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New Video: Josh Peter tours the PBR |
When we interviewed Josh Peter in June of 2005, he was a sports writer for New Orleans' daily newspaper, The Times Picayune. But as of August 29, when Hurricane Katrina roared ashore, Josh and every other reporter at the paper got a new assignment: Katrina coverage.
Josh Peter has his old beat back now, but it's different. Will New Orleans' professional football team, The Saints, come back home? Will they play in the now-infamous Louisiana Superdome? Will the professional basketball franchise, The Hornets, be sold? What will happen to all the displaced high school and college athletes? So many questions in the wake of the storm.
Josh's video is for the book with the longest title in our archives: Fried Twinkies, Buckle Bunnies & Bull Riders: A Year Inside the Professional Bull Riders Tour. In our 2-minute video, Josh goes behind the chutes to get the inside story on an emerging sport. It captures this award-winning sportswriter at a time of innocence, what we call "Pre-K" down here.
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With a tip of the hat to Kermit Ruffins, Samirah Evans, and The Catfish at WWOZ, I feel compelled to write about the extraordinary things happening in this city every day.
What is New Orleans? It's Saint Augustine church in the Treme, filled to capacity at 10 a.m. Sunday morning to hear Father Jerome Ledoux preach and Big Chief Donald Harrison lead a jazz mass to help preserve this magnificent sanctuary, the oldest "black" Catholic church in America, its bell tower stripped of its copper by Katrina, its cross leaning south. The audience is half black half white half brown half pink, male and female and in-between; we are all free people of color in New Orleans.
What is New Orleans? It's a second line parade celebrating the neighborhood social aid and pleasure clubs -- the organizations that pay for member funerals. And during the celebration shots ring out. New Orleans is its own worst enemy. It shoots itself in the foot -- or worse -- over and over again.
What is New Orleans? It is Wynton Marsalis teachin' in McAlister Auditorium at Tulane University. He gave a graduation speech -- and a good one -- challenging the youth assembled to do a better job than his generation (my generation) at showing some integrity and standing up for what is right. Then Wynton and Irvin Mayfield gave a few trumpet lessons and lit up the night with Papa Ellis Marsalis, Reginald Veal on bass and Herlin Riley on drums. That is New Orleans!
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We need help. We are looking to hire a full-time administrative assistant and a full-time video editor. These positions involve working out of our offices at the Bywater Tech Center in New Orleans. If you're interested, please don't wait to contact me at
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or phone 504-947-4994.
We're also looking for interns. We have internships available in digital video editing and online media relations. Internships are structured individually for each student but typically run 10 to 15 weeks. You will learn cutting edge skills here, so please drop me a line if you're interested.
Thanks,
STEVE O'KEEFE
President, AuthorViews, Inc.
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New Video: Tripp Friedler & Free Gulliver |
Our video today is one of my favorites of the 100 or so we have shot. The author is Tripp Friedler, a restless entrepreneur who gets paid to help people find an intelligent path to their dream life. His company -- and his book -- is called Free Gulliver. It's one of my favorite videos because he doesn't say one good thing about his book and when he's done you want to buy it.
We made this video at the Bywater Tech Center in New Orleans last June. We've also got a nice excerpt from Free Gulliver about retirement -- or the lack thereof. Tripp is all about making your work something you love and would never want to retire from.
Tripp's 2-minute video has been on the site for awhile, but is released today with a new edit and formatted for download into iTunes: just right-click to download, drag it into iTunes, drop it on your iPod, and share it with an impoverished dreamer you love.
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Connie Brand lends a hand. |
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Saturday, 07 January 2006 |
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While I'm introducing new people at AuthorViews.com, please give a warm welcome to Connie Brand. Connie is our new webmistress. She runs her own firm, CGMEDIA, out of Oakland, California. I met Connie during Hurricane Katrina.
