This is my first post to the Website. The name is “Blow the Levee”, as a cry to the world that I have had enough 2020; the pandemic, the unsettled political environment, the upside down weather, and what ever else comes along tomorrow. My name is Driver. One name, just one. That’s actually a nickname, but I’ve been know by that handle since high school, and even my mother calls me by that name when she’s mad at me. I’m even thinking about changing my name to that legally because I don’t even respond to my legal name anymore. But I don’t think they’ll let me have just one name. One of these days I’ll tell you about how I got that name. It’s not really important. More funny than anything.
It’s a little crazy, but that’s also my job too. I’m a driver at a custom executive messenger service in New Orleans. So I’m on the street and in the neighborhoods all day long. When I’m “down”, that is waiting for my next pickup, I read. I read everything…if I’ve forgotten my book, I’ll read the back of the Micky D bag. I pick up old magazines or newspapers from offices just to read.
Read, read, read. As much as I can. That has given me a strange outlook on the world according to me in New Orleans.
New Orleans is a different place. The community has a different outlook. The place is slightly tilted. In politics, partying, living and dying. I guess you get that way with the heavy eating, drinking, Mardi Gras, Bourbon Street, dirt, the heat and humidity, big potholes, and being surrounded by water that’s higher than your wig. If it wasn’t for the levees, the City wouldn’t be here. The fellow that founded this place must have showed up on a dry day. Actually the only part of the city that’s above sea level on a dry day and before the Mississippi River Levees, is the French Quarter. The rest of the joint is just swamp land that have been leveed off over the years and drained by the big pumps. But now because of the levees squeezing in the River during flood stage, you can be having a beginet at the coffee stand and watch the ocean freighters navigate down the river while floating by above your head. Very strange and unsettling.
But this year has been out-of-the-ball park strange. The City, and actually the whole country, is filled to the brim with craziness. And bad vibes. We can’t even have Mardi Gras this year to level things off. So much strange, that I wanted to call for the Corps of Engineers to go down below the City and Blow the Levee again. Like they did in 1927. Let’s drain the slime and back-water out of the City. Right now!! Blowing the Levee may not solve the problems in the rest of the country or in Washington, but at least the New Orleans would get back to normal.
While I wait for that to happen, I decided to record my observations of the stuff happening around here. As an around-the-clock driver, I see a lot of cuckoo things. And being on call, I have a lot of down time in between. So as I mentioned, I read a lot. About everything. Its my favorite thing. All of the happenings in the news about New Orleans and all the other places grab my attention. That’s what this Blog is about. It’s the Suppositions, Hysterics, Incite and Theories about events, rumors, facts, stories and anything else that comes to mind, about happenings everywhere, all from the perspective of a New Orleanian.
Check you later.