Fuck you Isaac/entergy/landrieu/who//whatever.

Welcome to day 3 of Isaac aftermath. 80% of the city is still without power, I’m short on rent, my living room’s ceiling fell in, assorted other minor inconveniences. Civilization broke down pretty fast. And by pretty fast I mean not at all, people here are just doing what they do, yanno.

It’s pretty ridiculous, though. The power company out here, Entergy (New Orleans’ only Fortune 500 company), has had a response to outages best described as “lackadaisical.” Most recent update for today, August 31, is that power will be restored with emphasis on areas where lines are lightly damaged moving towards the more heavily damaged folks, with an estimated date of having 90% of outages fixed by September 6. That’s next Thursday. About a week. Thankfully most of Chalmette and New Orleans East and the French Quarter and the CBD all have power, so we’re not all totally fucked or whatever. I am in fact writing this from the inside of Flanagans, which has power and internet and plugs and has thus been pretty much packed since the storm eased up.

All told, it’s really not a huge dealio. People here are going to be more or less okay. It’s creepy as all hell driving around in the darker neighborhoods that don’t even have sporadic lights, but life continues more or less unabated. Buncha queers are in town ready to party for Decadence, most everything in the quarter is operating as more or less normal, though with less supplies. It looks like the play is getting cut short, since the whole area by the venue has been without power since the storm. The director is doing the whole “show must go on bit and  holding out hope they’ll be able to get lights on today before 8 or whenever we’d be running. If it does work out, I might end up running up and acting.

Because writing is a time-lapse process and I took a break to check the internet and drink a reasonable amount of alcohol, I know now there will not be a show. Thank the lord, I can cut my hair now. One theme that runs through this storm is meeting people I haven’t seen in a while cause they’re hanging out outside or something. I’m really very proud of my social circle. I don’t associate with many people that fled the city. I made friends with sterner stuff. And everyone’s been pretty good about doing the whole “coming together” stuff, though enough people are also doing a fair bit of the “coming apart” stuff also. I went out with Jo cab driving last night, which was an interesting experience in dealing with the lack of streetlights and dispatch being on generator. The passengers were appropriate to situation, one being an on call nurse headed up to ochsner, another a woman headed home from Ochsner, a third a drunk guy trying to get home from the burbs to uptown.

Like I said, I’ve run into a small crowd of people I know here so far. The people I’ve played magic with, school friends, some people I know from steampunk stuff or Noiseco. The haunted tours that run usually are running tonight, of course. Them being closed for almost a week is a good reason to start that stuff back up again, gotta make some kind of money. It’s been great so far.

Yeah, it’s pretty crazy that a storm can come along and basically throw everyone out of whack for about a week or so. And we just live with it. It’s no big. It’s harder for the impoverished of course (it always is) but this has still yet to be outside of the normal experience of a New Orleanian. I cannot tell you how much I love this place.

In Regards to the Hospitality Zone

Hey there. 

My Name is Jacob Germain, I’m a resident of the Seventh Ward in an area that is called the “St. Bernard Crescent” by realtors and landlords who want to distance it from being in the seventh ward.

My apartment is inside the original hospitality zone as it was introduced, though not much hospitality happens here and I’ve since been written out of the bill. I live in one of those parts of town that we warn tourists away from because presumably the people of my neighborhood are going to rob and shoot them. My immediate neighborhood used to be up and coming, but this and that happened and it ended up falling to the wayside. The streets are busted, there’s a blown out former adult education center down the street, every other lot is abandoned or blighted. 

But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. I’m here to talk about this bill and why two thirds of the revenue from this bill is NOT going towards infrastructure improvements. I understand some representatives are here from the CVB, purportedly to support hospitality in general and the wonder and glory that is a service economy. What they’re not here to talk about is the fact that they stand to make an additional 5 million in taxpayer dollars every year if this bill passes. They’re not interested in fixing the broken streets, the busted sidewalks, the damaged infrastructure of any part of this city, let alone the French quarter. They’re here to line their pockets with public money.

I’ll be frank with you: I’m already aware that this legislature is the result of a number of backroom deals. Just look at where the money is going. It’s not cleverly hidden or obscured, but laid bare in the law. This is Louisiana politics as usual; the kind of political profiteering that makes it possible for some people to be rich in a city of minimum wage service jobs and rampant unemployment.

