AntiGravity: Your New Orleans Alternative

2006-08-30T17:59:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

The blogging's kind of stopped, at least for the moment, because of my busy schedule, but all AG updates can be found on the ANTIGRAVITY website!

2006-02-16T06:41:00.000-08:00

COMICS STORYTELLING, OR ARE YOU GETTING A BANG FOR YOUR BUCK? (OR ARE YOU JUST GETTING BANGED?)

On Wednesday I buy comics. And I love my comics. Of course, that's another post. One of the things I enjoy about comics (and movies, too, when I think about it) is how the story comes together. It's odd that a person who doesn't know much about storytelling can watch a movie that falls a bit short in the plot and immediately knowthat something just doesn't quite fit. Usually what you hear is "they could've done a better job," which is layperson for "that plot's got more holes than Swiss cheese."

I digress, though, because this isn't really about plot, but pace. Lately, one of my favorite books has been Marvel's NEW AVENGERS. NA is admittedly a geek fest, Marvel's attempt to toss in some of their biggest characters (Spider-Man, Captain America, Iron Man and Wolverine) with some B-listers and sell a shitload of comics. Yeah, it's a geek fest but it's been pulled off pretty well by Brian Bendis. Bendis is one of my favorite writers from way back, with JINX, TORSO, POWERS, DAREDEVIL and a ton more under his belt. He's a technically good writer, which is why I was kind of dissapointed by NEW AVENGERS #16.

One thing that can be really exciting in comics is the splash page of art. It's probably overused, but when used correctly it can accentuate an action sequence, or even a "talking heads" sequence, with the knockout punch of a fight or maybe a kiss between lovers. If abused it can be boring, and, worse, lazy.

NA #16 has 21 pages of "story," not counting the first page, which is a recap of previous events. The first EIGHT PAGES are spash pages, with two pages taken up with one spread. One page is a shot of Earth from space, the next is the same shot of Earth, but it's getting hit by an energy beam from an unknown source. Or is the energy coming FROM Earth? One wouldn't know by looking at the page. Then it takes another TWO pages to set North Pole Alaska as the city we're seeing, the two page spread to show its destruction, and another two pages to show there's some energy being who's maybe responsible for the damage.

21 pages of story and eight are essentially wasted telling what I figured could be told in half that. NEW AVENGERS is one of Marvel's cheapest books at $2.50 and it seems as if Bendis wasted four pages of story with possible laziness, making the issue a very quick read. The cliffhanger isn't that much of a cliffhanger, for goodness' sake. The New Avengers are being called in to handle the energy man? I'd hope so, since the books is titled NEW AVENGERS and all.

2006-02-16T06:37:00.000-08:00

I know, where have the posts been? I wish I had an answer other than "I've been busy," but you know, that'll have to do. Things have been crazy around AG lately, with Feb. being a short month (what doesn't help is Mardi Gras falls at the very end of the month, which happens to be at our deadline, which isn't convienent), big meetings for ads and an ad salesperson (which is today and will hopefully go well), and regular everyday stuff.

Anyway, I'll try to post more, really. In the meantime I want to start today with a little writing exercise to stretch my brain.

2006-01-23T18:29:00.000-08:00

The new AG website is up and running, so do me a favor and check it out. Then do me another favor and let me know what you think!

2006-01-23T18:16:00.000-08:00

It had been a few weeks since the last package from the Comic Geek Speak guys came in (and honestly, I'd figured that to be done, since they've all done so much more than I could've ever asked for) and all of a sudden a box from Head Geek himself, Peter Rios, shows up at the house.

Hey, the FABLES vol.1 would've been plenty, but he sweetened the pot with the I Can't Believe It's Not The Justice League arc from JLA: CLASSIFIED. I absolutely LOVED all the Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire Justice League stories, so this was another great set to add to my quickly swelling new comics collection. When we get set up in our new apartment (more on that soon), I'll have to take a photo of the collection-so far.

Anyway, back to the point of the post: Thanks, Peter!

2006-01-03T08:36:00.000-08:00

Every once in awhile I like looking at this blog's top referrers, or at least the most recent 20. Last time I looked at it the nugget of comedy was "can I die of something if I go back to Chalmette?"

Nothing of that caliber this time around, but some highlights include a couple instances of "at delta we love to fly and it be showin'," which of course is a reference to my post about my New York flight. I can't imagine why people would put that into a search engine, unless they're looking for that old spoof commercial from eight years ago, which is what that line is a reference to.

There were a few along the lines of "busted traffic light," which linked to the photo I took of the light at Felicity and Camp back in September.

The top highlight, though, is this: "chris rose and his daughter on new orleans smelling like ass." I have no idea what that person was looking for, or even what page of the blog that would bring up, but I hope they found what they were looking for.

2005-12-30T09:35:00.000-08:00

The new issue of AG is at the printer. After getting about 3 hours sleep over two days, it's done.

Note the slightly different logo. The cover theme is from our Best Of '05 pieces, which are completely unscientific and left up to the whims of our staff's opinions.

It should be out on Monday, if all goes right.

2005-12-30T09:25:00.000-08:00

It was three weeks ago, but I'm finally posting some photos of my trip to New York. The post below is all about the bass ackwards way we got to New York, if anyone's interested.

The two full days we spent in NY (Saturday the 10th and Sunday the 11th) were disjointed a bit. In one way it was nice to be in a city that had its shit together after being in New New Orleans for three months. Of course, the corollary to that is that it was also depressing as hell to be in a city with its shit together when our home was struggling to get the streetcars running.

Anyway, I refrained from taking too many pictures because I never want to be THAT GUY in New York, staring in the sky and holding up foot traffic, but we nonetheless snapped a few. We stayed in Astoria, which is in Queens, and on Saturday we took a train into Manhattan and walked around. We stopped at Midtown Comics, which is just outside of Time Square. It's a great comic shop, two stories and just full of neat stuff. I grabbed some indie comics I couldn't get in New Orleans and we doubled back to Jim Hanley's Universe, where I did more of the same. We walked all the way down to Grenwich Village and wound up in a pretty neat coffee/wine shop before walking the 40 blocks back to Penn Station.

On Sunday we were to go into Brooklyn but didn't have a ride to the subway and instead decided to be lazy and go back to Manhattan. We hopped on the train again and went to see the tree in Rockefeller Plaza. It was quite unimpressive. Huge, yes. Impressive, not so much since it was decorated in only white lights. We did a bit of shopping, including stopping in the ESPN Zone to catch up on some scores (I was happy to find the Pats beating the Bills pretty handily).

On to the pictures:

This is the view from our hotel room. It's real snow!

We stopped for lunch at a random pizzeria (the pizza wasn't so great, but the lasagna I had was pretty good) and I had to take a picture of their directions in case of emergency.

A picture of us near Grenwich Village. Not bad, considering I took it, right?

Sunday night we stayed with some friends of Michelle's and watched some NY public television, including a talent show put together by some Spanish guy. He had a few women with mediocre talent lip sync to songs, and this Karen America woman was just crazy.

And that about sums it up. Monday morning we got on our flight to come home and that went off without a hitch, fortunately.

Final thoughts? New York is okay, but it's a case of "nice place to visit..." I'm just a New Orleans boy at heart, I guess.

2005-12-30T07:30:00.000-08:00

Just when I thought the packages from the Comic Geek Speak guys ceased, I get another one from Bob (I threw the wrapping away before grabbing the address, sorry), full of more cool stuff.

Old comics, which I love, and an Ultimate X-Men trade that I actually had before the flood. All great stuff, so thanks, Bob!

2005-12-08T23:08:00.000-08:00

"Hey, aren't you supposed to be in New York," you ask?

Nah, I'm back in the outskirts of New Orleans, though not by choice. Hold on, hold on, let me get something out of my system...

DELTA AIRLINES FUCKING SUCKS!

There, I said it. As to why I'm home and not in New York (we actually should've touched down at LaGuardia about an hour ago), it's because Delta inexplicably switched our arranged flight to Cincinnati to Atlanta, which was no big deal until the Atlanta flight was pushed back from 4:15 to 6:15, meaning that we would then miss our connecting flight to New York. Put us on another connecting flight, you're thinking? It would make total sense, except that the A T L had no flights to NY leaving until 3:30 tomorrow afternoon, meaning we'd not only have to spend the night in Atlanta but putz away half the day before getting into NY at 9 p.m, leaving us with a solid day to spend before coming home.

With no other airline flying to New York (and a JetBlue flight not only being booked solid but costing $310 one-way anyway), we finally switched our flight until tomorrow at 2 and our return flight to Monday afternoon, meaning we get the full two days in New York we planned for, but we won't be back in time to celebrate my birthday at home. Which is not a really big deal, I guess. Theoretically, I'll have other birthdays.

As to why we were bumped from our Cincy flight and why our Atlanta flight was delayed, who knows. All I know is my flight to Houston next Friday is through Continental and I'll never fly Delta again, if I can help.

And, for Dereck and Purnell (who I ran into at the airport, fittingly enough)..."DELTA...WE LOVE TO FLY, AND IT BE SHOWIN' LIKE A MOTHERF**KER!!"

2005-12-07T09:25:00.000-08:00

Not much new to report here, but the new AG is 95% out there. There are still a few spots on the West Bank I need to hit (in old Algiers), as well as in the Marigny, but it's pretty much done. I'll have the hi-res .pdf on the site soon.

I leave for New York tomorrow afternoon, but our own Patrick Strange should be in BR Friday night for the Eames Era show, so look for that if you're in the ol' Red Stick.

Now it's time for work.

2005-12-01T16:07:00.000-08:00

Two days in a row. Hoowah!

AG Vol.3 #2 won't be ready until noon on Friday, which means we'll simply be on time instead of early (looking back to four months ago, it really did make sense to have this issue come out on Dec. 2nd instead of the 1st and I'm glad I wrote it up that way on our production schedule). It also means I'll have a pretty busy weekend, starting when I pick up the mag tomorrow, going into having The Eames Era and Rotary Downs shows tomorrow night, working Saturday then going to Baton Rouge to start our BR distribution, dinner with a friend of Michelle's Saturday night, then perhaps going back to Baton Rouge for the Saints game on Sunday.

Next week: A New York trip for my birthday that Michelle surprised me with. We leave on Thursday afternoon and come back Sunday afternoon (my actual birthday).

The following week: A trip to Austin to do an interview for the STAPLE! DVD. I'll fly out on Friday the 16th and come back Monday the 19th, just in time to get head-deep in the Jan. AG.

Anybody in NY or Austin that wants to get together while I'm in either city? Let me know.

2005-11-30T10:15:00.000-08:00

The December issue of AntiGravity is at the printer. Who's on the cover, you ask? A preview:

We're loaded this month, with interviews with New Orleans' own band-with-the-best-chance-to-sign-a-major label-deal, Rotary Downs, Baton Rouge's The Eames Era and Humidity Skateshop owner Steve Fontenot. We've also got a brand new monthly column, Live New Orleans by our own Jason Songe. Also on tap is a pictorial of the Voodoo Music Experience by Rotary Downs drummer Zack Smith.

Not enough? We've got the regular array of music, comic and movie reviews, new comics and more general snarkiness.

It should be out by Friday if all goes well with the printer.

Hoo hah.

2005-11-30T09:52:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been quite awhile since I posted anything on here, more because I was getting a bit overwhelmed with it than because there wasn't anything to post. So, things are somewhat normal for the moment and I'll go ahead and catch up on some things.

The packages of books coming in have slowed to a trickle, but I got two in the last week or so.

The first is from old buddy and fellow Arrested Development enthusiast Dereck Emilien, a New Orleanian who oh-so-deftly removed himself from the city months before Katrina and now lives in Spokane with his wife Andrea and son Daniel. He sent copies of a couple of my favorite books, including my favorite novel, A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES.

I also got a neat package from J. McNally from Chelmsford, MA with a ton of superhero fare, including Superman: Panic In The Sky, the original Robin mini-series, the "new" Fantastic Four, and more.

I'm quickly filling up a bookshelf, which will be nice when I finally get another actual bookshelf.

2005-11-09T20:10:00.000-08:00

Speaking of interviews I've taken part in lately, about a week ago I was interviewed for something called the I-10 Witness Project, which takes a recording of interviewee's Katrina stories and puts them in the public domain so people all around the world can hear tales straight from the horse's mouth.

I talked for about an hour about my evacuation experience, ANTIGRAVITY, and rebuilding New Orleans. A short clip of my interview can be found here, but I really encourage you to go to the site and look around. There's hope and despair to be found in these clips, and if ever the two would intertwine it'd be now.

2005-11-09T19:59:00.000-08:00

I've talked a bit about Comic Geek Speak, the comics site that hosts a message board and a podcasted talk show, and how their listeners have sent me a bunch of packages to help restart my collection. I was asked to be on an episode and gladly accepted their invitation. The show went live today and you can find it on their site or download the mp3 directly. I talk for about ten minutes (give or take a 45-second gap where my cellphone cut out and they had to redial me) starting at the 39:30 mark.

Thanks again to all the CGS guys and their listeners.

2005-11-09T19:37:00.000-08:00

SICK (OR HOW TO LOSE TWO DAYS OF WORK)

When I woke up on Monday morning I felt pretty good, but throughout the day I went from sneezing every hour or so to my nose running constantly. By Tuesday morning my throat was killing me and my nose was completely stopped up. I called in sick to work and stayed in bed, taking Tylenol Sinus and vitamin C pills. Today I woke up and still felt stuffy, but luckily my sore throat went away and I was able to think straight again.

I've got a bit to catch up on, so there'll be a few posts in the next hour or so.

2005-11-07T10:26:00.000-08:00

LET'S PLAY HANGMAN (OR, _AINTS TALK)

Ah, another Saints game, another loss. Yesterday's pitiful showing against the Bears makes it five "L"s in a row, and a once promising season, even after Katrina, almost officially goes down the toilet. It's not that they mailed it in; they certainly tried, the only problem is they're simply not good enough. Even against a rookie QB who came out of the fourth round, and who gave them three turnovers in the first half, the Saints gave up big passes when it mattered.

