NOLA or bust
It’s usually feast or famine when it calls to phone calls from Kessler. And, over the past few weeks, I’ve been inundated with calls from Kessler, day and night, as the drama of the Eddie Price Show, compliments of the Times Picayune, continues to spin out of control.
Actually, I’m not sure who is the more retarded, Eddie for thinking he could drink, crash through the Causeway barricade and then keep driving with his lights off; or the lame beat reporter, whose favorite phrase appears to be “Price’s city-owned luxury SUV.”
For reasons unknown even to me, I haven’t been able to conjure any sort of strong reactions one way or another; be it sympathy for the man I’ve known as mayor of my city since I’ve lived here or journalistic righteous indignation at seeing a public official frying in the hot seat.
Kessler, however, has been following the story from afar (from Ecuador, Key Biscayne and Montana; not necessarily in that order) with something akin to obsessive fanaticism; playing Devil’s Advocate no less; one day cursing Eddie and all corrupt politicians, the next day practically sounding like he’s ready to begin the Eddie Price Defense Fund Foundation himself. It’s dizzying.
“On a miniaturized scale, this is more exciting than the Iran Contra affair, the Clinton impeachment hearings and the NFL playoffs all rolled into one,” Kessler rattled, as I struggled for wakefulness and glanced at the clock.
4:40 a.m.
Because Kessler has absolutely no concept or use for time zones (even after I’ve shown him the world clock feature on his own goddamned cell phone) I had to have a second line; especially for calls from Kessler, installed into my home, at his expense, as he demanded it.
“Maybe it’s because it’s four in the fucking morning and I don’t find anything interesting at this hour besides sleep, but I fail to get an erection for any of it,” I muttered into the phone as I stumbled around my kitchen trying to decide whether or not to drip a pot of coffee or just mix up a cup from the instant stuff I have left over from Katrina MRE’s.
I mention this to Kessler and he laughs and tells me to just open a cold beer.
“Get tanked up, drink until nine and then drive over to City Hall and pick up Eddie, have a boy’s day out,” Kessler said, chuckling maniacally. “Get him snot-slinging drunk and then go take a leak on the front door step of The Times Picayune. That would be fucking excellent.”
Although still asleep, or maybe because I was still asleep, I could envision this scene vividly and it got a chuckle out of me. My laughter only inspired Kessler more.
“I could loan you my Jeep, the one with the kick-ass sound system,” he continued. “You could drive up blasting that British chick’s song, you know, the one with the face polyps. Shit, what’s her name.”
“Amy Winehouse,” I said, yawning.
“Yeah her,” Kessler said. “Fuck, with a name like that no wonder she needs rehab. Tell you what, she looks like she could use a few CC’s of penicillin too. But anyway, crank that song up good and proper. No actually scratch that. You could send him a Jack Daniels gift basket though, or maybe a brick of some good hashish or some opium,” Kessler said. “I know this guy in Singapore who owes me a few favors.”
“La, la, la,” I said. “There’s static on my line. I didn’t hear that. I don’t want to here that. Christ Kessler, you’re an evil bastard.”
“Don’t tell me you have sympathy for this mope,” Kessler said. “You of all people; the one who was screaming for all elected officials to be drug through the streets by their testicles behind a jeep after their less than adequate performance before, during or after Katrina…”
“That was mostly aimed at folks at the state level,” I said. “But no, that’s not it.” “Good,” Kessler said. “Because believe me you, if that would have been me or you in that situation, they would have locked our asses up and thrown away the key.”
Just at that second there was a loud squawk of squelch or reverb in the background that jolted me as I attempted to fill my 32-ounce Icee cup with warm water, MRE non-dairy creamer and three packs of instant Folgers.
“Jesus what the fuck was that?” I stammered.
“Pepper by the Butthole Surfers,” said Kessler, who is a bit of a music aficionado in his spare time, a habit I suspect he keeps up in order to keep up with the younger generation. Or older now, actually, come to think of it.
