This is a satire on the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board:\r\n\r\nMelba Carondelet Attends a Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans Press Conference \r\n\r\nhttp://www.crescentcitychronicles.net/MELBA_CARONDELET/Sewerage_and_Water_Board_of_New_Orleans_Funds_Another_Study_in_Wake_of_Hurricane_Katrina.htm \r\n\r\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\r\n\r\nMelba Carondelet Reports on Hurricane Katrina and the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans\r\n\r\nIn which: the wily Melba Carondelet, in disguise again, dresses as Gertrude Stein to attend a mendacious Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans Press Conference hosted by the \"always\" truthful and \"seldom\" corrupt Mrs. Larcia St. Charlatan, Executive Director; during the Press Conference of lies and nonsense Melba reminisces, naps, and yet pays attention at times to what is presented to her; Melba, ever sensitive to the visual and superficial world around her, is appalled at the perverse Carnival krewe-like appearance of the \"professional\" staff in attendance of Mrs. Larcia St. Charlatan; and eventually Melba makes good her escape from the dangerous effluvia - the hot air and the New Orleans flood waters of hurricane Katrina - rising in the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans offices. Although this picaresque chapter concerns Melba Carondelet there are brief appearances of the her ever faithful retainer Hallelujah Washington (with a past as mysterious as that of La Melba Carondelet) and the handsome and strong Monsieur Marcel Proust La Peniche, pirogue oarsman.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nMelba Carondelet - New Orleans prima diva correspondent, party girl, and personality\r\n\r\nAMCP - ASSOCIATED MELBA CARONDELET PRESS - DATELINE: NEW ORLEANS (OR IS IT LAKE NEW ORLEANS?) - SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2005\r\n\r\nSewerage and Water Board of New Orleans Funds Another Useless Study in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina\r\n\r\nBy Melba Carondelet \r\n\r\nAlons mon chers, this is your dear correspondent, Melba Carondelet, reporting from Lake New Orleans to all of you dear, dear victims, survivors, refugees, nutria, alligators (albino and otherwise), chameleons, cicadas, cock roaches, crawfish, crab-fags, crab-fag-hags, and aspiring politicos. \r\n\r\nRising on a rainy Sunday morning in my cluttered sleeping chamber in Maison Midden De La Melba (ah, what will the future archeologists make of the le grand town home of your Melba when it is unearthed in some distant future, quelle memoirs they will discover of a life of fascination avec touts le glamour) in the Vieux Carre (in the distance the sounds of the St. Louis Cathedral bells chimed - the only clean thing in the French Quarter as said my bon ami - Tennessee), I heard and espied (through my network of spies quelle sons extensive) that Executive Director Mrs. Larcia St. Charlatan of the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans http://www.swbno.org/ was holding a Press Conference at her downtown upscale office. After a pensive moment, your thoughtful Melba tinkled her Baccarat crystal house servant bell. When my housemaid, first cousin, and faithful household retainer, Hallelujah Washington, finally arrived, I delivered my edict. \"Hallelujah,\" I intoned, \"Get out my sensible Gertrude Stein mackintosh and matching galoshes. I am going to the S&WB Press Conference on St. Joseph Street. And, yes, I think that, pour le chapeau, a Monica Lewinsky beret (ah, dear Monica so sweet and naïf, if only you had confided in La Melba instead of that hard lesbian-like Linda Tripp) will complete my outfit. No jewelry - je ne pense non - those looters are still about; and for some reason I have been recently mistaken for one of those stately State Street Drive homos, I mean homes. Being looted is not a pleasant experience! And Hallelujah, ma cher cousin, those white day gloves - not the black opera-length ones you tried to send me off with on my last press conference pour Le Presidente de Les Etats Unis et sa femme! George and Laura, as Les Bushes are known to moi, would not have been amused to see me in such disgraceful attire; and mon Dieu, Mrs. Larcia St. Charlatan far is below them in social standing! And only a cretina as she would hold a Press Conference on a Sunday. How typical - another of her ruses to keep the press away!\"\r\n\r\nAfter finding a handy, huge, double-wide pirogue (rowed by a handsome Cajun man - Monsieur Marcel Proust La Peniche) to get moi to the SW&B office, I stumbled aboard my watery conveyance. Your Melba sang a piquant barcarolle as I daintily sipped a Pernod frappe from an extra-large Blue Plate mayonnaise jar arriving in fashionably late as is my wont. But quelle horror and insultament! The Executive Director of the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans, Mrs. Larcia St. Charlatan had the nerve to be even later. (How dare she. How dare she. How dare she!) Eventually she waddled in with her waterlogged staff; and started spouting the usual cover-up lies. (Before those insults started, your Melba had been eyeing (not unlike an American condor) the crowd to see whom she would bestow her flirtatious glance upon (not a one - but I did notice a Miss Hardgela Hillcock (also known as Hardgela of the Clumped Lashes) look-alike that could develop into a bad, mad, and sad crush); but your correspondent did manage to concentrate on the Press Conference.) It was announced, that, once again, the S&WB has found 35 million clams to fund another \"important study.