The problems with yesterday's game:

1) The defense continues to play its corners way too far off of receivers to make a difference. For a couple of corners who supposedly enjoy playing man-to-man coverage (I'm talking to you, Mike McKenzie and Fakhir Brown) they sure do play soft and give WRs big cushions. It showed when Orton ate them up in short passes (when the Bears' run game wasn't eating us up).

2) The coaching continues to be questionable at best. I understand Jim Haslett's been under a ton of stress. I get it. So have tons of other people. It doesn't make excuses for being an idiot. All Aaron Brooks does is give games away. Pull him already. I acknowledge that Todd Bouman isn't any better and Adrian McPherson isn't ready. At the very least it tells your players that you won't put up with stupidity (instead of calling out the team, saying that you'll cut any player who quits, and then turning around and cutting your third string tailback, who you just traded for and by releasing him it means you won't have to give any compensation to the team he came from. That sends a message, sure.), and if there's one thing Aaron Brooks' play epitomizes, it's stupidity. After one of the turnovers the Bears so generously gave us, Brooks turned right around and threw a patented idiotic interception. I swear Brooks can't handle prosperity. If he won the lottery he'd lose his ticket. Pull him.

Also, when is a coach going to realize that when the score is tied, you've not been able to stop your opponent all day, and you're out of timeouts that the best thing to do is to let the other team score? Tied at 17 and with two minutes to go, the Saints essentially let the Bears do exactly what they wanted to do, which was run almost all the time off the clock before kicking a field goal. It forced the Saints to go for a Hail Mary with 4 seconds left. Why not let them score a touchdown, giving yourself two minutes to go down the field and tie the game, giving yourself a chance in overtime? Yeah, it's the exact opposite of Dick Vermeil's decision to go for the win with no time remaining from the 1, but it sounds a lot better than "let them do what they want and put us in a position to make a HIGHLY unlikely play, one that usually works against us but never for us."

Another thing about Aaron Brooks. If there's ever been someone who doesn't deserve a team records, it's Brooks. He's now one passing TD away from tying Archie Manning for most TDs by a Saints QB. Can we avoid this somehow? I'm not saying someone should purposefully hurt him, but if a lineman were to stumble over his feet and knock his helmet into Brooks' knee or something, putting him out for the season, let's just say I wouldn't cry over it. This isn't quite the Barry Bonds taking over Hank Aaron's homerun record, but it's close.

3) Hey Tom Benson, if Tiger Stadium's so based in Mad Max that you're fearful for your life, good move in sending your granddaughter there by herself. That's a classy move. In another note, evidently Terry Bradshaw is putting together an ownership group to attempt to buy the Saints and keep them in New Orleans. I know he likes to play the village idiot on Fox NFL Sunday, but Bradshaw's a good guy and this push, if it happens, THAT would be a classy move.

2005-11-07T09:30:00.000-08:00

MORE COMICS (OR, CHANNEL DEPECHE MODE HERE, I JUST CAN'T GET ENOUGH)

I received two more packages over the weekend, both full of comics.

The first is from an anonymous sender from Providence, Rhode Island. This person sent a six-issue run of Cerebus:

Thanks, anonymous person. Cerebus isn't a book I've read yet, but I've always been interested in trying it, so there you go.

The next package, from M Gagan of Portland, OR, was pretty hefty and contained a few things. One was the first six issues of the first Dan Slott She-Hulk series.

First those Spider-Man and Avengers comics from the other day, now these She-Hulk books. I don't know how the Comic Geek Speak guys are reading my mind, but I'll take it. I was just telling myself the other day that I wanted to read some of those She-Hulk books to see what the buzz is, and here they are. Word up.

Also in the box was a boatload of trade paperbacks.

Very, very generous of you, M Gagan. Volumes 1 and 2 of the Ultimates, Volume 1 of the Kevin Smith Daredevil, Volume 1 of Ultimate X-Men, Volume 3 of Ultimate Spider-Man, Point Blank (almost typed Point Break there, but Keanu's not in this at all, is he?), and Volume 1 of Meridian. All stuff like that I like immensely (except for Meridian, which I haven't read yet, but I like Josh Middleton's stuff, so I'm sure I'll dig it), all stuff I'm glad to have again.

2005-11-07T08:48:00.000-08:00

MORE COWBELL (OR, MORE COMICS, REALLY)

Gonna catch up with a bit of blogging today. I've got the entire weekend to hit, so expect a few posts today.

2005-11-02T21:50:00.000-08:00

BEHIND (OR: LATE, THE OTHER KIND OF BEHIND)

I've been a bit behind with blogging, even though I've been back from Memphis since Monday evening. I took Monday night to recover, then worked Tuesday, distributed Tuesday evening, then had a ton of meetings today, distributed, then got sidetracked for awhile and by then it was dark and things began to close so I just came home.

I'm waiting to put up pictures from Voodoo: Memphis because they didn't come out as well as I thought they would. I will give you this one, because it's the first time anything like this has happened to AntiGravity:

Yes, our name in lights. Even if it was hyphenated when it wasn't supposed to be it's still great to see.

Anyway, more on that later. In the meantime, feedback on the new AG has been pretty good, Voodoo in New Orleans seems to have done well, and things are busy busy.

2005-10-29T08:04:00.000-07:00

MEMPHIS (OR, IT'S LIKE NEW ORLEANS, ALMOST)

Yesterday and today are pretty much free days for Michelle and me, with Voodoo on Sunday. The only thing we have to do today is head down to AutoZone Park to check in for the booth.

Yesterday we ate breakfast, then went to a nearby mall and did a bit of shopping. It was kind of weird because we visited the Journeys shoe store there and I remember sending packages to that place when I worked for the Journeys on the Westbank. We also went to American Eagle, where I bought a long-sleeved shirt, the only one I could find that didn't have the American Eagle logo on it.

After we made it back to the hotel room and I made some phone calls, my Memphis Voodoo contact pointed us towards Shangri La, a great record store in Memphis. They had so many records it would've taken weeks to go through everything. They also had a few used comics, so I went through those. I bought the trade of Frank Miller's RONIN for $3.99, some older Howard Chaykin First graphic novels called Time Squared for $2.99 each and Tim Truman's TIME BEAVERS for $2.99.

From Shangri La we went to this place called River Records, and they had a TON of records and comics but had no real rhyme or reason behind their filing system. Most of their stuff was scattered about. They had a few old people behind the counter debating who the best vocalist ever is while a Paul Simon song played on the radio. "I think Paul Simon is the best vocalist ever," said one man. Without missing a beat, the other said, "Elvis." The one man said, "No, I think Paul Sim..." "ELVIS," the other man said. "Paul Simon wrote his own songs," the one man said. "ELVIS," the other man replied. And on and on they went. Two old guys arguing about Elvis in Memphis. Who'd've figured.

After River Records we stopped at Comics and Collectibles, the most maddening comic shop I've ever been in. I'd stopped there before, when we were still evacuated here, and was completely annoyed by their filing system and display tactics. It shows you how much I love comics, I guess, that I'd purposely go through aggravation to get what I want. Their new comics are all laid out on shelves, but they're not alphabetical. Sometimes, indy comics are in one place while some other indy comics are in another. They have all Superman comics in the "S" section, along with all the Spider-Man comics, which sort of makes sense, except they just ignor the big A in ACTION COMICS or AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. Then you can't tell if the direction books flow is left to right or up and down. It seems to change every few rows. Standing in front of these racks, I decided it wasn't worth my time and remembered why I said to myself that I wouldn't give those guys any more money to support their stupidity, so I left without buying anything.

We then went to Wal-Mart to buy some water and toothpaste for the hotel room, at dinner at Outback (I know, why not go to a "Memphis" restaurant? We were tired and in Southaven, Mississippi, so we ate what was around), then went back to the hotel room, where we watched TV and went to bed around 10. Exciting night, huh? Today will be more poppy, I promise.

2005-10-26T22:45:00.000-07:00

PEOPLE ARE TOO GOOD TO ME (OR, I MUST HAVE BETTER KARMA THAN I THOUGHT)

Over the past couple of days I've gotten two more packages from the great people over at Comic Geek Speak. Both are amazing in their own ways.

The first box, from Sean Whelan of Menton, Ohio, included this:

INVINCIBLE is one of my favorite comics, and Robert Kirkman is one of my favorite writers, so this is a great trade to have back.

When I got home today I had a fairly sizeable box waiting for me from Dennis Pu of Austin, Texas. Dennis, I'm going to buy you a beer or three when I'm in Austin for STAPLE! in March. Dennis' box had some great stuff, including a run of early '90s AMAZING SPIDER-MANs:

That run of ASM is kind of cheesy, I know, but I love it. I remember having a subscription through the mail for a few of those. Man, they bring back memories. Dennis must know my tastes pretty well, because I also have an odd love for '70s and 'early '80s Marvel comics. Something about the old, unpretentious style of those comics makes me nostalgic, even though I was born in '78. My dad gave me a bunch of older comics when I was a kid, so maybe that's where it comes from. Anyway, Dennis included some '70s and '80s issues of AVENGERS and DAREDEVIL:

Then the killer came. I CGS people know I'm a Spider-Man freak, but I didn't tell them one of my dreams was to one day fill out a run of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, even if it was through beat up and nearly worthless copies of the early issues. I nearly freaked when I saw these were included in the box:

Yeah, that's ASM #s 39, 41 and 42. Those are probably earlier issues than I had even in my old collection. I absolutely LOVE old comics, and I'd buy dozens and dozens of beat up comics from quarter bins at conventions or wherever I could find them. These are classics, man. Dennis wasn't done, though. He included some apparel as well:

A Justice League denim shirt. It's getting cooler here, Dennis, so I'll be sure to wear it soon.

Again, I can't thank the guys at Comic Geek Speak enough. Their listeners have really given me something to smile about lately. Between getting the magazine back up and running and these awesome gifts, I have to say I have some moments where I'm feeling pretty good about things.

2005-10-26T21:55:00.000-07:00

The new issue of AG is not only done, it's back from the printer. I have to say I'm happy with the quality of the printing, these Print All guys really knocked it out, and the next day, too! Some of our spreads look better than they did even at our old printer. I like the larger format better than I thought I would, too.

Our cover story is about the status of New Orleans venues, which ones are open, which ones are closing, etc... We've got features on local one man band King Louie and the artwork of New Orleans' go-to gig poster creators Vance Kelly and Allen Jaeger. I'm glad to say that we managed to include our regular array of departments, including movie reviews, comics (Too Much Coffee Man, the K Chronicles, and locals Qomix and Writhe and Shine), comic reviews (by The Fourth Rail's Randy Lander), and album reviews.

20 pages that came together in under a week. And we're the first entertainment magazine from N.O. to see print since the hurricane. Now it's time to drive to Memphis for Voodoo (we'll have a booth with copies of this issue and t-shirts, so if you're at the festival on Sunday stop on by) and start thinking about whatever it is we're going to do for our December issue.

I have the hi-res version of the mag available for download here. It's around 37MB, I think, so be patient with the download, please.

Let me know what you think.

2005-10-25T00:07:00.000-07:00

TIME FOR BED (OR, IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE WE ROCK AND ROLLED)

The new issue of AG is officially finished. I expected it to be done this morning, but it never works out that way. Too many little things and too many people late with their ads (it must be nice to be a huge publication like Gambit, who can essentially penalize businesses who don't get their ads in on time; me, I'm inclined to wait for it, not only because it's money we wouldn't get otherwise but because I know how it is to run late). I essentially woke up this morning at 8:30, got a cup of coffee and sat at my makeshift desk. That's where I stayed until Monday Night Football kicked off at 8 p.m. After a few rounds of design and grammar edits over the phone with Noah, I exported the press .pdf and now it waits until morning to be sent to the printer.

I'd say it feels great to get it finished, but I'll feel much more relieved when the printer's got it in their hands and it's printed and ready for pick up. It does feel pretty good, though.

In other news, I had the best sleep last night, maybe the best I've had since the hurricane. Michelle says it's because I'm back at work, and she's probably right. As stressful as it can be putting together an issue, it was probably more stressful not being able to publish, if that makes any sense. It's good to be back in the swing of things.

Now the focus moves to getting ready for Voodoo, and, of course, the December issue.

2005-10-22T02:02:00.000-07:00

WORK WORK WORK (OR: WORK WORK WORK)

Yes, it's 2 in the a.m. and I'm awake (not quite awake, just awake) and working on the new issue of AG. Things are coming together, though there's still a lot of content to get ready. I haven't even written my editorial or my portion of the cover story (which is an update on all the major venues in the city, split between myself, Noah and Patrick) yet.

What have I been doing? Creating ads. Clark's been busting his ass getting people involved in the mag, which is pretty great. Since Tuesday, when I officially found the new printer, we've had to expand from 8 pages to 12, then to 16, then to 20. 20's going to be the magic, final number because I don't think I can find enough hours to add another four. The cool thing is that a good portion of these ads is new advertisers just joining up, which is nice.

We're probably about where we were with a 32 page edition of the old size, maybe a tad less. It's a lot of work, but I'm glad to have it. Today, after I worked the dayjob for a few hours, I bought a new printer/scanner (I realized yesterday, halfway through a conversation with Clark where he handed over the materials I needed to scan to create these ads, that my old printer/scanner had bitten the dust in the flood), got back to my parents' around 2:30 and started work. Patrick came over around 3 and we worked on some design and a story he'd written (a really good look at the artwork of Allen Jaeger and Vance Kelly, two prominent gig poster artists in the city), then finished the cover layout while on the phone with Noah.

We worked until 8, when we took a dinner break and watched a bit of the LSU game and the World Series. Patrick left around 9 and I started scanning and Photoshopping. I'm almost done, with only two more ads to create.

Back to work.

