The Algernon Effect

Alright lets look at my summer report card. I would give myself a C-, but then again I am one tough grader. My biggest problem is that it takes me about a month, if not more, to detox, to de-pressurize. Just when I am getting used to living like a human being again, like we all should live- it is time to go back. The last 7 weeks have been unbelievably productive. I completed a short story that has been rattling around my head like a heavy marble. Finally got it into the mail. I plan to frame my rejection slip. Along with that I have written poetry about New Orleans which I would like to send to local players. Though the New Yorker whispers deep in my brain. Plus I have three short story ideas and a sci-fi world based on alchemy. It is a glorious time.

Yet it all feels late very late. Perhaps it is a midlife crisis, but my writing seems to be about ten years too late. Reminding myself that age is just a number, it only feels that I have lost ten years. Worse than that is I feel an Algernon effect coming on. The year will eat my free time, my writing time. The best time I write, the morning, is gone, and I am no longer able to hide from the day behind a cup of coffee. Realizing it is the way to get published, I envy those people that have the psychological stamina to either stay up late, get up early, and write for hours.

I pray the Algernon Effect does not eat away my inspiration, disintegrate my imagination, and eat away at my will to write. Then, ten months from today, it will take me a whole month just to become human.

Then again, other people, with normal jobs, never become human at all.

The Dawn is my Cathedral

The Dawn is my cathedral
With buttresses not of stone
but of light, cascading over me.

A cup of coffee my sacred communion
Fermented in green plantations of the holy lands.
Warming my consciousness,
with milk and bean.

my congregation are dogs
And they do parade up and down the aisles,
Vaulting into the dew swept cloister-
Interpreting their version of Morning Glory.

I do dress in Sunday best, for that is pajamas.
True formal wear
My pew is my couch sitting there softer than any wood.
When I enter my morning I do not take holy water
I make water- blessed by dreams.

Mine is a religion of one, without bishops or priests,
No aisles to separate, no big hats or jackets
And in my church, no chorus dare sing-
For there is no greater sin in the morning
than any human voice.

Thus my sermon is mute.
Without moral or physical obligation
No one telling me how to live,
Relishing in the Cathedral's daily blessing.

'I am alive'

Tough Days

I cannot believe that there on the radar to the east, is another. Here In New Orleans people are panicking a bit, nervous in their doubt. I do not think that it will hit here at all. But meetings are starting and I am sure that supermarkets are getting backed left and right. Lines going back and swirling, with handfuls of bottled water and worrying way too much about what I think of nothing.

Yes, here comes another hurricane, now a category two just around the lesser Antilles. Its name is Dean, slamming into those little islands. Cannot imagine living in those little paradises, every year a whamo storm slams into you, hurricane after hurricane. It would be fine for primitive cultures, owning nothing, but we have too much stuff.

There it lies, its winds swirling counter clockwise. Yet nothing could be more natural. For the earth is only trying to cool itself off. The hotter it gets the more we are going to get them swooping in as if they were on parade. Dancing and mixing the Caribbean and Gulf until they arrive on our shores. The rains will continue.

But we have no choice, we must live here. There is no where else in these States that I would live. But there I go again about the city, always reminiscing about the iron and streets of this town.

Even though a strange thing is going on here. It is City-gouging. Now everyone knows about the tax assessor's scandal of suddenly raising the value of houses to grab taxes. But there is more, much more. Cops are giving more tickets, Insurance companies want more (as always), and the Crescent City Connection Bridge is charging a strange "administrator fee" for people that go through the tag line without it registering. I hate it. All of this is just discouraging people from coming back, which is sad.

Modern Day View from the Porch

One of those days watching the street early in the morning with a spiked coffee. Nothing much to say and less to do as the dawn turns to noon and volleyed to dusk. Today's goals are to never change from pajamas, never put on socks or shoes. Allow, from the moment you pour the first cup, the drinks to become more severe from morning to midnight.

We keep time on this porch by the progression of gingerbread shadow falling on the planks. The multitude rush off to work, carrying coffee, their minds riddled by the meetings and affairs of the day, a sure sign of 8am. Stomachs grumble, lips become wet, the po-boy man on his cart comes with his roast-beef and shrimp, ham and sausage, fried oyster and catfish. Alas we have noon. The mail hits the slot, a sign of afternoon. Siesta becomes a punch bowl of conversation with others that have managed to evade the responsibilities of the world. Children rush out of school buses, a sign of 3pm. The sun continuing its arch toward the west. The madness of 9-5 returns home, the only difference in their tension, is a loosened color or an askew hair-do.

Cheers to all we say, lifting our staffs of rum, to whatever gods have allowed us to be spared of this day, this pilgrimage to the work-force. Perhaps one day it will cost us, but for now, we have enough for another bottle.

Now who is going to the store?

Creole Tomato Bliss

"This is not a recipe, this is ritual" - Carmelo Aponte

Historically, New Orleanians do two things. One is keep cool, the architecture, social life, and dress of the city mirrors what going on outside. Best example, nothing gets done in the summer because it is h-o-t. Two since its first settling in the early part of the 18th century, people in New Orleans have made due with what they had or what the land gave them? Example? Really look at a crawfish and tell me it doesn't look like a cockroach on Barry Bonds steroids. Furthermore, years ago there was a program to try and turn the nutria (nothing but a big swamp rat) into a commercial source of food. The very base of a Gumbo, the staple of this area, is flour and water. In a land filled with lemons, we have been enjoying the best lemonade in the United States.

Summer and improvisation in New Orleans gives us the creole tomato. A tomato so unlike any other in the world, it has become synonymous with Louisiana. Back in the days before 9/11, when you could have luggage, my mother went back home with twenty stuffed into her luggage. There zing, or zang, a sweetness, a tartness that you cannot explain or dismiss. The red deeper, bloodier, and when cut into a creole tomato its like slicing into a heart with seeds. And there is no better way on the planet to enjoy than a...

New Orleans Creole Tomato Po-boy

(for those that live out of the state of Louisiana, don't try this at home)

3 small to medium truly ripe creole tomatoes (don't even try regular tomatoes)
1 loaf of dry French bread
1/2 cup of Blue Plate Mayonnaise
Konriko or Tony Chachere's Spice Mix
One roll of paper towels ( you will need need them)

Slice the bread in half. Slice tomatoes to the desired thickness, as patties.
Slather (is that a word?) the insides of the bread liberally with mayonnaise
Place tomatoes in a row, perhaps two layers thick, showering each layer with spice mix.
If you wish you can add always add more Mayonnaise.

The salt of the spice mix, decomposes the tomato, its juices flowing into and out of the bread.So two pieces of advice, if you are going to eat this in front of someone (I never do), don't let them watch. Also, if you didn't use a full half of the paper towel roll, the tomatoes were not ripe enough.

Enjoy with Barq's or Abita

And like always

SERVES 1