Gate needs a gravestone

Just catching up on the news of the week after spending some time behind the walls of the hospital recovering from an extremely vicious attack on my digestive system and ran across this story about Hurricane Ike disturbing - actually freeing - the remains of the late, great Clarence "Gatemouth Brown

I see that Varg caught this story first, but I just had to talk about it too.

According to The Associated Press, the Grammy winner's casket was one of dozens .......that floated up from the ground as Ike's gulf and rain waters flooded Hollywood Cemetery, (note that this story incorrectly identifies the cemetery as being in Bogalusa, Louisiana when it is actually in Orange, TX)....
...two days after Ike reached land, water gurgled and bubbled ominously from submerged graves ..... the top of Brown's vault had popped off, and his bronze casket had floated away. But three jars of Bama grape jelly remained by his aluminum marker, no doubt left by a fan of his instrumental classic "Grape Jelly."

"Somebody made the comment that he's evidently still touring. He probably wouldn't care too much to be in the ground anyway" said Gate's longtime manager Jim Bateman of Bogalusa.

Gatemouth's trademark was a cowboy hat, with boots and Western wear.


He liked to smoke a pipe.


And his long, thin fingers glided flat over guitar or fiddle strings with the grace of a ballet dancer.


He called himself a "guitar slinger" and had a stick figure caricature he used, including one attached to his black Cadillac.


The 81-year-old musician was living in Slidell when Katrina destroyed the city.
Gate went home to Texas die after evacuating from Katrina in September of 2005. When he evacuated to Orange, he brought an oxygen tank, which he had been carrying everywhere. He played the New Orleans 2005 Jazz Festival in April using the oxygen tank, Colin Walters, Gatemouth's last biographer, said.

image from pbase dot com

Orange local educator and church music director Robert Finch is on a quest to put a label on Gatemouth - well, at least on his grave.

Finch has set up a non-profit group to raise money for a tombstone and hopefully a state historical marker. He ultimately would like to see a statue of Gatemouth in the cemetery.

The account for Gatemouth Brown is set up at Sabine Federal Credit Union in Orange, Texas: Gatemouth Brown Memorial Committee Acct # 1892149.

I'll be contributing and hope you will, too. Gate was a great musician. Hubby & I were lucky enough to have several opportunities to see and hear him live in Slidell before his death . What a colossal talent he was.

The Murder of New Orleans Neighborhoods

(Posted at Mosquito Coast, cross posted from Squandered Heritage) The political puppet that is Ray Nagin keeps proving that he does not give a damn about saving the soul of New Orleans through his actions that allow the demise of New Orleans' historical structures.


......In the wake of Gustav, a number of buildings around town suffered severe damage and fell down. Since the middle of last week, city Code Enforcement inspectors have been surveying properties to determine if any are in Imminent Danger of Collapse (IDC). If a property is truly IDC,..... under a city law that has been on the books for years, the city can move to knock it down immediately and clear the debris, bypassing all the normal (historic value, preservation) reviews.........


image from Matternetwork dot com

What this appears to be is a naked grab at power, using Gustav’s glancing blow to Orleans Parish as an excuse. The mayor is temporarily (I hope) stamping out a committee made up mostly of citizens, a committee formed to protect citizens’ rights to not have their property arbitrarily destroyed. His aim would appear to be to accelerate demolitions resulting from Katrina, in order to look good in the eyes of Washington.

The link provides the whole sickening story. The murder of historic neighborhoods for the nightly news to make everything looks shiny and new.

What horseshit.


What horseshit

Been Away.....

Spending the better part of a week in the ICU is not my idea of R&R. Still 'incarcerated' but a little more freer and feeling better than the last few days. Got some catching up to do......

When will they sever Nagin's vocal chords?

Ray Nagin once again opens
his mouth and gives New Orleans ANOTHER black eye with his
brand of humor.

Ike

Praying for all of you folks in Ike's path and wishing you all the best. This storm is a beast.

Evacuation Check List

EJ details the efforts needed for a successful hurricane evacuation

help for Gustav victims

From Greg Peters' blog, links that portray who badly hit LaFouche and Terrebone Parish were by Gustav.


Some of the communities hit hardest by Hurricane Gustav are being ignored by the larger media: The United Houma Nation, the Native Americans group located in Terrebonne parish, is facing the complete destruction of several small communities, no electricity and no water in many more, and are in serious need of money and supplies. Chief Brenda Robichaux was one of the heroes of Katrina and a straight shooter. I have no doubt it hurts her and the Houmas to ask, but they’re asking.

Local blogger Karen Gadbois and a group of friends visted the Houma Nation on Saturday. check out her site to see how much wetland loss has taken place down there.

Another NOLA blogger - Maitri - was on the same trip with Karen. Here she writes about the experience.

Photos from Pointe-au-Chien post Gustav

Here are some links where you can get more info on how to help:
Gustav Relief Blog

The United Houma Nation Relief Fund
20986 Hwy. 1
Golden Meadow, LA 70357.


All of Terrebonne parish was badly hurt, as was neighboring Lafourche parish. Assumption parish will be out of power longer than Baton Rouge. Vermilion parish, flooded and battered by Rita, was hit again, while Cameron was spared this time, but still hasn’t recovered; neither has Calcasieu parish.


pictures of the affected areas in Terrebone/LaFouche are below:

Houma


Lower LaFouche Parish



Baton Rouge was pretty beat up. for details of how they're doing, check out my cyberfriend Margaret Saizan here.