2005-10-21T07:49:00.000-07:00

COVER PHOTOS (OR: MAMAS, DON'T LET YOUR BABIES GROW UP TO BE MAGAZINE PUBLISHERS)

I decided yesterday that the cover of next week's AG will be a collage of photos of the local venues with the tagline "Down But Not Out." Simple enough. I picked up Patrick Strange and we drove around, shooting photos of the Maple Leaf, TwiRoPa, the Howlin' Wolf, Tipitina's, House of Blues, and One Eyed Jacks.

In the afternoon we met up with Clark (of the vintage clothing store PInkie and Blue Boy) and Jarret (of Handsome Willy's) at Molly's for Guinness. It made me loopy for awhile, but nice nonetheless. Clark's helping with advertising, and quite honestly we're getting a bit more than I expected. Enough that we'll have to add a few pages and instead of 8 we'll probably sit at 12.

After I dropped Patrick at his house Uptown, I snapped some more photos, hung out with Brian at the Landmark Theatre for about forty-five minutes, stopped at Circle Bar for a few and talked to Lefty and Luke from Happy Talk Band, then stopped at Slice, had an Abita Amber and talked to the owner and a few other people, then came back to the Westbank.

Only to find the specs I've been using to design over the past two days are wrong, so I need to call the printer in a bit and get the exact size I'm supposed to be working with. I'd only completely finished one page, but it means I need to go back and tweak some of the ad sizes. Fun fun.

I finally passed out around 10:30, and now it's time to work again, since all our files have to be at the printer on Monday.

You'd think this would be stressful, but it's actually pretty fun.

2005-10-21T07:32:00.000-07:00

BACK TO WORK (OR: DAILY LIFE WITH A CAMEO APPEARANCE BY FEMA)

Went back to work yesterday for the first time since the Thursday before Katrina. Of the three disabled people I work with, only one, Kenny, the half-paralyzed guy, is home. I picked him up and we ate lunch at the Borders cafe. The four of us hung out at Borders quite a bit, so it was kind of nice to be back and freely flip through magazines I had no intention of buying.

I only worked for about an hour and a half, though, because I had a 1 p.m. appointment with a FEMA adjustor, of all people. I stopped at my landlord's place to pick up a copy of our lease (because our copy'd been flooded out), and after that headed to the old house.

I wish I had a better understanding of whatever the hell it is that FEMA does, but I don't. The guy measure the house, measured the waterline, and asked me a few general questions about what I had in the house. He looked at my before and after photos, plugged it all into a computer and said I should hear something in seven to ten days. Which probably means two to three months, but whatever.

After FEMA it was time to work on AG some more.

2005-10-19T09:04:00.000-07:00

ANTIGRAVITY GETS A NEW LIFE (OR: IT'S TIME TO GET BUSY AGAIN)

I FINALLY found a new printer for AntiGravity yesterday. After getting dicked around by a couple of printers in Baton Rouge (one left multiple messages unreturned, another had me speak to a rep who was supposedly working on my quote at that moment, and even though she claimed I would have it by yesterday afternoon it's nearly 9 a.m. and I still don't have it) I e-mailed Joele from the magazine Alternatives, and she pointed me towards Print All in Belle Chasse.

I talked to the owner of Print All and they have some very good prices, pretty quick turnaround, and they actually spoke to me (which compared to the printers in Baton Rouge makes them great). All that sound too good to not have catches? Well, yeah.

Before Katrina we'd decided to increase our format from 8x10 to about 10x11, starting with our October issue. We thought it'd give us a more "magazine" look, if that makes sense, and I was beginning to feel the strain of designing 8x10 pages. There's only so much you can do with a page like that.

When Dixie Web was closed and I scrambled to find a new printer, I figured that we might have to do newsprint for awhile because it's just so much cheaper. One of the "catches" about Print All is that they're cheapest because their base size is the tabloid format, which means our new final size will be about 11 1/4 x 13 7/8. Pretty much double our previous size. In one way it's good because we have more space to deal with, but I'm just not a big fan of that size (though it's probably because I haven't seen many publications worth reading at that size. The old ARTHUR magazine comes to mind, but that's about it). I'm sure it'll grow on me when I see our stuff printed.

Also, they don't bind anything at Print All, so the magazine will be like reading a newspaper, not stapled or anything. Another thing I'm not a big fan of, but I'll deal with it. I'd rather deal with these things than not publish, so we'll stick with this format for at least six months and then reevaluate our printing situation. Maybe another one comes along equally as good, maybe we stick with them because we grow to like that format. Who knows.

But it's exciting to get to work again, and that's what I did last night and probably will do for most of today.

2005-10-17T08:25:00.000-07:00

WHEN WILL WE BE DUE? (OR: THE SAINTS HAVEN'T WON IN HOW LONG?

Normally I don't write about football. It's just not worth it. Most people aren't as fanatic about it as I am and I just wind up coming off as crazy. Well, today I'm going to be cRAaAaZaAzZy!

Last week's 52-3 loss by the Saints in Green Bay was tough to swallow, but ultimately expected. The Packers were 0-4 and had lost two straight at home. They were due for a win, and when you're due for a win there's no better team to have in town (or go into their place) than the Saints. We've given quite a few expansion teams their first win (most notably the '77 Bucs, who were 0-14 their inaugural season and 0-12 the following year before beating us. We gave up an insane Hail Mary pass as time expired in a game against the new Cleveland Browns. It was from Tim Couch, no less). We've also watched the Carolina Panthers and Jacksonville Jaguars come into the league in 1996 and immediately go 7-9 their first years and walk straight into the conference championship games the next. Two years and they were playing to go to the Super Bowl! Meanwhile we didn't get a playoff win, period, until 2000. And we've been playing since 1967.

This week we played the Atlanta Falcons. If an entire fanbase of a team could be rendered braindead with a brain-neutralizing bomb that's yet to be invented, it'd be a hard choice whether it'd be Atlanta's or the New York Jets', but I'd settle on Atlanta because they're in our division.

Anyway, the game. Considering we had 52 straight points laid on us by Green Bay, the field goal by Atlanta brought some hope. "If we could get 52 laid on us after leading by 3, now that we're down by 3 maybe we'll lay 52 on these guys," I said to my buddies Jason and Pedro. That's the kind of optimism a Saints fan has. I also mentioned to Jason earlier in the day that if we had to lose, I'd much prefer the blow-out to the near-loss. At least with the blow-out you resign yourself to it because there's that "Well, there's no turning back" moment, usually when the opponent's 28th straight point is on the board.

Lo and behold, though, the Saints played a pretty good game. We wound up with over 200 yards rushing even though we are without Deuce McAllister, probably the team's best player, for the rest of the year. Aaron Brooks, the human mistake-waiting-to-happen, had only thrown one interception (it was in the 4th quarter and put the team in the position to have to tie the game with a touchdown instead of potentially going up by a touchdown, but hey, these are the types of plays we expect from Brooks. You know the Juggs machine that receivers use to practice their catching? I'm convinced that if one were to be made for defensive backs to practice interceptions on the company designing it would base if off of Brooks' passes. Only every tenth pass or so would go for a touchdown, just enough to keep the mechanics in constant puzzlement about what's wrong with the machine.).

The Saints tie the game with 40 seconds remaining (after calling timeouts with over a minute to go, almost like they were conserving time for the Falcons), giving Michael Vick way too much time to get in place for a game-winning field goal, especially since they had, oh, all of their timeouts. As the announcers said the Falcons had to get to the Saints 40 yard line to be in field goal range, they got there. A penalty on the Saints for having 12 men on the field moved them up another 5 yards, and just like that Todd Peterson was to attempt a 41 yard field goal. "Not a gimme," I said. I've seen plenty of 41+ field goals go awry. Hell, I've even seen a game-tying extra point attempt pushed to the right (I'm looking at YOU, John Carney).

Aaaaand....he MISSES it! We're going to over...oh, wait. A flag. The Saints are penalized five yards for holding while they were BLOCKING A FIELD GOAL. A player blocked a Falcons player (who then fell on the Saint) so a teammate could rush through the gap and try to block the field goal. Evidently that's illegal, but the twist is that the only reason the Saints tried it was because they'd seen the FALCONS THEMSELVES do it the previous week and not get flagged for it. With the extra five yard cushion, Peterson knocks it through and Saints coach Jim Haslett has what's probably his thirteenth coronary of the season.

To make matters worse, we were absolutely hosed earlier in the game on two plays:

1) Near the end of the first half, Az Hakim (and by the way, has there been a player who has lost as much speed as he has as quickly as he has? He'd outrun top-flight corners earlier in his career, and it's like some supervillain with gravity powers zapped him, making him twenty pounds heavier somewhere on his flight from Detroit to New Orleans) was robbed of a touchdown by an insidious fakeout by DeAngelo Hall. Hakim was called for offensive pass interference for pushing off, only the replay shows the Hall deliberately fell down when he realized he misplayed the ball.

A couple of plays later,

2) John Carney's field goal is blocked when the snap is high and returned for a touchdown to end the half. Only the replay shows a Falcon using another player for leverage. He leapfrogs somebody and blocks the field goal. Which, last I checked, was illegal.

It's useless complaining about referees. It's not like they're going to go back and give us the touchdown or take back the Falcons'. But what are we supposed to do when they essentially take 7 points from us and gives the touchdown to the Falcons? Just take it? In fact, that should be the new slogan for the Saints' fanbase. Not "You Gotta Have Faith," but "Just Take It."

So the game is done, we'll likely end up 2-14 (especially if the refs keep spotting our opponents points), so maybe we'll get in the Matt Leinart sweepstakes after all. After everything that's happened in the New Orleans area over the past six weeks, we've taken "Just Take It" to a new level. But you know we'll continue to Just Take It, because we are, after all, Saints fans.

2005-10-16T07:30:00.000-07:00

One of the other things I've done since I got up for God is check on my tracker stats for the blog. I'm always interested in who's linking to the site and how people find out about it. Search Engine queries are the best. Most are absolutely reasonable, like ""spotted cat" new orleans," since I have a picture of the bar up, or "new orleans katrina mold." I'm actually glad people are finding this blog with those questions. If someone can glean some needed info from me, awesome, I'm happy to be of help.

The oddest one, for me at least, has to be "can I die of something if I go back to Chalmette." I love how whoever this is has such a broad scope of things. At least they're covering their bases.

2005-10-16T07:19:00.000-07:00

Went to bed pretty early last night, for me at least. I probably fell asleep around 10:30 or so, so naturally I awoke a 4 a.m. unable to go back to sleep.

Yes, I've been on the internet for three and a half hours (it's almost 7:30 now).

Might as well catch up on yesterday. I went to Surrey's for the first time since the hurricane and had brunch with Ballzack, Dan Fox and another friend, Leonard. I had the BLT.

Then I went down to Metro Three to buy "New Orleans is for Lovin'" and "Go With the Contraflow" t-shirts. Good people Lori and Starbuck are. They were pretty busy in the aftermath of the "Clean Up Magazine St." event that happened earlier in the day. Evidently at least a few dozen people showed up on Magazine St. with brooms and dustpans and cleaned the street so the businesses could function better. People stuck around and shopped, which is good because those businesses can sure use a boost.

Then I headed to Le Bon Temps to fill in on djembe wiith my friends in Jack Brown for an event Clark, owner of Pinkie and Blue Boy, put together. We played six songs, and considering we'd only practiced once, and it was the first time I'd played djembe in probably two years, we did all right.

I watched the end of the LSU game at the bar, ate a pork chop sandwich because I thought it was a hamburger, listened to some crazy girl talk about how she got in a fistfight with someone in a wheel chair, then left to get coffee. Now that's a New Orleans day.

2005-10-14T10:03:00.000-07:00

I've taken way too long to put this up, and when I got a second package today I figured now's the time.

A few weeks ago, not long after this blog went up, Peter Rios of the site www.comicgeekspeak.com e-mailed me and offered to get his site's fanbase to jumpstart my comics collection. I debated it for awhile, because there really are people out there who have less than me and my girlfriend do, but ultimately I decided to take him up on the really beautiful offer. And Susannah, you were right. Receiving help does make you feel good.

About a week and a half ago I got a package from Jason Ragle of L.A. Here's what he sent:

There's also a copy of BITE CLUB that I forgot to include in the photo. I actually had both of these books before the flood, so it's great to have them "back." I'd really liked DEAD WEST, so it's nice to be able to read that again, and Warren Ellis is one of my favorite writers, so the LAZARUS CHURCHYARD is great too. I really liked Howard Chaykin and David Tischman's AMERICAN CENTURY, so the BITE CLUB will be well received, I'm sure.

And speaking of Warren Ellis, Jason also sent along an original promo poster for TRANSMETROPOLITAN. You may remember I had that poster on my wall at my old place, and was actually able to take it. But the one that Jason sent it way cooler for this reason:

Fantastic. I'll be looking for a frame to stick it in. Jason, I still can't thank you enough.

Today I got a package from Shawn Rathbone (I think that's the last name, I couldn't quite make it out on the box) of Auburn, New York. The package included this:

I've always wanted to read PREACHER and never got around to it, so this is great. I'm also a big fan of Whedon's run on X-MEN, so having the entire run of ASTONISHING back is another good deal.

Shawn, you're awesome too, and expect a card in the mail from me soon.

I'll tell you, just when you get inundated with the crap people can shovel at you, stuff like this comes along and reminds you that not all people are in it for themselves.

2005-10-12T13:21:00.000-07:00

After Jason and I went to Kenner, we stopped back at my house so I could see how the gutting was going. I didn't expect our house to turn from this:

To this:

In only a couple days. Wow. There's only some sheetrock and a few straggling comics out front, along with some washers and dryers (I couldn't find ours, I wonder if someone took them?), water heaters and other trash. I have to admit I have to wonder where the rest of my comics and stuff went. Were some salvageable that I didn't know about and the gutters took them? I hope it's just me being paranoid and no one meticulously went through that pile of wet stuff and picked things out.

