STILL TICKING
I took time to read the magazine [WeeklyBeat] this morning. I see where a lot of the locals are playing in New Orleans, this weekend. But as usual, no Irma Thomas. I guess my prices are too rich for the blood in the city I love. It would be nice to have a regular gig in New Orleans for a change. But I do want to make a decent living. After all 47 years should be worth something, don’t you think?

Oh! by the way. I went back to the house and found my OffBeat Clock [Best Of The Beat Award] that I received some years ago. It was still ticking—go figure.

—Irma Thomas, New Orleans, LA now in Gonzales, LA

It was a pleasure to open email and see OffBeat’s familiar and great look. Especially during these times: the aftermath of our massive visitor, the temporary scattering of so many folk, the seasons of Thanksgiving and Christmas approaching and more. We have so many questions as well as great opportunities for our beloved city of New Orleans. It is indeed heartening to so easily check out OffBeat wherever we are.

—Allen Toussaint, New Orleans, LA now in New York, NY

I have one of your Best Of The Beat awards proudly displayed here on my mantel in South America. God, do I miss New Orleans and our music scene. As we both know, there ain’t nothin’ like it!

—Michael Skinkus, New Orleans, LA now in Santiago, Chile

I received the WeeklyBeat email and was glad to hear that OffBeat is going to put out a December issue. I also just wanted to let you know that I think y’all have done a real good job keeping New Orleans musicians informed of opportunities these past couple months. As for Saaraba, we have just completed a two month tour that took us from Florida to Washington state and about 25 cities in between. We played a bunch of Katrina benefit concerts and raised well over $10,000 for the relief effort. People were really awesome to us on the road in the wake of the hurricane which was very encouraging. Currently Saaraba is taking a little break, but we hope to get back to New Orleans all together by Mardi Gras to keep touring and try to help get the local scene get back on its feet. I really appreciate your dedication to the local scene and know that it will be back up soon enough. So from a local musician, thanks.

—Danny Marks, New Orleans, LA

THE FATE OF THE NEW NEW ORLEANS
Good friend, novelist and opera composer Lawrence David Moon, wrote this personal letter to Jan Ramsey and Joseph Irrera.

I never realized how strong the umbilical was, in my own regard, to New Orleans, but this disaster has really made its mark on my soul and made me perceive all I did leave by moving here to Los Angeles, which has not been an easy trick.

I pray to God that both your house and the office weren’t trashed by looters, those sons of bitches. Everybody, of course, can see that people needed food/water, during the horrid days of the flooded first week, but the burglary that accompanied was like the Sacking of Rome.

The only sane way to look at it all is by understanding the flows of history. Great cities have risen and fallen and risen again, and many many many of them have been sacked by exactly the same sort of low-lives that pillaged New Orleans last week. What has just happened to New Orleans is nothing new, in the eyes of history and the earth. That does not make it any more palatable, but at least it makes it comprehensible to the senses. All that I can say, with a highly attuned Sixth Sense, is that those who pillaged will suffer and soon. Their day will come, if it hasn’t already.

Too many in this country and ’round the world have been voicing such shock over the whole ghastly situation of New Orleans. What most don’t understand is that the history of the Big Easy has been a constant dance of death since the French founded it in the early 1700s, founded it on a swamp, of all inimical locales.

The city has been victim to constant waves of floods, fires, and plagues. Bodies used to pile up so deep in the French Quarter during the Yellow Fever outbreaks, that carts would haul the dead off in piles, like logs, and the corpses would be dumped at the charnel house of St. Jude’s Chapel, right outside St. Louis Cemetery Number One! Death is really the Major Consort of New Orleans, and has always been, since its founding. And now, the city is the residual gallant of all the ghosts who are patrolling the rues and allées in its darkened nocturnal strife. What a turnaround: the Queen of the South now prey to spectres, soldiers, and stowaways. All of it is just more fodder for the incessant appetite that the troubled town has for characters that will inevitably spin off into literature and song…

What a lament…

Who in hell knows how long this current debacle and tragedy of New Orleans is going to play out? I have a feeling that, as soon as the waters drain, people will return in droves, to see what’s happened to their houses, etc.  It could be another total scene of chaos, as thousands return to assess the damage. And the cleanup, all the god-awful gunk and black mold and slime left from those toxic waters. Jesus Jesus Jesus! It’s only Act I of some huge Shakespearean tragedy—no—GREEK tragedy. On any level, it is certainly fascinating, and the whole world is watching this, scene by scene, with almost morbid curiosity.

What they NEED to do, what the Army Corps of Engineers NEEDS to do, is build a goddamned huge medieval wall around the whole of both Jefferson and Orleans Parishes, and make the fucker 100 foot high!—Like ancient Babylon or Troy, or some of the impregnable fortresses of Norman France. Just raise one titanic wall—with gates that can be slammed shut when the next bitch of a hurricane approaches. Otherwise, without a HUGE looming wall of protection, thirty foot thick, this same goddamned shit is going to happen over and over and over again. The whole problem of the flooding was caused by a stupidly flimsy foot-thick dinky concrete ridge—a series of slabs that kept pretending to be a restraining wall along that 17th Street Canal—a hedge that wasn’t really even a levee at all! It’s just so ludicrous as to be lamentable, to imagine that a foot-thick sliver of concrete could possibly hold back the rage of the whole of Lake Pontchartrain once the waters rose and surged down the length of that canal. It seems that the massive banks of the higher levees did hold up, but it was that crazy-assed restraining wall of pre-cast concrete plywood that gave way and caused all the massive destruction and drowning and deaths.

