Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Krewe du Peckerhead

Let's talk about my backyard a little bit more...

For the past couple of months, I've had this beautiful, yet afflicted, cardinal hanging out in my backyard.  Every day starting around 10 am, this guy...we'll call him Greg...starts a day long ritual of flying into my backdoor window.  Apparently he is so enamored with his own reflection he just can't get enough of himself.  All day long he keeps launching kamikaze attacks on my window, banging his pecker into the glass over and over and over....



At first it was a novelty, I thought there may even be a method to the madness...maybe even a net-method (wow that was bad).  I had hoped that perhaps Greg would eventually attract a mate and bear fruit with his nosediving antics.

Alas, I came to realize it was a lost cause.  He's just going to keep banging his pecker against any shiny thing which catches his attention; a creature consumed with that which reflects his own image.  

The totality of the St. Pierre trial did, indeed, prove to be a one hell of a show.  Encouraged by the response of my previous post, I decided to attend on Wednesday and Thursday to see if I could create a job out of color-commentating criminal trials.  My flippant demeanor was quelled right out of the gate on Wednesday morning when I found myself looking at an email from 2007, sent by St. Pierre to the rest of his partners in crime proudly touting that he had discovered the blogger behind AZ...then proceeded to list my wife and children by name.

I already knew they had me investigated, that wasn't a big deal nor a revelation.  In fact, if you have been with AZ from the beginning you should remember my knee jerk response to their original "we got you now" message.

When they sent that first message, I was in Washington, D.C. with my friend and fellow filmmaker, Vince Morelli.  We were at a coffee shop on Pennsylvania Avenue trying to set up a meeting with someone from Sen. Mary Landrieu's office about screening our documentary, Left Behind, to select members of congress (never happened...we basically got blown off in case you're wondering).   

Their first message to me didn't scare me in the least.  Contrary to my critics' belief I was never that concerned with my own anonymity.  I was more concerned with the anonymity of my sources and if they fingered me it would put them one step closer to my peeps.  They thought they knew who the original Anon was in my first Imagine post, but they were incorrect.  I withheld posting their message because it was mostly incorrect and I didn't want to name the person they thought was one of my sources.  That emboldened them and they sent me the following message:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "New Orleans is a DBA, who woulda thunk it?":

A lot of other people are reading that comment - you know, the one that is making you piss in your pants - with the addition that we all know that you are not interested in the truth.

We know you won't publish that comment. All of us. It is so evident to everyone now(the real press, included) that you are not interested in the truth. Greg Meffert is smarter than you are - all legally, too - and you feel like a big political loser. You are right.

I love that line, "all legally, too".  Yeah boy....time doth tell.

I'm assuming they sent that info they dug up on me to the TP and/or other members of the press.  If they did, that may have been the stupidest move they made, almost as stupid as going on WWL with Garland.  Mainly because they didn't realize that no one gave two shits to Jesus who I was at the time and on top of that they had mixed me up with Jason Berry, the internationally renowned writer of "Lead Us Not Into Temptation" (If I had a quarter for every time I was introduced to someone in New Orleans and heard "Oh, you're the OTHER Jason Berry").   Also, I was already talking with "members of the press", they already knew who I was.  All of my fellow bloggers knew who I was.  It wasn't a big secret and exposing me would not quell the facts.  They were not only trying to kill the messenger (perhaps literally), they were telling everyone "Hey!  We're killing the messenger!  Problem solved!"

Banging their peckers against the wall.

When I saw that email up on the screen in the courtroom, I have to admit my stomach sank a little.  I knew they had investigated me but to see my kids' names and my wife's name listed in the email was harrowing.  It was somewhat of a slap in the face...this blog ain't no game...I'm screwing with millions of dollars and potential jail time with snakes like St. Pierre.  I take full responsibility for that but keep it in the kitchen, I'm the chef so bring the heat on me.  And don't forget I'm a hillbilly.  You ever see the Patrick Swayze movie, "Next of Kin"?  It ain't too far from the truth.

Enough of that.

Castaing was worried, it was apparent inside and outside the courtroom.  In fact, he seemed more worried than Marky Mark.  He kept throwing his tie over his shoulder and he even approached the jury in his closing argument with the tie flipped back.  For a second I started wondering if he was sending some kind of secret message to a jury member but then again I've seen to many mafia movies.

Shortly after the email was shown, the prosecution went back to the WWL interview and asked MM if the caller, Tammy, was indeed Stacy St. Pierre.  MM came clean and said it was.  He then tried to justify the act by making some argument along the line of everyone calls into radio talk shows and uses fake names.  Really?  Is that a trend I wasn't aware of?

