Kay Hanley

Well in that case, now would be an excellent time to write a new one since I am being held hostage on this flight from Dallas to NY after playing a week of super fun rock shows with my old band, Letters To Cleo.  And I am in a writerly mood.

 me + the boyz in nola.

 

greatest muffalletta ever.  i ordered the small and it was as big as my head. 

 

Our first show was in New Orleans at a big outdoor party in Lafayette Sq.  Guess who our opening act was?  Oh, The Saints’ press conference announcing that the City of New Orleans would be hosting the 2013 Superbowl.  That was all kinds of awesome, but I would be remiss if I did not gently recommend that the both team + city might want to get crackalackin’ on having certain areas of their shit together before then.

 

Dan Foreman, the promoter of the show, took us on a destructo-tour (Dan, trademark that stat!) of the Lower 9^th Ward and St. Bernard Parish, areas of the city that were decimated when the levees failed the day after Katrina hit.  I could not believe what my eyes were asking my brain to comprehend.  Words?  Naw.  See for yourself.   

sorry, mary. 

  

inside mary’s house. 

 

 

 

oh, the irony. 

 

4 years later, rebuilding slowly.. 

 

 

As I noted that day via Twitter, it was a bleak tourist attraction for sure, but it was fascinating.  I will be grateful forever that I had the opportunity to observe both the wreckage and rebuilding that are consequences of this unhappy American experience.

 

The rest of the week was spent sharing the bill with our pals Cruiserweight as we  rolled through the Texas triumvirate: Houston, Austin and Dallas. I ran into tons of friends along the way. I definitely consumed my yearly beer/BBQ quota in 3 days time and I have the big fat ass to prove it.  Nothing but wheatgrass and brown rice when I get back to LA.  Sheeyahh….

 

USA is on his way back to LA with Stacy and Paul so he’ll be squishing with Zoe + Henry within a few hours.  I’m on my way to NY to spend this evening celebrating my sister Elizabeth’s birthday in Brooklyn, a day recovering and meetings on Tuesday.  THEN I get to go home for squishes.  

-xok 

 

 

 

 

 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 at 6:42 am and is filed under letters to cleo, new orleans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.