06-28-08 LA CA: 2250 hrs. I have lost count as to how many times I have been to New Orleans. I have been touring through there since 1981. I have to say that this visit was the most meaningful. I have never stayed in the town for that many days and seen so many different parts of it. To access the city through the Katrina filter is a whole other thing than what I usually do. I interviewed several people in the two days of shooting and the stories were everything from extremely sad to inspirational as hell to barely believable trying to get my head around the information. The city is doing better than it was in the days immediately after Katrina hit, of course but there’s a lot of work that needs to be done and it won’t be finished for quite some time. That being said, the amount of people who drop into New Orleans to help out when they can is constant and I don’t think that will be stopping any time soon. Americans are great and they show it when they take their vacations and spring break holidays to come to the city to pitch in. In a way, New Orleans, Louisiana is every American’s city. If we lose this one, we lose big. NOLA is such a huge part of our culture and such an important part of what makes America so great. Hopefully the program we worked on down there will convey this and remind people that three years later, we should not forget the place. I got back here Friday. I have enough time to take care of a few things and then move out again. It’s going to be a busy year, so let’s go already.