La Nouvelle Orléans: 1718-2005
Apparently I hit some kind of nerve yesterday. Strong feelings all around--both positive and negative--about politics and the blogging thereof. Fascinating.

Except all you goddamn self-centered bastards were so interested in letting me know how you feel about stuff, all of you missed the opportunity to praise the fact that yesterday's post included a sentence that referenced both Super Mario Kart and Burkina Faso. Brilliant, if you ask me. And what do I get from you people? Me me me me me me me.

You know, this job isn't as easy as I make it look. Do you have any idea how long it took me to pair just the right old video game and obscure country name to get exactly the right comedic effect? It could have just as easily been Tetris and Namibia. Super Monkey Ball and Tajikistan. Dig Dug and Papua New Guinea. Q*bert and Swaziland.

See? None of those have the same effect.

Except maybe that last one. Q*bert and Swaziland. That's not bad.

That's not the point. The point is, I work hard for you people. Like if I'm going to use Burkina Faso, I have to go to the the CIA World Factbook and find out if they have a king, a mullah, a president, what. I could have just said "ambassador", but come on. If I'm going to say "ambassador", I might as well say "Canada". It would be like not even trying. Which is already what it's mostly like anyway.

You know what, I've completely lost my train of thought. Wow, I've bored myself into indifference. Come on, if you're not going to give me props for Burkina Faso, you have to give it up for that. That's talent right there.

...

I say a lot of stupid shit in this space. It's my space, so I guess it's a) inevitable and b) not that big a deal because I don't really mind if I offend people sometimes. I try not to be panderingly (new word!) sensationalistic (that's two!), but sometimes I say things in a sort of glib and insensitive way in an effort to entertain myself and (hopefully) the occasional reader. It's what I do in lieu of having an actual personality.

So I don't apologize much. For the most part, people can bite me.

One exception: if I make light of the plight in your city and then in subsequent days your city ceases to exist I will consider retracting a thing or two. If you're going to bitch just because you got your "feelings hurt", write it in your Courage Journal, Mary. Scream it into your pillow maybe. Don't waste your time writing the e-mail I'm going to either ignore or turn into a blogpost so that I can make fun of it.*

What I'm saying is that in retrospect, my post from Monday might not have been in the best taste. In my defense, at the time news reports were that the worst of the hurricane had missed New Orleans and the death toll (while still tragic and sad) was still estimated in the mid-single-digits.

Also, my post was less about how funny it is when people die in hurricanes than how funny it is when giant concrete structures like the Louisiana Superdome fail in a hurricane.

Ha! See? Go back and read it. Hi-larious.

Even with my semi-apology, the quality of which is akin to a professional athlete caught doping or a politician caught saying something s/he actually means/believes, I did think it was pretty funny today when the governor of Texas--motivated by a sincere desire to help--offered shelter to the refugees stranded in the Louisiana Superdome in the Houston Astrodome.

There are three things that are amusing about this.

First, why for the love of God would anyone want to move from one domed stadium in a coastal Gulf of Mexico city to another domed stadium in a coastal Gulf of Mexico city when the one they would be leaving failed to protect them in the first place and is quickly turning into a sewer-scented Lord of the Flies post-apocalyptic nightmare society** even as we speak?

Second, the Astrodome. What a slap in the face. The building that wasn't good enough for the Astros or the Oilers (who were so desperate to leave, they bailed before they had a new stadium and went to Tennessee for fuck's sake) these people are supposed to be happy with just because they're refugees? Obviously a cheap ploy by the governor of Texas to get people downtown in Houston again so he can say he "revitalized" a dead area in his next campaign commercials. Cynical if you ask me.

Third: Houston? Really? My personal position is if you're going to go to all the trouble to flee the area, you should seriously flee the area. If I had to think of one thing these people might be looking for, the phrase that leaps into my head is high ground, something that cannot be found in any kind of abundance in Houston. I've never been to Houston, but I hear the only things Houston has in abundance are strip clubs and barbecue. Entertaining, but no help in a storm of Biblical proportions. Those buildings have to be, like, 20 feet tall, tops.

I would invite you all, Superdome Refugees Who Somehow Have Managed To Read My Blog, to California, but we have no domed stadium to offer you dubious shelter. Plus we have earthquakes.

OK, fine. Honestly, we're just all full here. No vacancy. My city has about 2/3 the population of New Orleans (proper) and it's a suburb 50 miles from the urb we supposedly sub from. Seriously, it's crowded.

I do have a solution for you, however: Wyoming. Talk about your high ground. And space? You wouldn't believe the space. Sure, the only black people you'll see are on TV when they show the Denver Nuggets or Broncos play, but that's OK. Casper could do with a serious infusion of New Orleans soul. And so could Laramie. And Cheyenne. And... OK, that's all the Wyoming cities I can think of. But the point is... Jackson Hole! I just remembered Jackson Hole. Han Solo lives there. And Indiana Jones too, come to think of it. My God, what are you people waiting for?

Plus the population of Wyoming is so small that a mass migration of former New Orleans residents may well tip the state from solid Red to Blue (or at least a healthy burgundy). Poor ole Wyomingite (Wyomingan? Wyominger?) Dick Cheney would throw a clot if that were to happen. And it could be all your fault!

Something to think about.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 5.1


Pops

*= seriously, I'm that desperate for material. popsbucket@hotmail.com

**= I've seen enough Movies of the Week to make this speculation reasonable. They're all either about chicks with cancer or society tearing itself apart after some horrible disaster. All starring Lori Loughlin.
- posted by Pops @ 10:41 AM