Ignore-Leans, Louisiana (Or Ig-Nawlins) However You Spell It

A Race Cold War Raging

15 years ago, I dubbed the Crescent City: "Ignore-Leans."

I was offended and, in a lot of cases pissed off by being ignored by almost everyone on the street; but especially in the cases where I had tried to say something cheerful and witty; only to see the person I had tried to communicate with, not even turn her head towards me.

I eventually discovered that it's like there is a wall around everyone here; and the first thing you say to someone gets ignored by default. But it also gives them a chance to process what you said, and at that point a lot of people might let down their shield and have a civil conversation.

But that was in 2010. It's now thirteen years later; and there is a cold race war raging.

Now, there is solidarity among blacks in not speaking to white people. The black ladies in their late 20's that work at the plasma place will say the 2 words: "Keep pumping," and will endure no further conversation with me. Meanwhile, they are holding friendly conversations with the other donors, who all happen to be black, if we're noticing such minutia. 

This is also the Land of Misinformation, to the degree that people of a different race than (me, in my experience) will intentionally give erroneous directions and/or information in general in response to casual inquiries about directions or how late a certain business stays open, etc.

"Oh, No; Ain't Nothin' But Swamp For 15 Miles, That Way..."

Back in 2010, after I got off the boxcar that I rode in from Mobile, Alabama, the first person I encountered, a black guy in probably his late 20's actually pointed me in the opposite direction of the French Quarter. I must have come across as quite a stock character, walking up with a guitar and backpack on and asking:"Which way is it to the French Quarter?" And at about 1:45 in the morning. I was 6 miles from my intended destination as it was but, had I started off in the direction that the guy had pointed, I would have been traversing "nothing but swamp for 15 miles," according to the second person I asked, trying to get a second opinion.

This was an elderly black lady, who pointed me the right way, but cautioned me that it would be "about 10 miles."

That 6 mile walk to the Quarter, I could probably retrace the route of, had I a map. Going on to live here, I became familiar with a lot of the areas I walked through in the wee hours of the morning with a guitar and backpack on my back. I had shown up with $1.27, I believe it was, in my pocket. This I spent on a can of malt liquor inside the little convenience store that I found 5 pennies laying in the parking lot of, near the payphones. This was 2010; and they still had payphones....

It is etched in my memory because I would stop at every bus stop kiosk I came to and avail myself of the map, at the ones that had maps, at least. The "You Are Here" feature on the maps provided encouragement to me, who was thinking he had to walk 10 miles. The malt liquor steeled my nerves, but soon I was pretty darned thirsty. But, after walking for, say, 10 minutes from one bus stop to the next, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had progressed maybe a whole inch on the map; and I was able to adjust the mileage figure given to me by the elderly black lady, who was well meaning, just not extremely exacting in her understanding of the geography of the area. This can be forgiven, when weighed against the fact that she had pointed me in the right direction.

I walked through areas that I would become familiar with the names of from the evening news reporting on violent crimes. But, I might have looked like a "bait" guy with a guitar and backpack; a little too easy, something fishy about that -you got a skinny white boy walking right through crack town at 2:30 in the morning; with, it looks like a guitar on his back...neah, that's a setup!- type of thing. Or maybe the grace of God.

Somehow, I had gotten on to Rampart Street and, in relative safety, walked along it until it had branched off and I was right at the Superdome. I had been finding half full water bottles and the occasional Gatorade in the trash cans at the bus stops that I passed; it seemed to be just enough, nothing extra to carry and not too full as to be bloated on Gator-sugar, or whatever. It was probably 90 degrees; as well as being my first exposure to "the humidity."

And, by the same grace; at the Superdome, I saw this scaffold abutting one of the very high walls of the venue. And the scaffold was wrapped in tarps all the way around and there was even a flap that I had to push my way through in order to enter a space that was about the dimensions of the back of a tractor trailer type truck. And it was about 30 degrees cooler than the outside air! The tarps were trapping the super cooled air that was seeping in from under a door at the other end from where the flap was. I'm sure this was something done intentionally by the work crew to keep it cool in the area where they were doing their construction. 

I saw evidence of someone having slept there. But, it was around 3:30 in the morning and whoever it was hadn't come home yet; so I slept like a baby. In the morning, I got my bearings, in a sense, and walked into the Quarter to make my first dollar. When you are living outdoors, for all intents and purposes, and you come across a little tarp building that is 30 degrees cooler and nowhere near as humid; it is a cause to be grateful. I guess I had been somewhat grateful for having made the "10 mile" walk to end up feeling that I had managed to arrive at the French Quarter, with the site of the coliseum just a 5 minute walk to there.

Sue Too Scared To Sleep At The Secret Spot, So I Join Her At Her's

Who knows how rejuvenating a slumber done in air 30 degrees cooler than what an outdoor living person would be walking through the rest of the day wound up being and how much energy I had on reserve because I am sure I reached a deeper level of sleep than a person sleeping in the 88 degree, say, heat. 

