Rod Amis - Unbound

NEW ORLEANS - 13 September, 2002: Let's begin this week's ramble by blowing our own horn. One of the many things that sets the publication you are reading apart is that we attempt to generate new topics into the 21st century discourse, rather than simply parroting what other journals are saying. You can find many examples of that in our back pages. From the Goodyear Tire, Hillsborough-Ponds, Quaker Oats et alia racist advertising in South America a few years back, to our coverage of the narco kidnap-and-ransom trade among the FARC in Colombia, to our coverage of the bombing of Serbia, we have taken a direct, on-the-ground approach. In each of these stories and others, it's taken the Mouthpiece Media (MM) a year or two (sometimes longer) to catch up with stories you've read about here first -- and accurately. JAMIE MENUTIS'S interview with University of Texas professor Robert Jensen in this edition is another of our exclusive interviews in this mold.

I think of this because, for over a decade now (when we were in print) and for the last six-plus years on the Web, we've taken a decidedly anti-corporate stance. (That stance is why this magazine has had to be mainly self-supporting. Tough to get sponsors when they might be the topics of one of your stories.) Suddenly, you can go everywhere from the grey New York Times to Fortune magazine -- organs that only two years ago were falling over themselves to get a multinational corporate CEO on the cover -- and find them singing in the choir we've been leading for all these years.

There's something wrong with a system of shamelessly over-compensated CEOs? Really? There's a problem of putting the quarterly bottom-line above the interests of society? Damn! We thought G21 was the only one who felt that way -- for years. Now even Congressmen are saying these guys should be put in jail. They used to call it hyperbole when these pages said what was going on was criminal.

This will past, of course, because this is only the Story Du Jour for the MM. For us, it remains our meat and bread. So we won't stop beating this drum once it's out of the headlines. We won't stop until we see a lot more of the afflicted being comforted.

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10 September, 2002: On Wednesday, after putting up the last "real" editorial to occupy this diary space of mine in the magazine, I faced the prospect of moving my (politely called) couch-surfing to the true definition of homelessness in America, urban camping. The plan was to wash my sleeping bag at Matt's and then find some place the cops wouldn't find me -- probably in the districts of New Orleans called the Bywater or the Marigny -- and sleep near the levee or under some tree. That was at 5:00 p.m.

By 6:00 p.m. Brian, my newest pal, a contractor and another San Francisco transplant, had offered me a new construction job, doing demolition work for a cameraman from our local Fox News affiliate. Great guy. That refers to both Brian and the photographer we work for. Brian called me back 15 minutes later and said I could crash at his place until I get back on my feet.

My pal Matt, who works in real estate, told me on Friday that one of the agents in his office that usually carries pricey listings like condos in the French Quarter -- had a small place in the Marigny for $320/month and that he thought of me. He wanted to know if I was interested. ("Hell yeah!")

On Saturday, I dropped into The Spotted Cat to see my pal Curtis. Trish, the owner was there. She had been looking for me. She wanted to hire me to tend bar. She told Curtis and I that I would train that day. She asked if I would mind taking four shifts at my favorite bar in this town. I said I would have to think about if for five seconds. Not.

The train had left the station without the conductor even telling me that I was on board.

I woke up Sunday morning in a daze. I had two jobs now, a roof over my head and the prospect of getting my own place. My whole life had changed in three days.

Listen: Six weeks ago, Curtis and I had a discussion about the lack of Black bartenders, in and around the French Quarter, in a city that is predominantly Black. In the French Quarter particularly, and anyone who has been in New Orleans more than a millisecond knows this, the bar owners believe that their patrons want to see a woman behind the bar. At places like Molly's On the Market, the philosophy appears to be that the best bartender is a woman with large mammaries, whether she knows how to mix a drink or not. Whether she serves the customers the drinks they want instad of just chatting with her friends or not. Curtis has been tending bar for 22 years, from Kansas City to Mardi Gras. He's a professional and a real sharp guy. Some days I like to think he's my friend.

When Curtis was training me at the Cat on Saturday, I reminded him of our conversation. He said: "You're going against the trend." I said: "I'm that kind of guy."

