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NEW ORLEANS - 16 February, 2005: The half double shotgun where I have been urban camping has begun being worked on again today. Nick and his uncle have left the other renovation they were working on and promise to now pay full attention to my space. I should, thus, have a stove by the weekend. Maybe even a shower. I can dream.
Meanwhile, the new pay period begins here at ACORN today, so that I have the chance of finally making salary. Who knows, perhaps someone will also remember that I was told I was hired to work on the lead-abatement project. People around me are beginning to take decisions and make actions that shall directly impact my life. I have turned on the auto-pilot and decided to let the plane do what it does best.
The latest edition went in the bag yesterday, two days earlier than scheduled, to my great relief, but cost me every bit of money I had until pay-day, which is a week away. So I am scratching around for ways to come up with other money in my "spare" time. Wish me luck, Luv!
I have to take RAHEEM's critique of my affiliation under advisement for the time being, as I have little opportunity to jack in these days and thus scant chance of seeking other opportunities. It's an effective a nd disquieting trap. A true challenge for the escape artist in me. I'm fiddling away at the mechanism, running alternative approaches to the problem in my mind while the plane does its thing ...
THE NEWS THAT FILTERS in toward me is minimal these days. I don't get a full dose of much of anything except what is passed/forwarded on to me by people who think it'll matter. The usual newsletters I subscribe to electronically are normally shunted aside because they require I follow links -- something there is no opportunity to do these days. I'm not sure how much longer I'll find this endurable and that state of mind definitely impacts my near-term goals and decision-making. I raised the question about these circumstances as the lede for our Glass House moment two editions ago, my dear. The answer is quite imminent.
19 February, 2005: THINGS HAVE CHANGED DRASTICALLY in every area of my life EXCEPT cash-flow. (Of course.)First the personal: As of today I have a stove! Yayy! Now all I need is any food to cook on it and something to cook that food in... Ehm ... But that's a drastic improvement. I have a shower, too! Double yayy! And a bathroom cabinet with a mirror in which to shave -- instead of using the back of a CD, as I have for about a month now. No furniture yet but the place is still kind of a construction site. There's still paper from the painting on a couple of the floors, there's still another window to be hung and most of the doors. But it is starting to look like an apartment. It just might be what people expect when they hear that word by the first. Cross fingers and toes for me.
On the professional front, like a bolt out of the blue, I have suddenly been moved to working among the senior staff. I have two new projects on my plate, as of yesterday, that will move me away from simply being a door-knocker. The subject of my facility with reports and budgets was broached. There are new learning and/or training sessions on this week's agenda. I have a meeting at the Mayor's office this week, too.
No, Darling. The one subject that was not broached was money. (Of course.) Things were coming at me so hard and fast yesterday that it was all I could do to keep up. I needed to absorb the information I was being hit with, immediately embark on a new project, and try to assess this sudden change in the lay of the land.
I'm going to take my supervisor -- with whom I'll be working on a radically different basis soon, it seems -- aside and ask him about the money thang this morning.
5:00 a.m. -- 20 February, 2005: I AWAKENED FROM A STRANGE DREAM. Strange in that I remember none of it except the concluding scene: I am sitting, Indian fashion, beside my ex-wife. We are across the floor from an unidentifiable old friend.She asks, "How are you doing?"
"Good," Debbie says and I say, "Fine." I can feel that we are both content and happy.
"You seem good," the friend says, "but every time I see you, I notice that you both age so very quickly."
We, Deb and I, give each other a knowing smile but we say nothing.
I think to myself, Does it really show that much?
At that I awakened.
It's my miserable destiny
The one chunk of Future that I can see,
It's my Fate, my doom, my guarantee
To HURT YOU, BABY,
The way my baby hurt me ...