The next day, I launched my busking career in the Quarter; and only had enjoyed a few nights of sleeping atop an imaginary snow capped mountain at the construction site before meeting Sue, "the Colombian lady," as referred to in this blog from around 2012.
Sue had shown up wherever I was playing and had played, a pretty rhythmic accompaniment to what I was doing on one of those shakers that are the same size and shape as "large" chicken eggs, and are full of pellets, evocative of the pellets of corn that chickens might eat. I think whomever came up with the idea of encapsulating corn kernels to make a musical shaker; and then probably thought of how their invention had chicken feed inside it, and so why not shape the instrument like an egg?

Sue and I wound up hanging around a bit. She contributed nicely on the egg. At one point Sue put her egg away; after I started playing songs she wasn't familiar with -the mark of a true pro, I thought. She had been trying to psych me up to play more uptempo and egg driven songs; and admittedly, her suggestions were good; but then I was hesitant for the same reason she had put away her egg; being not totally familiar with certain Rolling Stones, Bob Seger and Bad Company songs and wanting to put my egg up, rather than present tattered versions of the songs; or ones done in a rhythm that turns out to be not an egg-friendly groove, type of thing...

Anyways, I'm going to work on some music I recorded using a novel setup involving singing through a mic with the output speaker right by the phone; and everything else being just at room level. The singing mic picks up a little bit of the acoustic guitar, so there's the notes ricocheting around the room, being churned like cream into reverberation.. Plus, some of it was going through the mic and coming out of the amp right in front of the phone....It should be interesting to see what kind of sound I got; so I'm off to hopefully download it off the Bandlab website and start "engineering" it; LOL

The point of this post is that; there is a hostility out there; with a lot of it being African American hatred directed towards, what I'm guessing is straight white older males.

Close to 100% of the greetings I gave to black people at the WalMart, for example, were returned with icy cold stares and very few of them said a word in response. One guy I remember well because he actually looked at me with a normal, relaxed face, but then as if he suddenly recognizing me as being the embodiment of Evil itself, put a scowl on his face. He did that just as I was greeting him with a "How's it going?" or something, based upon his initial facial expression. But, by the time I got to "going," or whatever, I was being stared at malevolently, the dude he was walking with -'nother black guy.- also made some kind of head shaking gesture that seemed to convey disapproval.

Anyways; it is so incredibly bad, as far as there being a cold civil war raging between the black's and white's, at least in East New Orleans in 2023.

It's like, I can't tell a joke to people who happen to be around me, at the check out area at WalMart, or whatever.. I think it was in McDonalds, when I was buying a $1.43 hamburger, mostly so I could break a 20 to get bus fare; There was a crack in one of the dining room windows and I said something like: "That Hamburglar doesn't give up, eh?" to silence and icy stares from East New Orleans.

Could Boost Be Biased?

I blame the phones. The free "government" phones that are given away on sidewalks to qualified individuals. They really are nice phones and, recently, tablets have been in the offing. It really makes me feel that the government cares about my right to have access to the Internet, type of thing. But it came with Google products kind of hard wired into the operating system. And, I can see how some algorithm is shunting people to either one group or another. There, they will see and hear everything they already believe and have it reinforced all day long. And, if they are the type who stares at their screen from sunup to sundown, then their vulnerability level would be off the charts. 

It would take a pretty good hacker -one that can write a little code- to use anything else to run your free phone with unlimited data.

But I'm reminded of 2020 when I went to the little store and one of the cashiers was standing out front angrily puffing away at a cigarette. When I asked her if she had had a troubling experience with a customer and was taking a break to blow off some steam (she was puffing away like a donkey; I don't know why I picture that particular animal but...)

She threw her butt at the ground and then ground it into the asphalt while uttering: "All I know is we need a new president!"

When I tried to ask her why she held that opinion, it was like she absolutely couldn't believe I had to ask her that. "Everything, everywhere; don't you get facebook and Instagram or Youtube?! In other words, have I been living in a cave.

I explained how, because of the way someone with power enough to do so is sowing discord amongst the races using that very device in her hand -"more dangerous than the cigarette in your other.."

She wound up only being able to give "Brexit," in describing one of the sins of Donald Trump; and quoted the comment of "Mexicans are rapists!!" which she attributed to the "Brexit" man.
"I get the total opposite on my phone; they're trying to start a race war or something," was all I could think of saying to the girl who has been staring at a screen every time I have seen her...

And roughly one half of the population is propagandized in a way to make them literally hate the other half. Everyone who gets the free phone can be made to vote a certain way to the degree that that person is gullible and can be hypnotized.

"Who controls the cell towers controls society"   =Me; just now...