“They were all in love with dying, they were doing it in Texas,” I found myself chanting along anyway, despite the hour.
“Jesus, could I have been listening to it that loud last night?” Kessler muttered.
“A wild one in Key Biscayne?” I ask.
“No, but you know how I get during heavy traffic hours,” he said. “And Doc and Jim-Bob were both in and out of here last night. They took apart my toaster oven; so much for bagels and lox. Jim-Bob’s inbred I’m certain of it. And there’s all this shit in the forums with Eddie. Plus, I was trying to get faxes out to that wacka-a-doodle over in Colorado.”
“The fucking hurricane douche bag,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Fuck that dude,” I said. “I thought he retired anyway.”
“He did but his legacy still lives on,” Kessler said. “It’s real annoying, almost as bad as Robert Ludlum or the fucking Dianetics goof L. Ron Hubbard; and the hurricane guy’s not even dead yet. Can you imagine when he does croak? Oh and just for the record, all those fuckers who follow that scientology crap, Tom Cruise, Travolta and his wife with the crooked nose; they’re all going to hell when my God comes knocking.”
“Your God?” I asked, momentarily confused, knowing it could end up being a long day if Kessler was pulling God out of the hat.
“Oh yeah buddy, cuz my God is the Old Testament God, full of Smite and Fury, striking fear, suffering and fury into all the sodomites and followers of false idols,” Kessler said.
“You mean like Bob Barker,” I said.
“No like that Paula Abdul Bitch and Simon Cowell, they’ll go to hell,” Kessler said.
I paused for a moment, actually uncomfortable by this talk.
“You’re not serious are you?” I asked.
“Hey, I just call it like I see it,” Kessler said. “My God’s the old testament God and yours should be too.”
“My God is one of peace, love and understanding,” I said.
“When were you born?”
“68″ I said.
“Figures,” muttered Kessler. “Child of the fucking 60’s, that’s your problem. You’re too full of that peace and love bullshit. Peace through superior firepower; kill’em all, let God sort’em out. These are heavy times fella. Granted, they’re weird times too, but heavy nonetheless.”
I consider this as I amble into my dining room and sit down at my own computer. I open the curtains, but its still dark outside. I turn on my computer and click on the big green Lime Wire logo, half inspired by Kessler’s post 80’s punk selection of Butthole Surfers, choosing GBH’s, Malice in Wonderland from my library.
“So what do you think,” I said, changing the subject.
Well, sort of.
“Do you think Eddie is going to hell?” I ask.
“What?” Kessler asked, obviously thrown off.
“Do you think Eddie will go to hell?” I asked.
“Eddie hasn’t even gone to jail, he ain’t goin to hell, although the folks on the NOLA forum are screaming for blood,” he said. “It’s great I love it.”
“It’s stupid,” I say.
“You love him don’t you,” Kessler says.
“What?” I ask.
“I wasn’t sure before but now I know, you’re in love with Eddie Price aren’t you,” he said.
“No, of course not,” I said.
“In fact I bet you’re in his fucking pocket,” Kessler said. “Or maybe he’s in yours.”
“That’s funny,” I said.
“I got the world’s smallest violin playing right here for you bud,” Kessler said. “I told you about that thing with the rafts.”
“Fuck that,” I said. “I’m not rafting in fucking refugees from Cuba. Castro’s dead anyway, or almost fucking dead at least. Isn’t his other brother Darrell running the show.”
“Raoul,” said Kessler.
“Whatever,” I said. “I live in the most conservative fucking neck of the woods in Louisiana.”
“Not my choice,” Kessler said. “I told you after Katrina you needed to go. Even Mississippi is making the bayou state look like shit, and they still hang niggers on a regular basis and fuck their sisters. They have perfected their deviance and finally figured out a way to capitalize on it. Louisiana is a joke, you need to get out.”