I was blogging madly on NOLA.com and so was Connie. You know how in blogs -- like in high school -- most of the talk is sound and fury signifying nuthin', while other folks are dishing up something you can use? Well, here's a post from Connie Brand on NOLA.com:
580. NEW! UPDATED DRY MAP #2
by cbrand, 8/31/05 23:51 ET
http://www.cgmedia.com/nola/050831dry.html REFRESH YOUR PAGE TO SEE NEW (black bordered) MAP! Ok, folks, this is an update thru Post 565... I wish I could check out the streets myself, but I'm relying on y'all to bear witness... Connie
Check the date on that message: Wednesday, August 31 -- two days after Katrina hit. Connie put together a "dry map" combining a graphic swiped from MapQuest and eyewitness, on-the-ground testimony she found culling over 500 blog posts, then plotted the water levels using Photoshop. It would be two more days before the first satellite images of post-K New Orleans got around. For two days, Connie's map was the best source for thousands of hurricane survivors trying to find out how bad their blocks got hit. And Connie was instrumental in distributing the links to now-legendary satellite maps. That's the kind of person Connie Brand is.
I met her in person for the first time in New Orleans in December. It turns she bought a house in the Crescent City just ahead of Katrina. She's running a two-city household and business now, moving between New Orleans to do repairs and Oakland, where she and her family work and live. She's signed on to help us make AuthorViews easier to use. And she has a long background in television production which we benefit from every day. And she groks PHP. Welcome Connie!
The story of how the blogs performed during Katrina is a fascinating one. I'll be playing show & tell at the Annual IAOC Conference in Valley Forge, PA, March 23-24, illustrating the many facets of using online communications during a crisis. You don't want to miss it.
STEVE O'KEEFE
President, AuthorViews, Inc.
Vice President, IAOC
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A New Year Brings New Faces |
Happy New Year and welcome back to the AuthorViews Blog! For the last four months, our team was pushed around the country by Hurricane Katrina, then had to struggle to rebuild our network of video editing computers. I am delighted to report that we are all safe and sound. The AuthorViews team is back in action shooting and editing video of authors talking about their books.
I'd like to briefly introduce George Ingmire, our new director of video production. George has been working with AuthorViews freelance since 2004. A former instructor of filmmaking at the University of New Orleans, George also teaches web design at Tulane University. He is an accomplished documentarian, filmmaker, editor, and an extraordinary sound recording artist. It is thanks to George's hard work and guidance that our videos look and sound better than anything you can put on an iPod today.
Speaking of iPods, all the videos on our site have been optimized for downloading onto iPods and other handheld devices. For those who know how to do this, you simply "right-click" or download the video to your computer, then drag it into the Videos folder in iTunes. For those who are less comfortable adding videos to your iPod, we'll be installing prompts and detailed instructions very soon.
I can't let this moment pass without thanking all the generous souls who opened their homes and hearts to us this Summer as we toured the western U.S. shooting author videos, and this fall as we toured the eastern U.S. dodging hurricanes. None of you should have had to wait this long to see your films online. This week we will release 10 brand new videos from the tour. We hope to release that many every week until all the videos from the Summer Tour and the New Orleans Bookfair are up on the site. You have all been kinder and more patient than anyone could ask for, and we are deeply grateful.
Happy New Year and Happy Browsing!
STEVE O'KEEFE
President, AuthorViews, Inc.
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Come to the New Orleans Bookfair! |
The New Orleans Bookfair, scheduled for October 29, had been cancelled due to Hurricane Katrina. Last week, Bookfair founder g.k. darby, publisher of Garrett County Press, sent e-mail that the Bookfair is back on! The venue for the Bookfair is the Barrister's Gallery at 1724 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd. in downtown New Orleans. The Barrister's Gallery suffered minimal damage from Katrina and was among the first commercial establishments reopened in Katrina's wake.
Patron Saint Productions and AuthorViews will be among those presenting at the Bookfair. AuthorViews will be shooting FREE author videos throughout the day. Last year, AuthorViews taped 25 interviews at the Bookfair. This archive is a treasure, providing a record of New Orleans' counterculture publishing community prior to the hurricane. No other speaker captured the feeling of the Bookfair quite as well as NPR commentator Andrei Codrescu in his AuthorViews clip. I encourage you to view it -- it only takes a minute.
The New Orleans Bookfair is the kind of in-your-face idea exchange that is seldom seen in regional book fairs anymore. The expo is dominated by authors and very independent, marginal publishers. This year's Bookfair will be like no other, as the literary cockroaches of New Orleans prove that no hurricane can stop us.
For more information about presenting at the New Orleans Bookfair on Saturday, October 29, please contact
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. Come to the New Orleans Bookfair: Halloween in New Orleans! I hope to see you there.