\" \r\n\r\n(Your Melba would have sighed loudly, but she was too appalled at her vision of Mrs. Larcia St. Liar and the S&WB \"professional\" staff. \"What a krewe,\" I muttered in my best Uta Hagen Daz stage whisper.) \r\n\r\nBut, tout alors, staff seems such a wrong word - repulsive menagerie seems a propos. There was she, Mrs. Larcia St. Liar, squeezed, jammed, and rammed into her navy blue Kathie Lee Gifford \"business-power-suit\" looking like a three ton sausage jammed and rammed into a half ton casing. (What was amazing to your WW&W-Catering-Company-finger-sandwich-deprived Melba (a classy uptown company that caters to Carnival royalty and stars of le ballet), that with all the food rationing after hurricane Katrina, the porcine-figured-woman had not lost a half-ounce. Your Melba would say she had even gained a bit of tonnage.)\r\n\r\n\r\nShe was flanked, on her left, by Mr. J. Grunter Mulligan-Stewart, General Superintendent. He was bare footed, and seemed to be wearing a Spanish moss suit. On her right was Ms. Clueless Twitchell, titular head of the Computer Center in some hippy-dippy ensemble consisting of tie-dyed peasant blouse and Indian sari skirt. All in some day glow repulsive colors of lime green and pink. At least her horny toes were shod in some vintage Earth Shoes. On her big toe she was wearing a Mood Ring - it was black and also the crust under all of her toenails, as black - or negre as mon cher Mamamita would have said - as le mood of La Melba. \r\n\r\nWhen Clueless started to toss her macraméd pony tail, your Melba was reminded of the wrong end of horse parading in Comus - long since gone now by the divisive and destructive \"work\" of then, now sadly deceased - singing in the Gospel Choir Celestial - former City Councilwoman Dorothy Mae Taylor. Quelle dommage what she did to Mardi Gras. The all women\'s Krewe of Venus expired with a defiant cry of \"No penis in Venus!\" And the Krewe of Momus satirically stated as they stopped parading... But that is another story for another day. Manana, as the charmant Espanol say. \r\n\r\nBut, back to the agenda at gloved hand and galoshed foot (such a shapely foot may I add, a foot that has trod hither and yon, even across the dykes - I mean dikes of the tulip-ed isle of Holland. Amongst the windmills, I was once photographed by Sir Cecil Beaton in wooden shoes and the quaint national dress of the country. I have to find the pictures to see what gender I dressed as. Ah quelle memoirs. . .) Mrs. Larcia St. Charlatan (referred to with affection as Mrs. Larcia St. Liar en famille and by her closest associates - and for brevity in typing I will refer to her as simply and succinctly as St. Liar from now on) announced she has given the go-ahead for the select group of her \"blue ribbon\" associates of the firm Negre and Retch, Limited, to find out why people in New Orleans need to drink purified water. Your Melba chocked back a great guffaw at the idiocy of yet another dumb money waster. \r\n\r\nWhen your Melba asked if this was a question that common sense might answer, rather than a two million dollar study, St. Liar snittily responded, \"Well, with all the natural abundance of water around this town I don\'t see why the S&WB should spend so much money on its antiquated water treatment plants for clean drinking water; and the ancient underground sewerage system for the removal of yucky waste water. So of course we will need a study to confirm this. We always need studies, the higher the cost the better.\" \r\n\r\n(\"A study that can only be trusted to the pas a blanc greedy grasping manos of her friends, such as Bishop Saul Farton,\" your Melba thought in a moment of niggardly regard. I began to reminisce, not so fondly, of other past studies. There was the 5 million dollar study to comply with a Federal consent decree (or the \"dissent decree\" as it was mis-named by St. Liar until corrected by Ms. Clueless Twitchell - but that was another Press Conference, alors they do seem to extend into la infinite) concerning the alleged pollution from the sewer system into Lake Pontchartrain. There was 10 million dollar study for the gathering of data for CASS Woiks Suh-purt (CASS Works Support - CASS Works stands for Computer Aided Support Software - a 1 million database and Work Order system in misuse by the S&WB and other city governmental agencies); that at least had the hydrants painted - but not in the gay colors that moi suggested. How decoratively useful even so at the cost of 10 million dollars. There was the 20 million study to supply free water to Gospel Choirs during and after Jazz Fest. There was the 25 million dollar study to discover how the Motin-saurus -the ancestress of Mrs. Laxine Motin (it is important to stress the \"tin\" in her familial name, if not it \"comes out\" as \"ton,\" which becomes more a reference to her grotesque weight). She is now Emergency Response and Data Entry Supervisor (when she was the supervisor for Water Accounts, had delayed the payments for a relative until caught and promoted to her present position). Studies by genealogists and paleontologists have found her ancestresses used to roam the lower Mississippi River Delta during the Jurassic period. That was a 30 million dollar study. . . Your Melba napped. Only to be woken by that sussurating St. Liar\'s voice; and magically it seems your Melba did not miss one single \"bon mot.