photo credit: Gary Hershorn, Reuters
The cliché juxtaposing Wall Street and Main Street was killed yesterday, beaten to death by Washington, D.C., legislators after a long period of overuse by presidential candidates and television pundits. The actual age of the cliché was unknown. The Wall Street/Main Street cliché is survived by two prominent catchphrases, It’s a Free Country! and It Is What It Is, and several lesser-known dependent idioms.    

It’s not on the tube or The New York Times website yet, but Shawn Levy, film critic for The Oregonian and author of an upcoming biography of Paul Newman, is reporting that the actor died yesterday.

Edited to add: Confirmed by the Newman family’s Newman’s Own Foundation in a statement:

“Paul Newman’s craft was acting. His passion was racing. His love was his family and friends. And his heart and soul were dedicated to helping make the world a better place for all. Paul had an abiding belief in the role that luck plays in one’s life, and its randomness. He was quick to acknowledge the good fortune he had in his own life, beginning with being born in America, and was acutely aware of how unlucky so many others were….

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Earl Palmer, the drummer so legendary in New Orleans that one of his old kits is in the possession of the Louisiana State Museum, died Friday afternoon in Los Angeles, after a long illness. Palmer’s hammering backbeat was the key ingredient in dozens, if not hundreds of early R&B and rock n’roll tracks that emerged from Cosimo Matassa’s J&M Studios in the 1950’s, influencing the evolution of almost all rock, soul and funk to come. Palmer also later recorded for Motown and at Phil Spector’s Gold Star Studio in Los Angeles. He played with Shirley & Lee, Fats Domino, Dave Bartholomew, Little Richard and a laundry list of greats too extensive to name. It’s Palmer thumping out the rhythm on classic rock n’roll tracks that include Ike and tina Turner’s “River Deep, Mountain High,” Smiley Lewis’ “I Hear You Knockin’,” Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti,” and the Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling.” 

What better way to bring attention to your film about a post-Katrina high school trying to take on hurricane evacuees and build a football team than by having another hurricane push back your premiere and force the filmmakers to live out of their promotional RV?

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The thing I love most about Louisiana politics is its cast of unforgettable characters. For the last 30 years, one of the most colorful and lovable of those characters was my friend and mentor Joe Walker, a veteran pollster, political strategist and mentor to generations of politicos and students of government. Joe died suddenly last Thursday at age 74.

I met Joe in 1977 when I was an aspiring young political reporter for The Times-Picayune. “I want you to teach me about politics,” I said to him. “I love this stuff, but I have a lot to learn — and I can tell you know this game as well as anybody.”

I didn’t know at the time that Joe also had taught government and constitutional law for four years at Tulane and Loyola universities. It was my good fortune that I appealed to both his love of the game and his love of teaching. We became fast friends, and over the years he taught me just about everything I know or have figured out about politics.

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Keep a good thought for Bruce Daigrepont, who plays Tipitina’s regular Sunday fais-do-do; his parents Albert and Jennie Rita Daigrepont were killed a week ago Sunday in Mississippi as they attempted to evacuate the city in advance of Hurricane Gustav. Our best to the Daigrepont family and their many friends.

Forget what you think you know; here is The Katrina Timeline as it unfolded.

Paper hearts decorated the plywood-covered doorway at 3013 Chartres St., a few doors down from NOCCA and the Press Street train tracks, yesterday, memorializing 32-year-old Jessica Hawk, whose murdered body was discovered inside her apartment there early last Monday morning. There were stuffed toys and flowers on the steps, and a heartfelt note, encased in a plastic sleeve to protect it from the rain, tacked beside the door.The fluffy memorial scene gave me a stupid case of deja vu - it was exactly like the offerings left on Robin Malta’s steps last year, or on Helen Hill’s the year before. I know that in parts of the city, outside the gentrifying Upper Ninth where I live, or the Marigny, where Robin and Helen died at home, a murder a year in the ‘hood would be a blessing. There are parts of town where folks go down every weekend, and everyone has a drawerful of rest-in-peace T-shirts. But the cognitive dissonance that living comfortably in this city forces on all of us is stretching the edges of bearable. Read the rest of this entry »

For those music fans that might not have heard yet, New Orleans hip-hop emcee Bionik Brown a.k.a Nathan Woods died in car crash this week in Denver, Colorado.

Keith Spera wrote a nice obit for him here

A Denver magazine also had a nice piece on him here.

You can check out his music on his myspace page here.

I knew Nate, a.k.a Bionik, personally and though I can’t find the appropriate words right now, I can honestly say he was one of the most good-hearted, decent, human beings I have ever met. It is really tragic that he is no longer with us.

Visitation for the funeral starts at 10 a.m. tomorrow at Gideon Christian Fellowship International, 3401 Elysian Fields Avenue. The service begins at 11 a.m.

Benjamin Morris writes:

I’m writing as not just a devoted reader of the Gambit, but as one of the directors of the upcoming conference at UNO called ‘The Cultures of Rebuilding in Post-Katrina New Orleans,’ of which you may have heard — it’s a conference bringing together researchers, artists, and activists both from New Orleans and around the country who are involved in the rebuilding process, looking specifically at the issues surrounding culture that have arisen since the storm. The dates are 4-6 September, and it’s taking place at the Old US Mint on Decatur Street (we’re sponsored by the History Department at UNO, but physically hosted by the State Museum).

It’s going to be a fantastic event — our keynote speakers are Andrei Codrescu and Jay Edwards — and we’ve got people coming in from all over to share their research and their ideas about culture and the recovery. Andrei will be giving a talk entitled “Reinventing the Culture of New Orleans (again)” on Thursday, 4 Sept. at the Palm Court Jazz Cafe, and Jay Edwards will give a talk on shotgun houses the following day.

But the upshot is that the conference is timed to coincide with the three-year anniversary of the storm, so it’s going to be a great opportunity to ‘take stock’ of where we are in reference to cultural issues in particular.

For more information, including registration links and a preliminary program, go here.