STEVE O'KEEFE
President, AuthorViews.com
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Home Stanky Home, Part Two |
I am an avid early morning walker -- usually five miles a day -- and for many years that included at least one morning walk each week through the French Quarter. There is a rhythm in the Old Town of New Orleans, and it begins each morning with the hosing of the sidewalks.
Starting at dawn, shopkeepers and hotel cleaning krewes break out their hoses and bleach and slowly rinse off the sidewalk in front of their establishments. Many on Bourbon Street pour the bleach on full strength, then hose it into the concrete or flagstone, careful to suspend their spraying when pedestrians approach.
New Orleans, as most people now realize, is a poor city. Much of the work done by city governments elsewhere in the U.S. is done by private citizens in New Orleans. The restaurants hire their own police, as do hotels and clubs. Sometimes it seems as if the official police are there only to arrest people apprehended by an army of private security officers (many of whom are moonlighting cops). Sanitation is likewise mostly a private affair in The City That Care Forgot, and the front line of sanitation is the ritual morning cleansing of the sidewalks.
I love the smell of chlorine bleach in the morning! To me, it means freshness. I started hosing my own back yard with a diluted bleach solution, partly for the smell and partly to keep the mold down in damp, dark places in the yard. Today, bleach is the best friend of New Orleans.
As people go back to repopulate New Orleans, they will need things. Two weeks ago, I put together a list and started visiting Red Cross shelters and e-mailing Red Cross administrators asking that their shelters stock the items needed by returning refugees: gloves, tarps, garbage bags, hand sanitizer, deoderizers, antibacterial soaps and sprays, etc. Yesterday, the Red Cross started providing bags of cleaning products -- including most of the items on the list -- to returning refugees. Thank you Red Cross!
Among the items in the Red Cross "Welcome Home" packages: chlorine bleach. The stench in New Orleans right now is so bad you can't imagine it. It's not from carcasses. It's from refrigerators. With the power out and temperatures in the 90s, refrigerators became incubators, the food slowly morphing into maggots and flies and a nasty, putrid mess. We cleaned out one fridge two weeks ago, and today it is bug-free and sweet smelling -- thanks to the bleach.
Those going back should think twice about tossing out the fridge. The smell will go away shortly after it is cleaned. Shrewd slavagers are collecting refrigerators from around the city, cleaning them, and selling them. So beware: the used fridge you buy may, in fact, be the one you threw away!
From Richmond, Virginia,
STEVE O'KEEFE
New Orleans Refugee
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Gatorade Gets Me Back in The Game |
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Friday, 30 September 2005 |
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We have finally begun to get back to the business of promoting books and authors. Despite the fact that we lost virtually no equipment, trying to work under these conditions is like typing with mittens: it takes some getting used to and the output is smaller. The staff is scattered. Most of our files and tools are still in boxes. Then there's the whiplash of getting back to New Orleans. The city is repopulating by zipcode, and the Bywater is last on the list: 70117. Having seen the devastation first hand, I'd have to say "Baby please don't go." It's not liveable yet.
So Patron Saint Productions and AuthorViews will be operating out of Richmond, Virginia, through the New Year. Film editor George Ingmire is in Virgnia Beach, VA. George and I hope to get the video editing project back on track next week. We have 50 videos we shot this summer waiting for editing. George will be heading back to New Orleans as soon as possible, ready to help rebuild America's Problem Child: New Orleans.
Rachelle Matherne, my office manager, has already gone back to New Orleans. Last week, she managed to push out over 50 discussion group postings for Darren Rovell's book, First in Thirst, a Gatorade brand biography from Amacom Books. Rachelle was working without her computer under primitive conditions (dial-up). Amacom has put together a massive online campaign for the book, including a Blog Tour organized through The CEO Refresher, plus our New Book Launch Campaign. My nephews wondered, "Who would want to read a book about Gatorade?" I reminded them that their Dad is a branding expert; he'll want to read it. This week, sure enough, the Gatorade book is all over the net. Rovell's blog tour is this week, and includes a podcast and blogger interviews at five top branding sites:
* Learned on Women
* Brand Autopsy
* Marketing Playbook
* Slacker Manager
* Personal MBA
Yesterday, I went to the Department of Public Health in Richmond to get a tetanus shot -- recommended for all those going down to New Orleans. On the counter was a brochure rack filled will pamphlets on sports safety produced by Gatorade. It's the sports drink that's supposed to help get you back into the game. In my case, it's helping me get back to work, and I'm grateful.