You probably recall my sharing with you that a woman bartender I know told me, when I first moved to the Easy, that bartenders are like rock stars here in New Orleans. I thought that was a bit self-aggrandizing. We all want to believe that what we do is important. My plan is not to be a rock star. My hope is that I'll just put a bit more FUN in the dysfunctional of this town while I'm working at the Cat. Lord knows I won't complain about having to listen to some of the best jazz players in town while I'm at work.

On the days I'm not behind the bar, I'll be out in the humidity doing my construction work. It seems the gods have decided to keep me fit by making me continue to do hard manual labor. When I showed up at the Cat on Saturday, my forearms were aching from tearing apart a deck. I felt like I was Popeye. That's okay, though. I have a respect for honest sweat. Problem is, I'm getting long-in-tooth for swinging hammers and hanging off rafters. I'm almost at the point where breaking a bone would matter. Old bones are brittle, so they tell me.

Souzan, my friend and former landlord, e-mails me to say that the stars are amazing right now and that they will be good to me. So it seems.

I am being shown the other side of the vortex of life in New Orleans. Is the city accepting me now? I don't know. For a man who normally romances cities, I have found this one a suitor that I've had no desire to pursue.

At the same time, I have to accept that New Orleans is changing me. I've begun to refer to other people as "Baby." I've gotten used to the sway of the place. When people say that once you've lived in New Orleans you find it difficult to adjust to other cities, I intuitively understand what they mean. Despite my best efforts, New Orleans is having her way with me. I like living on and walking down a street that smells of jasmine. I've grown used to the brickwork beneath my feet that gives a cadence to my walk that only a drunk could tolerate.

I don't notice anymore when I come across the thick roots of a tree throwing up a concrete cliff in the middle of a sidewalk.

I used to notice the odd and special features of this city like those roots, these broken streets. I don't now.

New Orleans is a city infused with Sex and Death. It has to do, I believe, with burying our dead above ground in the legend mausalea of this place. Then there's that voodoo tradition -- I keep it at arm's length. There's the open acknowledgement that this is a dysfunctional town filled with "characters" -- the nice term for all the dysfunctional people who are attracted to a haunt below sea level that one decent typhoon could blow away.

If I were a betting man and thought I'd live for another fifty years -- considering global warming and how the seas are rising on this planet, considering the location and its seasonal tropical storms -- I would put good money on New Orleans not being here in the year 2052. Good money.

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14 September, 2002: This entry is mixed chronologically, I know. That's the way my week has felt, if not always been. By this past Wednesday, I was totally spent and suffering from an horrendous head cold. I shouldn't have been surprised, I had worked in the bar or at the construction site for seven days running. I was behind on getting this magazine out, hadn't checked my e-mails in days, hadn't written a proposal for the new project I promised to work on with The Binj (Binyavanga Wainaina) nor completed a PowerPoint slide I'd promised for a client in California.

Now my body was screaming: "Stop it! Stop, already!" and I was good for nothing for the next few days. I retreated to eat and sleep and take cold medicines for a couple of days. That was Thursday and Friday. Saturday (today) I had to get going on this magazine, rush out and get my laundry done (I hadn't done laundry in a while, either, so I was out of clothes and underwear) and then get back behind the bar for my afternoon and evening performance. (Pant, pant!)

At this writing, I'm planning to have these pages out and up for you by Monday. My schedule tells me I have to, but I can only say its finished when it is finished. Monday, maybe Tuesday, as there is a lot of good new writing sitting in queue right now ...

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THE MOST AMAZING THING I SAW ON SEPTEMBER 11TH this year was the sight of Dollar Bill Clinton sitting across from David Letterman on CBS that night. There he was again!

Dave made some crack about Dollar Bill "still being The President" after one of Clinton's usually charming and erudite responses to a question about oil dependence. The audience broke into an enthusiastic round of applause.

That's when I had one of those particularly Political Junkie thoughts that I'm wont to: I could easily imagine Dollar Bill having the cajones to pull a Grover Cleveland on us. There's nothing stopping him from running from President again and he's not a particularly old man.

What's eery to me is that the American people would probably re-elect him, too.

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17 September, 2002: The last tasks I face before putting an edition of this magazine to bed are the newsletter and this column. Until those two are completed it's not time.

