collaboration between jared & joey as a direct result of just another day in suburbia.

i went to visit joey at his office today, and his boss thought i was a homeless person.
i want to believe thats a good thing, but maybe it isnt.

I suppose a lot of the sensationalism of the hurricane and flooding has receeded with the waters in New Orleans, and the media has begun to move onto coverage that lambasts the government’s reaction rather than continue specific stories of the tragic matters at hand. Many are already talking about the rebuilding efforts, yet the rebuilding efforts lead to a quagmire. What will a rebuilt New Orleans look like? feel like? sound like? taste like? NO was a city like no other, a city teetering delicately between excess and chaos, of life and decay. In fact, it was the vibrant life found in the streets and alleys between the dilapidated and crumbling structures that gave the place so much distinction. It was the sights and sounds and tastes of cultures crashing…of artists struggling, of paint peeling, mosquitos buzzing, music making, gumbo boiling, buildings leaning, streets crumbling. In New Orleans, character lived in decay, and the decay of New Orleans made a comfy home to the ghosts of civil war soldiers, voodoo priests, rivermen, jazzmen, mardi-gras kings, aristocrats and down-and-outers. It seems to me that a cleaned-up, spic-and-span, adult disneyland/epcot center new New Orleans is a New Orleans without its most integral parts, a city without its soul.

Upon the first few months of living in New Orleans I created a body of photographs- over 600 instamatic polaroids- that documented the decay, and consequently the character, of my new home. I wrote an artist’s statement to accompany the images and i have copied a portion of it below, followed by a few of the photographs:

“…as I made day-long jaunts around the city I photographed the things that I immediately responded to, and I began to collect images that recorded the color, decay and texture of New Orleans. Upon my exploration of these motifs, I began to explore the abundance of hand painted pre-media signage that can be found all over the city. The romantic, hand painted signage tells of a time gone by and exudes a sort of Camp aesthetic. When approaching a hand painted sign, one is confronted with the mysterious personal mark left by someone gone before and is left with nostalgia of a time gone by. However, not all of the signage I have photographed is of a past era. Much of it was created recently, and tells of an socio-economic group of city dwellers and entrepreneurs that hand paint signs for its economical benefits or for its unique flavor.

No matter the year in which the sign was produced, the tale-tell marks of the harsh climate and general urban decay are always present. The decay of these signs is readily apprehendable, and the temporality of the subject matter I have photographed is matched with the use of the temporal, non-archival Polaroid materials that I have chosen to work with.”

this wall was demolished so a new wal-mart could be built in the historic warehouse district in 2004.

a whole foods market now sits over this spot of pavement in uptown.

723 basin street, now flooded

the clown house, now abandoned

vernacular

the rabbi of the 9th ward, now drowned

the battle of tchoupitoulas, lost to racism and greed

little debbie…the tasty maiden of central city

in the irish channel

In the end, I think the “temporal” is what New Orleans is all about. Its a city where you can lounge on your porch and watch the present casually slip into the past, you can wander the alleys of the Quarter and imagine by-gone eras, you can climb the levees and watch the riverboats pass you by. And then the hazy hot sun will dip into the horizon and the moon will take its place and a cool breeze will slip through the streets like a whisper or a ghost. After night falls the music will start, and even though the songs have been around for generations, not a single one of them has been played the same way twice. Its jazz, man. Its improv. Its the moment. And its New Orleans. Its the romance of the passage of time, it is decay and gris-gris and ghosts. Its somehow unchanging yet different every day. And no matter how New Orleans is rebuilt, time and the river and the humidity and the ghosts will have their say, and the city’s old soul will still be alive to let “le bon temps roule.”

the smell of fireflies
the blur of the glow
the moon that waits
the lines in the road

the fear of headlights
the steering wheel cold
the bite from the freon
the glare I just stole

keep your eyes on the road
keep your eyes on the road

it’s high time you finally change that background on your desktop, fool. so i made a couple for ya. click em. steal em. make your mac happy. oh, and check out the new icon for tmc. yes, that’s right. coming soon to a vacant wall near you.

the last few days of reporting from new orleans has been done from the 9th ward…a neighborhood that the reporters claim as being mostly black and poor. while the neighborhood is truly made up of many black and poor residents it was also home to some of the most hip people in new orleans- the up and coming artists and musicians, counter-culture denizens and cutting edge hipsters. it was one of the last places in n.o. still affordable for low income artists, providing old warehouse space perfect for studios and homes, just blocks away from the french quarter and faubourg marigny. most of my friends from my years in n.o. lived there, and i spent countless nights shucking crawfish and playing pool at marky’s bar on royal street. marky’s is under water now, so is dale and sarah’s house and thor and shea’s house (yes, i have a friend named thor…he is a metal sculptor of all things).

as the days since the hurricane have passed i have thought a lot about the great old junk store on louisa street, the crazy metal sculptor who lived off elysian fields and the clown house on decatur. the clown house was an old shotgun style house that sheltered way too many occupants…it was said that a whole circus company and freak show troup lived in it at one time. the entire exterior was painted red…the clapboards, the windows, the steps, the door, the sidewalk, the grass and the fence…all fire engine red. i was able to meet one of the clown house’s residents one afternoon- styx the clown. styx was an interesting fellow. unnasuming, soft spoken and inebriated most hours of the day, styx was never seen in anything but a patchwork suit and top hat, stuffed pet monkey in one hand, a 40 in the other. he was a local legend of sorts…a clown, yet tragically un-funny. he could juggle just about anything, though. the most striking thing about styx was that his clown make-up had been tatooed on his face.

i am saddened when i wonder where styx may be tonight. how can an un-funny inebriated clown with a tatooed face live anywhere else but in a red covered clown house in the 9th ward of new orleans?

here is a photograph i made upon first meeting styx in the spring of 2002: