Out of the music events that were spotlighted in the issue of Gambit Weekly that hit the street while most of us were sweating in contraflow, most will go on as planned. Friday, September 5, the Zydepunks and Theresa Andersson will celebrate the release of their new CDs at, respectively, One Eyed Jacks (615 Toulouse St., 569-8361) and the Republic (828 S. Peters, 528-8282). We weren’t able to confirm Vince Vance and the Valiants’ planned toga party and bikini contest for Saturday, September 5 at Southport Hall (200 Monticello Ave., 835-2903), but you can try calling them just like we did. Maybe you’ll have better luck.

 The planned listening party for David Kunian’s radio documentary “Jonathan Freilich’s Freedom Double-O Naked Klezmer Latin Boogaloo” will not go off on Saturday at the Saturn Bar, as the bar suffered fire damage during the storm. Check with wwoz.org for revised airing times for the documentary, which also didn’t broadcast as planned when the station evacuated to Lafayette in preparation for Gustav.

 And please do rock on in the face of adversity.

Whether you need to restock your emptied fridge, remind yourself what fresh produce tastes like after a week of eating from coolers or just want to see fellow New Orleanians out and about, the Crescent City Farmers Market this weekend should be an especially fulfilling experience.

The market is resuming its normal schedule beginning this Saturday, from 8 a.m. to noon at the corner of Girod and Magazine streets, and will throw in free coffee to help get folks out early. Market staff are also planning to resume the Tuesday market on Sept. 9 at Uptown Square.

With characteristic farmers market humor, this Saturday’s event is being called the “Mother of All Markets,” a riff on the C. Ray Nagin brand of hyperbole. But it’s no joke that the community spirit that runs through the market will be in ample evidence as people come back to town and come back together between the vendors’ stalls.

Some of the market’s regular vendors live and work in areas that took much greater damage from Hurricane Gustav than New Orleans, and market staff are still trying to contact many of them to see how they fared and when they will be able to return to the market. Updates on individual vendors are being posted here.

– Ian McNulty

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I’m sad to say that the power is still out in my house and I’m currently leeching off my neighbor’s WiFi (with their permission, ofcourse). In lieu of the regular podcasts, off-the-wall player info and completely unrelated Hornets posts that come with a Saints game, I’m just gonna link to this preview I wrote for Deadspin.

 

We evacuated into the storm, leaving New Orleans Friday afternoon and heading to our camp on False River (a few miles up Island Road from Mike Gio). We had planned to spend Labor Day weekend on the river anyway, so the evac simply meant taking more “stuff” with us — including all the data processing hardware, servers, etc., from Gambit Weekly.

 

Things were fine until Monday, when, as the photos above show rather graphically, we narrowly escaped a 70-foot sycamore tree falling right on top of the room in which we were standing. We literally watched outside the back windows as the tree wobbled and then came crashing down — missing our place by a foot or two. Sadly, Mike Gio and his family were not so lucky. (Mike, I’ll lend you my rosary next time.)

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Or so the Republican National Conventioneers would have us believe. With the post-Gustav information blitz enlightening some formerly dark corners of New Orleans, I took the opportunity to catch a few hours of last night’s RNC, where I was treated to some of the most offensive rhetoric to come out of a major political party in my lifetime. The attacks, which mocked Barack Obama’s experience two decades ago as a grass-roots activist on Chicago’s South Side, came not just from Rudy Giuliani, the failed candidate for his party’s nomination, who spit out the term “community organizer” twice as if he secretly held Habitat For Humanities responsible for taking down the Twin Towers, but from the party’s vice presidential nominee herself, Gov. Sarah Palin. “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities,” she said, referencing her previous job as chief executive of Wasilla, Alaska, population 7,028. The partisan crowd, waving signs that read “Prosperity,” ate it up. But I had to wonder how such insults — not just to Sen. Obama, but also to anyone who has ever worked for or benefitted from a neighborhood organization — were received by small-town Americans, for whose interests Palin’s nomination was supposedly engineered, or by citizens in New Orleans, whose own community organizers averted potentially substantial loss of life during the Gustav evacuation, allowing the GOP to proceed with their grand ole party as planned. A simple “thank you” would have sufficed. The “f**k you” they got instead is unpardonable.      