\" (Thank the goddess I had invested in that spy-like hearing aid with a teeny-tiny digital recorder, which I played back later to hear the speeches.)) \r\n\r\n\"We have enough rain every year, \"St. Liar said cheerfully. \"Look how much water the latest hurricane - Katrina - brought into the city,\" she continued with idiot savant glee.\" \"Why, there are now about ninety thousand cubic miles of water just floating around,\" St. Liar droned on in trance-like happy manner. \r\n\r\n\"All people have to do is dip any old gumbo pot or shrimp/oyster/turkey deep fryer into the H2O stuff; and use it,\" she opined and paused and smiled a crocodile smile. \"At one time every home had a cypress cistern tank beside each roof that caught the copious amounts of rain water that flowed from the rooftops and that seemed to work very well for our ancestors,\" she continued historically, fluttering her eyelids coyly along with another treaclely smile - a smile that showed her own great pleasure in her \"knowledge\" of New Orleans history; but this facial ruse was not a trap for your Melba. As she absent mindedly ran her stubby fingers through her over processed nappy hair, St. Liar waxed and digressed poetic saying, \"And during that time the crinoline clad mistress of the Tara-like plantation house would have her faithful housemaid brush her fine blonde hair at least one hundred, firm, hard, stern strokes. This intimate act, almost lesbian like in nature, occurred as twilight fell and the field slaves tiredly trudged in from their work in the cotton, indigo, and sugar cane fields singing dirge-like Negro spirituals.\" Lost in her histrionic moment, St Liar flowed on, \"We light skinned folk - the much better folk - remained inside the big house; and took care of all the wants of the master and mistress and the family.\" \r\n\r\n(At this poetically puke inducing moment, your Melba began to drift off into the land of Morpheus dreaming of a fire engine red hoop skirt like Bette Davis defiantly wore in the 1938 movie melodrama Jezebel. But only the skirt was made of brown satin as the film was in black and white - such is the magic and illusion of la cinematique.) \r\n\r\nBut the St. Liar insistently brought your Melba back from blessed illusion as she tried to focus, \"Oh, but I digress.\" \r\n\r\n(Your patient Melba thought, \"La idiota St. Liar must have realized how mindless her remarks were. Listen to that embarrassed chuckle she is making.\")\r\n\r\n\"That is why we need another study done,\" St. Liar reaffirmed and continued with \"sincere\" passion. \"We need to see why New Orleanians can\'t use the water that the good Lord - praise Jesus - gives them in abundance!\"\r\n\r\n(Your Melba stifled a yawn; and I so tried to lapse into a small nap-ette. But again that voice kept your dear your suffering Melba awake as if she had ingested gallons of caffeine. But your Melba slept until a new masculine voice brought me round again.)\r\n\r\nAnother high official of the S&WB, Mr. J. Grunter Mulligan-Stewart, General Superintendent, interrupted St. Liar to say, \"Well, one of the problems we have is all those dammed - pardon my French you M_____ F___ing Press Pussies - ancient oak trees growing all over the city.\" \r\n\r\n(Your Melba was shocked at this utterance.) \r\n\r\nHe growled on, \"I have tried to get every damn one of them cut down so their roots won\'t destroy the underground pipes we have installed over the last two hundred years.\" \"But those damned tree huggers must pay off some other (even though the doofuses know we demand the money) city officials because I can\'t get you idiots to see how reasonable this great plan would be,\" he continued angrily.\r\nClad in his Spanish Moss suit, he did not continue for long as St. Liar hogged the Press Conference once more. \"Now, now, J. Grunter,\" St. Liar said demurely with the proper bit of disdain, gazing covetously out at the great lake that hurricane Katrina has made out of New Orleans, \"those nasty old trees will probably die from root rot now - not to mention the elm and magnolia trees also, so we can cancel that \'brilliant\' idea, can\'t we?\" \"There\'s beaucoup water everywhere now, and with another hurricane - Rita - on the way, there will be plenty of fresh water everywhere again soon,\" she said happily as a bloated body floated past her view followed by two dogs, several cats, and a mule that had pulled many a carriage laden with happy tourists through the French Quarter. All of which she didn\'t seem to notice. \"And besides the pipes will not be needed at all once people learn to ladle, ladle, ladle,\" St. Liar said with child-like happiness.