David Freeman’s 1st-hand Account | WWOZ
I spent 2-1/2 years in Louisiana. It was a difficult time of my life, having just “left” DePaul University’s Theatre School after one year in the M.F.A. acting program, and just a month before getting married. Amy and I stayed a year in Chicago, where I punked around trying to find direction and a release for my anger (which didn’t materialize for a while). She wanted to go to Tulane for her master’s work, so we headed south with a heavy credit card debt that would eventually lead to bankruptcy. I worked at the McDonald’s of businss, Kinko’s of Metairie, for 9 months while Amy knocked on the door of Admissions until she got in. Eventually, I got a better job at Xavier Univerisity. For Amy, it was an intellecutal joyride and one of the most connected experiences in her life. For me, it was 2-1/2 years that seemed like 50.
No real public transportation. Living near a strip joint on a Mardi Gras parade route near a tacky mall. A sports section that forgot baseball was America’s pastime. Politics heavy with nepotism and blatant racism. Humidity that brought the Gulf into the air. Driver’s incapable of merging. Drunks and debauchery celebrated. Stagnant. Lonely. However, there were a few things I wanted to take with me in the suitcase out of town. The Audubon Zoo is amazing. The food is tremendous. For one month out of the year (October) the weather was perfect. Xavier was enriching and, especially after time served at Kinko’s, like a big warm hug. And then there was the music.
WWOZ is a community radio station in New Orleans. It plays eclectic local music, drawing from both its rich history and a bevy of current performers. I listened to the crazy Cajun guy on Sundays, shouting his Hooo-weee, Dawlin’ into the mike and clearing my sinuses in the process. I heard Timothea. Kermit Ruffins. Mem Shannon. The Marsailis and Nevilles. Snooks Eaglin. Germaine Bazzle. Ingrid Lucia and the Flying Neutrinos. Dr. Michael White. Traditional jazz. Funk. Southern Motown. Everything in between. This was a station, always accessible, run by the people making the music. There were free promotional concerts, with Kermit cooking gumbo for his fans. We didn’t have much money, but we gave it willingly during the fund drives. And when we did leave — right at the cusp of the mainstream Internet revolution — I was able to pack up WWOZ and take it with me, in the form of state-of-the-art streaming video feeds.
Now, the studio is under water, courtesy of failed levees on both sides of Armstrong Park. If my New Orleans geography is correct, the maps show the flood waters ending just a few blocks south of the little WWOZ studio. Forget for the moment the financial and structural obstacles to getting that location back up and running as a broadcast studio; think about the archive of past shows and library of music. Did that get out? If it didn’t, it isn’t likely to be usable ever again. I don’t see Germaine’s name on the list of surviving musicians, but certainly some locals didn’t make it through Katrina and the Army Corps of Engineers. What about the structures that cannot be replaced, and about the core cultural base who will likely be too poor to return. This is a city forever changed, and it breaks my heart.
Even reborn, New Orleans will likely return to being some of the things I hated in the mid-1990s. It doesn’t matter, though. I’m in graduate school and as poor as I’ve been, debating between re-upping at IU for three more years and a PhD and cashing in on my new training to return my family to the black. And for the past 72 hours, all I keep thinking about is driving down south, cruising onto the ruins of I-10 and pulling a squeegee out of the trunk. I’m picturing how much physical, emotional and community repair will be needed, particularly by my abandoned friends. I find myself picturing a Christmas trip south to hammer and paint, and perhaps set myself up with a job. I see myself helping rebuild a city I couldn’t stand because of a radio station I can’t stand to lose.