This is a long post and it’s early to be thinking about this,  but it could be good news. Hurricane Gustav Victims Qualify for IRS Disaster Relief

IR-2008-100, Sept. 3, 2008

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service is providing tax relief to victims of Hurricane Gustav in affected areas of Louisiana .

The IRS is postponing until Jan. 5, 2009 deadlines for taxpayers who reside or have a business in the disaster area. The postponement applies to return filing, tax payment and other time-sensitive acts otherwise due between Sept. 1, 2008 and Jan. 5, 2009. This includes:

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Since my online connection may be a short-lived miracle, I’m not going to get too detailed, but I think maybe the Cone of Insanity took its revenge on me Monday. Our safe haven, a fishing camp on False River in Jarreau, LA, across from New Roads, became a terrifying reminder of why we try to get away from these storms and how futile our efforts often turn out to be. My own Cone of Decimation became a bull’s eye as Gustav Mauler tore into Point Coupée parish at hurricane force for almost 5 hours. The storm ripped the roof off our camp at about 2:30pm and while we tried to salvage our precious belongings that had been carefully selected, packed and brought with us to protect them from what could happen at home, Gustav threw a massive water oak, a telephone pole and some roof debris on our cars. When the ceiling started to bulge downwards towards us, we knew it was time to get out. This was when we discovered the cars were inaccessible, buried under 15 feet of debris and tangled power lines, hissing and flashing like giant sparklers on the 4th of July. If it wasn’t for the courage, resourcefulness and generosity of the Olinde family across the road, I think my parents and I would be listed as casualties of the storm. I can’t express the gratitude and debt I owe Miss Helen, who they call Miss Honey, her amazing grandson Andrew and the rest of her kind, selfless family. They are my heroes and I thank them for the incredible gift they’ve given me and my family.

Word just arrived that “tier 1″ status and first wave reentry “placards” for next year’s hurricane season are now available with early purchase of Saints 2009 season tickets.

For the impaired: that’s a joke.

But seriously, I wonder if the brief but still gratuitous reminder of the Katrina  exodus many of us experienced this week will translate into any of that homecoming magic that made the Saints 2006 season opener against Atlanta such a palpable force.

Gustav and Katrina are not comparable, of course, but I know many New Orleans people will exult this weekend in the relief of being home again. Maybe the Saints can tap that energy in the Dome on Sunday when the Buccaneers visit. We don’t need all of it from that night in 2006, but even a little dose of raw, audacious New Orleans elation at having escaped catastrophe and getting back to the rhythm of our city could be just the thing to turn a few key plays in our favor.

And speaking of jokes, despite whatever lame attempts at blasé humor our mayor tries to float, I will be very glad to see Buccaneers fans visiting our city this weekend, patronizing our businesses and enjoying the New Orleans allure that makes our community worth all the trouble.

– Ian McNulty

P.S. - Who Dat?

I just completed a strange bit of travel, heading north on Interstate 55 from the New Orleans area to Jackson while it seemed that just about everyone with a fleur de lis emblem or faded Wagner’s Meat bumper sticker on their cars was headed home on the highway’s southbound lanes.

I’ve been in Baton Rouge since Sunday and now I’m continuing a regional odyssey of book readings. So though I want very badly to be back home, I’m in a contra-re-vacuation travel pattern as local communities repopulate this week.

From today’s unique vantage of driving smoothly and quickly in the wrong direction then, I can report a traffic flow that changes radically and suddenly for those headed home. Stretches of many miles at a time on the southbound lanes were open and vehicles appeared to be clipping along at normal freeway speeds. But then choke points crop up, especially at McComb, at Amite and of course at the junction with Interstate 12.

The upshot is that if you start cruising on a stretch of I-55 in light traffic, don’t get your hopes up that it will be a straight shot for the rest of the haul and if you need to plan a break from the highway for fuel, food or other needs, it’s probably better to pick a smaller exit and take what you can get rather than get stuck with everyone else at the better equipped stops.

Throughout the trip, I noticed countless southbound utility bucket trucks, formed up in platoons of six or eight each. These are obviously part of the cavalry called in to repair the area’s damaged electrical service. Were I to see such a convoy in my mirror, I’d be sure to give them some room. After all, I’d like them to get to work and restore my electricity before I return home, which they can only do by getting past me on the highway.

– Ian McNulty

Open Gas Stations: provided by the state’s emergency Web site.

Looks to be updated frequently.