the hike through the snow. A horse can probably tell when you're over it, and Pepper trotted over to the neighbor's field one day and they kept her. She got to hang out with other horses and we all got to wave when we drove by.

Thanks for the practice in letting go.

The Eye Thing.

Mom is unlucky in the kitchen. One time she sliced through her arm cutting frozen meat and drove to the doctor with the knife still in her arm. Another time our pressure cooker blew up and scalded her eye. The eye was red, oozy, crusted over, and Mom called me on the fact that I couldn't look at it. "It's not that bad," I lied while looking down at the tablecloth.

Later that night, I heard rustling at my window. At first I thought it was tree branches outside, but eventually opened the curtain to check. Pressed up against the window was my mother's hideous eye. I screamed jumped back from the curtain to lock my door.

All she said at breakfast the next day was, "Not that bad, huh?"

Thanks for preparing me for life's surprises.

Lord Willing

Our friend Joe Topping has posted his beautiful song, "Lord Willing" on the New Orleans Musicians Relief Fund MySpace.

For friends and family of musicians including Alvin Batiste, as well as anyone who lost a loved one to the storm, it is a comfort.

The Ocean Moving All Night

Stay with us. Don't sink to the bottom like a fish going to sleep.
Be with the ocean moving steadily all night, not scattered like a rainstorm.
The spring we're looking for is somewhere in this murkiness

See the night-lights up there traveling together, the candle awake in its gold dish.

Don't slide into the cracks of the ground like spilled mercury.
When the full moon comes out, look around.

- Rumi

Rest In Peace, Dr. Ray Earl Dalton
4/8/26 - 5/12/07

I love you dad.

When Wardell Gets His Due

Today is your chance to meet Wardell Quezergue, the Creole Beethoven, at the Lagniappe Tent on the Fairgrounds. He's getting his all-star tribute on the paddock and the man can eat some serious oysters so look for the legend surrounded by shells.

We first got to know him at a Chicago Dr. John benefit to help him out with living expenses, and have stayed in touch and become friends. That's the worst part of this year's fest. Too many friends make it impossible to actually make it to very many stages to hear music. It's a fair trade.

Last night we went out for Frogs Legs brought back from the Bayou by a New Orleans music legend whose name I can't mention or all his friends will be hitting him up for legs. Jaeger's cooked them up in two giant dishes, along with fried blue catfish roe, and Wardell still managed to get one of my Oysters in a fair trade for a chunk of catfish. I am now officially fat.

After a great night in which we ate the ocean, we hit Rosie's Jazz Hall for Mardi Gras Indians, Willie Tee, and too many others to list because Wardell was not ready to call it a night. I hope I party at 72.

Which is my mom's age and she's achieved a whole new level of color blindness. After telling me about her favorite nurse who is black, and she sometimes calls Mommy, I met the woman who is actually about as German as one can get. Which gives me an imaginary black grandma.

Last night we were talking about musicians in New Orleans and Wardell said the best thing. "In music, I never did worry about who was black or white. And now that I'm blind, everyone's black."

I can't wait to tell Mom!

Coming Home

If you haven't come home for good, you can imagine that you have this week.

We threw a NOMRF musicians' party at Jimmy and Sue Ford's studio / home / work in progress / cabana last night. A rotating roster of New Orleans musicians including Big Chief Alfred Ducette jammed. Crawfish boiled. Shrimp were BBQ'd. The jam got louder and, yes, the police were called. God I miss this place.

If you haven't come home for good, you can imagine that you have this week.

We threw a NOMRF musicians' party at Jimmy and Sue Ford's studio / home / work in progress / cabana last night. A rotating roster of New Orleans musicians including Big Chief Alfred Ducette jammed. Crawfish boiled. Shrimp were BBQ'd. The jam got louder and, yes, the police were called. God I miss this place.

Robin Chambliss was busy with production at Tipitina's and Rickie Castrillo is still displaced in Memphis and his gig this week fell through, but between Sue Ford of Manwitch and John Thomas Griffith of Cowboy Mouth, we had enough of a board meeting to agree to keep giving out grants to displaced musicians as long as individual donations roll in.

Rockers Sue and Jimmy are my touchstone for how to handle hardship with grace. Jimmy was Jeff's former band manager with the dB's and is hosting FordFest at the Three Ring Circus Saturday night.

They threw fund-raising concerts for years and raffled off tickets for Jimmy's Barracuda until there was enough money to construct their own ramped pool. Their sons' muscular ailments are relieved by floating in the salt water.

