The other Jewish Elvis in Cajun country

As you can see, Andy, you're back, and I'd like to take this moment to point out your quick response and revel in your bitchness. That said, I'm glad to see your blog back up and running. I couldn't refuse you after the "dropping a deuce" comment. What can I say, I'm a sucker for a good poop joke.

It's official: Andy Delfino has reached a new low. After leaving his once mighty blog dormant for months on end, he has been replaced on my links. And not just replaced, I might add, replaced by a fucking Frenchman. Guilhem, the sometimes-intelligible, cheese making Frog living with Joe in Boise now graces the TOJECC links. Please welcome him and accept his thanks in advance for bailing him out of the next war.

Joining Guilhem is all of our second favorite person to make fun of, Hilary Costa, aka Barely Legal and h-bomb jr. Her page promises to bring you banal commentary on the latest issue of 17 (which she will be old enough to read any day now) and the excitement of an underemployed college student living in Davis for the Summer.

Ben, you're getting free rent on premium space, I expect an update soon about the intrigue of an unemployed drunk in Palo Alto.

Sunday was a day of good, wholesome, shit kicking fun for this Yankee. I covered a team penning competition in Gonzales, La. (yes, that's how they spell it here) Since no one outside of Sera probably has a clue what team penning is, I will briefly explain. Basically three riders are assigned three cows which they must find out of a herd of 30. They then must corral those three, and only those three, into a small metal pen. It's like ranching for prize money and it's actually a lot of fun to watch.

I don't know if I felt more out of place walking around Southern, our local black university, or this event (though I think the tie-breaker is my African American heritage, which really helped me blend at Southern).

Everyone was in cowboy hats, big ol' belt buckles, shit kickers with spurs and cheeks swollen with chew abounded. But everyone was friendly to the little Jew with a golf shirt and notepad.

So I got paid to hang out with a bunch of cowboys for four hours, learn about a totally foreign sport and watch the competition. Not bad. I didn't even mind the absolutely unbearable heat and stench in the un-airconditioned arena in mid-afternoon (the nice thing about the climate here is that it is perfectly acceptable to visibly sweat through your clothes and carry on with your business).

Here's the link to the article, if you're interested. It ends very abruptly because, for some reason, the on-line folks cut the last inch off the story, which kind of fucked it up, but overall it wrote itself and I think turned out pretty decent. As always, feedback is welcomed, even if it's, "Jesus Christ, Heath, what made you write like such a douche bag."

http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/062104/new_father001.shtml

While on the river for a total of four hours most of us, at some point, peed in the river, which I contend at least killed the bacteria that was waiting to hop in through the closest orafice. All of this public urination sparked a brief discussion on whether or not we peed in the shower. The response was a surprisingly unanimous "yes." This gave me an idea. To keep my loyal readers interested I have decided to start a quick poll, in the grand tradition of news websites.

So, do you pee in the shower? Why or why not. One word answers are dull, so the second part of the question is key. Also, everyone who answers "no" is a liar, but creative lying is encouraged.

Since my co-workers and I clearly don't drink enough under normal circumstances, we decided it was high time to hit the river for some tubing on Sunday. As luck would have it, the mighty Tangipahoa (pronounced phonetically) just opened up for tubing several weeks ago after years of being too polluted for recreation (though I'm not sure who made that call or how much of a vested interest they have in money made from river recreation).

So ten or so of us stripped down to our swimsuits, laying bare to the world the toll of our lifestyles, and braved the sluggish, brown waters in Tickfaw, Louisiana. Two of my buddies had planned to quit smoking shortly before the trip but, as one of them astutely observed, "You can't not smoke on the river." As a result plans were made (poorly) to keep a bag of smokes and lighters out of the water.

We were quite a sight getting on the river. Already drunk and toting three cooler tubes full of beer, I couldn't help but think of the headline of the story on the inevitable drowning about to occur. "Flotilla of drunken journalists capsizes, all feared drowned: few mourn as police spokesman holds back laughter at press conference."

The biggest tragedy of the trip, however, was that about 15 minutes in we realized that some of the cigarettes and all of the lighters were wet and unusable. Fortunately we found a kind, mulleted man drinking a beer on the river bank who rescued us from not slowly killing ourselves with a well-timed light.