They also showed an email between Kurt and St. Pierre while the interview was going on and Kurt told MM, "Dude, I don't know if I can keep listening to this."  Although I've never met him, it seems to me that Kurt was the most rational of all the Imagine crew.  It seems like he was also the most paranoid when it came to understanding the gravity of what they were doing.  I was told that he was very reluctant to take the CTO position after Meff stepped down and had to be coerced by both Meff and Nagin to take it.  I think he understood the dangers more than any of them, or at least took the potential danger more seriously.

While they were talking about the WWL phone call, I was watching Lady St. Pierre pretty closely.  Her trademark. plastered smile was cracking and I think her emotional fortitude may have been cracking as well.  I actually got worried there for a few seconds, her facial expressions were shifting from smiles to confusion to a wild-eyed gaze.  Did you ever see the Martin Short movie, "Inner Space", where his face starts flipping out?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrYFA85CyZk

That's what it reminded me of.   It was like she had lost control of her emotions and facial expressions.  It was painful to watch.

The prosecution brought up the contract/lease for the antennae array on the top of One Shell Square that St. Pierre took over after Katrina.  This was an interesting line of questioning to me because I think the prosecution let St. Pierre wiggle out of this issue.  The array serviced not only the crime cameras, but the communication systems for multiple city services such as NOPD and a couple of battered women shelters.  The prosecution harped on the womens shelters asking him how he could have been so cruel as to threaten to shut down vital communications to city services like this.  St Pierre shot back that he was owed months in rent and he had given the city ample warning to pay or it would be shut off..."Just like Entergy would do", MM quipped.  Yeah you goddamn right, there, Mark.

The reason I think the prosecution slipped on this is because when they asked St. Pierre how he got the contract, he stated "The city came to me and asked me to take over the array."

Weeellllll.....let's take-a-fukin-look-at-this.

What really happened was that One Shell Square donated the space to put the array up in the aftermath of Katrina, recognizing that the city needed these vital services.  Marky Mark and the boys immediately recognized the potential for a revenue stream, arranged the lease with One Shell Square, marked up the rent (I don't know how much but I was hoping that would come out) and charged the city out the wazoo.  The agreement for that real estate should have been between One Shell Square and the city, not Veracent and the city.  When MM stated "the city came to me", I wish the prosecution would have immediately asked him, "Who in the city came to you?"  The answer was then CTO, Mark Kurt...Imagine bro and now Ciber employee.  St. Pierre made it sound like he was doing the city this great favor by taking over the array (which mostly just sits there) when in reality they recognized they could turn it into a whole new revenue stream and charge the city for it.

I had to leave for a couple of hours after that and missed Matt Coman's (lead prosecutor) first closing remarks.  I got back just in time for the defense's closing remarks and I'll pick that up later on tonight. 



9 comments:

Anonymous said...

By the way, that's a cardinal.

You should buy him some food (seriously, there's a kind that cardinals like) and put it on your deck.

That way he will stop and eat the food and not fly madly into your window. He is in fact a poor innocent creature, not like St. Pierre at all but rather more like the citizens of New Orleans who just go about their ordinary day only to perpetually run into fraud and corruption without ever seeing it coming.

Anonymous said...

that shit read like aesop.

you might have a big money future in kidlit.

your pal , rickngentilly.

Anonymous said...

Those little decals of owls or hawks look terrible but they do scare off vain birds.

We had a bird who used to love to look at himself in the driver's side mirror of our car.

He would see his beautiful self, and get so excited he would crap himself all down the side of the door.

We resorted to putting plastic bags over the mirrors, and integrated taking them off before driving anywhere into our daily routine.

"Vain as that bird" is still part of the family lexicon.

Bird got his comeupance for his sins, though. Our wily old tabby cat got the jump on him while he was admiring himself, and after torturing him for sport, she left him on our doorstep as a sign of her devotion.

Maybe Tabby could become the patron saint of those going after the crooked politicians of New Orleans.

Changing the name of the Hornets to the "New Orleans Narcissists" might be a fitting homage to the kind of crook who wants to get into acting instead of crawiling into a hole and dying, which would be more appropriate.

"Drink the fucking hemlock, bra!" is my response to the fuckers whow put your wife and kid into this, and to all the Nagin crooks.

Was the Texas company DRC Salvage, registered in Delaware?

Jason Brad Berry said...

I think I stated that it was cardinal. Yup...I did.

Yeah, instead of finding the food the cardinal likes, my next door neighbor's cat likes the taste of cardinal so I think it will eventually work itself out when he finally knocks himself out. I'll let nature run its course.

vincemacpaul said...

Ain't Nature great?

vincemacpaul said...

Sometimes the good do die young. That cardinal knew what the hell he/she wanted and didn't let up. BRAVO. I admire that courage. Like I said earlier. "Ain't Nature great"???

Anonymous said...

Looking forward to hearing your comments/observations re the defense' closing remarks and the outcome of the trial...

Anonymous said...

You left us hanging at closing arguments......

Anonymous said...

You left us hanging at the closing arguments....