Reporter Jeffrey Kofman’s ABC News report from Buras, La., on July 26 asked “Where did all the crude go?” Agence France-Presse (AFP) followed on July 27, asking “Where is all the oil?” An Associated Press headline that day asked “Gulf Flow Has Stopped, But Where Is the Oil?” By July 29, Time’s Michael Grunwald went even further, penning a story headlined “The BP Spill: Has the Damage Been Exaggerated?,” in which he wrote, “But so far — while it’s important to acknowledge that the long-term potential danger is simply unknowable for an underwater event that took place just three months ago — it does not seem to be inflicting severe environmental damage.”

The media stampede ignored a few salient facts. Coastal parishes last week all reported oil on shore or close to shore, or both. On July 28, the National Resources Defense Council issued a report showing 2,000 beach closings, advisories and notices had been issued in the Gulf region so far this year — compared with 237 in all of 2009. Oil is also blowing through boom, landing along islands off the Mississippi and Louisiana coasts. More ominously, oil is billowing under the water’s surface in large patches — some stretching for miles and sinking rapidly, thanks to BP-applied dispersants. The controversial dispersants break oil apart and send it to the ocean’s floor or into plumes and currents, which can carry the oil thousands of miles from its source.

AFP reported “the real difficulty now is finding any oil to clean up.” National Incident Commander Thad Allen adds, “What we’re trying to figure out is where is all the oil at and what can we do about it.”

If the U.S. Coast Guard and other agencies can’t find it, perhaps they don’t know where to look.

Read the rest of this entry »

In real life Helen Krieger is a young Bywater/Marigny real estate agent, and Joseph Meissner owns and runs Powerful Fitness on St. Claude Ave. They are also both aspiring filmmakers, and instead of wasting time waiting to be discovered, they are plowing forth and making their first feature film. Next Tuesday will see a free staged reading, featuring Harry Shearer, among other great national and local talents. Here’s the movie’s official description, and the official invite to next Tuesday’s staged reading, from Helen:

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“I want to invite you to a very special staged reading of our upcoming feature film, Flood Streets next week, Tuesday, 2/17 at 7pm. Flood Streets is a feature we will be filming in New Orleans in 2009, and this reading is our first big event!

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We’re going to have music, refreshments and special guests including Harry Shearer (Spinal Tap, The Simpsons), Becky Stark (Lavender Diamond, Rolling Stone’s #3 Artist to Watch), Chris Rose (1 Dead in Attic: After Katrina), poet Lee Grue, and more!

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The Story: An aspiring songwriter tries to eke out a living selling flooded real estate. A dying woman creates a mini-utopia in a storm-ravaged neighborhood. A single mom’s schemes to find love put her daughter in danger, and a failed writer can’t stop fantasizing about his dentist. Together these creative misfits will do their best to bring life back to New Orleans one year after Hurricane Katrina.

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Tuesday, February 17, 7-10pm
The Marigny Theatre, 1030 Marigny Street

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The reading is free! But please RSVP to joseph@thehatcherymedia.com to guarantee seating. More information is at:http://www.thehatcherymedia.com/news.html

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Cell: 504-975-7667
Fax: 504-613-4599

Joseph Meissner, Partner
The Hatchery Media
4210 St. Claude Ave NOLA 70117
www.thehatcherymedia.com
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2015950/

I was going to write a review of Kanye West’s 808’s and Heartbreak. But I don’t want to listen to it. Simply because of that damn Auto-Tune. No more Auto-Tune. No more.

I totally appreciate that Kanye wanted to do something different by making a cold and lonely electro album. I admire him for that. I pretty much grew sick of mainstream hip-hop because no one tries to be different anymore. The blatant monkey-see-monkey-do attitude of ClearChannel radio makes me sad, sometimes disgusted. So I admire Kanye’s concept on 808. Then he goes and uses the Auto-Tune on every single song? Of his “different” album? When every song on rap radio today also uses Auto-Tune?

For those who don’t know, the Auto-Tune is…it’s that damned effect you hear on the vocals of every single rap song on ClearChannel radio! You don’t need me to explain. Every single song, man.

OK, I’ll explain. You’re not supposed to hear the effect. It’s a piece of studio gear meant to smooth the rough edges off of Britney Spear’s vocals, and trick you into thinking she’s better than she is. But Lil Wayne and T. Pain and the rest turn the Auto-Tune all the way up so it highlights every mistake in their voice by correcting it. Weee, I sound like a robot alien! Yeah, well, by now, so does he. And him too. And him. And her. In 2008, the Auto-Tune is the last thing you’d turn to, hoping to achieve individuality.