You should rethink this legislation. You should reconsider what its purpose is and why you’re passing it. You took an oath to serve the people of Louisiana; people like me and my fellow hospitality zone residents. You did not take an oath to serve the highest bidder.

Thank you for your time. 

[editor's note: I wrote this as public comment for the committee hearing on the Hospitality Zone bill. the bill was amended at the hearing to feature a newer 50/50 split between infrastructure and marketing, with 20 percent going to the CVB, who hired around 50 people to wear red shirts with the phrase "tourism matters" and stand around during the hearing. The bill is vastly improved, but they still stand to make $2 million a year from taxpayers. Not mentioned here is the Convention Center holding $30 million in infrastructure improvements for ransom unless this bill passes. It's a whole lotta fucked, folks.]

Jake's Second Mardi Gras

I forgot what I wrote for the last Mardi Gras thing I wrote. I don’t remember much of that time. It was a tough period in Jake-ville, as my girlfriend dumped me while in the midst of a severe depressive episode (indeed, because of that severe depressive episode. “I can’t handle this” she said, ironically walking out after I had put up with her anxiety attacks and nervous breakdowns. Whoops, too bitter.) which then dragged into a several month’s long spiral of drama and bullshit as we had our apartment broken into by a neighbor and subsequently became homeless when we moved out (because said neighbor was being covered by other neighbors) thanks to Jazzfest and then endured a short period of “I think we would be great roommates” nonsense before I kicked her out. I willfully block out the memories from that period, because that is my unhealthy coping method: forgetting that bad things ever happened.

All I do remember from that note was complaining about people drinking and how awful the world was. I think the entirety of my mainstream Mardi Gras experience was Druids, Muses, and Chewbacchus. I hated it because it was everything I don’t like in a group of people: rich white drunken tourists standing around in front of floats of rich white people throwing useless trash on the ground and generally being loutish. The KKK horse riders sealed the bullshit envelope for me as a strong reminder that the world is a fucked up place and it’s everyone around me’s fault. That much didn’t really change this year. I was high as fuck on Mardi Gras evening and I sat at a bar and watched the Rex Ball, some kind of conglomerate of inbred southern fucks milling about at 9:30 at night playing nobility charades. It’s spooky as hell. People still do this! In this day and supposedly enlightened age! I really am pretty naïve. I tend towards the belief that people are basically smart and when they buy a party line it’s just a matter of good persuasive politics or some kind of psychological tribalism that necessitates group identification regardless of veracity in ideals. (or, as is usually the case on the internet, a knee-jerk reactionary contrarianism constructed from the conceptualization of “cool” or “edgy” as being against the expected response toward a situation. See: 4chan) But when I’m confronted with a very clear set of ritualized oppressive politics that is so thoroughly embraced and maintained so as to seem “normal” and be thoroughly accepted, I’m usually dismayed and upset by the manifest reality that these people seriously do not understand the source or inevitable result of their actions.



Carnival is okay! Nothing is inherently bad about parading. Second lines are an awesome community-binding force and a seriously uplifting representation of alternative constructions of life-patterns (I really am just fucking around now. Blame college) accessible in the otherwise monocultural landscape of America. There’s a reason I love living here. I love parades, I love the effort people here put into costuming and creativity, I love the laid-back lifestyle of the artist community. What pisses me off is not the season itself or the people or even really the parades, what bothers me is the clear and obvious demonstrations of subjugation that take place year in and year out.

New Orleans is very much a Caribbean bumfuck third-world island nation, where everyone with a job works to please the rich white foreigners that come along and fuel the economy in its entirety. We’re whores, and in a culture that doesn’t give three shits about its whores, we’re treated as expendable pleasures, temporary forays into the world of sin to be condemned vociferously after we’ve been used. Everyone who lives anywhere else will gladly talk about the wild parties and crazy adventures off the one hand while warning us about the collapsed housing market and hurricanes and the scary n*****s off the other. Kanye wasn’t wrong, that’s not why he was shut up. Kanye made people uncomfortable with the god damn truth. We’re in a city packed with black people. Up to the gills. 60 odd percent. It’s terrifying to the rest of whitebread America, who only see their monocultural media views of the scary n*****s yellin’ ‘bout murderin’ an’ rapin’ an’ whatever.