“Right and rafting in a bunch of little fucking Tony Montana’s is my ticket to the promised land,” I said.
“Again not my fault you were never in the military, or that you’re almost 40. If you were younger and in better shape I could train you for something else.”
“I’m not in bad shape,” I reply, pissed. “In fact, I just lost ten pounds at Franco’s.”
“How fast can you field strip an M-60?”
“The heavy caliber Rambo gun?” I ask.
All conversations with Kessler seem to come back to Rambo.
“Yeah,” he says.
“Five minutes the first go round, just to figure it out,” I say. “Under two after that.”
“Under two gets your head blown off in the fucking field, you fucking dimwit,” Kessler retorts.
“Fuck that,” I said. “I don’t need an M-60 anyway. I can hit a moving target at 30 feet with a knife, with deadly accuracy, all fucking day long and you know it. You’ve seen me do it.”
“Yeah, that is a weird fucking thing,” Kessler admitted.
It’s something I can’t explain either. I got my first dart board before I was 10, which I hit wide of the mark on many occasions as was once evidenced by all the dart holes in the door frame of our old play room. Mom has it turned into a “sun room” now. All the wood is gone, replaced by glass.
I started throwing knives, small kitchen paring knives (they had sharper blades than the big Bowie knives my dad gave me; and the Rambo knives I got as a teen). In fact, we used to play this game called “spread’em”
Object of the game was to throw a knife into the ground, and make it stick..it had to stick in order for your opponent to spread….Once it stuck, opponent had to spread his or her legs to where the knife stuck ..Oh yeah, we played it barefoot, that was a rule, you couldn’t wear shoes or you were declassified as a pussy and automatically kicked out….
Each combatant had a knife, and each threw their knife into the ground, each good stick made opponent spread further. Players continued to throw their knives, just to the outside of each opponents bare foot, to make them spread further. Those who just couldn’t do a good split lost. If you threw the knife into your opponents foot; hey, it happened…which is why we only used small kitchen knives….you were out…
Whatever the case may be, I got good at throwing knives. I’m still working on hatchets; never been quite able to master that one.
“So what do you want, you want a job throwing knives?” Kessler asked.
“No, but I’m not in love with Eddie,” I said.
“Then what gives, you seem to have some kinda hard-on for the guy,” Kessler said.
“I don’t doubt he did wrong, and for that he should be ostracized,” I said.
“Good, we’re in agreement so far,” Kessler said. “But I sense a beef.”
“The beef is with the media,” I finally said.
“Oh Jesus, here we go,” Kessler said. “Look it’s been good talking to you but I have a fishing boat I have to charter.”
“Oh no,” I said. “Fuck you. You woke my ass up at four in the fucking morning talking about drunk driving, God and M-60’s, you’re going to hear why I’m so sick to fucking death about hearing about Eddie Price; but even more, why the Times Picayune, who I thought was maybe a responsible purveyor of news..if nothing else, at least a worthy adversary during my past twelve years in the news fucking business…why they would lead this fucking bandwagon.”
“I like this side of you,” Kessler said. “If I were female, I’d say it was sexy.”
“Fuck off,” I said.
He just laughed.
Kessler just laughed profusely and muttered, “You sound really serious about this. You’ve actually put some thought into this.”
“Let me tell you a little story,” I began.
“I was afraid of this,” he replied.
“No, this is a cautionary tale,” I said. “You said yourself a little while ago you had a gripe with her.”
“Yeah, but my gripe was small, I can tell yours is big,” he said.
“A long time ago I moved from here to go work for a daily near Atlanta,” I said.
“Cut to the fucking chase,” he said.
“Oh I will, never mind the fact that I moved north to go deeper south,” I jabbed, at what, I don’t know. “Anyway, I covered county government; which is just like parish government here..just without the Napoleanic Code.”
“That’s the first thing Louisiana needs to ditch,” Kessler said.