Anyway, progress is progress, though, right?

2005-10-12T13:17:00.000-07:00

The other day I brought Jason to the yard where his car was towed after the accident. Here's what he and Pedro walked away from.

Weird, isn't it? If the drunk guy had hit the car closer to the front, Jason would have gotten the brunt of the impact. They're lucky it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

My hatred of drunk drivers grows every time I think of this car and what could have happened.

2005-10-12T13:09:00.000-07:00

I decided, after hanging out with Noah this weekend, to finally get the ball rolling on official AntiGravity business. I heard through the grapevine that our printer, Dixie Web, isn't going to reopen, so I've been contacting printers both in the N.O. area and Baton Rouge about quotes. One in B.R. looks promising, and the prospect of driving there once a month to pick up magazines isn't so bad. I can simply do our distribution there and in Lafayette before heading back to New Orleans to finish up.

Once I get the quotes back and actually pick a printer, I can settle on format. We were printing on 50# offset paper, but I may start up with newsprint just to keep the cost down at the beginning. I've always been a proponent of starting small and growing when possible. I'm not about to drain what little money I do have by dropping it all on a magazine that won't sustain itself in the short term.

After format is settled, I can then set up our new advertising rates. We'll approach the businesses already open in N.O., the music clubs in Baton Rouge and Lafayette, and our good friend Chris will talk to record labels.

I'm optimistic, really, that things will start rolling. If in the process we convince some displaced N.O. people that moving back is not only possible but easier than they think, that's great. Hopefully we'll at least entertain those people here and in the surrounding areas.

It's nice to be optimistic for once, after seeing so much destruction, ambivalence and pessimism.

2005-10-11T23:38:00.000-07:00

Michelle left for Virginia this morning. We left for the airport at 8, was stuck in traffic until 8:45, and got checked in in time for her to board the plane at 9:30. She called a bit ago to let me know she's in Richmond, Virginia, where she's visiting her dad for six weeks. She comes home November 22nd.

We haven't been apart for more than a weekend for two and a half years.

It's weird already.

2005-10-11T19:29:00.000-07:00

THINGS THAT MAKE ME GO "AWWWW:"

I've gotten to the point where I'm periodically realizing things that were ruined in the flood. It's not cool.

The other day, Dre called me to ask for help with sentence diagraming, which I'd taken a couple years ago in college. My first thought was that if I didn't know the answer, I could always go look in my textbook. Wrong. That was on my bookshelf. That realization made me remember all my old Journalism notes in a box, which I'd always keep for reference. Gone. Which made me remember about my "box of ideas," where I'd put notes for short stories or other pieces I always meant to go back to. Gone.

The weather in N.O. got a bit cooler the other day, cool enough for a light jacket at night. I wanted to grab my Dickies jacket, the one with all the cool pins on it that I got for free from our Miller High Life rep when I was doing the Leighties night at TwiRoPa. Nope. Gone. Which made me remember about the heavy jacket my mother bought for me years ago, which made me remember about the long leather trench coat given to me by a family friend. Gone, and gone.

I'd come to terms with losing all my comics and that kind of stuff. It's moments like this, though, that make things rough sometimes.

2005-10-11T19:22:00.000-07:00

Also yesterday, Michelle and I went to Barnes and Noble. I decided that I'd buy a couple books to restart my collection, so I got Bill Simmons' NOW I CAN DIE IN PEACE, which is about last years's Boston Red Sox championship run, Neil Gaiman's ANANSI BOYS, which I'm not quite sure the plot of, and rebought Michael Chabon's KAVALIER AND CLAY. Simmons is a favorite writer of mine who, oddly enough, came to my attention a few years ago when, in an ESPN column covering the 2001 Super Bowl, the city of New Orleans bashed him for saying that Bourbon Street stinks. Which it does. KAVALIER AND CLAY is one of my favorite books, so I figured rebuying that wasn't so bad.

Of course, I immediately kicked myself for not rebuying my favorite book ever, A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES. My well worn copy was ruined in the flood, and I seem to reread that book every couple years, so it wouldn't have been a bad purchase. Next time.

2005-10-11T19:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon, Pedro was released from the hospital. The kicker is, to make a long story short, his arm is still in the same sling it was in the previous four days. Before they moved him from ICU into a room he was taken off of the IVs and blood transfusions, so the only thing left was to cast his arm. They decided not to cast it, and a tighter sling wasn't possible because of the pressure it would put on his still healing spleen, so they left it the way it was. Which means he was in the hospital for four extra days. But he's out now, so that's good.

2005-10-11T19:01:00.000-07:00

WEEKEND UPDATE (OR, AS MY LIFE GETS BETTER THE SAINTS' SEASON GETS WORSE):

I'm WAY overdue for an update, so here's the weekend as I saw it. Quickly, so I can get to today.

Friday night Noah and Eden came in. Noah's the Senior Editor on AG and they've been in Florida since about a week after Katrina hit. Eden's going to UF this semester for law school and they're coming back to N.O. once the semester's done. It was really nice to see them again and, sure enough, Saturday morning the previously rusted-shut cogs in my brain came to life again and I actually brainstormed editorial and design elements for AG. It's a wonder how seeing a familiar face will get you going.

We had dinner Friday night on the Westbank and Saturday we had the AG barbecue at my parents' house, which was also a good time. The beer flowed freely and we cooked up sausage, chicken and burgers. Besides Noah and Eden, AJ, Jason Songe, Santos, Brian Jones and his wife Chris came over. We had tons of good conversation, and later that night we wound up at Noah's to move their fridge out of the house.

On Sunday Jason and I went back to the hospital to watch the Saints game with Pedro. We got our asses whooped 52-3. It's the worst loss I can remember, and that's bad. To make matters worse, Deuce McAllister, pretty much the Saints' best player, blew his MCL and is out for the rest of the season. We're officially the shakiest 2-3 team in the league.

Sunday night Michelle and I met up with Noah and Eden for dinner at Port of Call, which was great. It's cool to see so many businesses opening up, even if they're not at full speed. All PoC had was burgers and potatoes, and they were on plastic plates, but the burgers are still huge and the potatoes loaded, so what else can you ask for?

Noah and Eden left to go back to Florida early Monday morning, so that's a bummer, but overall it was a pretty good weekend. I may drive to Florida soon for a weekend, just to hang out with them.

2005-10-06T08:46:00.000-07:00

So the boys are doing fairly well. Jason's supposed to be released from the hospital today, Pedro in the next few, hopefully.

The whole thing could have been worse than what it has, really. They'll have a bit of an uphill battle with the hospital bills, though, since the guy who hit them was underinsured, and Jason's insurance only picks up so much of the tab. Hopefully the bastard who was drunk and hit them will have either the ability or the stuff for the lawyers to go after to pay the difference. Because when you get hit by a drunk driver it's really nice to get stuck with the bill on top of it, isn't it?

Other than that, the past few days have been fairly chill (hell, if there's not a life-changing event that's enough for me). I went and boarded up a window at the Shaolin-Do school on St. Claude, where I was taking Kung Fu classes for about a month before the storm.

We're planning a barbecue for Saturday afternoon, so if you're in the area, let me know and I'll give you directions to my parents' place. Some AG people are back in town or are about to be, so that's enough reason for celebration for me.

2005-10-02T20:45:00.000-07:00

Today was supposed to be that day of football, alcohol and hanging out, a temporary reprieve from the general horrid thinking of the rest of the week.

Last night, my friends Pedro and Jason, guys I've known for ten years and have gone through so many things with, came over to my parents' house to play some cards. They left a bit before midnight, and five minutes after they left I got a phone call from Jason's cell phone. I knew something was wrong.

"You need to get out here now, man," Jason said. "We got in an accident."

I could hear Pedro in the background, kind of groaning, saying, "I'm not feeling good."

I grabbed my camera and my keys and Michelle and I sped out to where he said they were.

By the time we'd gotten out there, Jason had called again, asking me to hurry up.

"I'm right behind you," I said. I was walking up to his car, which was on the neutral ground. The drivers side was smashed in on both doors. EMT workers were already out there, scrambling around.

I don't even remember what I asked him. The only thing I remember is looking in at the two of them, seeing Pedro, in the passenger seat, with his eyes closed and his legs trembling. And then vomit bubbling out of his mouth. The EMTs pulled him from the car and put him on a stretcher. They taped his legs and his left arm to the stretcher. He came to and started to fight them.

"Pedro," I called. "You need to keep still so they can help you."

The EMTs put him in the ambulance. I made sure Michelle had her keys to my car, and told her that I was going with Pedro and to stay with Jason. Jason was now sitting in the passenger seat, the EMTs wrapping a brace around his neck. I told him that I was going with Pedro, and then I got into the ambulance.

Then I saw them put Jason on a stretcher, and they put him in the ambulance with Pedro. They asked the both of them some general questions, and at this point Pedro was cognizant.

We got to the hospital, which is only about three or four miles from where the accident happened, and one of the EMTs brought Pedro in while another checked Jason. He complained of pain in his lower back, but had total feeling and could grip will, which bode well for spinal injuries. The EMT asked him if he could remember what happened, and he couldn't.

They took Jason in, and after that we played the waiting game. At 12:30 I called Jason's dad and filled him in. Nobody picked up at Pedro's.

Jason's family showed up fifteen minutes later, and I drove to Pedro's house and tried to wake up anyone who happened to be home, but nothing worked.

By 4 a.m. the only thing we knew was that they were admitting Pedro to the hospital and Jason had a CAT scan performed on him. The doctors were waiting on the results, as that would determine whether they'd release him or keep him.

They had no idea when they'd get those results, and we were lucky to get that little bit of info on Pedro, since they're only allowed to give info to relatives. We decided to get some sleep, figuring if Jason would be discharged he'd call.

At 9 a.m. I got a call from Jason's stepmom. She'd gotten in touch with Pedro's dad and he was at the hospital. He was admitted officially, so I called the hospital and tried to get in touch. I actually got through.

He's got a ruptured spleen, fractured ribs, and he'd seized while he was in the car. He had to have several blood transfusions because his blood count dropped so low. I asked him if he knew what happened, and, while he was sleeping at the time of the accident, a state trooper had come in and told him what happened. They were stopped at a red light, waiting to cross over a main street into Pedro's neighborhood. The light turned green, Jason started moving, and a drunk driver going about 50 mph ran the light and plowed into them. The troopers have the guy under arrest, and we found out today that he has insurance, which isn't a given in Louisiana.

Jason's stepmom finally got to see him, and found out that he's got three broken ribs, a tear in his spleen and a bruised liver. THe doctors expect the liver and spleen to heal themselves. He still doesn't remember all of what happened. When his stepmom went in to see him, one of the first questions he asked was, "How are the Saints doing?"

I've talked to the both of them periodically throughout the day, but we didn't get the full gist of everything until later this afternoon. It's been tiring just worrying about the two of them.

It'd be nice to have a period of a week where I didn't have to look at destruction and mayhem, have my brother break a foot or my friends nearly die. It'd be nice, but who knows when it'll happen.

2005-10-01T19:10:00.000-07:00

In all the mayhem I've been posting I've nearly forgotten to talk about the positive things I've seen. Here's a quick list:

--Creole Creamery on Prytania is open.

--Bywater Barbecue and that area, with Bargain Center U.S.A., Piety St. Recording, my friend Alex's house, and the area in the Bywater from the bridge up to the Quarter, is fine, with the highest waterline being less than a foot. Most places didn't even have that.

--I've heard from some people who are back in N.O. or on their way, including AG people Jason Songe, Patrick Strange and Dakota of the Witness Exchange, Zack from Rotary Downs, DC from Doctor a' Go Go / More Fun Comics...I've hung out with Brian Jones, manager of the Landmark Theatre, Ballzack and his crew, and a few other people.

--Beer. I've got some Abita Amber at the house. It's good.

--One Eyed Jacks was open last night, from what I hear.

--Um....that's about it. Still, some good is still good, right?

2005-10-01T16:41:00.000-07:00

Today we went into Chalmette to see my grandma's house. She passed away almost two years ago (my grandpa fourteen years ago?), and my parents and my mother's side just finished getting the estate in order before Katrina. My parents took out a loan and bought the house to keep it in the family, so a lot of the furniture was out of the house already (unfortunately some of it was at my place), though there were some things left in the house. I drove (which is why I don't have as many pictures as I'd like) with my parents in tow. The press pass came through again, since we got through the easy way instead of having to essentially circle the city on the interstate to get in the back way.

If Mid-City is bad and the lakefront area is worse, Chalmette is the end-all-be-all bottomless pit of despair and destruction. At first glance you may not be able to locate a waterline on most houses. That's because the waterline was above the houses. On our way down the street where my grandma's house is, we were blocked by a house in the middle of the street. That's right. A house in the middle of the street.

We doubled back, went down a side street and up our street. We were again blocked by a house, so we got out and walked the rest of the way. Another house was kind of in the street, to our left, and I recognized the dark yellow siding. My mind knew what it was but still told me that it couldn't possibly be what I thought it was. We walked up to where the house was supposed to be only to find this.

My mother realized where the house was and kind of shrieked, I guess, I don't really know. I was just astounded that the house had moved to a completely different lot, the house that was supposed to be there in its own backyard. This is the view from the street.

We chatted with some neighbors, people my mother grew up with, and they all were aware the area's going to be demolished. It has to be. What else can be done with it?

My dad and I went into the house, through the "front" door, and as depleted as the house was, stuff was still spread everywhere. These are some pictures of the house. We couldn't get into the den because the floor had evidently collapsed (I'd have been more surprised had the floor not collapsed, honestly), so these are the bedrooms. You can see a bit of the den through the kitchen shot.

And a shot of the "front" of the house.

We didn't stay over there long, so we went by my uncles houses. It was more of the same, really. No other houses in the street, but the same type of damage I've seen already. I offer this picture only to show the vast amount of mud caked up around the house. In parts of New Orleans (like around Crescent City Comics) you can hear the ground crack with the breaking of dried up mud. This was still wet. And deep.