Why couldn’t simply putting effects on your voice become a hip-hop trend? I would love to hear echoing raps, phased out vocals, distorted vocals – any of the millions and millions of effects one could use. That trend would really liven up hip-hop’s sonic pallet. But they all use the Auto-Tune? Even Kanye.

I ask you Kanye, WHY? Why, when trying to make an “outside the box” musical statement, use the newest and already most played-out gimmick in mainstream rap? Why go and pee on the only interesting mainstream record made this year, drench it in an effect that even the bandwagon had used up last year!? It’s the same as if, in the early 90’s, Motley Crue had tried to make a drum-n-bass album.

So, I heard the singles from 808s and Heartbreak and those were enough for me. The lyrics were terrible too (rhyming dictionary style: cry, fly, by, try, sky, blech). Again, I haven’t heard the album, but in doing something different (different relative to his own particular world, I suppose; I’d heard plenty of electro before this year) Kanye seems to have taken a big step backwards, creativity-wise.

Will you burn me a copy so I can make sure? Maybe I can put it in my computer and strip the Auto-Tune off the vocals…

My shorter review of this album appears in this week’s Gambit. But trying to say all there is to say about Chinese Democarcy in 300 words is fairly impossible. So here’s the rest. 

Chinese Democracy: The Good, the Bad, and the Dated

By Michael Patrick Welch

Whew, the new Guns-n-Roses album is officially not bad! Axl could have so easily tarnished the name. But even Slash is now left mumbling vague compliments about Chinese Democracy, which is ambitious, interesting and unique, if not always good.

As feared, this now mythical album is one-third nu metal. Meaning: unabashedly inorganic, monochromatic, Korn-influenced guitar riffs. Luckily, thousands of truly twisted guitar solos decorate said riffs, attacking from all angles, as Chinese Democracy’s songs twist, break down, and morph. A woman sings over what could be a Garbage outtake that suddenly becomes a heavy blues ballad. Symphonic trip-hop with funky nylon string guitar leads Axl’s layered voices into a capella metal do-wop. Pro-Tools makes sure that even the album’s bad parts boast at least something interesting.

But Pro-Tools also drowns the gentle guitar of “Sorry” in gross digital gravy, and helps “FBI” sound like Sarah McLachlan. In the time this album took to make, the studio trick where a song (in this case “Prostitute”) dramatically shrinks for a moment, into a tin can, before suddenly expanding back to its regular size, became tired. The new G-n-R sometimes reeks of the 90’s, when reactionary producers started thinking even heavy metal needed little dance beats in it.

Axl’s voice heroically saves much of his material. Some of the terrible ballads (where he feigns trying not to cry during lyrics like, “I don’t know why / she didn’t say goodbye / I saw it in her eyes,”) should compel Rose’s piano to seek a restraining order. But for the most part, his dynamic, layered, downright killer singing/shrieking is not only metal real and true, but proves Axl’s a singer’s singer. Especially with Pro-Tools on his side. Too bad the music he’s singing over isn’t nearly as melodic as what he can do with his voice.

As far as this sounding like Guns-N-Roses? No way. But that’s probably the biggest reason the album doesn’t suck; thank god Axl got as far away as possible from the old G-n-R sound. Axl blatantly choose aural perfection over inspired performance so that even Lose Your Illusion sounds more “live” than Chinese Democracy. The songs on Appetite for Destruction were mostly recorded live and then tweaked, whereas these new songs are all tweakage. Many of the guitar solos come in the same interesting spots where Slash would have put them, weaving perfectly between Axl’s phrases. Still, Chinese Democracy definitely should have been Axl Rose’s solo album.

Essentially, this ambitious, interesting album is far better than the sad, crappy one many expected. But were it not Guns-n-Roses, many of us wouldn’t give it two listens. Axl mostly just one-upped Korn, augmenting heavy guitars with computer trickery that sometimes makes Chinese Democracy feel as dated as Axl’s neat red goatee. Not saying it looks bad on him per se…

- In our cover story, David Winkler-Schmit examines citizen groups who are keeping others abreast of crime in their neighborhoods by using email, Google Maps, and other high-tech neighborhood watch tools…

- Clancy DuBos composes another valentine to Ray Nagin’s unique brand of leadership in the wake of this week’s City Council/Sanitation Department blowout….

- Jeremy Alford watches Gov. Bobby Jindal eye the 2012 presidential race…and wonders why former Gov. Kathleen Blanco is suddenly sending out press releases praising Barack Obama’s selection of Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff….

- Bryan Davis previews the annual Words & Music literary festival, and Alison Fensterstock scopes out next weekend’s concert by the Cool Kids…

- and our monthly home and fashion magazine, CUE, is out with a December edition featuring holiday clothes and gifts, Champagne accessories and some cool handmade local items, curated by Kara Nelson.

What about that cold front last night? It’s a beautiful day. Get off the computer. I am.