\r\n\r\n(\"Brackish water at least from the storm surge,\" I so wanted to interrupt with. But a loud scream stopped me cold.)\r\n\r\nIt was Ms. Clueless Twitchell, Director of the Computer Center. She screamed out in her usual loud speaking voice, \"What about the Spanish moss? It is a parasite, you know, similar to Mr. Jonathan Zitherwoman my Blockhead-Charlatan Incorporated contract minion. But remember, he is under contract to me, and me only. It is all about me, me, me. It is always \'ME!\' Without the oak trees it will die.\" \"And J. Grunter would be naked. I would rather see you naked, dearest Larcia,\" she shouted incessantly! \r\n\r\n(\"Oh Lord that is all I need to see,\" thought your Melba in a state of horreur, \"a desnudo St. Liar and/or a desnudo Mr. J. Grunter Sullivan.\" \"And Spanish moss is: \'An epiphytic bromeliad plant (Tillandsia usneoides) of the southeast United States and tropical America, having gray threadlike stems drooping in long, densely matted clusters.,\'\" you loud mouthed computer nerd-lette, your Melba painfully thought to herself as I jammed on a pair of ear protectors \"borrowed\" from the Louis Armstrong International Airport. These protectors I had Hallelujah make so much more flattering by hot-gluing rhinestones and ostrich feathers \"liberated\" from Chris Owens\' show place at the corner of Bourbon Street and Desire Street during the first days of chaos following the arrival of Katrina. \"And \'computer nerd-lette\' gives too much credence to your non-intelligence too, Clueless,\" I thought accurately - if unkindly.) \r\n\r\nContinuing in a voice made to be heard by matriarchal elephants, starting in Africa and then heard around the world, she shouted, \"And we planned to use it to network all of our computers running on our new operating system Windows 98 B. K., (Before Katrina).\"\r\n\r\n\"Spanish moss is better than fiber optic cable any old day according to Miss Belinda \'Cajun Dance Hall Choreographer Queen\' Nellyson, Senior Technical Administrator,\" she bellowed. She is under you St. Liar, figuratively and literally,\" she yelled. \"St. Liar who can I get to weave the Spanish moss into the network I need,\" she screamed. \r\n\r\nUnknown to her, or ignored by her, everyone of the Fourth Estate tried to cover their bleeding ears with varying degrees of subtlety. \r\n\r\nBefore St. Liar could reply, a strange Vietnamese personage Mr. It-So-Easy Ngookyen began hoping about madly like a horny toad on a hot Texas highway. In broken English he rapidly said, \"It so easy, it so easy, it so easy! You want me do? Me make Bill Gates Microsoft Total Access database. Me get number one son, and only one boy child so far, to help. (We sell useless girl childs to masculine womens. They happy with useless girl childs. They strange. They nature\'s mistakes. But they buy girl childs. That so easy for them. That so good for me and stupid wife.) But back to boy. He seven. He smart. We do long time.\" \r\n\r\nAs this Carnival-freak-show-like display was about to continue, your observant Melba noticed brown pooh-pooh water seeping from beneath St. Liar\'s podium. Noticing the water was not running down her trunk like legs; but rising towards the St. Liar\'s mons veneris I accurately surmised that the Industrial Canal was leaking like it was made of Swiss cheese on a Mother\'s Restaurant row-owe-ast boeuf po-boy (roast beef po-boy).\r\n\r\nNot waiting around for the sight and smell to alert the other members of the Fourth Estate, your Melba used the quick wits that had saved her on the Titanic\'s ill-fated maiden voyage (the legendary part left out of all books and film versions of that disaster. Quelle fromage!). I leapt gracefully from my seat; and with a ballet jump - a grand jete I learned at the feet of Dame Margot Fonteyn - your Melba quit the Press Conference. Oh oui, with that graceful and breathtaking leap your Melba left the Press Conference room. \r\n\r\n(This leap had been admired by the great deceased choreographer Joseph Cranko; and many, many times he begged and pleaded with me to return to the stage. But that is another story. Back to the rising poop laden water.) \r\n\r\nYour diva ballerina Melba leapt and landed in the arms of the handsome Cajun, Monsieur Marcel Proust La Peniche who had brought me in the double-wide pirogue to this useless Press Conference; and was faithfully waiting for moi. \r\n\r\n(I did not pay him his full fare; but that would have nothing to do with it. La Melba inspires fanatical devotion and loyalty.)\r\n\r\n\"Mon Cher,\" I gasped to the \"dawlin\'\" (darling) man, \"nous allons en suite a le Hill du Monkey avec Le Parc du Audubon! L\'eau de le merde chercher la femme!\" Melba fainted and knew no more. \r\n\r\n(Poetic translation of the French: \"My Dear, let us hurry to Monkey Hill in Audubon Park! The s___ laden water is looking for the woman!\")\r\n\r\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------