I'm getting tired of all this destruction. Going to drink tonight and watch football tomorrow. No more of this stuff until Monday, at least.

2005-10-01T12:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Les and I went back into Crescent City Comics to grab a few more things and to clean up. We went in the back way, meaning we took Carrollton (which turns into Wisner) towards Filmore, and Filmore up to Elysian Fields. The neighborhoods along Filmore are just demolished, entire blocks still wet and everywhere is muddy.

This is a shot from just over the canal.

After we cleaned up the shop we went towards my friend Dereck's dad's house. His dad stayed behind for the storm and wound up being rescued from his roof. Here's an outside shot of that house. I can imagine what the inside looks like.

We went by our friend Derrick Wells' house, which is a few minutes from the shop. Les had spoken to him last week and Derrick expected to be able to save around 25% of his stuff because he only expected a foot or two of water in the house. He had 3,000 CDs and over 300 DVDs, as well as who knows how many toys and whatnot. This is the shot from the front of the house.

I don't feel comfortable posting the pictures of inside the house because he hasn't even seen it yet. His room looks like my house, but in a smaller space.

The sad thing is that when we were on the phone with him he just couldn't believe what we were telling him. He still expects to salvage something, and even though I've been through the same thing the only explanation I could give him is that words and even pictures cannot set a person up for the actual sight itself. I'm sure I'll talk to him after he sees his stuff.

2005-10-01T08:34:00.000-07:00

Wait a minute. It's October? Jeez, time flies after a hurricane, doesn't it?

The daily newspaper was actually delivered to my parents' place today. We'll see if that keeps up. Pictures from yesterday go up soon, later today we go into Chalmette to view my grandma's house.

2005-09-30T08:27:00.000-07:00

A big update today with a ton of pictures I took when I went to board up Crescent City Comics yesterday.

A load of stuff happened yesterday. I was called to go by my friend Dre's dad's apartment because he got a report that it looked like the buildings were about to be torn down. It wasn't the case, fortunately. I'm supposed to go move stuff from his apartment into a storage unit tomorrow morning.

I found out that it's becoming more unlikely by the day that the printer I use for AG will reopen. That's not good news because the price they gave me was the only thing keeping the magazine afloat. I can maybe use an outside printer they have a deal with for whatever we wind up doing for Voodoo, but there aren't any more web printers in the N.O. area. I'll have to think about a format change if our printer doesn't come back online. I'll figure something out, though.

I think something new started to sink in yesterday. Once the shellshock of seeing all this destruction passes and the actuality of it all is realized...it's hard for your brain not to just shut off. It might sound weird, but seeing my house destroyed was one thing, because I only lived there since February. (Of course, seeing my stuff destroyed was a million times worse because I've had it for such a long time). If it was my parents' house destroyed, where I grew up, obviously it'd be a hundred times more difficult. Seeing the area around the comic shop destroyed, now that the shock of seeing it all the other day has worn off, may be worse. This is an area that I go to school in and have since 1996. I've eaten lunch thousands of times in the area, driven it even more than that.

It hit me, when I was looking at some abandoned cars in the Wendy's parking lot next to the shop, that this whole thing is like a Twilight Zone episode and we've been transported twenty years into the future only to find our civilization empty, old and broken down. Those cars look like they haven't been touched in so long...

After Les picked me up and we got near the shop, I began to notice some things that I hadn't the last time I'd been that way.

Like the sign from Burger King on a car three blocks away.

Later I took this photo for reference. You can see where the sign should be.

We got down to the shop and Les took it all in. Even after I sent him the photos I took the other day, he was still impressed with it all. It really is something, as vivid as pictures can be, that creates a whole new meaning for the word "damage." After we took a few of the more important things from the shop we explored the area a bit.

The inside of the nail salon we'd walk past on our way to the shop.

Again, it really is surreal to visit the places you've been so many times and to see them look so different. How many times have we eaten lunch from this Wendy's?

We walked around to Robert E. Lee and looked around. This can't be safe.

When I went to the shop the other day, Les requested that I look for his keys. He'd misplaced them in the mayhem of evacuating, and while he had his brother's keys, which allowed him to get into the shop, their house, etc..., he still wanted them. I couldn't find them then, and when we were in the shop we still couldn't find them. Still, when I walked around the parking lots, he said to keep an eye out for them. Walking around the back of the shop, Les wanted to check on a door in the alley that leads up to a storage area in the shop. Sure enough, there were his keys, still in the door from when he locked up. They're nice and rusted from being submerged in water for two weeks.

We also realized that in the alleyway of a nearby bar, the Wendy's outdoor cooling unit sat, propped on the building and a neighbor's porch.

And from the back angle.

Also in the back parking lot sat a box of glasses, obviously from someone's house.

The Ferrara supermarket didn't do too well. I didn't want to go inside so I just stuck the camera in the side of the building and snapped a shot.

Phone calls are still 25 cents, though.

I wonder why they made the Ferrara "Camp Lucky," but I'm glad somebody took the dog.

After that exploring, we headed back towards my place. On Robert E. Lee I saw someone watching over me. The picture's fuzzy since I took it while moving.

We tried to get to another friend's house to check on it, but couldn't because the roads were still flooded. We did see this on the way, though.

And the airfield on the lakefront.

After all of that was said and done we wound up at Les' house Uptown. It was after curfew then, and he didn't have power at his house, as he expected, so we went around to our friend Brian's house. He runs the Landmark theatre at Canal Place. He was home, working on his roof. I think he's the first person I've seen other than those in my close circle of friends that I really care about, and the first person who has something to do with AG. Landmark sponsors our film reviews, and we sponsored the Midnight Madness movie series there. The theatre took on a bit of damage, but the good news is that it will open again, probably in November. That's actually some of the best news I've heard yet. I can't wait to see a movie there, even if it's a crapfest.

2005-09-29T10:13:00.000-07:00

My friend AJ's sister happens to know the guy who leased all kinds of equipment to TwiRoPa, a music club in N.O. After the storm he needed to get in and grab all the equipment he could, and he needed help to do it, so when we got word of it Michelle and I went to the club to pitch in. For the past few years we've had many experiences there.

In June of 2003 I organized the first [N.O.]D.I.Y: Alternative Media Expo there, and put together three more, the most recent in April '05. When the first Expo went over so well it got me a gig promoting the club's weekly '80s dance night. I did that until March of '05, and that extra job funded the beginning of AntiGravity. Michelle had been bartending there for a few months when Katrina hit.

Also in 2003, a couple months after Michelle and I met, I set it up so our second date ended on the TwiRoPa roof. We spent hours listening to music on a boombox I brought with us, drinking wine and looking over the city. We had a great view of the Crescent City Connection.

Since AG started, we've hosted a few shows there and attended many more. One of the most satisfying things about AG has been getting to a show that's doing much better than the club anticipated. The club's always thankful, the promoters even more so. I'm proud to say we had a few instances of that at TwiRoPa.

Since the equipment guys had a flat tire and showed up an hour late, Michelle and I had time to explore the venue. It was unlocked, and we went into what they called the Tchoupitoulas Room, where smaller shows took place. The bars were still fully stocked, and everything else seemed in place. The roof was dripping and there were puddles of water covering most of the concrete floor.

We walked through the venue, through the Mill Room, towards the Live Room, where all the bigger shows happened. It wasn't easy to get in, though.

It only took a little maneuvering, but we got in. This is a shot from the doorway.

And from the stage. This is the room the past three Expos were in. I wish I had a photo of the Expo from the same angle, but they were all on my PC at the house that flooded. If I did have a picture of the Expo, you'd see 8 foot tables lined up those poles and in islands with exhibitors behind them, and maybe some models in the fashion show we had last time.

We also went upstairs into the office areas. Not much to report there, but while on the fourth floor I did take this photo of the gigantic trash mound that's a block away.

I don't think TwiRoPa is going to open again. The owners (new guys who came in a few months after I got the promotions gig) aren't from New Orleans and don't have the ties to the city some other club owners do. The building wasn't in good shape during the best of times, so seeing it in the condition it's in shouldn't be surprising. It'd be insanely difficult to rebuild. The booking agents who've gotten the club to really step it up over the past few months are probably moving to California, so the main part of the club's management will be gone. The sad thing is TwiRoPa was starting to become an elite club in terms of booking, taking shots on up and coming bands (before the storm, they'd just booked Clap Your Hands Say Yeah for the end of October, as just one example). I'll have to find a new place to do the Expo, whenever it's time to do another one.

The city's music scene survived before TwiRoPa, and I'm sure it will after TwiRoPa. Another club, like One Eyed Jack's, will surely pick up the slack, though I'm sure it'll take awhile before the city can again support some of the bigger names. I know that AG'll be around to promote the hell out of those shows, though.

2005-09-28T10:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I realized that I didn't know how Handsome Willy's weathered Rita, so I wanted to go out to check on it and grab some things like the remaining AG t-shirts, the leftover issues of IMBIBE, and a basket of albums AG reviewers had yet to get to.

The area around Willy's was much less active than it was the last time we were there, and Michelle and I weren't stopped once we got across the Mississippi River Bridge. When we pulled up to Willy's I realized I'd taken Michelle's keys instead of mine, so I didn't have my key to the office. I remembered that the door on the roof was blown wide open by Katrina, so I just hopped on the ice machine and walked in.

When I was nearly done grabbing everything Jarret and Justin, two of the three owners of Willy's, showed up, and it was good to see those guys again. It's nice to see a N.O. business not even sweat what's going on. Their landlord is either going to renovate their building or demolish it and rebuild, but either way there will be a Handsome Willy's again. They say that if they have to cut grass until the building is ready and they can reopen the restaurant then that's what they'll do. They're solid guys and I'm glad we partnered AG with them.

After leaving Willy's I wanted to check out Crescent City Comics. CCC has been the shop I've gone to since 1996, when the comic shop I went to as a kid closed up. I've grown pretty close to all the guys who work, and worked, there, and Les, the owner, let me work my first comic convention in 2000. I worked a total of five with those guys, and they were all great experiences I wouldn't have had otherwise.

The shop is near the lakefront and right by the University of New Orleans. The entire area had floodwater, up to ten feet. Driving down Elysian Fields was like driving into our neighborhood in Mid-City, with the abandoned houses, the waterlines, the dead lawns and the smell of floodwater and mold.

It's still amazing to me that boats are randomly plunked down on the side of the roads.

This is the front of the shop. It's in a small strip, above the dry cleaner, with a nail salon and a place that puts logos on stuff. Since the shop's on the second floor it didn't get water, though it was close. You may not be able to see the waterline, but it's a third of the way up the pane of glass above the door.

The dry cleaner, even though they'd boarded up, had their windows blown out, from water pressure inside, I guess.

When we walked up to the shop I first thought someone had broken in because the window next to the door was busted and a ladder and some pieces of wood had been laid on the stairway. It turns that's just where the water dropped them. Since the window was busted we climbed in and went up the stairs.

This is one photo from the inside of the shop.

Probably about 50% of it will be salvageable. Parts of the roof fell in and water seeped in along the perimeter of the shop, ruining the racks of new comics. Most of the back issues were okay, along with most of the trades. It was dark inside and the batteries in my camera were low so I couldn't use the flash continuously.

I called Les to give him updates and looked for a few things he wanted. He'll probably pick me up today so I can help board up the shop.

I can't imagine anything in that immediate area that's on the first floor being usable in the forseeable future. The grocery store across the street from the shop looked completely flooded out, other shops were destroyed. I know people who lived near there too, and the water only got deeper the further you went into the neighborhoods. I know how bad my place looked with less than six feet of water in it. I don't even want to imagine what houses look like with the water over the doors.

Today I'm going into TwiRoPa to help someone take their equipment out, so I'll have pictures of that later today.

2005-09-25T22:04:00.000-07:00

Spent today watching football with friends. At this point Sundays have been the only time things feel close to normal, when we can scream at the TV and go through six packs of beer and whatever is cooked.

The Saints played the Vikings at noon and it pretty much sucked from the start. For the second week in a row they won the coin toss, elected to get the ball kicked to them and promptly fumbled it away. If that wasn't bad enough it went downhill from there. The team was down 17-0 before they scored and never led, ultimately losing 33-16 and it probably wasn't as close as the score would lead you to believe.

But we ate well, drank a lot and the Patriots (my second favorite football team since 1992) won in the afternoon so all wasn't lost. A pretty decent day, all things considered.

****
Yesterday my 22-year-old and developmentally disabled brother Lucas, while helping cut down a busted tree in the backyard, broke his foot in two spots when a gust of wind finished breaking the tree and it fell on his back. He's okay, the foot's in a soft cast and doesn't need a hard one, though we need to watch him for a couple weeks in case the bruising on his back puts pressure on his spleen or kidneys. He's laid up in his recliner watching TV and being waited on, so it's not so bad for him. He's had a few broken bones before, so it's nothing new for him.

2005-09-24T09:31:00.000-07:00

How New Orleans fared after Rita seems to be debatable. The areas reported as reflooded yesterday got worse overnight, and buildings in Chalmette and the 9th Ward are toppling over now since they were already weakened by Katrina. The Industrial Canal was breached yet again yesterday, which caused the reflooding, though it doesn't seem to be quite as high as it was a few weeks ago. I haven't heard about any other flooding in the city itself, but some parts of Jefferson Parish didn't do so well.

Lafitte, which is generally a fishing community, was flooded waistdeep, according to the Times Picayune. Many homes are raised there, but many are also close to the ground, so some are flooded. My family has ties to the city, which is a twenty minute ride from my parents' house in Marrero.

My brothers have gone to school in Lafitte for at least ten years. My mother put them out there because she liked their schools' special ed programs better. Over the years they've made many friends out there. My parents' across-the-street neighbors know quite a few people from there too, since one is a shrimper and the fishing community is tightly knit. My friend Mike is from Lafitte and still lives out there. He'd already left to stay with his girlfriend, who lives closer to my parents,' and, if the water is only waistdeep like they're reporting, his and his parents' places should be okay.