Jimmy called days after the hurricane to tell us the pool was finally full. Full of fish and other flotsam, but now it's the perfect salt water soak. Musician friends gathered there last night with stories of how their rebuilding is coming along. Food, music, reunions, and friends like this are why we want to come home.

Sue describes it best. "Every time you get in this pool you can feel the love that helped build it."

My Jaguar Alarm Clock

Yesterday I woke up to the metallic sound of a 15-year-old crashing a carjacked Jaguar just feet from our door.

The kid and his passenger sped past a nearby grade school and panicked when they saw a uniformed police captain leaving for work. Then they ricocheted into a series of cars, finally rolling into the one in front of our apartment. A neighbor friend and my husband ran outside to help as the officer waited for backup. The passenger got away, but the driver was booked on charges including driving without a license, resisting arrest, battery, hit and run, possession of a stolen car and reckless driving.

The Jaguar's owner told me that he was driving down St. Bernard Avenue when another driver blocked his car from a side street, then approached his vehicle and told him at gunpoint, "Give me your car or I'll kill you." A day later, he got the call about his car. Waiting for the tow-truck, he was visibly shaken as his mother waited with him.

Neighbors started to gather, like they do after a crisis. Some of their cars were blocked by the Jag. One man said his car had already been stolen twice and hit and run twice, so hopefully it's totaled and he can start over. A concerned parent walked down the street from the school and said he's heard about expanding violence and children being robbed near the playground. I hope that's only an urban legend.

This season, the New Orleans Musicians Relief Fund is here as the music community puts its best festival foot forward. Crime has to be deterred so tourists will come back and fill the clubs. The clubs have to stay open so musicians who are home don't have to move away again. The music is what brings in the tourists. And that's the vicious cycle.

I last came back to town during the uptown tornadoes, and before that it was during the explosion of violence over the holidays. One of our neighbors down here wondered aloud if we're were bringing the bad luck down with us. But I'm still feeling lucky with this particular near-miss.

This 15-year-old was not carrying a gun.

Amos Lee show in Virginia to benefit NOMRF

The New Orleans Musicians Relief Fund sends grants to assist musicians who are still displaced 19 months after their homes were destroyed. To help address these needs, an Amos Lee benefit on April 27th at James Madison University in Virginia has been booked by Blink of an Eye Productions. The student who founded Blink of an Eye was shaken by the tragedy at Virginia Tech this week, but she is continuing on with the concert and feels it will be an opportunity for healing.

NOMRF Founder Jeff Beninato, who as a teenager played bass on Bourbon Street with both of Fats Domino’s sons, and his wife, writer Karen Dalton Beninato, founded the New Orleans Musicians Relief Fund while displaced for months after Hurricane Katrina. The couple eventually went back to retrieve some of their furnishings, with no power in their Mid-City neighborhood and the National Guard patrolling the area at night.

They settled in Illinois, and can empathize with calls from displaced musicians trying to get by. The Fund is collaborating with a home furnishing nonprofit to help musicians starting to move back as more Road Home grants come through. But finding an audience can be a struggle since more than half New Orleans’ population is still gone. Many displaced musicians are trying to get re-established.

"If you're not a band leader, or if you play a style of music New Orleans is not traditionally known for, it takes longer to get your music career going in a new area. These are the musicians who are eligible for help from fewer and fewer outlets," Beninato said.

Through nomrf.org and Exiled on Main Street, they honor displaced musicians including vocalist Timothea Beckerman who died without ever making it home. Beninato lost two friends and former bandmates to the storm.

"Scott Sherman was my competition in junior high school band had one of the best garage bands out of New Orleans, Dr. Spec's Optical Illusions. Playing with him was my last gig before the storm at a Ponderosa Stomp event. As far as anyone knows, he was dropped off on Danziger Bridge and died there."

"And we lost Barry Cowsill, who adopted New Orleans along with his sister Susan, and was a fellow musician and a genius writer. The Partridge Family was based on their life story. So many famous musicians have thrived in this city because they all realize how important New Orleans pop style is to American music,” says Beninato.

NOMRF supporters include Dr. John who played a benefit for Wardell Quezergue in Chicago and surprised Wardell with his Grammy certificate to replace the one he lost to the storm. The grass-roots fund makes donations go further by hiring no professional fund-raisers. “Our help comes from individual music lovers all over the world, “ Karen said, “This summer, musician Joe Topping flew over from Liverpool and walked 1,300 from Chicago to New Orleans in support of the musicians.”

