Check out my post Of Cheesecake Pans and Massages HERE
January 12, 2011
November 25, 2010
October 18, 2010
WEDNESDAY 10/20 WEAR PURPLE IN MEMORY OF THE SIX WHO DIED
Tyler Clementi,
Asher Brown,
Seth Walsh,
Justin Aaberg,
Raymond Chase
and Billy Lucas.
You are loved.
On September 9, Billy (William) Lucas, of Greensburg, IN, was was found dead in a barn at his grandmother’s home — he had hanged himself. While Billy never self-identified as gay, friends report he was tormented for years because other kids thought he was gay. Billy was 15 years old.
In Shiocton, Wisconsin, Cody J. Barker, a 17-year-old openly gay teen, took his life on September 13. Cody attended Shiocton High School, where he was active in choir. He recently attended a seminar aimed at helping him establish a gay/straight alliance at his school. Cody also enjoyed bicycling and gardening, and was a Lady Gaga fan.
On September 19, Seth Walsh of of Tehachapi, CA, was found unconscious and not breathing after attempting to hang himself. Seth, age 13, spent the better part of 10 days on life support — he died on September 28. Seth was openly gay and suffered years of relentless bullying.
On September 22, Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi, 18, of Ridgewood, NJ, jumped to his death off the George Washington Bridge, just days after his college roommate broadcast live images on the internet of him having a sexual encounter with another man.
On September 23, Asher Brown, age 13, came home from school and shot himself in the head after enduring what his mother and stepfather say was constant harassment from four other students at his middle school in Houston, TX. Asher told his parents he was gay that morning.
Raymond Chase, a 19-year-old openly gay sophomore studying culinary arts at Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island, committed suicide on September 29 by hanging himself in his dorm room.
YOU TUBE MAKEITBETTER PROJECT CHANNEL
June 28, 2010
“We lose a chunk of land the size of a football field every 38 minutes. Since World War II, we’ve lost wetlands the size of the state of Delaware. I bet Joe Biden would be screaming on national television too if it was happening on his turf. Or if the Hamptons lost 16,000 acres a year, you bet there’d be a Million Hedge-Fund Managers March on Washington to demand action.”
June 24, 2010
May 17, 2010
April 19, 2010
A moving hand stirs a stagnant brain
Check out SHE READS and catch my ponderings on journaling your way out of a brain cramp.
April 14, 2010
April 5, 2010
Guess who’s featured at SHE READS?!
I’m thrilled to announce that Walking on Broken Glass has been selected as the April Book Club Selection by She Reads. Read about it here.
Don’t forget to leave a comment and sign up for their newsletter so you can be entered to win a copy of my novel and/or a gift basket from New Orleans Sweet Treat!
February 14, 2010
Because I just can’t say it better than this:
Mardi Gras Who Dat Nation just wants to say: Thanks, Drew
By Mark Lorando, The Times-Picayune
February 13, 2010, 11:38PM
The Saints Super Bowl parade last week was just a warm-up for Saints quarterback Drew Brees, who will reign Sunday night as Bacchus.
This is what he will hear:
“DREWWWWWW!!! OHMYGOD!!! OHMYGOD!!! RIGHT HERE, DREW!!! I’M OPEN!!! THROW ME SOMETHING, DREW!!! I LOVE YOU, DREWWWWWW!!! WHO DAT, BABY!!! WILL YOU MARRY ME, DREW?!?!?!? I KNOW YOU’RE MARRIED, SO AM I, WE CAN WORK THAT OUT!!! REALLY!!! MY HUSBAND WON’T MIND, HE’S GOT A CRUSH ON YOU, TOO!!! DREWWWWWW!!! DREWWWWWW!!! OHMYGOD, DID YOU SEE THAT?!?!?!? HE THREW IT RIGHT TO ME!!! YOU DA MAN, DREWWWWWW!!!”
But that’s not exactly what the Who Dats on the parade route want to say.
It’s hard to be eloquent when a float is rolling past. So little time, so much pressure — you wait seven hours on a curb in the hopes of catching something, ANYTHING, directly from the hand of Super Bowl XLIV MVP and Bacchus 2010 Drew Brees. How can you possibly be expected to get his attention AND snag a flying doubloon AND put everything you’re feeling into words in just a few, fleeting seconds?
You can’t. So Drew is going to have to read between the lines. He’s going to have to know that when we say all of that, what we really want to tell him is this:
Thank you.
Thank you for bringing your broken shoulder to town and rebuilding yourself right alongside us.
Thank you for teaching us how to finish strong.
Thank you for always facing adversity with your shoulders back, your head up, your upper lip stiff, your eyes on fire.
Thank you for giving us Feb. 7 to ease the pain of Aug. 29.
Thank you for reminding every woman in New Orleans, and Katie Couric, how it feels to have a schoolgirl crush. (Katie, sweetheart, we know he’s a dreamboat, but try not to be so obvious next time!)
Thank you for making your beautiful family part of our beautiful city. So many star athletes parachute in for the season and catch the first flight out. You put down roots. That means a lot to us. It makes you one of us.
One suggestion: The next time you play in the Super Bowl (Feb. 6, 2011, in Dallas, see you there!), have Brittany and Baylen watch the game on the sideline on a Mardi Gras ladder. Every time you get flushed out of the pocket, he can scream, “Throw me something, Daddy!”
How cool would that be?
New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees, with his wife Brittany at left, holds their son Baylen, 1, aloft in celebration after the Saints win Super Bowl XLIV in Miami. If we’re going to go to the Super Bowl every year, we might as well give it a little New Orleans flavor.
Remember how you felt when you held Baylen in your arms after the Super Bowl? How you held him close and saw all of your hopes and dreams for the future in his little face and you cried?
Well, that’s how the Who Dat Nation feels when we look at you. You are a son of New Orleans now. In you we see the best of ourselves, and a future filled with possibilities, and a pride that moves us to tears, too.
This is the part the national media always gets wrong. They see us crying, and they think it’s because you have “given the people of New Orleans a reason to feel good about themselves.”
If we heard that once last week, we heard it a hundred times.
But that’s not it at all. We’ve always felt good about ourselves. New Orleans is home to some of the most fascinating, fun-loving, hard-working, resilient, creative, smart, sexy, generous, loving, tolerant people on the planet. We have some of the richest culinary, musical, artistic and architectural traditions in the world. What’s not to feel good about? Do Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest look like events organized by people with an inferiority complex?
Please.
We celebrate ourselves from January to December. What we have needed is someone worthy to represent us. Someone the rest of the world can associate with New Orleans who is not on the way to jail, hell, or an NFL Films blooper reel.
The national symbols of New Orleans have too often been laughingstocks and losers. We’ve always known we deserved better.
You’re better.
That’s why we get choked up. Not because we don’t think we deserve you. Because we know how much we deserve each other.
Right here, big boy. Come to papa.
So, like we said: Thank you. For representing. And for allowing us to go completely overboard about you. We know that nobody could be as good as we’re making you out to be right now. But we’ve been a little bit hero-deprived around here lately. If it’s not too uncomfortable up there, we’d like to keep you on the pedestal a little while longer.
And one last thing, Drew.
You know that fistful of black-and-gold doubloons you’re holding? Right here, big boy. Come to papa. The game is on the line and I’m Jeremy Shockey. Cock that golden arm and let ’em fly. Put them where you’ve put everything since the day you hit town:
Right in the sweet spot.
Features editor Mark Lorando can be reached at mlorando@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3430.
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