These people in Lafitte have already been through a lot. Even if their homes weren't damaged by Katrina, all that sludge water drained from the city and dumped into the Gulf has all but destroyed the seafood industry for at least three years. How these people are going to make money, I don't know.

The most frustrating thing isn't the reflooding, or even the new flooding in Lafitte. It's knowing that another one of these can pop up in another week or two and do even worse damage. A few computer models of Rita have it actually turning around and going back into the Gulf, just under New Orleans! It wouldn't be the first time a hurricane has hit land, went back into water and restrengthened.

I haven't even talked about Lake Charles, which was on the east side of Rita. I don't have nearly as many ties there, but a few friends have parents there, and if Lake Charles took a near-direct hit, Lafayette probably has some damage too. Lafayette is where Michelle and I were trying to get a place to live, and so many N.O. people are staying after Katrina.

Hopefully I'll have some more info the later in the day we get.

2005-09-23T14:50:00.000-07:00

RITA UPDATE

The New Orleans area seems to be doing as well as could be expected right now. There is some reflooding in the 9th Ward and a little bit in Chalmette, the surrounding areas of N.O. hardest hit by Katrina. Everyone is evacuated from those areas, so there shouldn't be any loss of life.

Marrero is faring well. Obviously the internet is still on, as well as cable and power. I've read that officials believe some neighborhoods may lose power and the sewage system may stop working for a bit, but they're not too worried about flooding in populated areas. We've had some heavy rain and wind gusts, but nothing big, yet.

Just since I started typing I've gotten firsthand accounts of houses losing power, but it seems isolated.

Our friend Toby, who we stayed with in Houston when we first left New Orleans, is riding out the storm at his place. We're a bit worried about him. I think I'll call him now.

2005-09-23T14:20:00.000-07:00

Wow.

Thanks go to Xeni at boingboing for linking the blog, thanks to Susannah for all the encouragement and help, and thanks to everyone who's given me all sorts of kind words over the past few days.

I've always been hesitant to accept help. I guess I never want to admit when I could use some. I've gotten some neat offers for help today. Some people want to replace some of my destroyed comics. Which, in and of itself, is a great gesture. Part of me wants to decline and instead tell everyone to give to the Red Cross. Susannah, the great enabler and also displaced from New Orleans, says I should accept any help offered because "we all need help" and "taking help is a really amazing feeling."

It's been weird at points. On the road after evacuating, I'd hear spots on the radio detailing the Katrina devastation and asking for donations toward relief. I'd see firefighters in the streets with boots in their hands, collecting money to give to the Red Cross. I'd see stuff like that and say, "I should give something when I have a chance." Then I'd remember that the disaster they're trying to relieve directly affected me.

So yes, if you're inclined to help I could put it to good use. BUT. I refuse to take anything I cannot repay some sort of way. Let me write something for you, send you a print of a picture I've taken, print your name in the next AntiGravity, something.

I've placed a PayPal link to the right. My Yahoo e-mail is listed since that's where I run my bill info through, if you notice the difference. I promise that any funds donated will go towards future issues of AG or other AG material, or to things directly tied to my survival or that of the magazine.

I say thanks to everyone reading this. Those who give, I humbly accept. Just let me know what I can do for you.

2005-09-23T10:18:00.000-07:00

Well, we're staying to ride out Rita. As of 10 a.m. this morning it's tracked to hit somewhere between Galveston and Lake Charles, which means we'll definitely see tropical storm winds and rain. According to what the Army Corps of Engineers said yesterday, the levees in New Orleans should hold, though you can see here that some areas of New Orleans area already beginning to reflood. They may be beginning to doubt themselves about that levee comment.

We should be safe in Marrero, though. There were no levee breaches here so we shouldn't have to worry about flooding, only power. We have a generator, so if need be we can plug in a TV and an a/c unit, and we have propane for our barbecue, so we can cook if necessary. We're fully stocked with food and water too.

Internet access may go away soon, so if I don't post again today I will as soon as it kicks back in.

2005-09-22T10:37:00.000-07:00

Overnight Louisiana seems to have come back into the cone of probability. Yesterday we were pretty safe, today we're expecting to get some tropical storm winds and rain. Which, as you can imagine, is not a good prospect for our area.

If it holds to this track, we could be okay, but if it moves more easterly we may have problems. They do have some models that would take it into Lafayette, where thousands of New Orleanians fled to when evacuating for Katrina, or Lake Charles, where there's more of the same. That would put New Orleans and the Westbank, where I'm at now, on the eastside of the storm. The canal in Gretna, the bigger city closer to Orleans Parish, is already high and can only take another couple feet of water, and we're supposed to expect at least three feet of storm surge, more if Rita keeps heading North faster than it heads West.

And the satellite:

Our tentative plan is to leave tomorrow afternoon / evening. My preference is always to leave as late at night as possible to avoid traffic, but my parents don't like driving at night and I'm pretty much stuck leaving when they do, so....

Well, I was looking forward to writing a bit about rebuilding N.O. and how I feel about some evacuees already deciding not to come back to the area, but somehow it doesn't seem appropriate at the moment, especially knowing that if Rita comes close to us we may not be able to come back here, even.

I'll have more sooner than later, hopefully.

2005-09-22T09:08:00.000-07:00

Before I talk about Rita, this is for my friend Dre.

Pancakes!

2005-09-21T15:29:00.000-07:00

Well, now that we're basically caught up to speed it'll be nice to talk in the present tense.

People have been flipping out over Rita, and understandibly so. Just yesterday it was a simple tropical storm, today, as of 3 p.m. central time, it's a 5. Another 5! And it's still got quite a bit of the Gulf to go over.

Nagin already called off all residential and business re-entry into New Orleans. The Army Corps of Engineers had a mandatory meeting this morning to discuss whether they're going to evacuate the city. Everyone's worried that if Rita comes too close it'll send in a storm surge that will break the levees again. Shit, even if we get some heavy thunderstorms it might happen. Besides calling off re-entry, Nagin's telling all Orleans Parish residents already back to leave. A good chunk of those people have decided to stick it out, figuring if their area survived Katrina it can survive this. You have to wonder if it's ignorance keeping them or if they're just plain tired of running. New Orleans has been lucky since Katrina in that the weather has been cooperative. Almost no rain in three weeks. If something does come our way and the levees break again, who knows what'll happen.

Us? We've got hotel rooms booked in Tunica, MS starting tomorrow. We'll wait until tomorrow morning to make a decision either way, but if it turns towards us we're good as gone.

So far, all of Louisiana except the most southwestern parts are out of the cone of probability, which bodes well for our area. We simply can't handle even a small storm, much less another Cat 4+. It sucks for the Houston area, though. It's almost hard to believe we were there just a couple weeks ago. Our friend Toby is flying out on Friday to the Small Press Expo, so at least he'll be out of the area. We do know some other people staying there that we've yet to hear from, so hopefully they'll be okay.

2005-09-21T14:53:00.000-07:00

Monday, September 19th (Part 2: Back at the House)

After leaving Molly's, we tried to head into the 9th Ward and towards the lakefront, but the military presence was heavy due to there still being too much floodwater in those areas. Figuring it useless to even try, since there wouldn't be far for us to go in the car or on foot anyway, we headed back to our house to grab my grandmother's plates.

Michelle didn't want to go back into the house, so I put on the last pair of rubber gloves we had an went in. I climbed over all my ruined comics, again, and gathered as many plates from the cabinets as I could. It took four trips, but I got most of them, along with some mugs and bowls. I opened our dishwasher to see if there were any in there, and there was one but the smell made me give it up.

The last thing was a big serving bowl, but it was next to the stove and full of floodwater. You can see it by the bottle of wine we'd forgotten.

I grabbed it and dumped out the water. What rose up was the foulest smelling odor ever to work its way up my nose. Even through the mask it was raucous. I grabbed it, ran out of the house and placed it in the plastic bucket we brought with us. I went back and shut the door.

We went back to the Westbank, showered, and found out people were practically shitting themselves over Rita.

2005-09-21T14:44:00.000-07:00

Monday, September 19th (The French Quarter / Oh Shit, it's Hurricane Rita)

I realized that I'd forgotten a major item at our house. Before she died two Februarys ago, my grandmother gave me a set of dishes. Floodwater didn't get into our cabinets, and I kicked myself for forgetting to grab the set. We were plannning another trip into the city anyway, so we decided to go back to the house.

Nagin had previously announced that business owners in the CBD, French Quarter, and Algiers (which is actually on the Westbank) could begin heading back into the city. I expected to see business owners beginning to restart their activities, but earlier in the day Nagin called off all re-entry because of Tropical Storm Rita, which was set to hit the Florida Keys in the next couple of days.

Because of that the Quarter was pretty much deserted. Part of the reason may be because it was spared damage, for the most part. No water, little wind damage...it was amazing that an entire area could be fine while other areas, maybe ten to fifteen miles north and east, were flooded completely.

Jackson Square had actually been manicured recently.

Cafe du Monde was uncharacteristically empty. Usually it's full of tourists and locals alike, everyone wolfing down beignets and coffee.

On Frenchmen St., near the Spotted Cat, someone had set up quite a refuge.

Molly's at the Market is one of my favorite bars. Usually I order a pint of Guinness and love it when the bartender makes a star on the head, but no Guinness today. They did have cold beer, but I had to settle for a Miller High Life. It was good.

I talked to several people and everyone had the same sentiment. "We'll do what we have to do." Everyone wants to rebuild. Everyone wants to go home, but not everyone can. Some people are staying with friends, or their parents, like I am. Everyone felt lucky to be back when so many people don't have the means to get back to New Orleans right now. A couple of people recognized me from AG and wished us well in resuming publishing. They're anxious to see what we're going to do.

That's why I can't wait to put out an issue, even if it's an eight pager, a fraction of our previous size. If I can give people even a slight sense of excitement by showing them something from home, then goddamn it, it's worth it. Even if I spend every penny I have left in the business account, even if I have to take some money from our housing funds to do it. It'll be worth it.

2005-09-21T14:30:00.000-07:00

Sunday, September 18th

Ah, real rest and relaxation for the first time in almost a month. It was almost like old times. A few friends came over and we spent the day watching football. My mother made a huge pot of Gumbo and it's the best food I've had since August of '02, when, driving back to New Orleans from working the San Diego comic con, a rental truck I was driving blew a front tire and almost went over a cliff in Texas, giving me back injuries. After the accident I had a hamburger steak, and after coming fifty yards from flying into treetops in a truck full of comic books it was the best dinner I'd ever had. The gumbo comes close.

2005-09-21T14:20:00.000-07:00

Saturday, September 17th (Part 4: Uptown)

Uptown New Orleans is the hub of most of my actitivies as a publisher. We go through quite a few AntiGravitys at coffeeshops, restaurants, bars and other places in that fifty block radius. It was a relief to hear that most of the area was spared flooding, and driving around Uptown reinforced how well off the area was.

That's not to say it got off easy with wind damage or looting. Many buildings had wind damage, but surprisingly few instances of trees falling onto cars or houses.

The Delachaise is a local favorite. Good wine, cheese plates, and it's where I had my first glass of Hitachino, a great Japanese beer.

A traffic light, mangled but still working.

Older buildings, especially high ones, didn't fare as well.

Most buildings ended up like Rocks Off, the official record store of AG. Damage to the overhang, but the store itself is okay.

There were very few people on the streets besides Entergy workers and clean-up crews. One place that was already open, though was Slim Goodies, a diner on Magazine St. Kappa Horn, the owner of Goodies, stopped in Baton Rouge on her way back to the city to pick up supplies. She fed several Entergy workers and soldiers who patrolled the streets. She then offered us ham sandwiches, which was great because by this time we were starving.

The restaurant itself wasn't open yet, as they were still bleaching the floors and freezers in an attempt to get rid of the horrid rotted meat smell.

Kappa was anxious to get Goodies back up and running, planning to as soon as Entergy got the power on. Unfortunately there weren't many other people around. The only other business owner we saw was Jerry, proprietor of the Rue de la Course coffeeshops. Only one of his four locations was looted, and he actually planned to have at least one of them open in the next few days.

We drove around for awhile longer, but exhaustion and a weariness from seeing so much of the city at once took over. There'd be more, for sure, but for awhile, we'd had enough.

Next: The French Quarter

2005-09-21T13:26:00.000-07:00

Saturday, September 17th (Part 3: Mid-City)

My house is a few blocks off of Carrollton Ave. and Canal St. and one of the joys of living there is that there are so many things within walking distance. For the price of a five minute walk, you could get to a Mediterranean restaurant, a burrito place, a 24-Hour diner, one of the best seafood restaurants in New Orleans, a grocery store, one of the oldest ice cream shops in the city.... To say it's a great place to live is an understatement.

That's why driving around was so difficult. Businesses in the immediate area also didn't do so great. Major Video had its window busted and was no doubt looted. The Robert's grocery had its sign ripped off, probably a few blocks away. Lil' Ray's, the 24-hour diner, had more water than we did. To see the Angelo Brocato sign on the ground and the shop itself wrecked.... How many times did we get ice cream there?

It's a bit difficult to see here, but the pond at City Park, only a short car ride from the house, was still pretty much full. The N.O. Museum of Art fared pretty well, but it's also raised about fifteen feet.

Cars on Esplanade Ave. were worse off than cars on Canal St.

After driving around City Park and Esplanade Ave., we went back to take Jeff Davis towards Uptown. On the Jeff Davis / I-10 overpass we saw remnants of people living there. Chairs, ice chests, and garbage were gathered on the shoulder, along with this sign. Can you imagine getting put in a position to write this?

We also got to see a side of the Superdome most people haven't gotten to see, since the media likes to show the angle that makes it look like the roof was totally ripped off.