I’m never going to forget how god damned ashamed I was to sit there at the fucking Marriott in a room full of white male oil execs and chemical engineers waiting on a keynote over a nice (free) lunch and having a black waiter waltz over to serve the old white men and I. It’s terrifying to me that there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t make any of them feel bad about it; it’s all they’ve known. They have years upon decades of ingrained justification for their attitudes and behaviors. All I can do is eat a nice lunch and file away my impotent rage for some other day (probably around Mardi Gras). Since my unhealthy coping mechanism is to forget that there’s a problem when I can’t solve it, I don’t like being reminded of that problem. Watching the KKK march on by on horseback, flanked by floats of moneyed white people, surrounded by white tourists with nothing but abject terror at the prospect of confronting class or race disparities, having a sea of white men in tuxedos leading around their nubile daughters in a display of eligibility to ensure breeding stays amongst the nobles televised during the celebrations, none of it makes me feel any better about the chances of forming a more tolerant and loving society.

That’s why I’m depressed during Mardi Gras. That’s why I didn’t go to any parades except the ones I was actually in. That’s why I was high as fuck on Mardi Gras and pretty thoroughly wasted on the days proximate. Cause my other coping method is drugs.

The New Left

Congratulations! You have finally won both congress and the presidency, with the supreme court on the way. And what a win it was! You picked a charismatic black man to run, effectively trumping just about anything the republicans could have thrown your way. Despite Obama being the first black man in the senate for over a hundred years, you decided that he should run for presidency. Not a whit of political maneuvering there. Certainly not. He was chosen on his own merits. At any rate, you now control the government, more or less. Don’t screw it up. The Democrats of the Bush era were pansies, unwilling to do anything to help their cause, cowed by the negative power of the republican party in such momentous races as the Norm Coleman debacle and the Swift Boat techniques used against John Kerry. Your goal now is to shift this country as permanently left as possible. Before that, though, you need party solidarity. Threaten censure against traitorous Dems, no matter what the cost. Even if they do defect, it matters little, since they were voting against you anyhow. The Republican party’s recent solidarity should be a guide to way democrats need to behave.

You also need to speak up. For too long, democrats have been represented mostly by meek, mousey little men (who vaguely look like Keebler elves, for some reason) like Dennis Kucinich or Alan Colmes. You need to give a platform to people like Howard Dean, who could, would, and should’ve “Byah!”-ed his way into the presidency in ought four, or the new vice prez, Joseph Biden. Your party members are fired up and stoking that fire is the only way to properly utilize their newfound loyalty to the Dems. Promote such liberal newscasters as Keith Olbermann and Rachael Maddow. Don’t let the right shout them into obscurity, as recently happened with MSNBC. When you hear the right shouting about liberal media bias, shout just as loud about conservative media bias! The entire party has to back this, it can’t just be the smart people or the moderates who truly desire equality in media, it has to be the ENTIRE DEMOCRATIC PARTY responding to such ridiculous and fallacious accusations. By remaining aloof of these concerns, you’ve allowed the right to ingrain themselves into every major media establishment with nary a response to this threat. You cannot win elections when everyone on TV is telling everyone else about what a “threat” liberalism is and ranting onwards about “far-left loonies” regardless of the target.

What you must not do is rest on your laurels. In no way does your victory mean that the right is gone, in no way does it mean racism is gone, and in no way does it mean that a liberal ideology will be successfully enfranchised into the laws of this nation. 2012 will be an uphill battle for you, no matter the circumstances. Godspeed, gentlemen.

The New Right

The Republican Party has never been in more dire straits. After a great deal of mismanagement during the recent administration, instead of being synonymous with traditional values or fiscal conservation, it has become synonymous with war, irresponsible money management, and outdated modes of thinking. If the party is to have any chance this upcoming election, it needs to move past its current state and find a new message to present. No longer can the republicans simply be the party of opposition to the democrats. Contrarian politics are what cause things like the Civil War and the current budget circus in Sacramento.

By opposing scientifically proven things like climate change as vociferously as it has, the republicans have demonstrated not a savvy skepticism, but stubborn pigheadedness. By opposing things like gay marriage, the party has shown a willingness to invade into the people’s personal lives and deny rights frivolously. By opposing things like welfare in any circumstances, the GOP appears to be callous and uncaring.