“Depends on who you ask,” I reply. “Maybe it’s the first thing the rest of the nation needs to pick up.”
“Shut up, you’re just being obstinate,” Kessler said.
“Anyway, paper I worked at had a publisher. Publisher’s cousin was the governor. The County Commissioner of that county was going to be running against that publisher’s incumbent governor,” I said. “Hence, our newspaper couldn’t write a single fucking news story without somehow slandering…”
“Slander is a strong word with definite legal repercussions,” Kessler reminded me.
“Okay, we’ll just call it slamming,” I said. “Every chance they had, whether they needed to or not, they; this newspaper I worked for, slammed this county commissioner.”
“Well, maybe he was a cocksucker and he deserved to be slammed,” Kessler said.
“Yeah but who should decide that, the governor’s cousin? A politician’s opponent? You know what happened? I ended up writing a story about this how this county commissioner guy shot down some vote. Well needless to say the guy wouldn’t talk to me, when I asked him he just said, “fucking publishers’s just going to write what he wants, not what I really say, anyway, so no, no fucking comment from me and if you were worth anything as a reporter, you’d go apply at the Atlanta Journal Constitution or CNN.”
“You know what happened from there?” I asked. “I went back and wrote the story, just as it happened. Next fucking morning my phone’s ringing off the hook. The County Commissioner’s press girl. My City Editor, and the little bitch he was fucking at the city desk, got together and decided to add to my story, dredged up a bunch of quotes from days past, when the Olympics had been in town, and jabbed the commissioner because of anti-gay comments he made. You know, until I wrote that story, I’d never known I was pro cock-sucker. My own team turned against me, and they took my own words, under my fucking byline and turned it into something that I didn’t even write.
“Whatever,” yawned Kessler. “What’s your beef with the reporter, the Chinese lady? You racist?”
“Fuck you, I’m not racist,” I said.
“Ouch, the ugly fucking American,” Kessler said. “I take it back about what I said about your God being the peace and love hippy god. I guess me and you are more alike then I thought.”
“An infringement upon one’s right should teach someone the value of having rights in the first place,” I said. “That’s why that guy set himself on fire.”
“So you’re saying being nosy, forceful, and pushy in the wake of public officials are the marks of a bad reporter,” Kessler said.
“You wanna know the truest thing any politician has ever said about anything?” I continued.
“Nixon, I’m not a crook,” Kessler chided.
“No, Steve Stefancik, another St. Tammany boy. Some mope, pissed off about how a rezoning was going to effect their way of life, stood up in front of the Parish Council and told them to leave the politics out of the decision process. Steve practically just laughed at him and said “everything we do is political; we’re a sitting political body; appointed by politically by voters; to make political decisions which effect our community…to leave the ‘politics’ out of any of our decisions would merely be negligible on our part.”
“And you believe that rhetoric?” Kessler asked.
“Fucking A right bud, everybody has an agenda. There’s nothing wrong with that, that is the one God-given right we have as Americans,” I said. “The problems don’t start until the most agenda-filled assholes try to pretend they don’t have agendas.”
“So you’re saying Eddie is the victim of an agenda-filled asshole,” Kessler said.
“Eddie did what Eddie did, but we’ll never really know what Eddie really did,” I replied. “I don’t care how many video tapes of him there are, by the way, video cameras are the only thing that objectively tell the truth and doesn’t use words like “luxury SUV” “Damn,” Kessler muttered. “I think I might have had you pegged wrong. Or at least undecided. I guess you won’t be backing Obama?”
“No,” I said. “I’m all about McCain. I don’t care how old, white or stupid he is,” I said. “At least he won’t sell my son into white slavery to the Muslims.”
“They were all in love with dyin, they were doing it in Texas Tommy played piano like a kid out in the rain then he lost his leg in Dallas, he was dancing with a train. They were all in love with dying.”
“They were drinking from a fountain,” I sang. “that was pouring like an avalanche
coming down the mountain.”
