Lived to see another one..

I posted this melancholy Christmas song last year on my other blog. It was a very low time for me. Missing my daughter, unemployed, hungry and on the verge of being homeless it was a bleak holiday season to say the least.  Well, I stuck it out for my kid's sake in spite of my desire to to cash in my chips off the bridge into the Mississippi.  Glad I did.

A year later, my rent is paid, my belly is full and artistically I am making money at what I love. I'm living in paradise. When I use that term, keep in mind homeless guys crap on my doorstep, gang members murder each other a block from my apartment and I think a rodent stole my Zippo lighter last night. Still I wouldn't want to live anyplace else on Earth. 

I still miss my only child to the point of tears. Especially this time of year. As much as I love New Orleans, I will say that New York City does Christmas just a little bit bigger. So a year later, I'll repost this video, and this year it carries a whole different tune for me. I hope you enjoy.

Issue 25

Coming soon to the top of a cigarette machine near you!

Dancing Police horse

I love sharing these kind of YOUTUBE videos with my daughter back in New Jersey.  "Yea, this video was made about 5 blocks from my apartment."

A page from history

The blog posts about the Pontalba Apartments has gotten some great responses. One came from a reader in New York City who shared with me his memories of the building as a child. Here is a photo taken of the reader's parent's wedding reception held in apartment 502B in 1945.

 

My great aunt lived in a corner Pontalba apartment overlooking Decatur and St. Peter from the late 1920s until the late 1960s. I still have dreams about the interior stairway from the street to the second floor. When I was a kid, something about those wide, curving stairs, the shadows, the smell of the old building — were magic to me.

Since 1970 I've lived in NYC,  Lately, I've been missing NOLA, and thinking about moving home. 

Brooks

What da hell did I do last night?

Otis my editor called last night to meet him over at Molly's to to see the rough draft of December's issue. Some really cool stuff in this issue. A few beers, a shot or two then I went home. Found a half a pint of Seagram's Extra Dry Gin that Cornell had given me. Dry gin and "Rip-it" energy drinks as a mixer can lead to confusion and black outs. I highly recomend them. I went out for something, probably smokes or poppers, I can't remember exactly. Anyways, I woke up this morning and found this in my apartment.

It's a gold painted mannequin torso with plastic "googly-eyes" glued to the breasts. I don't actually recall how it came into my possession, however it will make a nice display for a Mardi Gras bead collection. Boobs that stare back at you. I'm not sure where I got it. Judging by my wallet, it appears that I didn't pay some exorbitant price for it. I might have found it or... If anyone reading this has recently had a gold painted mannequin torso with plastic "googly-eyes" glued to the breasts stolen, I caught the guy who ripped you off and wrestled him to the ground, beat him to a pulp and retrieved your property. He won't be doing that again, I promise. No need to thank me.

Right place, right time...

One of my Mother's favorite expressions was "Always a day late and a dollar short." Perhaps I am the one to finally break that family curse by moving here to New Orleans.  I feel like a child who has traveled across the country to find his birth mother, a feeling of being where I belong. For those of you who follow my blog postings (at least 4 or 5 of you) you know for almost two years now I have been boasting, raving and romantically drooling about this city like some sort of travel agent trying to meet a quota. Well, it looks like I am not the only one to do so.

Market Watch with the Wall Street Journal has placed NOLA in the top third. Once ranking very low on their business friendly survey, now it's considered one of the best.  When I first moved down here in March of 2010, the only day labor that I could immediately find was back breaking digging in the hard clay soil of St Bernard Parish. (March 2010) I was hired to work on a strip mall that was finally being renovated after being damaged by Hurricane Katrina. As I took a smoke break in the back of the building looking at a large boat resting on it's side in a vacant lot, I pondered the irony.

Five years earlier New Orleans would have been the last place I or anyone else looking to improve one's opportunities would have dreamed of moving to.  My economic position back in New Jersey was one of erosion, every year earning less and paying more.  Fewer opportunities, more competition for what little was available. Now down here, I have to ask for time off from my day job as a house painter to tend to my part time job as a graphic artist while turning down a few freelance gigs just for the lack of time. 

I remember watching the news during and after the storm, feeling the way rest of our nation did. Hearts heavy with sadness, grief and compassion for what many may have silently considered a lost American city.  Now six years later, many major American cities may be looking down here with envy. A strong economy, lower than national average unemployment and an increasing personal income growth for it's residents. It's the people, strong and resilient, determined to not only just to bounce back but surpass any expectations of them. Perhaps that's why I find New Orleans so inspiring.

A Facebook friend posted the article from the Wall Street Journal's web site with the photo of the Pontalba Apartments accompanying the article. I immediately exclaimed "That's where I work!" And it's where I belong, thank you New Orleans.

(BTW, I didn't even see a New Jersey city mentioned on the top 100 list)

Some more pics

Here are some more photos from some work that I did at the Pontalba. I spent way too much time on this medallion on the ceiling in the living room. More than one usually does on a rental property, but I enjoyed it.

We were the painting crew that started painting the medallion the wall color, property management liked it and decided all of the rooms should have that. Now they insist the other crews do it too. So of course I have to one up them with this. By the end of the day my neck was killing me and my vision blurry from drops of oil paint. I felt like Michelangelo.