I still plan to launch today, but it's becoming an increasingly dicey proposition as I don't have a sense of completion with this page. I haven't started the newsletter. I've already decided to jettison the notion of getting the link graphics Raheem requests to update the "Hot Links(Not from Louisiana)" page this week. I don't have the time to find a place for access AND do the necessary work before the end of the day. (Apologies to both True Lover of Christ and Medical Breakthroughts/Ivanhoe Broadcasting. We'll catch up with you in our next edition. I promise!)

I had sorely wanted to launch yesterday, but the stars weren't right. Brian and I lost the apartment he had planned for us to share Uptown -- the house was sold out from under us. Meanwhile, I got the offer from Matt to move back into Casa de Caca, since our old roomie Caio was leaving him high and dry with only two weeks notice.

I suddenly have living space options again, though both come freighted with massive pitfalls that I know all-too-well. This is New Orleans, too.

And, quietly and in my usual circumspect fly-awaiting-the-attack-of-the-spider manner, I've developed TWO love interests. Yes, it's true! There are now two women that I'm ready to encourage to pounce upon me at their first inclination. I have a sense that one of them might very soon. She is of the Bent Coin variety, of course; I'm committed to moving away from the familiar but it's difficult to break the habit of being attracted to a flame -- especially for a fire sign.

My friend Darryl is coming into town at the end of the month, so I'm hoping to have established some level of stability in my life by his arrival so that I can show him a good time.

I have no comforting epiphanies to leave you with this week, my little Loves, as my so-called life continues to be a complete mess. Topsy-turvy. I can only ask that you keep the Butterfly Soul in your prayers as I keep you in my own.

Perhaps next week I'll have a momentary "flash of brilliance" to share with you.

Search www.g21.net [ ] Our Link Partners the Web for

What I Need This Week

1. Closure on a place to live. Is it Casa de Caca again, with the Marigny slumlord as my nemesis, or should I try a new thing with Brian's Drama Train?

2. A routine that allows me to pursue my outside Web projects and begin writing seriously again.

3. Money.

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Thanks for coming back this week.

"Work like you don't need the money,
"Love like you've never been hurt,
"Dance like no one is watching..."
Rod

ROD AMIS has published this magazine since 1990. It first appeared as a hardcopy 'Zine. In March, 1996, he launched it here on the Web. Rod was a Contributing Editor at Suite101.com, where he wrote the " 'Net Publishing" feature. His work has been featured in the San Francisco Bay Guardian Online, NRV8, and at WebLab's Reality Check site. Rod was also a contributing writer on technology for Faulkner Information Services. He wrote Web issues for MethodFive.com's Hyper newsletter.

Rod was a columnist for the Andover News Network, where he wrote over two hundred articles on web design and development issues. He was also principal writer and Editor for IT Manager's Journal, where he reviewed technology issues weekly, producing 383 editorials. He became the Managing Editor for Electronic Mail/Newsletter Publications at Andover.net at the end of February, 2000, and left in September of the same year. He was a contributing writer for ACCESS magazine, which appeared both on- and offline for 10 million readers in 100 newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Post, Boston Herald, Austin American-Statesman, Denver Post and Orlando Sentinel, among others. Rod was the US reporter for Silicon.com, a division of Network Multimedia Television in London, UK, reaching 3.5 million European readers, until May, 2001.

This year he worked as Assistant to the General Manager of a Big Easy company that does restaurants and nightclubs. (Think: The Boy.) Oh yeah, Rod's had Day Jobs working construction. Mostly renovations of old New Orleans structures, houses and a bar. Sometimes he designs Web sites for other people so that he can get his creative juices flowing the way he can't at a staid publication like this one. And he's been the instructor in Editing for Internet Publications at the Novi Sad School of Journalism in Yugoslavia. Right now our Resident Philosopher has joined the pantheon of New Orleans bartenders, works construction when he's not behind the bar and still doesn't know when he'll have a "permanent residence" that he likes.. In his spare time, he chases women in the manner that a fly pursues a spider.

Rod lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. This town is eroding his normal sense of driven purpose. He wants to live somewhere civilized when he grows up. Wish him Luck.

He continues to be committed to integrity, chastity and a dose of humility.

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