What the party needs to work for now is an image of pragmatism. Rather than simply focusing on far-right stances, the party needs to emphasize its moderation over more extremist liberal ideals. Instead of supporting cuts of benefits across the board, regardless of economic situation, emphasize the need for programs during lean times, but chide the democrats for wasting money in good times on increasing said programs. Work with the cycle, rather than against it. Emphasize smart policy decisions, rather than traditionalist pandering. Bring the intelligence back to the Party.

This may be a stretch, but ask for reduction of vitriol in such popular Right wing pundits as Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh. As fun and politically motivating these rabble-rousers may be, for too long all that has come out of their mouths (or pens) is negativity and hatred. This again, creates a rather hostile image of the Republican Party. The voice of the Republicans should be a reasonable, clear headed person, like George Will, rather than a pompous, hypocritical braggart, like Rush Limbaugh. Though Rovesian work redefining the moderate into moderate right was admirable, it only creates the problem of culpability whenever the country goes in the wrong direction, as it has several times in the last eight years.

"Since the Right leaning environment led us into this situation," people are reasoning, "a left leaning one should get us out." The key to fighting this is to exaggerate how far left the country is really moving. Work on the Obama campaign, comparing him to a socialist was actually very effective. The campaign, however, was lost simply on the Palin gambit. Like Kerry in ’04, the party picked possibly the worst choice for a political candidate as was possible. Republicans probably would have garnered more votes by choosing Ron Paul as a running mate than Sarah Palin. At any rate, you need to move responsibility from the right to the left in order to gain the sympathy the Dems have had for the last four or so years.

Emphasize the effect of the newly democratic congress (in ’06) on the economy. Point out the multitudinous ways that the Right could have done better than them. Try to avoid berating the people for voting Democratic, as the Dems did after the Gore-Bush fiasco. Treat the voters as wayward sons, and accept them back into the fold. The message here should be “Yes, we know you made the mistake of voting Democratic, but that’s okay. We still love and accept you.” See if you don’t see a Right congress in ’10 and Mitt Romney as prez in ‘12

Public Comment in Response to Proposed Transit Cuts

Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen of the board,

My name is Jacob Germain. I am a citizen of Livermore and a patron of the Wheels bus service. I am here to respond to some drastic changes proposed for the bus system. Now, I understand that there as significant and relevant circumstances surrounding these changes, such as the economic situation in the U.S, and the budget crisis in Sacramento.

However, these circumstances are not immediately obvious to those who ride the system every day, Such as the elementary, middle, and high school children who ride the bus to and from school every day. They'll see fares rise without any explanation as to its source.

Such as the Senior citizens, who will now find themselves stretching an already meager budget to pay for transportation expenses among everything else.

Such as the physically or mentally challenged, who will find their mobility, and thus opportunities, curtailed by these proposals.

Most importantly, it is the Employees, who'll find their paychecks shrink, or even disappear, as less staffing is required to maintain service.

I suggest that you postpone decision on these proposals for at least six months, until the funding picture is clear. Though Schwarzenegger has proposed a cut of transportation funds, it has yet to happen, and may never come to pass. The economic crisis is largely psychological. By reacting to it and making cuts, you only sustain the crisis further. Don't let the foibles of wall street or Sacramento frivolously affect our way of life.

I find it ludicrous that three of the richest cities in America, with 100 thousand dollars a year median income, can't even fund one bus system.

Thank you for your time.

Authors notes: This is more or less the speech I gave at the hearing for the proposed changes to the local bus system. There was a bit of ex tempore, but I really don't recall what it was. I also have misplaced the original draft.

It was the strangest thing. I delivered the speech pretty well, only stumbled once, but the entire time, my legs were inexplicably shaking.

Incidentally, I was quoted in the local newspaper here (it's a pdf, page 4). Of course the board went through with it, as John Ramirez (also quoted, but not what I'm referring to) said, they already made their mind up about these cuts. I found the behavior of the Livermore mayor, Marshall Kamena, to be extremely rude. He showed up about ten minutes late and proceeded to pull out his macbook and spend much of the time fiddling with it, rather than listening to the concerns of the people at the meeting. The rest of the board members were otherwise attentive.

An Open Secret

It's about the corporations. There is no red, there is no blue. There is only corporation.

The Explicit Joys of Poll Working

I wrote this last thursday, didn't finish until today.


