The Wall Street Journal calls this “the neatest thing you’ll see all day,” and since the Saints game is still an hour away, the WSJ may be right. Director Chris Milk teamed up with Google and Arcade Fire to produce a music video that personalizes itself for each watcher:

“The Wilderness Downtown,” which Google calls a “musical experience made specifically for the browser,” is set to Arcade Fire’s “We Used to Wait” and takes the viewer on a journey focused on a location from childhood — provided that the user enters the address and Google Street View covers it.

Close out all your other programs (this thing will take all your computer’s processing power), go to the site, enter the address of the house where you grew up — and watch the windows start to sprout. Play with the mouse and watch the birds fly over your old backyard, or just sit back and experience the slightly eerie feeling of seeing your street injected (almost) seamlessly in videos that emerge and shrink on your computer screen.

These weekly posts are intended as an episode-by-episode guide to the many psychological ailments, drunken gibberish, senseless actions, Bourbon Street mixed drinks and other embarrassments on MTV’s The Real World: New Orleans.

It contains spoilers — and who cares? You stopped watching this show several years ago — but also a lot of information that might help viewers of the series come to terms with their outrage over the cast’s cultural vandalism of New Orleans (and what was once a really lovely Uptown house), and also the bleak, black future of our society.

The emotional trauma caused by the show admittedly makes such coverage an overwhelming task, so posts may be supplemented by information culled from Wikipedia, WebMD and un-scientific polls of nearby Gambit staffers. Readers are also encouraged to submit any comments that may help us make sense of this wreckage.

When you’re living in a house occupied by feral creatures with names like “Jemmye” and, somehow, you manage to distinguish yourself as the most insane, uncivilized and flatulent one of them all, the only thing left to do is leave. So like Puck and some other people from other seasons, Ryan joins the list of Real World cast members who were called back to God before their time. Let us remember Ryan, the hairdresser with a heart of gold (and also many mental disorders).

Brother and Cousin. Just when you thought the life of Ryan couldn’t be more of a cartoon, we meet his brother and cousin — who are apparently named Brother and Cousin (this is probably because they didn’t want their names on TV, but I desperately want to believe that “Brother” and “Cousin” are their Christian names so just let me tell myself that, OK? Please let me believe that). Eric, who I guess talks now, described the three as “the Three Stooges meets All-American Rejects,” and that’s kind of perfect. Other fitting descriptions: a group of cavemen that just discovered Fall Out Boy, PacSun employees who send VHS tapes of themselves jumping off buildings to Jackass even though it doesn’t air anymore, or, just Ryan and two brown-haired versions of Ryan. When they’re around each other, they communicate only in grunts and farts.

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[Post updated, 9/2/10]

A group of like-minded criminal justice reform advocates is soliciting donations to buy a full-page ad in the Times Picayune next week to protest Sheriff Marlin Gusman’s plan to expand the Orleans Parish jail.

Gusman is proposing a new jail that ultimately will housing about 5,800 people, says the group — up from its existing 3,552 beds. The advocates hope to start a citywide conversation about the proposal by soliciting donations of $22.39 — the daily cost the city pays the sheriff for each inmate. The group also is asking donors to consider what else the city could spend the $22.39 on.

“We’re hearing everything from mental health programs, after school programs, to better street lights and fixing the potholes in the French Quarter,” says Dana Kaplan, executive director of the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, which is headquartering the effort. “I think it really highlights the fiscal tradeoff the city is making when [it decides] to focus on expanding the jail instead of other services.”

The ad will cost $12,000 and is expected to run next week, Kaplan says.

“In just a few days we have had about 250 contributions, and we’ve raised over $5,000 in grass-roots donations,” she says. “I think what we’re seeing is definitely a groundswell of support for reform of Orleans Parish Prison. This is just through email solicitation and word of mouth.

“The donations are coming from all kinds of likely and unlikely allies. We’re seeing contributions from former judges, former city council members, local musicians, average citizens.”

Some private donors have agreed to match the funds raised by the effort. You can make a donate online through  Paypal until the end of today. There’s an anonymous donation button, if you don’t want your name to appear in the ad.