Just think of yourself as the Missing Link in the Daisy-chain of Pain -- Sean Altman
My friend and landlord, Nick, loaned me twenty-five bucks so that I might eat yesterday. He and his uncle joked about when I would first use my new stove and we decided that it should be yesterday, which had been a frustrating day for us all. Rather than work on this apartment, they had spent the day working on the toilet of Nick's tenants next door. It seems that the plumber who was supposed to have come to fix it, a New Orleanian, first called to say that he had a flat tire and later that his truck had some other unknown problem. So the job was left to Nick and Drew.Nick said, "Doesn't it seem like people in this town are just weird? They don't behave like people anywhere else. There is something seriously wrong about them."
My supposed ride to work, a rarity in that I usually walk the forty-minute journey there and so was glad of the offer, never materialized. When I realized that she wasn't going to show on time, I called in and then started my trek. When I arrived, it was to discover that instead of going out door-knocking we were to take part in a caravan promosting a candidate in district 96. The effort of putting together the caravan squandered the entire day, New Orleans style, and even took me into overtime on top of my overtime. I arrived home angry and miffed. I said, "All I could think about today was that the one thing you can depend on from someone from New Orleans is that you can't depend on them."
Drew, who is about my age or perhaps even older, had just gone through a breakup with his latest inamorata. She just has a problem with forming a relationship, he observed. He had invited her to dinner and she had demurred. He told her, he said, "I understand what you're doing. If you go back into your shell, you'll probably stay there for the rest of your life." He told Nick and I that she responded, "Yes, you are right. That is probably true." Then he gave us a look of bewilderment.
Drew said, "I don't know what it is about these people in New Orleans! Is it the effects of their strange Catholicism? Is that there are too many Irish? I can't figure it out."
I didn't say anything, having noted that Drew seems to have a thing about Irish Catholics. I could have said that most of the heritage here is actually French Catholic. I could have said, as I heard someone observe in a tavern one night, that New Orleanians didn't learn from the Romans about how too much lead -- in the old paint dust from the constantly renovated houses, in the water -- constantly ingested into your system will eventually drive you mad. I could have said that this subterranean system of excess and sex and living with the dead above ground amongst you leads to a certain quirky instability. I could have said that it is as infectious as malaria and has many of the same effects. But I didn't ...
AS I OFTEN INSISTED TO MATT while I was living in Phoenix, it was cheaper to live there than here. Nick's twenty-five went quickly because in order to cook, I had to buy pots, utensils, a bowl and food. When I threw bath soap, one pack of cigarettes and beer on top of that, I was left with less than three dollars. It is still three days before pay day at my All-Day Job.What food did I buy, Love?
Red beans and rice, of course! What else can I afford?
INTIMATE BOULEVARD
After my morning shower (yayy!) today, I had a golden moment. I felt three things that I have not felt since living here on Poland Street: clean, warm and comfortable. It was an epiphany, of sorts. I felt good, like I'm not just urban camping any longer, but actually have an apartment. Do you think that has anything to do with being able to cook at home again, Luv?
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My pals Matt Stowell and Steve Hessey came to the rescue on this day off. Matt gave me a small cash infusion to keep me in a good mental state until pay day, we went out for drinks -- where we met Steve -- and he tossed me a pack of unfiltered GPCs. (We jokingly call them "Ghetto Pal Cigarettes" because they are obviously concocted from the floor-leavings of some tobacco plant and sold to us brothers for a song.)
When I asked Steve for a recommendation for a good place to pick up a cooking knife, he volunteered to give me a cleaver he had been "experimenting" on to turn into a fish-shaped implement. I was chuffed. When we met him at the Sugar Park Tavern -- another place around the way from my place (did I just say that?) here near the industrial canal separating the rest of the New Orleans from the "Lower Nine" -- that's how we refer to the part of the ninth ward across the canal between here and St. Bernard parish -- I asked for a recommendation for good meat to add to the beans I was cooking when Matt popped over.