I don’t know, as nobody knows, what’s to be the Fate of the NEW New Orleans. Something drastic has to be done, though, or all of this tremendous loss of life and property is going to be wholly in vain, and the same dismally terrible situation will be repeated time and time again. There exists right now a tremendous opportunity to correct all the evils of the past for the city, if only somebody can get a grip and do the right thing, which is to wall that city in with a gigantic solid thick impregnable bastion that even a tsunami can’t topple. Otherwise, prey to the waters; the city truly is doomed…

—Lawrence David Moon, Los Angeles, CA

LIFETIME SUBSCRIBERS
I met my wife at a Cajun dance in Chicago in the summer of 1995 and took her to her first Jazz Fest the next spring. As a thank you, she gave me a subscription to OffBeat and I have saved every issue since that time. New Orleans has been my vacation spot of choice since 1982 and it just breaks my heart to see the devastation that Katrina has brought to such a beautiful place. I hope you can keep OffBeat going—and that the city can recover and rise again with beautiful music and wonderful food abounding.

—Gary Forell, Chicago, IL

I’m sending this check for $200 for my lifetime subscription to OffBeat. I’ve been a subscriber for eight years and I can’t imagine not getting your publication anymore. In fact, on August 30, when I realized how badly Katrina treated New Orleans, one of my first thoughts was that I wouldn’t be receiving my September issue.

I “grew up” in many states but Louisiana was not among them. I have come to love the city of New Orleans through many visits for the musical and culinary ambience. I’m praying for all of you and listening and watching for news of the recovery. It will most certainly be a long road. I will return as a tourist as soon as my doing so will be welcomed by “all ya’ll.”

Take care and keep us posted on the web site if there are other ways us outsiders can be of help.

—Dottie Davis, Decatur, GA

It was wonderful to receive the WeeklyBeat update and to read the music is starting to roll again. I’m letting you know that I have just sent my details for a lifetime subscription to OffBeat. I have been a subscriber since you started.

A number of Australian/Japanese/Europeans are coming over for next year’s French Quarter Festival as a sign of solidarity for New Orleans and her music. The group consist of musicians and fans, etc. who have made many trips over the years to your wonderful city and for some reason or another have stopped. It is seen as a reunion to say thanks to the city. Preservation Hall will be a main focus as that’s where many of the group first heard live New Orleans music and discovered the spell of it all. We owe so much to the musicians that have played there, their families, the late Dick Allen/Bill Russell/the staff at Tulane, the Jazz Museum, Don Marquis, the Brass Bands, the Indians, the second line, Wavelength, OffBeat, WWOZ, the Louisiana Music Factory, Dr. John, Fats Domino, the Nevilles, etc. The intention is to come and say thanks/listen/learn from the music, buy LP’s, CD’s, books, food. Go to the local venues and in our small ways to help the local economy.

Keep up your valued and wonderful work Jan [Ramsey], it’s real important to us all.

—Peter Haby, Melbourne, Australia

Enclosed is a money order for $200. I have been a New Orleans music fan since high school when I first heard “Ooh Poo Pah Doo.”

Depending on you [Jan Ramsey] and OffBeat to keep things rollin’. Best of luck.

—Jim Baldwin, Seattle, WA

I am your only subscriber from Greece. There are no words to say how I feel about New Orleans, New Orleans music and OffBeat.

I would like to help you financially.

—Kyriakoulis Prastakos, Athens, Greece

Thank you for your help. OffBeat actually has three subscribers from Greece.—Ed.

I suppose there is nothing I can say to lessen the impact Katrina has had on everyone. We in Florida know all too well of this mess called hurricanes and 20 years ago we were out of action here in Tallahassee for a couple of weeks from a November wind from hell. No comparison though.

May the force be with all of you.

—Dave Taylor, Tallahassee, FL

As promised, please find our contribution to OffBeat’s continued vitality. I cannot imagine a New Orleans without it. I really like what you said about a paid subscription base… If the Village Voice can do it, so can you.

—Lucretia Lyons Duncklee, Shreveport, LA

Here’s to hoping OffBeat gets back to business ASAP. I’m also hoping the French Quarter Festival will happen next year. My wife and I have been to the last four and think this is best. Your magazine brings New Orleans to us all year round. Good luck to you and everyone at OffBeat.

—Les Kurtz and Mary Ryan, Towson, MD

I hope to be making a trip down in the next month to help get the economy going. I’m sending the good vibes down there. If any city can rebuild itself it will be N’awlins!

—Evangeline Miller, Chicago, IL

Oh my gawd, oh my gawd. It makes my heart happy and my eyes teary to see OffBeat back in my emails. I wish I had more money right now as I contributed little amounts here and there that put me past my budget. I did renew (extend) my current subscription. I wish it could be more. Love OffBeat—I anxiously await its return to my mailbox.

—Eugenia Polos, San Francisco, CA