“A jail comfortable for our community needs to be no more than 857 beds,” says Norris Henderson, executive director of Voice of The Ex-Offender (VOTE), which supports the effort. “We’ve been locking people up for convenience.”

According to the group: Currently 3,500 inmates are in the Orleans Parish Prison, 2,700 of whom are “city prisoners.” That represents the highest rate of detention of any urban jail in the country and is three times the national average. There have also been a series of documented civil rights issues with conditions at the jail.

If you are interested in more details, Karen Gadbois at The Lens has been chronicling the city’s efforts to convene a private advisory committee around the jail expansion process.

Sheriff Gusman responded with an emailed statement through his public relations firm, the  Ehrhardt Group. He questioned the statistics cited by  the group, saying “all of the projections from the Juvenile Justice Project and percentages relative to our population are wrong.”

The sheriff wants a smaller, more efficient jail complex, he wrote, pointing out that the pre-Katrina jail complex housed over 7,500 inmates. Although 4,200 beds is still more than the current 3,552 beds.

The statement also focused on the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, writing: “This special interest group’s willingness to allow the current inmate housing situation to continue, while pursuing its own agenda, is short-sighted and a threat to public safety.”

“Demanding an artificially small facility just to satisfy a quest for national comparisons, in other words to wish New Orleans to be safer, is unrealistic and it puts the public’s safety at risk,” Gusman continued.

The full text of the planned ad is pasted, after the jump, along with the text of Gusman’s statement.

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Gambit gets a lot of press releases. Especially with the Saints season opener coming up, we get a lot of NFL related product pitches. For example, is this the snack chip that will make your game watching truly special? But check out this winner. (FYI, it is a media invite, not open to the public.) Apparently women love to clean and cook for their families. What could be more satisfying to a mom than having the men in her family watch NFL games in a “fresh’ environment. Wow, I heart traditional values.

The graphic makes a nod at suggesting that all this cleaning and cooking would be of interest not just to moms but to the whole family. The pitchman, Brian Cash (of MS&L Worldwide), was less PC in his email text (bold emphasis added):

“Febreze and the NFL are partnering for a second year to help moms across the country be “Game Day Ready.” With the help of the “First Lady of Football,” Olivia Manning, Febreze is getting moms ready by providing great home freshening tips and trick as well as game day recipes that the family will love. If you’re interested, Febreze and Olivia are hosting an event on September 9th to kickoff the season and the Febreze Game Day Freshness Tour. Below is the invitation, please let me know if you’d be interested in attending. Hope to hear from you soon!

Thanks,
Brian”

I did not know that Olivia Manning is the “First Lady of Football.” Or that she endorses “freshness.” But she’ll be there to share tips and recipes. I am sure a lot of women (reporters) would love the opportunity to take some hard-to-clean items down to this event and see how Olivia would tackle the challenge. Of course, some women might just like watching the Saints, or football. That’s good clean fun, too.

Pre-game festivities for the NFL season opener between the Saints and the Minnesota Vikings (7:30 p.m. Thur., Sept 9) include a Mardi Gras-style parade (with floats by Blaine Kern Studios) through the French Quarter and music by the Dave Matthews Band and Taylor Swift. The Krewe of NFL parade route starts at Esplanade and North Peters Street, proceeds along North Peters, merging on to Decatur and then back to North Peters, and then it feeds on to Tchoupitoulas Street and ends at Julia Street. The concert is at Jackson Square and the stage will be on the river side of Decatur Street facing the square. The parade however, is not a parade between Dumaine and Toulouse streets, says NOPD. For those blocks, it’s an event being orchestrated by NBC for its pregame broadcast (6:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m.). The staging is expected to intersperse songs, floats passing by the Jackson Square on-camera set and segments with Bob Costas. People who wish to be close to the stage can apply for tickets to be in the “casted audience.” An NFL spokesperson and the ticket website say tickets are first come, first serve. Also, access to Jackson Square will be restricted to ticket holders.