Steve gave me a book, entitled Cleese Encounters about Monty Python veteran John Cleese, in which to conceal the cleaver. "The last thing you want to do is walk down the streets of the ninth ward carrying a meat cleaver in your hand, my friend," he joked. "I can just hear the cops callin' you in now."
Instead of a recommendation for purchasing the meat for my dinner, Steve gave me a Robert's (pronounced "row-bear's," in Nawlins, Luv) bag with a couple of steaks in it. Yes, indeed.
Allah Akbar.
I mentioned this while living in Phoenix: If you're a poor man in New Orleans and you have friends, you have a hook-up.
Matt got on my case, on the walk back to my house, about going hungry this week. "Why didn't you call me, man?" he said. "You know I wouldn't let you go hungry. You only have a couple of days left until your payday. When are you gonnah learn to swallow some of that pride of yours?"
I had to acknowledge that he had a good point.
The challenge I face right now is finding balance.
My new Day Job demands a great deal of my time and energy, as does your World's Magazine. That leaves little time or energy for a social life: something required by all the energy demanded by the former two in order to recharge young Rod's batteries.
I also have some political goals, Luv, as I've shared with you, if I am to stay here in Nawlins. This system and this mentality MUST change. My Day Job accommodates that desire.
The social issue is more problematic, both because of my own hermetic tendencies and my lack of free time. A girlfriend would motivate me toward being more inclined toward having a personal life. We've acknowledged that fact before. The difference now is that I have more investment in fulfilling the wish.
I feel the need to make Rod more comfortable than he has been during this last decade.
I've processed my mother's death, the battle with my former Malady after the dot,com crash, my angst over Peggy, my divorce and am now ready for the "old Rod" to find a home and get back to my mission from God.
So I cleaned my apartment this weekend, as much as I could considering that it still resembles a construction site more than a place where someone actually lives, because I prefer to work in an orderly environment. My "monk's cell" mode. And I attempted to visualize the possibility of sharing this place with another person or keeping it all to myself.
When considering these two options, the latter was preferable.
Yes, it would be a large apartment for a single man, by New Orleans standards, and expensive. But privacy matters a great deal to me. I thrive on having time alone in which to complete my work without distractions from outside sources. Silence is something that is a requirement in my days.
A roommate would provide social company but also require compromising the isolation I most need in order to cogitate and write. Because my Day Job and political goals require giving an enormous amount of "face time" every day, I feel that coming home to a quiet, calm and empty environment would be good and provide the kind of mental and spiritual balance I am seeking.
I'm "thinking out loud" here, Darling. Indulge me.
The problem is that what I'm suggesting -- taking over the entire nut for this apartment myself -- would require half my income. Matt has mentioned that I could find a more suitable place for A LOT less money than Nick requires. I know he is correct but, as I told him, I feel a certain obligation to Nick for coming through for me when I was at sixes and sevens.
That Loyalty thang again.
FINALLY, let's face it, I LOVE living alone AND if I find The Right Woman, it would be much more convenient for she and I if I already have a large "satin-filled homey pad" (thanks a tip of the hat to Sean Altman) that I don't have to eject a roomie from. In that scenario, it's worth the extra money to me to live solitaire.
The photo accompanying this entry was forwarded to me by my pal, Greg Cowman, another New Orleans bartender. It fit the way I've been feeling these days.
I've been focused on heat, it being winter. But my Real Concern should be, this being New Orleans, that this apartment I am considering making my home has NO AIR CONDITIONING! Yikes!
1 March, 2005: YES, THIS EDITION WAS SCHEDULED TO APPEAR ON 28 FEBRUARY. Apologies.But, whilst I slept during an electrical storm last week, Vickie mysteriously went into a coma. (No, I don't have a surge protector, thank you very much. I'm the guy who begged for a single Zip disk last Christmas, let's recall. I'm the guy who continues to eat on an infrequent basis. A surge protector is on the list but very, very far down.)
