rock and roll musings by Tim Byrnes

Six Feet Of Water In The Streets Of Evangeline

     Like the rest of us, I'm sure, I've been alternately fascinated and repelled, inspired and apalled and flat out saddened and angered by the events of the last week or so. I'm speaking of course of Hurricane Katrina and, more importantly, what has followed. Now before I go into my usual rant mode let me say this: If you have money; give money. If you, like me, have no money, than give blood. Apart from all the politial football and race card games that are being currently played and will no doubt continue to be played by everybody from the Grand Poohbahs of this world to it's Punk Rock Blues wannabe critics, this is a time for all of us to do what we can to help those of us so sorely disposessed.

     Now, having said that, off to the rant, shall we? I want to talk a little bit about Randy Newman. My favorite millionaire and the hoarder of America's secret soul. Like a drunk buddy run amok in a new neighborhood, Newman's proclivity for speaking his mind and saying those sort of things that many, if mot most of us, rarely admit to even thinking, has cost him much of the fame he richly deserves. But again America is Home of Shoot the Messenger. In the liner notes to his (buy it now) box set 'Guilty', Newman confesses to being an American "...at least as much of an American that a Jew is allowed to be.". Coming to his own party with that kind of chip on his shoulder is a Newman trademark. Throghout his career, Newman has peopled his story/songs with characters you might recognize, but would normally not identify with or claim as friend or family. From the sneering slave trader of 'Sail Away' to the bigoted madman of 'Short People', the two bit hoods of 'Little Criminals', the pimp/savant relationship scaringly delineated in 'Davy the Fat Boy' and the racists of 'Christmas in Capetown', 'Rednecks' and much of the 'Good Old Boys' record Randy Newman has given voice to the least of us;the pig headed, the amoral, the users, the cheaters, the types of people who allow our society to become what it is all the while smirking and whispering 'Too bad, too bad'.

     You know, most of us on any given day.

     I was reminded of Newman by Aaron Neville's performance of 'Louisiana 1927' on the Katrina Concert NBC aired last week. This song speaks of the flood in Louisiana that fateful year when the city fathers, hoping to relieve the pressure on their good neighborhoods, allowed the poorer neighborhoods to be flooded, promising to rebuild said neighborhoods. Of course they didn't. Rebuild that is. Ths atrocity, it's been said, led to FDR's New Deal, much like the Johnstown Flood, years earlier, where the rich man's pond flooded the poorest of the poor led directly to the Progressive Movement.

     What will Katrina lead to? I've already heard a number of Sunday Morning Talking Heads spout on about how the pictures we're seeing every day of the devastation etc. 'brings home' to the average American the reality of the 'Two America's' concept most recently, and succesfully, brought to light by John Edwards in his unsuccesful run for VP last year. Speculation abounds that, were the flood to have struck a more upscale (read:White) neighborhood, the response might have been quicker and perhaps the levees might have been properly maintained in the first place. Maybe, maybe not. I don't want to pour gas on any fires here, not really, but every black person I've seen on tv this last week has essentially been angry and talking about 'dead bodies on the Interstate' while standing waist deep in water, his elderly Mother of Grandmother floating behind him on an air mattress, basically surrounded by alligators while every White person I've seen has been standing inside, in a clean Community Center type building, warm,  dry, clean and in one instance standing in front of a bank of working pay phones, and what were these people doing, I ask you?

     (And it pains me to say this) Whining, that's what. Demanding to know what, where, when and most importantly how much was the government gonna do for them! They want answers, of course, we all want answers. But it seems to me that right now, the important thing to do is to get everbody safe, fed and sheltered. And I imagine that that in itself is a bigger job than any of us have ever had to do. So maybe we can forget about the recriminations and the social architecture involved until AFTER everybody's Grandparents are off the roof and put up for the night if not relocated. There's a town meeting tomorrow night in the small Colorado town where I find myself doing time lately, regarding  turning an abandoned school bulding into  temporary housing for 5 or 6 evacuee families. I'm going to see what I can do to help. I would suggest that anyone reading this do the same in their community. Maybe if we as a people can actually rise to this occasion and treat each other as true brothers and sisters than maybe, just maybe something good can come of this tragedy.

     We can always hope.

     "what has happened done here is the wind has changed

      wind blowed in from the north and it start to rain.

      rained real hard and it rained for a real long time.

      six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline.

     Louisiana, Louisiana, they're trying to wash us away..... they're trying to wash us away"

                                                                                                 Randy Newman "Louisiana 1927'

Posted by: timbyrnes at 19:44 | link | comments (1)

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