Well, I spent Tuesday working the polls. It was a fun and interesting experience. decent turnout, had about half the people in the district vote directly, I'm sure more voted early or by mail. I didn't take notes, So I'll go by what I recall. In the morning we had a short line of people waiting to vote as soon as the polls opened. It went a bit shaky at first because most of the people working hadn't done this before (including two cute girls, one of which I got the number of), but we smoothed it out as we went ahead. As is expected, there was an eclectic bunch of voters. All sorts of people. Mostly older professionals, as the precinct I was working at is in the middle of a large high end apartment complex.

A few interesting things happened. Around 4 o'clock or so, a polite guy a bit older than me from the Buchanan campaign came by to "flush votes" wherein they look at the publicly posted rolls to see who hasn't voted yet and go hassle them to vote. He actually went outside and took his outer shirt off when he realized he still had a "Buchanan" shirt on. It wasn't that big a deal, as no one was there, and we were being somewhat lax anyways. (several people came in with Obama shirts on and sort of rushed through the process before they could be admonished, in a hurry to vote for the only candidate they cared about, apparently) He came back later with a voter who was clearly mentally challenged and had him vote. He didn't stand over him or anything (In fact, he actually stood way in the back and was covering the Buchanan embossment on his shirt with a folder he was carrying. He looked rather silly) and one of us pollsters helped him vote (the first ballot, he had just checked next to the names of the candidate)

Fortunately, no one wanted to vote electronically, as us poor poll workers had no idea how that would work out. A thing in the instructions said that if one person were to use it, four more people would also have to use it, for whatever reason. It's very complicated, involving a second machine we would use to activate little cards and password lock them and give them to the people, when they would take it over and insert it to display the ballot. from there they would vote and the card would be deactivated.

It seems a lot more inconvenient than just the paper ballots, which work similarly to "Scantron" technology that instructors have been using for years to grade tests, albeit with ink instead of pencil. After a person fills all the lines to choose the candidate they wanted, they would insert it into a big, vaguely evil looking machine that would take the ballot, scan it, and deposit into a bin inside. The machine at the end of the day prints out a tally of the votes it received and we post a copy that just outside the door. We then take the ballots, put them in a secure box thing and deliver them to the registrar to be (presumably) hand counted later. Much less complex than the machine voting thing. I think.

On Recent Politics

Well, since I did partially make this blog to concern politics, and it is approximately a third of my interest in life, I will make a political comment. I feel silly doing so, considering the massive amount of blogs whose sole focus is the political craft.

Anyway, on the election: I feel kind of bad for John McCain. He ran way back in 2000 and was brutally stabbed in the back by his party (cause, you know, they don't like mavericks) and here we are eight years later, and despite his nearly secured (Ron Paul is, I believe still running) nomination his party still doesn't support him. So I feel bad, and I'll probably vote for him this November considering Obama's win is pretty much guaranteed.

As for Obama, I find him a fascinating example of making very lofty and heavy handed speeches while still tacking more or less to the classical moderate democrat stereotype. It is a bit disappointing, but I'm just happy a black person is finally going to be president. Even if he is an affluent black person, but really, who in politics isn't some sort of rich affluent guy? Heck, based on Obama's somewhat depressing childhood, I think he's worked through a lot more hardships than the average Bush/Gore political legacy/old money families.

Personally, I'm for radical change, be it liberal or republican. As an election, I would have preferred something like Ron Paul vs. Dennis Kucinich (actually, I liked Mike Gravel a bit better, but come on! It's Kucinich!). I am a registered republican as well, simply for the much more interesting mail I get. On that note, somehow I was put on a mailing list for the Council of Secular Humanism, something that amuses me to no end, I assure you. I also like to order gun catalogs, for kicks.

Anyway, this election will be pretty fascinating, and it will be nice to see it up close, as I am a poll worker volunteer. I first signed up for a project for civics, and found it to be a great experience. It wasn't too busy though, since it was just the June third local primaries. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that a Livermore local was running for the republican state assembly nomination for our district (Scott Kamena, incidentally also the son of our mayor and my dad's fiancé's optometrist), I don't think anyone would have showed up.

Well, this post is the first one I've made using word 2007's "publish to blog" tool, which seems a bit handier than trying to cut and paste from here to there. There are some issues, as I can't seem to edit posts that I've already made in word, so the font size in the last one was a bit diminished; my workaround here is just making this new post. Boy, technology these days is great. By the by, I prefer Garamond for just about anything I type.