Vickie refused to boot for days. Matt downloaded instructions from powerbookmedic.com and we proceeded to try to analyse the source of the problem. My Darling would begin to boot, even get as far as showing the desktop display sometimes, and then just conk out. It was maddening.
By last night we had decided to test the power adaptor, which is even older than Vickie herself.
My friend, Utahna Faith, mentioned in these pages before, brought over the adaptor from her old machine. Again, no dice.
I was resolved to send Vickie off to MacResQ at unanticipated, and probably budget-breaking, expense for diagnosis and repair. I continued to pray.
This morning, she mysteri ously rejoined the world and I resumed working on this late edition.
VICKIE LIVES
MY DARLING came back to me today.The One True LOVE of my life was revived -- thanks to a mighty and tireless assist from MATT STOWELL. SO my life is not over yet.
As RAHEEM insisted, being around is all that matters. Let's rock!
3 March, 2005: IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME since I had to both deal with paper and pen (requiring me to type my words over before sending them to you, Luv) and the uncertainty of not knowing when the next (this current Black History Month) edition of your World's Magazine would actually appear.Being here in the Hell-hole known as Nawlins, no one around me has the sense of urgency about the problem as I do, of course. Even my "best friend" is quite casual about this special, personal agony of mine. A hole in your life? Big deal.
It takes me a while to learn certain lessons. This time I do feel the bayonet and don't like the how. I shan't share this foxhole again.
So I have been busy placing ducks, based on my new plans. Always a dangerous thing in Life of Rod, that duck placing, as you know, my dears. I suspect it will be some weeks before I am able to send personal e-mails to any of you. By then The Plan will be a fait accompli. This suspense must suffice for now. (It will take me days and days to get through the literal thousands of e-mails that will have clogged my mail server -- if not completely shut it down! -- during this long absence of mine from my real life, non? I must trust that the writers for your World's Magazine believe I am still alive.)
I can only imagine what Dragana is saing right now. That is besides, "I told you he was inviting you back to kill your soul!" I so dread her "I told you so"s.
My little sister is never wrong. I sorely miss our long, weekly "letters" to each other. I hope Oscar is doing better than Victoria right now.
This break (Think of the book Paddy Doyle Ha, Ha, Ha) did provide me with the opportunity to complete reading Jim Wallis's book and write the review that is our top story this edition, so it was not a total loss.
I, nonetheless, feel deep pain about not getting out the G21 AFRICA TRILOGY I had planned as the centerpiece of our Black History Month coverage during the actual month. The African sisters, AMI and NGOZI came strong and MPUSH rocked my world once again. You should have read their work earlier. I apologize.
Not to mention BRAD BALFOUR's Jamie Foxx interview -- which you were meant to read before the Oscars.
I have learned that my friend, Barbara, was correct in an assertion she made many years ago. We both lived in northern California then. I lived in San Francisco and she had moved across the Bay, to the sunny side. She then suffered more frequently than she does now from the chronic back pain that is her burden. I suspect the suffering was caused because she had a boss who she absolutely abhorred. She was in a great deal of pain on the day of the telephone conversation I am referring to now and said to me, "You know, Rod, I have figured out that no one gives a damn about your pain."
Well, almost no one. I certainly cared. I still do.
In those days, the strength of our love was such that a week would not pass when one or the other of us would not telephone to "check in," much as relatives do. Now, it seems like a cold day in Hell.
As I get older, I am becoming something of a Jewish Mother. "What? Did you break your fingers? ... Well, I figured your fingers must be broken because it is so hard for you to punch a telephone number or type an e-mail."
If I believed in curses, hexes and the like, I know who I would put a curse on right now. BUT "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord ... "
You know, the thing I hate most about you, Baby, is that "your plane doesn't ever land." You are a life-long tease.I suppose that's an accomplishment of sorts. But it chaps my ass.