Next: Uptown

2005-09-21T12:41:00.000-07:00

Saturday, September 17th (Part 2: Our House)

I will say this: the power of the press is large and far-reaching. When Michelle and I pulled toward Canal St. after getting off of HWY90 at Claiborne, a trooper stopped us and asked, "You want a free tetanus shot?"

"What," I asked.

"A free tetanus shot. Have you had one in the last five, maybe even ten years?"

"Yeah, I think."

"Okay, you're good to go. Drive safe."

And off we went into a part of the city that's not supposed to open for weeks. We took a left on Canal and headed towards our house.

Canal St. is busted up pretty bad. There are cars with dust all over them, and boats parked in the median.

Wiped out cars are parked on curbs (in an effort to get a few inches higher, I guess). Windows of cars and buildings are blown out. The worst thing we saw was the water line. It's like some giant had put three huge crayons in a vertical line in his hand and walked down Canal St., making lines on the buildings the whole way.

We went the wrong way down the one way that is our street. No one was around to give us a ticket, anyway. We saw a maybe potted plant weighing maybe eighty pounds turned over. The hundred pound outdoor chimney my mother bought us was turned on its side. Michelle's car was still parked in the driveway. It turned out to be a total loss. And she only had liability insurance.

The waterline outside the house was just a tad under my chin. Our keys didn't work. The door's wood was expanded from over a week of being submerged in water and then more than a week of drying in the humid and sunny heat. I had to kick it in. It wasn't difficult, either. It took only four or five tries, I think.

We knew we had water in the house. Obviously, if we didn't think so before we made the trip in we knew by the time we saw the water line. We were optimistic, though. We thought, all but knowing that we had over 5 feet in the house, that a decent bit of our stuff would be salvagable. Not our furniture and not our clothes, but maybe, if we were lucky, those books higher on our shelves and things on top of the bookshelves.

Before we left, for reasons I can't remember, I took pictures of our place. The first picture is of our living room and study area, the second is of our bookshelves.

The minute I kicked in the door, though, all expectation changed.

To say words cannot describe a situation like this is just wrong. The easiest thing to say is that it's fucked up. Demolished. Destroyed. Catastrophic. Cataclysmic. Some words may seem overbearing, but when you're standing there looking at all your possessions scattered about like Neptune flailed about your house, no situation can seem worse. It makes you wonder whether it'd be easier if a tornado simply hit the house and flung everything to another city. At least then you don't have to walk on things that used to be on bookshelves.

Seeing my comics strewn about was the hardest. I've never been a mint freak, meaning I didn't really care if my comics were in the best condition. If I could read them, that was the important thing. I do have a theory about books though. They're like furniture. You buy a book to read just like you buy a couch to sit on. Sure, the book or couch will be messed up eventually, but you like to keep it in the best condition possible for as long as possible. To see my books in the worst condition they could ever be in, and to walk on them, seemed preposterous.

The rest of the house didn't fare any better. In our bedroom, our chest-of-drawers and my desk were flipped on their backs and full of mold. Our refridgerator was turned on its side. Our couch was pulled three feet from the wall, also full of mold. Oddly enough, our coffee table was in the exact position we left it in, and papers I'd left on top were not only where they were, but dry.

The side of the fridge.

There were a few salvageable things, but not nearly as many as we'd expected. Some posters, some pieces of art that were high enough.

I took exactly one comic from my house. I happened to have a TRANSMETROPOLITAN #1 in a hard case hanging on the wall, and it was above the water line. That was the one comic I took, out of all the others that lay on the ground there. I took some of the posters, too, and some action figures that were above the walkway. One comic.

After we took what we could, we decided to go explore.

2005-09-21T12:03:00.000-07:00

Saturday, September 17th

After Jefferson Parish began to reopen, N.O. mayor Ray Nagin announced plans for business owners to go back to the CBD, Uptown and Algiers. It was amazing to think of the progress made in less than three weeks. Only two weeks before, we were being told that there would be no commerce in New Orleans for at least three months, and that it was possible no one could live there for up to six. Half a month later, people were going to be allowed to go back!

Sure, there are areas of the city that are uninhabitable. But the heart of the city, the CBD, the French Quarter, and Uptown, was intact, we were told. If those parts of the city could reopen, how bad could our place in Mid-City be?

We were anxious to get to our house and check it out. The more information we dug up, the more sure we were that the house had gotten more then five feet of water in it. Surely some things would be salvageable, like books high on our bookshelves, Michelle's postcard collection. The only problem was getting into the city.

Luckily we had a way. One of the owners of Handsome Willy's was trying to get a freelance gig for a magazine in Baton Rouge, so he had a press pass. He'd actually been back into New Orleans a few times, exploring the area and talking to people. He suggested that I make passes for AG, and offered to print them for us. I designed one for me and one for Michelle, and that Saturday, when all the Willy's guys drove in from Breaux Bridge, they brought us our laminated passes.

Saturday morning we were on our way to our house.

2005-09-21T11:20:00.000-07:00

Friday, September 16th

This was the second year in a row that we'd be driving home from a hurricane evacuation on her birthday. Last year, it was Ivan and Nacogdoches. This year, I handled it a bit better. Last year I fumbled her birthday present (not all my fault, really it wasn't) by giving her a pair of shoes she'd picked out weeks before, but I told her I had something else on queue for her. That something else never came through, and I had to eat crow for it later. This year, we'd evacuated over two weeks before her birthday, so I didn't even have a chance to get something small.

My only shopping choice was Wal-Mart. So, the day before, as Michelle sunned at the pool, I ran into Wal-Mart and bought some art supplies. I figured the supplies she had at the house would be ruined, so I got her a sketch pad, some pencils, good pens, better paper for drawing on, and a portfolio. It went over well. Yay me.

We left our hotel at 8 a.m. Instead of heading straight to my parents' place, we decided to go to Greenville, Arkansas to visit Michelle's mother and stepdad. They'd evacuated Slidell the day after we left New Orleans, and wound up in a Red Cross shelter in Mississippi. Someone offered them use of a trailer in Greenville, which is just over the Arkansas border, and since their house in Slidell was demolished, they took it. Michelle had no idea when she'd see her mother again, so we decided to go out of our way to visit.

They seemed happy, Michelle's stepdad had some leads on jobs, and their trailer was quaint and more importantly paid for for a year. We stayed with them for a couple of hours, and at 1 p.m. we were on the road again, finally going someplace familiar.

THE RIDE HOME

Because I-10 was unpassable in points, we couldn't take a straight shot home. Instead, we were on I-55 South, which we took until we got to Highway 51, which we took to Highway 61, which we took to Interstate 310, which we took to Highway 90. Highway 90 is a stretch I'm pretty familiar with. We drove that stretch from Lafayette into the N.O. area after Ivan last year, and in the N.O. area, when I still lived with my parents, I made that drive almost every day for the dayjob, from Metairie over the Huey P. Long bridge into Westwego, into Marrero.

Around 7:30 p.m., when we got into Avondale, things began to look different.

The weather was pretty clear, and I immediately knew the skyline was different. Without noticing anything specific, I could tell trees were missing, making the skyline more open. Very few buildings were drastically damaged, but almost every building had roof shingles missing. It was impossible to tell how bad off the roofs were. Traffic, oddly enough, flowed almost freely. We got into Marrero with no problems.

My parents' house was pretty much okay. The stench was terrible, but my parents' gracious neighbors, the ones who checked on the house, had already emptied the freezers and refridgerator, sparing us the foul task of burying all the spoiled food. The street was littered with tree branches, roof shingles, and garbage. Nothing that couldn't be cleaned.

Not only did we have electricity, but the cable and internet was on! Having seen the destruction of New Orleans on television, the differences between the Eastbank and the Westbank seemed phenomenal. Power AND internet? It was as if only a simple storm had passed.

It was all good until 11 p.m., when the power abruptly went out.

2005-09-21T02:41:00.000-07:00

Monday, September 5th-Thursday, September 15th

By the time we'd traveled the 30 miles back to Bob and Ann's the next morning, my father decided he'd also had enough and wanted to leave. We were lucky enough to find a couple of hotel rooms outside of Memphis, and left Belleville that afternoon.

Our plan at this point was to start working our way close to New Orleans. We found out that my parents' house in Marrero was virtually undamaged. Neighbors checked the house for them, and even though a gigantic tree in the backyard fell, it missed the house. We figured that as soon as Jefferson Parish reopened, we could get back there. At the same time, Michelle and I tried to find a place of our own in Lafayette, but to no avail. Lafayette seemed to be the new New Orleans, with the people who couldn't fit in the overcrowded Baton Rouge jammed into there.

Relief started to come, though. Cellphone calls began coming through a little easier. We finally got our $2000 of FEMA money. The Red Cross was paying for our hotel rooms.

Then the biggie came through. I finally got in touch with Jose, who lives on the second floor of the house next to mine. He claimed that someone in the neighborhood saw satellite photos of our street and that they could see the sidewalk through the water! It meant that if we had water, it wasn't the filthy muck water that filled most of the city, and it maybe meant we hadn't flooded at all! It was the best news I'd heard in awhile.

But it was shortlived. I finally heard from Donald, who was stranded in the Lindy Boggs hospital on Jeff Davis, about a half-mile from my house. The hospital had been evacuated, and they rode out on airboats. He said it looks like "a city springing out of a river."

My heart sank. I'd thought I'd lost everything. Then I thought there was a chance that we'd lost nothing. Now I was hearing that SUVs were barely visable in the water. At the same time, I was glad Donald was okay. He was the only person I'd yet to have heard from, and that meant everyone I know was out of the city.

I tried to distract myself. I spent a lot of time online, reading up on the news. Jefferson Parish was going to start reopening soon, and my parents were already making plans to go back. NFL football started on Thursday the 8th, and the Patriots won (I won't go into it now, but the Patriots have been my no.2 team since 1993), and the Saints followed suit that Sunday. I travelled to a couple of comic shops, eager to get my mind off of wondering about home.

Finally, after a week and a half of sitting around and waiting, we got the go-ahead to go home. A friend of mine, Jason, checked on the house for us and we knew it had electricity. Because my parents and I work at the same company, we were able to get passes that allowed us in early, so we decided to leave on Friday, the 16th, Michelle's birthday.

2005-09-21T02:21:00.000-07:00

Friday, September 2nd

I don't think we even realized it was September until this day. At this point, even eight hours of sleep wasn't enough because there was no way to relax. Not knowing about your living space is one thing. Not knowing about the status of friends is another. Not knowing how bad off New Orleans as a whole was going to get was the most frustrating.

On our way into St. Louis I kept the radio on whatever NPR or ESPN channel I could find. In the towns that carried neither, I stumbled upon other talk programs. People were bashing New Orleans! Why didn't someone do this, why didn't someone do that. One lady called in to this program in Tulsa and blamed the people stuck in N.O. for not leaving. It was infuriating.

What many people don't realize is that when evacuations were called it was only the 26th. If people were waiting for a paycheck slated to come on the 1st, they weren't going to see it. If they were waiting for a government check, like many people in the 9th Ward were, well, good luck with that. When you take for granted that you can hop on a computer and make reservations at a Hilton 500 miles away, it's easy to forget what it's like to be a have-not. I remembered having only $100 in my checking account. What if I didn't have credit cards? $100 wasn't going to buy that much gas.

We finally got into St. Louis around 5 p.m. We were excited to see my family, since they were really the first familiar faces from home we'd seen since we left. The excitement quickly dissipated, though. We were promised a room to ourselves, but what we weren't told was that it was 10 x 10, already filled with odds and ends (it was my parents' friend Bob's office) and it'd have a single-bed-sized air mattress in it. No problem, we thought.

It was a problem. When two people are used to sleeping in a king-sized bed, downsizing to a single isn't good for the relationship. Between us fighting over covers, falling off the bed four inches to the floor, and our dogs wiggling in, we were getting testy by the second night.

To make matters worse, it seemed as if we were there more on Bob's good will than Ann's. We got the vibe that we weren't really welcome, that she didn't want us in her house. Nothing was said outright, but demeanor says a lot, and I could tell she was roped into letting us stay there. We avoided her, but we were in Belleville, which isn't exactly a bustling place. For three days we did nothing but listen to my uncle bitch about the overall situation in New Orleans, read, and hope for when it was time to go to the grocery.

To make matters even worse, we were essentially kicked out of the house on Sunday night. Ann made arrangements for us to stay at her son's house, which turned out to be 30 miles away. The only comparison would be if you went to New Orleans to stay at someone's house and wound up having to travel to Slidell to sleep. It just didn't make any sense to me, and when we got settled in and were alone, I told Michelle that I'd had enough. And I did. I was willing to sleep at rest areas in the car until we got back down to Houston, or got to Austin. We were leaving Illinois Monday regardless.

2005-09-21T02:10:00.000-07:00

THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 1ST

Michelle and I decided that we'd go to St. Louis to see my family and wait for our FEMA money, which would allow us to go to Lafayette or wherever we'd decide to go.

That morning I spent four hours at a Saturn dealership getting my car looked at. I was already a few hundred miles over my scheduled oil change, and that, combined with having an egg in the front tire and a weird wobbling when the car went over 70 mph, made me a bit wary about driving 900+ miles without it being looked at. It's a good thing I did, because one of the back tires, which I'd put a Fix-A-Flat in a couple months back, had its insides nearly rotted out.

The Saturn dealership was a weird experience. When I drove up, this guy came out and asked what I needed done. I told him my situation, that I'd left New Orleans and was planning on going farther north and needed it checked out before I left. He said that was fine, and asked if I planned to wait on the car. Before I could respond, he said, "Well, I'm sure you are because it's not like you're going home any time soon!" All I could do is look at him while he laughed at his bad joke.

