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.

Taking a break from sports this weekend (if you don’t include the Olympics), I stumbled upon this movie trailer for “Trouble the Water” a new, first-hand documentary about a New Orleans couple and how they managed to survive Hurricane Katrina. Already a winner of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize, “Trouble the Water” revisits Katrina it what looks like an uplifting way. From Apple Movie Trailers:

The film opens the day before the storm makes landfall—just blocks away from the French Quarter but far from the New Orleans that most tourists knew. Kimberly Rivers Roberts, an aspiring rap artist, is turning her new video camera on herself and her 9th Ward neighbors trapped in the city. “It’s going to be a day to remember,” Kim declares. As the hurricane begins to rage and the floodwaters fill their world and the screen, Kim and her husband Scott continue to film their harrowing retreat to higher ground and the dramatic rescues of friends and neighbors. The filmmakers document the couple’s return to New Orleans, the devastation of their neighborhood and the appalling repeated failures of government. Weaving an insider’s view of Katrina with a mix of verité and in- your-face filmmaking, Trouble the Wateris a redemptive tale of self-described street hustlers who become heroes—two unforgettable people who survive the storm and then seize a chance for a new beginning.

Keep an eye out for this one.

“My brother understood how important is was to show young people that they have options and opportunities as they grow up,” writes Nakita Shavers, sister of slain musician and educator Dinerral Shavers. With that simple mission statement, the local nonviolence awareness group SilenceIsViolence and the Dinerral Shavers Educational Fund have teamed to present Speak Up Part III, an annual community event featuring performances and readings by students from the Teen Center for Non-Violence and SilenceIsViolence’s Programs for Peace. Adds Nakita, “We want to make sure that [Dinerral’s] legacy continues to provide opportunities to the young people of New Orleans.”

     Speak Up III will be held at 6 p.m. Friday, Aug. 8, at the Sound Café (2700 Chartres St.).

Cairo As Seen By Chahine

5:15 p.m. Fri., Aug. 8

Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center

1618 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd., 827-5858; http://nolamideastfilmfest.blogspot.com

The New Orleans Middle East Film Festival, currently running through August 10, presents a screening of the documentary in memoriam of the Egyptian filmmaker, who died in his home last week at age 82. From the festival:

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