Friends still ask when the Beninatos are moving home. “My parents’ Alzheimer’s disease is progressing so quickly that every day I spend with them has been a gift," Karen says. NOMRF stays plugged in locally with the help of Board Member Robin Chambless, stage manager for this month’s Gambit’s Big Easy Awards (New Orleans' version of the Grammys). Chambless will accept recognition along with other music charities on behalf of the Fund. Board Member John Stirrat of Wilco spearheaded a benefit months after the storm, and Beninato's former bandmate Peter Holsapple of the dB's produced "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted" as a benefit download. Holsapple, now touring with Hootie and the Blowfish, lost everything to the storm.

A NOMRF music cruise in January is also on the horizon. One positive aspect to continuing the New Orleans Musicians Relief Fund’s work is raising awareness of the ongoing need to help displaced musicians.

Jeff concludes that, “One note from a musician who would not have been able to pay his rent from half way across the country makes it all worth it.”

A Lot of Discussion Dissolving

In his article at the official Google blogspot, John Hanke, the director of Google Maps, has this to say about the Google imagery of New Orleans:

“This weekend, there has been a lot of discussion about our imagery of New Orleans in Google Maps and Google Earth. I thought I'd give you some background that may clear things up, and also let you know about new imagery of the region now available.”

When you click on “a lot of discussion” link you’re directed here:

http://news.google.com/nwshp?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&tab=wn&ncl=1114821833.

And at that site, you're told that “No related articles are found," The articles are in the ether, along with my mid-city neighborhood and the RNC email server. I'm not a conspiracy theorist and rarely wear tinfoil hats, but can't help wondering where 'a lot of discussion' went.

And yes, Google has achieved an admirable mea culpa with its Darfur map, but that does not do any more to bring displaced New Orleaneans back than Oprah’s admirable act of building a school in South Africa.

Created because of her promise to Nelson Mandella, Oprah Winfrey’s African school was promoted on a network special that aired twice in prime time. When asked why she went halfway around the world when the need is so great in cities like New Orleans, Oprah answered that her African students appreciate and value education.

That was before snacks and visitation. Some parents complained that they could only visit their children once a month and that junk food is banned from the school. ActionAid had a bigger concern stating, “Only 150 hand-picked girls from poor households will enroll in Oprah’s boarding school. This number may rise to 400 and there’s no doubt they will receive an excellent education and some will emerge as future leaders. But there are over 40 million girls who have never been inside a classroom.”

There also were more than 300 New Orleans children on a waiting list for public schools at the beginning of this semester. They just sat at home until schools found room for them. Not to make Google and Oprah feel even more like no good deed goes unpunished, but displaced survivors of a man-made disaster are still waiting in America. There should be enough compassion to embrace us all. Anderson Cooper is back in New Orleans, so this week we’re almost as popular as Anna Nicole’s orphan.

But local heartbreak can be too close for comfort. We founded the New Orleans Muscians Relief Fund after evacuating to a town that houses State Farm’s national headquarters. The neon State Farm sign glows above our television screen. So there is a segment of this town that increasingly winces at the words New Orleans, especially with this week’s engineering email disclosures.

Postcards from far away are always easier to live with than a town that could ring your doorbell and ask for a school. Or a map that reflects the hole in its levee.

11-Year-Old Jake Produces Great New Orleans Video

This is by a slideshow by Jake. He's 11 and for his 11th birthday asked for $11 donations to the New Orleans Musicians Relief Fund instead of replacing the train he lost to Katrina because that's the kind of kid he is. So we gave him a link on nomrf.org and a tee shirt.

In his free time, Jake collects toys for New Orleans children in the hospital because he's thankful for the hospital's care when he was younger. In the slideshow he made to commemorate New Orleans, Jake uses a song by Liverpool musician Joe Topping who walked from Chicago to New Orleans in support of NOMRF's efforts for displaced musicians.

After one week of trumpet lessons, Jake was right there to play trumpet for Joe's second line welcome along with the New Wave Brass Band, the Voodoo Vixens and his mom, Jo. We all second-lined for Joe who walked for three months in the sweltering heat discussing New Orleans with everyone he encountered while wearing his guitar case on his back. The heavy kind. His song in the video is "How High."

With supporters like Jake and Joe, New Orleans should have a good long stay above the bubble in the world's consciousness.