STEVE O'KEEFE
New Orleans Refugee
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Riding the Appalachian Trail |
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Tuesday, 20 September 2005 |
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I had never driven Interstate 81 along the ridge of the Appalachian Mountains before the hurricane. Now I have driven the gorgeous 400 mile stretch between Knoxville, Tennessee, and Charlottesville, Virginia, three times, and here's what I saw:
* Fleeing hurricane Katrina about a week after the devastation, I was driving north on 81 when I saw the New York Fire Department driving south. The motorcade of FDNY vehicles included a fire truck ("The Spirit of Louisiana"), a tanker truck, a couple EMS trucks, and several emergency S.U.V.s. I cheered and honked as they sped toward Louisiana, their lights flashing.
* A week later, returning to New Orleans to assess the damage, drop supplies, and pick up some clothes and office items, I was driving south on 81 and saw roughly 40 EMS trucks headed north. No two trucks shared the same city logo. They were sent by cities all along the Eastern seaboard to help with the crisis and they were now all going home. The "rescue" part of the mission was over.
* Three days later, coming back from New Orleans to Richmond, Virginia, I saw trucks carrying dozens of bulldozers headed south to New Orleans. I know where they are going: to turn the homes of my neighbors into fill for the next generation of New Orleanians.
STEVE O'KEEFE
New Orleans Refugee
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Wednesday, 14 September 2005 |
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On Sunday, Sept. 11, I departed Richmond, Virginia, for a return trip to New Orleans. My van was loaded with stuff I bought with the $360 relief card the Red Cross gave me: sheets of plywood, cases of bottled water, Duracell batteries (packs of "D" and "AA"), booze, cartons of cigarettes, plastic gloves, and two pre-paid mobile phones. I couldn't buy the booze or smokes with my Red Cross card; those came from my own pocket. My friend, Kevin Barstow, said the smokes and booze might help me get past checkpoints.
In Nashville, I picked up my friend and former spouse, Storme O'Keefe. Her car was (hopefully) still in New Orleans -- on the fifth floor of a parking garage in the French Quarter. I had a name of someone connected to FEMA to use to get past the checkpoints. Storme and I drove another 10 hours to Hammond, Louisiana, just north of New Orleans. I had been driving for almost 24 hours straight. We slept a couple hours in the van and drove into New Orleans at first light.
We had no trouble with the checkpoints. Our route went near the infamous Convention Center, which we were told had been cleaned up for the news cameras. Of course, the debris had mostly been pushed into the surrounding side streets. There was very little garbage removal evident anywhere in New Orleans. For now, just pushing the garbage to one side was enough to keep clean-up crews busy.
We were not adequately prepared for entering what amounts to an occupied city. National Guard troops were everywhere. Vehicles routinely went the wrong way on one-way streets. Mysterious convoys would appear out of nowhere -- some five cars long, some 25 -- and speed by with lights flashing. The media had built a small satellite city along Canal street and it looked like the troops wanted to keep them there. We were never stopped while touring the otherwise vacant streets of this apocalyptic theater, but we also didn't challenge the Guard by straying too far from the French Quarter.
Everywhere we looked, passenger cars had been abandoned, siphoned, and looted. It looked like any car left behind at street level had been vandalized. Remarkably, Storme's car was untouched in the parking garage, with a full tank of gas, and we were not obstructed from leaving with it.
Upon arriving at her house, two large dogs approached us -- one a pit bull. I used my shriek alarm to shoo them away. We put out food and fresh water for the dogs before we left. For two days, we were shadowed by menacing dogs -- mostly pit bulls -- everywhere we went. Our friends who rode the hurricane out told us that everything was fine until the third day. Then the heat got to people and folks just went crazy, looting and shooting and smashing things. We suspect the same is true for the dogs: a week without food or clean water has turned them into wild animals concerned only about the basics of primal survival.
I distributed the loot in my van and felt like a poor imitation of Santa Claus. I could not believe that trucks were not moving through the city to bring supplies to people and animals. I knew the life-saving products people wanted were available: batteries, water, medical kits. But they weren't being distributed because there was no one with the authority to take them "the last mile." It is so sad.