After a two hour ride, we wobbled onto a bus that took us back to the launch spot. After we grabbed some suspiciously squirrelly "chicken" at a Tickfaw kebab stand, we did it again.

Reason #2,039 that I love my job: This morning I get a call from my fellow cops reporter, Josh. He was walking downtown when he bumped into a guy who had just got out of Angola (where the really bad dudes go away in Louisiana. Something like 80 percent are in on life sentences) and had no idea how to find his parole officer. Josh wanted to help the guy out but, understandably, didn't feel entirely comfortable driving alone with a stranger who just got out of Angola.

So I went to meet Josh and his new buddy, Jessie. Turns out Jessie had been in Angola for 12 years. He's from Alexandria, which is about two hours north of Baton Rouge and has no ties to Baton Rouge. He doesn't really have any family to speak of in Louisiana and the state decided that Jessie would be OK if they dropped him off in a strange city with a $10 check, the clothes on his back and a manila envelope with shelter addresses and assorted personal information. Asked why he was placed in Baton Rouge, Jessie had no idea other than that the prison decided to put him there.

The immediate problem Jessie faced was that he was released this morning and had to meet with his parole officer by 2 p.m. tomorrow about 10 miles away from the bus station where he was dropped off. Jessie had neither transportation nor any idea where his parole officer's address was. It was pure luck that he asked a cops reporter for help. If he doesn't get in touch with the parole officer by 2 p.m. the Department of Corrections will issue a warrant for his arrest and he will likely be all kinds of fucked.

So we took Jessie to a shelter close by and there we sat down with Carl, a massive, built, bearded black man with a couple of crude tats on his arm and a big gold cross hanging off of his neck. Carl did 20 years in Angola but, since he got out 10 years ago, he has been helping prisoners get started after release (a job apparently not made easier by a prison that just completed work on a new golf course for employees).

Jessie is soft spoken, friendly and was very appreciative that we helped him out. He's been far from a model citizen, however. You don't go to Angola for 12 years for stealing candy and he went for aggravated sexual battery and attempted murder. So Jessie's got more problems than most parolees: he's a felon and a registered sex offender. It's hard to feel sorry for a guy with that record, and I really have little sympathy for sex offenders, but it's also hard to justify dumping a guy who's served his time into a foreign place with sparse instructions and no one to go to for help. It certainly doesn't make me feel very safe that a guy whose just served 12 years and has to write "felon" on every job application is not given more assistance to avoid being a threat to the public again.

I hope we helped Jessie out a bit and I'm going to do my best to keep up with him and see if he makes it, although he has more than a few obstacles.

At the front entrance of The Advocate we have security guards 24 hours a day. I'm in and out of the building all the time so I constantly see them and have gotten to know some of them. I'm to the point where I know what Oliver, the gigantic, bald, mustached, black dude drinks (Crown on the rocks) and have drank it with him. More often than not I come in, say hello, and bullshit a little with whatever security guard is working at the time.

One of the female guards recently started acting strange when I would walk in. Sometimes she would say, "Hi," and kind of turn away with an embarrassed look and other times she would be talking to a fellow security guard and immediately get quiet and giggle when I walked in.

When my co-worker and buddy came up to the news room one day and told me she had asked him, "Where's your pin-up friend?" I knew it might be problematic (although, really, who hasn't used my name and "pin-up" in the same sentence? Don't fight it, it's useless).

It's only gotten worse. When I was walking to my car one night, a different security guard chased me to my car to warn me that this chick was "after me." "She said you're always smiling at her and saying, 'Hi.'" I guess I missed the memo about basic courtesy equaling flirting, but I guess I should just stick with my instinct and be a dickhead all the time.

The most recent development has been my admirer calling a news aide who works across from me and asking her what I'm doing, which is a bizarre mix of juvenile and creepy. She also has started making a habit of coming up to the newsroom to talk to the same news aide and occasionally poke her head up and look at me. The other day she told the news aide she watches me on the security cameras and alluded to something else she would like to do involving a camera.

But Heath, you say, why don't you go for it? What I failed to mention is that this woman is 26 and has four kids, ages 5,6,7 and 8. I'm just hoping she's not armed.