Gustav on Ms. Gulf Coast

Here's a link to conditions along the Mississippi gulf coast, miles away from Gustav's landfall

More Scuzzbuckets of the week

To whomever was responsible for dumping about 50 elderly people along the curb in Houma and left

From the above link:

..... I saw about 50 people along the curb and in the parking lot just sitting next to their luggage. (By luggage I mean garbage bags) I had seen this before, I had seen these types of faces before... Katrina evacuees had the same look to them. I knew something was wrong. And it was.

These people had evacuated before Gustav and were brought back to the civic center before the parish had a shelter ready for them. I sat down with a few of them and asked what was going on. Nobody had any idea.

Who would just drop a bunch of elderly people on the side of the road, and leave them there for hours.

Finally a school bus arrived to take them to a shelter. I saw a woman whose bag was torn to shreds, I ran to my car and grabbed a roll of tape and fixed it up. I told her "It might be hard to open up later, but it's safe now." As the folks started to load onto the bus, I noticed nobody was helping. The sheriff deputies, the National Guard... nobody. These elderly people were dragging their bags by themselves and trying to load them onto the bus.

I got on the bus and helped move the bags to the seats. After everybody was crammed onto the bus, they just sat there. And they sat some more. An hour passed and finally the bus moved. Less than a mile later, they arrived at the shelter. Had I known where they were going, I could have driven people over there using my car in the amount of time it took officials to bus them over there.

To make a really long story not as long... the people arrived safely at the shelter where a few Red Cross Volunteers were waiting with cots and blankets. No water or food just yet, but they were able to kick off their shoes and relax. I helped carry bags into the shelter and set up cots. When I left, most of the people were sound asleep. They deserve a good nights rest.

During these situations, I'm a human first and a photographer second. Yes, I took some pictures, but my main goal was to help these people anyway I could. As I left the shelter I heard a man say "The took us from heaven and brought us to Hell."


written by a photographer from the LaFouche Parish Daily Comet.

Links to pictures of these victims of neglect are here (at the bottom of the page)

Scuzzbuckets of the Week

The low life imbeciles who left pets behind in the Houma area to survive Hurricane Gustav.

From Hurricane Katrina dot org website:
in places like Terrebonne, LaFourche and St. Mary’s Parishes have been trying to work through the system to find out information. When no information could be obtained, individuals made their way to Houma on Wednesday 9/3 and again on 9/4.

Animals found include the following:

A pitbull, crated in a garage, dead from lack of food and water
A puppy, locked in a garage, no food or water
3 pitbulls, no food, 1 no shelter, 2 in kennels, all chained
7 cats with no food outside a house, no idea how many inside
3 Catahoula dogs, loose
2 yellow laborador dogs, loose, now tied to telephone pole

Dead dog and puppy were photographed, live animals were left food and water, and neighbors were left with more food in case residents do not come back within 2 days.



I am nauseated that people would treat their pets this way. I wish there were some way to keep these numbnuts from ever owning an animal again.

Gustav Annoyances

We stayed home for the storm. There were some annoyances we wanted to avoid, like trying to get back home. While escaping highway gridlock and over zealous authorities, we were held hostage by other minor irritations..


Aaron Broussard - King of Jefferson Parish
What an obnoxious little gnome this guy is. Even though there were originally 20 Parishes affected by Hurricane Gustav (Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, Jefferson, St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, St. Tammany, Ascension, Assumption, East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana, Iberville, Lafourche, Livingston, Pointe Coupee, St. Helena, St. James, Terrebonne, West Baton Rouge and West Feliciana) Broussard insisted on parading his little gang of minions out at least twice a day for an hour on live TV to talk about every minute happening in Jeff Parish. All other Parish Presidents passed along status of things via WWL radio or call in's to local TV, including LaFouche Parish, which saw Gustav's eyewall.

Ray Nagin. Need I say more?


Jackie Clarkson - Brown-Nose-at-Large, City of NOLA
Orleans Parish was the other entity that insisted upon having all of the elected officials appear on stage while Nagin and company blathered on about how well everything was going. Clarkson seemed to be attached to Ray-Ray's hip during every press conference. She busted a gut everytime Ray said something "humorous". Ugh.

Press Coverage
I got this message from a lot of folks from out of town....all they're covering is New Orleans.

more on the talking heads here

Gustav came ashore a near Houma


Although I will admit that the video from the Intracoastal Waterway in New Orleans WAS pretty damn dramatic footage. Thank God it didn't cause a lot of damage.


Geraldo....blech


Whiners
Craig over at Metroblogging puts it well:

Speaking of bite me — it’s been pretty easy to tell who stayed during the storm and who evacuated. Those who stayed have been patient and shown a good sense of humor as we’ve come back up to speed this week. They’re just glad to have someplace to go that has power and a/c and is serving a semblance of a normal menu. A lot of them don’t have power at home yet, so they’re pretty much just happy to show up. But a lot of those who bugged out are just coming back — and they expect (they sometimes DEMAND) that things be just like they were a week ago, before the storm kinda threw everything out of whack for awhile.



The whiners evacuated as they were told to by the "authorities". However, the minute the winds died down they insisted on coming home, not understanding that things were not as they left them. The minute they got to their houses, they wanted all of the comforts of daily life, not understanding that things were not as they left them. They whined on the radio, they whined on TV. They whined at everyone who would listen. Aside from those who desperately needed electricity and running water, I have no pity on these whiners. Do like the rest of us have done and PREPARE for the conditions you were told about.