DOCTOR MAC
6 March, 2005: MATT STOWELL BROUGHT VICKIE BACK to us, my little loves. He has been thinking about being a Mac Doctor and he certainly proved his prowess in bringing my darling back to me. It was a day of wonderful blessings.But now her monitor is only at 25%. I'm not sure it's something he can do for me. If he can, I'll certainly kick down some major ducats.
That means, of course, that Yours Unruly will probably end up living on the street in order to bring your World's Magazine to you because Nick wants $750 dollars plus deposit from me this month. He is pressuring me to find a roommate.
Meanwhile, God is shouting at me and I hear Him. I know what I must do. The Plan is before me but I must restore Vickie before I begin. It is all about "the least of these." That has always been my M.O., non?
Stop feeling sorry for meYour young butterfly is about to alight again, my love, with God's help.
I hate that look on your face
You say, "Just let it go!"
You say, "Come back home."
I say "I'm just fallin' from Grace ..." -- Joan OsbourneTHIS TIME to what he should be about.
Insha'Allah, I shall see my fifty-third birthday soon. This month. And I shall also be about the Work I was meant to do.
See that mountaintop? It is calling me ...
The Magician is on AUTO-PILOT.
ROD's WORD
I am finishing the magazine, for its uncertain publication date on Matt Stowell's "Blue Demon" -- the first version of iMac, which he bought years ago on the first day of its release in San Francisco. Your World's Magazine System Administrator, TIMOTHY MEADOWS, volunteered to send me a PC to complete Rod's Work but we are committed to being "Made on a Mac." (My cussed stubborn streak.)
My partner from the Community Organizer days at ACORN, Tanya, that woman of voluptuous features, and I talked yesterday about God, racism's insidious legacy and working for an organization that pimps out its employees. She had no idea that I'm planning to sell a story on ACORN to a major newspaper and reprinting it here. She did figure out, as we talked, that maybe Yours Unruly susses out more than he lets on and isn't the Goody Two Shoes he pretends to be at work. I don't give most people that Clue, as you know, my love.
I prefer to let them think I'm dumb and vulnerable. (Well, I guess I am vulnerable.)
Matt says that this is my strategy for testing people. I wish to know if they will do the right thing. And I hold a grudge when they don't do so.
That observation from Matt about me is entirely correct.
So when Beth Butler, the Head Organizer for Louisiana ACORN betrayed me -- basically, she LIED to me about my salary, sent me off to organize a union that has little prospect of reaching fruition, had me train two people to do the same, knowing full well that she had misrepresented the position to them as she had to me -- all bets were off. Things moved into Conan territory. (What is best in life? " Crush your enemies. See them driven before you and hear the lamentations of their women.") And I have always known what is best in life.
As my life-long friend, Ric, says, for some people I am El Topo. Beth saw me coming.
I was the funslinger.
That is why I laugh. It is killing laughter.
Pray for me, Baby. I need your prayers now more than ever. Light candles.
THINGS I PRAY FOR THIS WEEK
1. My friend, Terry.
2. God's Love and Grace.
3. The Right & Last Woman.
"Work like you don't need the money,
"Love like you've never been hurt,
"Dance like no one is watching ... "
Love,
Rod
Rod was a columnist for the Andover News Network, where he wrote over two hundred articles on web design and development issues. He was 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 Internet 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.
In 2002, he worked as Assistant to the General Manager of a Big Easy company that does restaurants and nightclubs. He did stints as the Resident Philosopher at three separate gin mills in that city in the French Quarter and the Marigny, earning his stripes during two successive Mardi Gras seasons. 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.
Our Resident Philosopher is now resuming his hejira. Having completed his training as a Community Organizer for ACORN, where he worked to make positive change for other poor people like himself, he has been added to staff as a union organizer. Act surprised.
Now he needs to find an angel to hire him to do this magazine ...
In his spare time, he chases women in the manner that a fly pursues a spider. 
He continues to be committed to integrity, chastity and a dose of humility.
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