The Chicory Year in Review

January
– We were all like, “Holy shit! The Saints won 13 games in a row then lost three and now who knows what the hell is going to happen.” Of course the haters were sure we were going to be one-and-done in the playoffs. A 7 point loss to the Cowboys and a 3 point loss in OT to the Bucs and a loss to Carolina by our back-ups was all the convincing needed.

– There was a hard freeze that lasted for like a week and a bunch of vegetation died. New Orleans looked like a landscape out of The Road. Actually, New Orleans was a landscape out of The Road. People’s pipes froze and many of us sported an Earthy, well-worn aesthetic.

– John Georges had a hard time with New Orleans bloggers. Excuse me, I mean dangerous people on the Internet.

– The Saints went to the Super Bowl and muh-fuckers went all crzy. The Saints demolished two future hall of fame quarterbacks on the way.This graphic sums it all up.

February

– The District C City Council race got all ugly in Algiers. And then it got all uglier.

– The Saints won the Super Bowl, Mitch got elected by 70% of the vote and then it was Mardi Gras and I am not exactly sure how I persevered.

March

– Hmmmm, what DID happen in March?

April

– I was particularly embaressed that I only posted twice in the entire month of April but, what the hell, the festivals take a lot out of a folk artist.

– But even though I wasn’t at my best in May and the blog was starting to fade, the whole thing got going again the next month after the Deepwater Horizon explosion killed 13 men and sunk.

May

– The Deepwater Horizon explosion and leak continued to gush the blood of the Earth into the Gulf, killing oysters, pelicans, people’s livlihoods and essentially fucking everything up for probably the rest of my life, which may not be very long considering I am a living, breathing experiment on the effects of Corexit on a human physiology.

– Newt Gingrich called Louisiana a “testbed of government failure” and that fucking bastard was actually right.

– Of course there were always those fuckers who liked to sum things up and make everything seem so much easier to understand than the rest of us. These are the true geniuses of our society. The ones that are enlightened enough to see beyond all the details and simply see the big picture. Fuck all that small stuff. These are the people who need a picture of the food on their menu at restaurants. … Oh, uh, they said anyone who drove a car should STFU about the spill.

– Treme was in full swing by this time and several current and former New Orleans bloggers made a fantastic blog about the show called Back of Town.

– I can also cite this month as the moment the honeymoon was over between me and Barack Obama. Though I will still vote for him in 2012 because the GOP just can’t seem to figure out how not to suck.

June

– I started to realize local gumments were doing shit that, well, sort of sucked from the vantage point of the electorate. DUI checkpoints? Red light and speed cameras? 8 o’clock music curfews? Placard reentry. Hey guys, FUCK THAT.

– By this time the spill was all over the Gulf and people were either exasperated or infuriated. Others were desperately trying to come up with a solution because BP had their head up their ass. People were talking about sweeping it up with oil tankers and unleashing the river to fight it and Billy Nungesser was talking about building giant berms.

– A major step in the widening of the Huey P. Long bridge took place with the first of three “big lifts.” A completed second truss will be finished next year. So if you want to enjoythe Huey P as it was meant to be experienced, get over to Jefferson soon.

July

By July, some folks had pretty much decided the end was nigh. They had some dubious evidence and they decided it was enough to share with everyone. Folks being fascinated with their own destruction as they are, started having a lot of sex with each other. Actually, that last part didn’t happen.

– I sent a letter to Kristen Palmer about a dangerous intersection in my neighborhood and they said they were sending it along to the traffic department. I have never heard back from them and there hasn’t been much of a change at the intersection. I next need to send them an image of a stop sign that has been attached to a telephone poll a block or so away.

Also, this funny thing happened. I forgot what that whole thing was about. It was about rascism and agriculture. Fuck, I don’t know. Not sure how any of it matters six months later. 72 hour news cycle must be appeased I suppose.

August

– The 2010 Summer was long and relentless. The cicadas whistled strongly. “When cicadas sing strong, the summer runs long.”

– August was a decent month for bloggers as a the collection “A Howling in the Wires” was released and the 5th Rising Tide Conference took place. It was agreed upon by many that it was the best yet. It was the drunkest one yet for me. Even the Keynote was cocktailed. Also, other stuff happened.

– The somber 5th anniversary of the Flood came and went. It will be another five years before America has to care again.

– I think BP plugged the well at some point but no one believed a fucking word they said at that point.

September

– Okay, first and foremost, Walgreens started selling BEER. As a Liquor Lobbyist I was thrilled. The free market prevailed over temperance.

– Now, fuck all that other shit because now it’s football season. And all season long, announcers have to identify us as the Super Bowl Champion New Orleans Saints.

– By the end of the Summer, people were starting to lose it on the Square.

– The measure of Hartley began.

– The Macondo well was officially plugged but the flow of GCCF claims had just begun.

October

– Fall did not really show up for October.

– The Saints began to suck and the Uptown Ladies started coming out of the woodwork. One of them in the comments of this post, a guy named Mike with no e-mail or Web site, seemed genuinely angry about my optimism regarding the Saints ability to bounce back from losses. It was as if he had a personal interest in seeing the team suck. He also presumed I was a bandwagon fan and had me “pegged for Saints fan circa 2006, maybe 2005” even though it was he who was actually giving up on the team. Anyway, the Saints eventually ended up winning six straight and him and all the Uptown Ladies got all shut the fuck up.

November

– Back in January, people got all pissed off about the NFL trying enforce it’s copyright on merchandise marketed toward Saints fans with black and gold coloring WITH fleur de lis or “Who Dat.” It got really obnoxious and finally just became absurd when David Vitter got all up in the NFL’s grill. In December, these guys made the same claim and no one seemed to give a damn.

– And I’ll just say it again right here, Left Eye deserves more money.

December

– This is really the most significant thing that happened in December 2010.