The Bywater Tech Center, where my offices are, was taken over by FEMA as a communications center. My offices, which they are not using yet, had roof damage and water damage, but nothing severe. Our homes were almost untouched. Storme's flower shop on the corner of Royal and Barracks was not flooded or looted. Personally, our assets came through just fine. However, there was no electricity or potable water. We got stuck at the Tech Center due to curfew and spent a sleepless night in 95-degree heat. We would have slept in the grass by the levee, where it was cooler, but we were afraid of the roaming wild dogs.
At daybreak, we went to the official distribution point at the Harrah's Casino to get tetanus shots, but were told that "FEMA has taken this over and we've shut down." This talk of who is in charge -- FEMA, D.O.D., Blanco, the police, the National Guard -- continued everwhere we went. I imagine these people at the helm of the Titanic trying to decide who is authorized to turn the ship away from the iceburg. It is heartbreaking to see our beloved city in the hands of people who now resemble a shark pool of scammers, schemers, plotters, and politicians -- all trying to figure out how to turn this disaster to personal gain.
For those of you waiting for your AuthorViews videos or other work from Patron Saint Productions, it will take time before I can drop the story of what is happening to New Orleans and return to publicity work. All of you have asked what you can do to help, and my answer is to be patient with me and pushy with FEMA and the others who are blocking an outpouring of private aid from reaching those who need it the most.
From Nashville, Tennessee,
STEVE O'KEEFE
President of AuthorViews
New Orleans Refugee
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Saturday, 10 September 2005 |
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Many tourists will gag along with me remembering the smells of Bourbon Street in New Orleans: a sour combination of mule urine, human excrement, and vomit. And that's on a good day. In the summer, add the scent of crawfish shells ripening in the 95-degree heat. Walking America's most notorious olfactory avenue is enough to make you choke. And today it smells worse than ever, with toxic sludge drying in the noonday sun, flavored with faint whiffs of decaying flesh. But today there is no other air I'd rather fill my lungs with.
I have been a refugee for three months now. Long before Katrina laid my city to waste, I was touring the Western United States shooting author videos for free. I've crashed in 25 different rooms over the last three months: Austin, Wichita, Denver, Fort Collins, Salt Lake City, The Dalles, Seattle, Bellingham, Port Townsend, Portland, Gold Beach, San Francisco, Hollywood, the Grand Canyon, Santa Fe, and Little Rock. Since Katrina, I've added Nashville and Richmond to the list. And my conclusion after all these months of travel: the best small town in the U.S.A. is Port Townsend, Washington -- my former home on the Olympic Peninsula -- and the best big city is New Orleans, home stanky home.
If we lose New Orleans, we lose something special. We don't just lose the aroma of Bourbon Street, we lose the musky smell of Magnolias on the Mississippi breeze. We lose the smoky scent of chicory curling out of Cafe Du Monde. We lose the sweet cadence of Bourbon French perfume strolling down Royal Street. We lose the rich roast of French bread fresh from Binder's bakery. We lose the brace of garlic flowing from Irene's. We lose the sticky sweet jasmine fence at Blessed Francis Seelos. We lose the bittersweet of burning butter at Aunt Sally's praline factory across from NOCCA.
Right now, there's a stench hanging over New Orleans. It smells of the federal government trying to wrest control from the state government trying to wrest control from the parish government trying to take it from the city. The palette of flavors will return only when the residents and business owners of New Orleans are able to wrest control of their city from the politicians and set the city to rights again. New Orleans is dead. Long Live New Orleans!
From Richmond, Virginia,
STEVE O'KEEFE
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Wednesday, 07 September 2005 |
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(Wednesday, September 7, 2005; 7:30 a.m.) -- Nashville, TN -- Yesterday I sent e-mails to all the cell phone associations pleading for pre-paid cell phones to be dropped in New Orleans. One of the associations, the PCIA, put the word out to their 11,000-name mailing list. Today, I realized that maybe I should get a pre-paid cell phone myself, since no one has been able to call in on my New Orleans number. As soon as I have a new number, I'll post it.
Storme and I are waiting for an opportunity to get back into the French Quarter so we can check on our stuff, grab items we wish we had, and secure our places more thoroughly against looting and the weather. We'll also be bringing in supplies to those still trapped, such as pet food, batteries, neosporin, maybe even pre-paid cell phones if some company would donate them to me. We're not going to run any blockades or anything like that. We'll wait for the authorities to allow us in.
I'll keep you posted.
From Nashville, Tennessee,
STEVE O'KEEFE
New Orleans Refugee
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