A Vision of Life; Dream of Healing for Marigny Residents

Just for a minute, let's pretend.

Forget all the politics, the connections &
What Chuck Wants & How Much Smarter  Pres
Kabacoff is....

Imagine that next door, is a Healing Center.
It has affordable child care services
(what happened to that?), adult education,
a food co-op, yoga classes, Reiki & Reiki
training, dance groups, meetings, Live
Jazz performances, plays, readings, poetry
slams, street university, art  galleries,
alternative food places, and herbal shops,
maybe even costume  parties....

You see how very BEAUTIFUL this is?

When the sun goes down, you'd see some low
lighting, and watch people meander in & out,
until 10 or so, and then have a couple of
hours of peace, if you can stay awake, and
then begin again the next day.

I supported this.
I still do.
But somehow, I am faced with a very different dream....

It's 2am.
I have to get up at 6am to try to make the
weekly bills, and come out ahead,  maybe
going out both Friday & Saturday, if I play my cards right.

But there's car doors slamming outside my window.
Even the muffled laughter and  normal excited conversation
is loud, because it's right outside my window. If I  close
the windows, it will get really hot, and I don't want to run
the AC. It's  a waste of both money & resources.

Besides, the breeze is already blocked by heavy curtains so
those 25 foot tall prison spotlights don't light up my room
like Christmas.

The door slamming will go on for another two hours.

It starts when the show ends at 2am (if they don't run late)
and then there's an  hour period to 'cool down'. Of course,
I'm guessing when those people find out they only have an
hour left to drink, they'll start slamming them, like people
everywhere do at last call.
As a bartender, we used to yell "Last Call!" just to get business up.
It's  amazing.

So, anyway, at 3am, when they're done 'cooling down', anywhere from
20 to 200 hundred people are going to "gradually and in small groups"
be allowed to leave. Maybe this will take less than an hour. Maybe not.

Now its almost 4am, and I'm hoping they'll remember to turn off those
ridiculous lights, but what the hell....
I have to get up in 2 hours anyway.

I'll never make it through 6 o'clock tomorrow night, though,
and that's happened already this  week. Less work means less money,
but I'm exhausted. So obviously I won't be going out at all.
In fact, I really don't feel very well at all, as I haven't slept
through the  night yet this week.

Now, tell me about the Healing Center, unifying & healing the
neighborhood.
Or is it Pres & Sallie, knowing full well that the River Front
Development is  coming (I'm surprised they haven't taken credit for it),
and they now have the  first full blown Night Club on St Claude, and
have managed to change the zoning  for any other great ideas they have,
including selling of parking spaces at all  hours, every day.

Maybe even taking their "Its only 153 sq ft" (lie) BAR to 24 hours.
If we couldn't stop them now, what makes you think we can
stop them then?
In fact, I expect one of them to run for office any time now.

Thanks for pretending with me.
It's time to go back to your own peaceful life.
While you still can.

Lord David
Spain & Rampart