Finally, a New Orleans story.

On Saturday I went to the library for a poetry reading. I've been sort of desperate to find a group of writers down here. In Chicago I worked for a wonderful organization, the Neighborhood Writing Alliance (featured in an article in the Los Angeles Times today: "Writing Out of the Ordinary"), that hosts writing workshops for adults in public libraries and social service agencies. I miss those groups terribly, and have found myself feeling disconnected and isolated since moving here in part because I don't have any other writers to write with. I went to the library a week or so ago to see if any writing groups meet there and to see if I could start one myself there after Christmas. There are no existing groups, the librarian told me, but there was a reading planned for this past weekend by four women who've recently published a book of their work. I picked up a flyer and hoped for the best.

The women were all wonderful poets. Truly. They read work about loss and desire and travel and domestic life, among other things. The poems were moving and well-crafted.

That being said, some of the women were also a bit odd by my cranky midwestern standards. Not that this should come as a surprise; this is New Orleans after all, the town that seems custom-made for the assortment of oddballs who come here from across the US. (I know...we are part of that group:>) Where else would all those vampire lovers, aging goths, and Bellocq posers settle down if not here?

One of the women, in her early 50s I'm guessing, wore bright red fishnet stockings, red patent leather high heeled mules, a matching low cut red dress (that came well above the knee), and a leopard print see-through shirt draped over her ample shoulders. Her blond hair went down to her lower back and her nails were painted black. It turns out I know her significant other, who was at the reading, too. When I asked if the poet was a teacher also, he told me that no, she'd given that up after a few months in the public schools, but that she did "teach gynecological exams" at Tulane. Huh? Turns out she is paid an hourly wage to have multiple exams by doctors-in-training several times a month for three hours at a time. She was "trained" by the hospital to recognize a good exam and now she critiques med students as they learn how to give the exam. I think that classifies as odd, don't you?

He told me that he may sign up to "teach" urological exams. Somehow the whole thing struck me as vaguely sexual, but maybe that was just me and my own prejudices. Why would you want to subject yourself to three hours of gynecological exams a few times a month for ANY amount of money?

Not that this couple is unique in their oddness. One of my students is a cab driver. He told us a story about picking up a couple one Thanksgiving day a few years ago. The woman was beautiful, he told us, with a long black trench coat and buckle-bound knee-high black patent boots. The couple wanted to be taken to a cemetery for a photo shoot. My student was awstruck when he saw the woman take off her coat: beneath was a skin-tight black vinyl dress. He asked if he could watch them take photos and they said yes. Lucky for him, he told us, one of the models never showed up so when he volunteered, they said yes. It turned out she was a famous dominatrix and, what do you know, my student had handcuffs in his trunk. Later, she sent photos to him of their Thanksgiving day in a run down New Orleans cemetery featuring my student collared by a leash. There's something to be thankful for!

At any rate, the four women poets are not accepting new writers in their group, but they are inviting visitors. I hope to be invited sometime in the future, to share my work even if it's just one poem on one night. They are truly excellent poets. Meanwhile, I met a couple of other women at the reading (one a thirtysomething goth with black fishnet stockings -- surprise surprise). I'm thinking now I'll try to start my own group, hopefully one that will attract community-oriented writers like me. Perhaps I need to start wearing fishnets, or start carrying handcuffs in my handbag. That would help me fit in, wouldn't it?

Two young men just walked by playing trumpets. They both wore hooded sweatshirts (it's pretty cold here right now). In another town, they'd probably get stopped by the police and questioned for being "suspicious." Instead, their second line music drifted in through our broken window, up from our dark street on this damp, clear-sky night.

Our turkey president poses with a cousin in the Rose Garden. Witness him patting on the head the only living thing he's ever pardoned. If those Texas inmates had been treated with as much compassion...

Dr. Omed posted a comment about reading "politicking" as "potlicking," and somehow it made me remember a New Orleans story that relates, somewhat, to Halliburton.

Last spring S and I went to the Quarter to meet up with a former Army buddy of his, a guy who was in his last couple of months of demolition school. He introduced us to a friend of his from the school, one of his instructors, who had a small condo in the Quarter he kept for weekends of debauchery and other forms of fun. This "friend" was a mercenary, among other things, who had worked in Latin America, the middle east, and elsewhere. He claimed his father was one of the crew of Green Berets who assassinated Che Guevara and his grandfather one who had tracked down and killed some other famous Marxist. Whatever. He was, as you'd expect, a rather frightening man: macho, narcissistic, completely self-absorbed. In his house were photographs of himself in every uniform imaginable, framed and hung on the walls, scattered loosely on the coffee table, prominantly displayed in a glass case (that also featured photos of his father and grandfather in their green beret uniforms).

Halliburton, among other defense contractors, has mercenaries. The New York Times ran an article about them, America's For Profit Secret Army, in October 2002 (this link provides an abstract -- you have to pay to read the article). These mercenaries work everywhere our companies have a financial interest. That's a lot of places.

I'd met other former-military mercenaries before. Our kickboxing gym in Chicago had several. But none were like him, so completely into himself and devoid of conscience. I read David Grossman's book, On Killing, a number of years ago, and never forgot his description of the roughly 2% of soldiers who are sociopaths, able to kill without guilt. (Grossman's premise was that the other 98% were adversely affected by having to kill, and that by training them how with video game technology, we were giving them the skills to kill efficiently but leaving them without coping skills to deal with the guilt they would feel when they got home. He takes it further and says that video games are training our kids the same way -- his website, http://www.killology.com, details this.) Perhaps this man was part of that 2%. I don't know. Regardless, I've continued to think about that evening in New Orleans, when I met a man who is willing to kill for money, and does so with the idea that he is a true patriot.

Now that Halliburton's a humanitarian organization, I guess it's not a stretch. Licking out the world's pots, cleaning up house. What could be more humanitarian than that?

On another note, I promise a New Orleans story or two tomorrow. This weekend was full of them. From the poetry reading on Saturday at the library, to another yummy dinner at Vincent's, topped off with a dog heaven day at the levee, we had a lovely New Orleans weekend. More to come...