Then I'm sitting in the waiting area, and some woman sat next to me. The receptionist, who evidently knew this woman, came over and said, "I just HAVE to forward you this e-mail. It's called "Why you deserve to lose everything you own in a fire!" I sat there and thought, "Maybe I'm just a tad touchy today, but I've maybe lost everything I own, and I don't find that particularly funny." But I said nothing because I didn't want to create a scene, or be one of those people who flip out because my world's upside down and others are normal.

On the bright side, the manager of the dealership only charged me parts, not labor, and didn't charge me for the tune-up and 20,000 mile checkup, which brought my almost $600 bill down to under $250, with two new tires included. Which almost made up for the (maybe) unintentional rudeness of his employees.

I left the dealership, went back to Toby's, and we packed the car. Toby actually came home to see us off, so after we said our goodbyes, we were on the road again. I didn't want to make the entire drive at once, so we shacked up at a Holiday Inn in Lake Texarkana for the night.

That night I got some disheartening news. Chris Watson, who owns the label Park The Van, was probably moving to Philadelphia. His girlfriend, Sabrina, who's actually from the Westbank, got a job offer to design album covers. The offered salary was a pretty hefty raise on what she was making in New Orleans, and they were seriously thinking about taking it. Chris had just signed up to sell ads for us, specifically to labels. He has great contacts because of his label, and we've always enjoyed working together, so it seemed to be a match made in heaven. This was the first time things felt different.

Other AG writers had already decided to stay away. Santos and his girlfriend went to S. Carolina, and was trying to go into photography school anyway, so this simply sped up his timetable. Miles had his house in the 9th Ward wiped out, along with Lizzie, who did publicity for the House of Blues. They said they'd likely end up in her hometown, Jacksonville, or in one of the Carolinas.

Somewhat depressed, I went to sleep.

2005-09-21T01:58:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, August 31st

A lot of Wednesday is a blur. I watched the news nearly every waking moment, figuring that Michelle's and my home was underwater, knowing that New Orleans would never be the same, not knowing if it would simply ever be anything again. I kind of came to grips with the notion that not only was my business in ruins, but all the money and effort and love I put into collecting all those comics over a span of over 15 years was likely washed away. I read that Bayou St. John started to overflow, and that the American Can Co. building had water up to cars' bumpers. We held hope that Mid-City hadn't flooded, but that only lasted until Michelle saw a picture of Jesuit High School, which is only blocks from our house. It had five feet of water in it.

With New Orleans starting to take a turn for the worse, I thought about the people I knew still in the city. Al was at a hotel in the CBD. Worse, Donald was at Lindy Boggs Hospital with his girlfriend. She was considered an "essential employee" and couldn't leave, so he stayed with her. The hospital is near our house, and I also read that its basement flooded. The Times Picayune story called it a "minor annoyance," but it was bad news for our place, no matter how easily they dealt with it. How would they get out?

Besides those two it seemed as if everyone else I knew had gotten out. Dre was already in Dallas with her sister. Rami'd left for Lafayette and his brother's house. Even AJ and his family left, and they refused to leave for every other hurricane. Phone service to the 504 area code was down, so it was nearly impossible to get through to anyone. Maybe one in a hundred calls went through.

As the situation in New Orleans worsened, Michelle and I began to think about our future. Would we stay in Houston? Go to Austin? Our friend Chris could put us up there. Lafayette? It seemed like most people we know ended up there. Baton Rouge? It was quickly becoming a clusterfuck with the sudden influx of people.

I debated the future of AG. I knew I wanted it to continue. We'd all worked too hard to get as far as we had just to let it slip away. Still, our new office at Handsome Willy's, four blocks from the Superdome, was likely rubble. It has open parking lots on three sides, leaving nothing to block the wind from hitting it.

Our staff, scattered throughout the country, had members contemplating not returning. But, I figured, if we could do even an online edition, or a smaller format, and it would brighten up someone by reminding them of home, then I had to do it. I knew then that AG would continue at some point. When and where I still didn't know. We were planning to expand into Lafayette and Baton Rouge anyway, so it made sense to try to set up shop in either city.

My parents, when they left New Orleans, went to West Memphis, Arkansas to a hotel room. They were joined by my uncle Johnny, his daughter and her family, and my uncle Eddie and his family. After being there for a few days they wanted to leave the hotel, so they decided to accept an offer to go to St. Louis, extended by Bob and Ann. Bob and Ann are old friends of my parents, and they left New Orleans around 15 years ago to move to Belleville, which is actually about ten minutes out of STL, much like Marrero's relationship to New Orleans. My mother almost immediately began to bug me and Michelle about joining them up there.

I basically had to credit card it from New Orleans to Houston, as I only had a tad more than $100 in my checking out. I had a bit more in the AG account, but refrained from touching that, not knowing when I'd need it. If we went to St. Louis, we'd at least have food and stuff paid for, and FEMA wasn't exactly beating our door down to give us our temporary relocation money.

I thought it would be more prudent to go directly to Lafayette and try to find a place, figuring once people got over the shellshock of being displaced all the apartments and houses would be snapped up. That would prove to be exactly the case, but looking back it's not like we could've done that if we wanted to, because it's not like we had money to put down for a deposit. The only money Michelle had was in the form of her last bartending check from TwiRoPa, less than $50.

The odd thing is we'd been in Houston about a month before, when we evacuated for Hurricane Dennis. That was an absolute vacation compared to this, though. We liked Houston, I guess because we were already passingly familiar with it. I visited the comic shop I'd been to before, we got coffee from the Starbucks by the Galleria (yes, I absolutely despise Starbucks, and Michelle and I got into a fight about it in San Francisco when I refused to lend her two dollars so she could buy a Starbucks cookie, not wanting my money to go into their pockets....but there weren't any indie coffeeshops in Houston that we knew of, and coffee needs outweigh morals, I guess), visiting the House Of Pies....we could certainly see a life in Houston, if that was what we wanted.

It was about this time that defections started to annoy me. I can't blame people for feeling like they can't go back to New Orleans. It's been a difficult time. A lot of people have lost everything. A lot of people have lost almost everything. A lot of people (myself included) don't yet know what they've lost. It's hard to envision New Orleans being normal again. That said, I know that my heart is in New Orleans. For better or worse I'm married to the city. It's treated me well at times and made me work my ass off at other times, but I can't imagine living anywhere else. Wherever I go I compare that place to New Orleans, and nowhere compares favorably. Some people don't feel that way. They've already washed their hands of the city and claim they won't return. Maybe it's easier for people who grew up in other places to stay away. But I can't agree with anyone who called New Orleans home and won't return to rebuild. I think staying away is taking the easy way out, and, to be honest, I could never look at those people, whoever they are, the way I once did if they return AFTER everything is rebuilt and working again. Take part in the process or stay away. It's just how I feel.

2005-09-21T01:45:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, August 30th

At 7a.m. a phone call woke me up. It was my mother, who asked if I'd heard the news. I rushed to my computer and opened the WWL TV page. One thing still running in New Orleans was WWL, broadcasting from their French Quarter studio and also from an emergency studio in Baton Rouge. They were broadcasting through the internet, and luckily Toby had DSL. No stream up, only an announcement stating that the 17th St. Canal had broken and the tidal surge threatened to flood the city. The dreaded "bowl effect" was going to happen after all. And our house in Mid-City was in the crosshairs.

2005-09-21T01:38:00.000-07:00

Monday, August 29th

There was nothing to do but wait for the storm, so we watched the news while Toby went to work, then after he got home went to a Landmark Theatre and saw THE ARISTOCRATS. By that evening the storm had passed New Orleans, but before landfall Katrina met a front, weakened a bit and was pushed just eastward, sparing the city the worst of its power. We'd dodged yet another bullet.

We figured we'd get to go home to Mid-City by the end of the week at the latest. But, before we went to bed, I said, "Well, we still need to hope the levees hold."

2005-09-20T23:28:00.000-07:00

Until I get caught up, I'll post the dates this content happened on.

Saturday, August 27th 2005

Considering how close up against deadline we were, it was still business as usual with AG. We were aware of the storm, but as most people, we figured it would turn eastward and spare us, much like Ivan did last year. I did take the day off of work, though. Since so many people were evacuating, it would've been difficult to get out to Metairie, and I did want to watch the news. Michelle and I decided to wait at least until the 11 p.m. tracking map came out before we made plans to leave. In the afternoon we went over to (AG Senior Editor) Noah's house to work on the magazine, and we did little work before conversation turned towards leaving. Noah and (his girlfriend) Eden had a houseguest, a friend from Austin. I was all about leaving if the track map didn't change, because at that point the map had New Orleans set to take a direct hit. Michelle and Noah didn't want to leave. They had the same mindset that a lot of people did, I think. It would turn, surely, like every other storm in our lifetimes did. We figured that it'd be better if we left, though, because we needed electricity to run our computers and internet access to turn in the magazine when it was time. Just to be sure we had a place to go, I called our friend Toby, who lives in Houston, and he said we could stay at his place if we needed to.

Noah, Eden, and their houseguest took a vote, and they decided to leave. Michelle still didn't want to, but agreed to wait until that 11p.m. tracking map. She wanted to go to work, at TwiRoPa for Latin Night, because we figured we'd still have to pay rent whether we left or not. We left Noah and Eden to pack their house, went home and cooked dinner. I actually continued work on AG. Our deadline was Monday the 29th, and if we wanted to stay on schedule, or close to it, it needed to get done. Michelle left to go to work, and I watched the news.

The more I watched the news the stronger I felt we needed to leave. At that point the only thing stopping Nagin from calling the first ever mandatory evacuation of New Orleans was some law (it turned out that by law, if there's a mandatory evacuation, the city must provide transportation out of the city for those with none. As city officials have taken plenty of heat since, they weren't prepared to do that.). Now that landfall was inside of 48 hours, they all felt that the tracking map would hold. The 11p.m. map was unchanged, so I started packing. In hindsight I should've packed a lot more, but I guess I still felt that it would turn at the last minute. I never thought that we wouldn't be able to go home for awhile, and at the same time figured that moving stuff around in the house was futile. If it flooded, a foot here or there wouldn't make a difference.

Michelle wound up getting cut from work at midnight (because, who'd've guessed, Latin Night was dead). She'd already packed a bag, so I packed mine, filled our ice chest with groceries we'd bought earlier in the day, packed the dogs a few bowls of food, put all my business papers and checkbook in a bag, and grabbed my laptops, then loaded the car.

Back in the day when I'd evacuate for hurricanes with my parents, I'd load all my comics into my mom's van. Fifteen years ago that was just a box or three that consisted of maybe a thousand comics. Now it's dozens of boxes consisting of maybe 50,000 comics, not counting all the hardcovers, novels, statues, posters, original art and other assorted stuff that I've collected over the years. There was no way I could take all of it, and I brought no books with me. There just wasn't room in the car for us, the dogs, our essentials and comics. The only thing I brought was a piece of Andi Watson original GEISHA art I bought in San Diego '02. Why I grabbed that I don't know. I didn't even grab my book of autographed quotes, which I'd gotten dozens of comics pros to scribble in over the years. The only other thing I took was a pop-up book Michelle made for me months ago.

We left New Orleans around 1:30 am, sat in a bit of contraflow traffic, and arrived in Houston around 8am. We took Toby to breakfast and basically watched the news all day Sunday. Katrina was coming to New Orleans.

2005-09-20T22:51:00.000-07:00

My name is Leo McGovern and I live in New Orleans. I haven't always, but I've always been close. I grew up ten minutes southwest of New Orleans, in a city called Marrero. I've always been well versed in the city, since my father grew up Downtown and, as a kid, we always took the long route to my grandparents' house in Chalmette, which was through the CBD, up Canal to Rampart, and Rampart to St. Claude, St. Claude to Judge Perez.

About two years ago I finally moved from my parents' house into my own place, a small shotgun in Lakeview. After eleven months my girlfriend and I moved in together after we found a perfect place in Mid-City, the bottom left part of a fourplex.

It sounds like the beginning of an online personal ad, but I've always loved reading and writing. I grew up on comic books and the hobby grew into a passion as I grew older. At the pinnacle of my collecting I had around 40,000 comic books and graphic novels. I'm a huge fan of alternative and independent comics and music, and that was a huge motivation when it came to me creating the Alternative Media Expo in June of 2003, and AntiGravity in June of 2004.

The AME was inspired by shows like the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco and sidewalk arts and crafts markets. It featured mostly New Orleans artists displaying their wares, everything from homemade clothes to web design to comics. AntiGravity was a natural extension of that. It started as a sixteen page magazine featuring interviews with and write-ups on local and national bands supplemented by reviews of comics and albums, the comic strips Too Much Coffee Man and the K Chronicles, and that's about it. In under a year and a half it grew to thirty-two pages, added comic strips by local cartoonists, movie reviews, and features on local independent businesses like coffeeshops and bookstores.

If you think an alternative monthly would be difficult to finance, you'd be correct. I saved a bunch of money to front the first few issues, worked hard selling advertising to make it work, got lucky...and it still didn't break even. My day job is in the healthcare industry. I work with people with disabilities, taking them out of their houses and into the community. One of my clients has mild developmental problems, one is half-paralyzed, and one has Down's Syndrome. After bills, extra money went into the magazine.

In August 2005, everything, as good as it was, was going in an even better direction. The September issue was the first set to turn a profit, and AG was primed to double its print run in October for Voodoo, a New Orleans music festival that attracts tens of thousands of people. The October issue promised to be the biggest yet, expanding to forty pages due to an unprecedented influx of advertisers. We opened our new office in early August, above Handsome Willy's, a fairly new bar/restaurant, after working out of my house the previous 14 months. To celebrate the new office we had a party on the 20th, a last opportunity to party before September deadline crunched us and things got even crazier with the October issue.

During the next week, one of the owners asked me if I heard about a new hurricane about to hit Florida. I said I hadn't, and he said that it was expected to hit Florida and head up the Eastern coast.

"Ah, I'm not worried about it, then," I said.

And then came the weekend, and with it the possibility New Orleans would be no more, and that at least the city would never be the same.