Gary tipped me off to this interview with Austin’s own Cyril Neville.
A couple of choice bits:
Everybody who had obligations to help out didn’t.
Huh? This kind of shit just reinforces the rest of the country’s perception that we’re just sitting here waiting for help to arrive. And it’s an insult to all those who did so much. Yeah, we’re all still pissed at a lot of people, but we’re also trying to take care of business.
My sister-in-law’s house, which I’ve been staying at off and on when I come back, it’s easier for her to drive across the lake [nearby] to go shopping than it is for her to drive all the way uptown to the one Walmart that they have there on Annunciation Street. It’s going to be a long time before the overall city itself is back to anywhere close that it used to be. Yes the French Quarter is there and they can build casinos anywhere they want now — they don’t have to go offshore.
Yeah, New Orleans sucks now that it’s so hard to get to the WalMart.
Look, I’m happy for what he’s doing for the wetlands, but he bashes the city whose allure pays his bills, and then he shortchanges the people who’ve dedicated the last 4 1/2 years to getting things going again.
We wore “Never Brothers” t-shirts to the first JazzFest after the levee failures, and Cyril makes it tempting to break those out again.
HammHawk 
What I don’t get is, why is he complaining about the location of walmart? Its not like there were more of them pre-katrina? and What casinos is he talking about, the mississippi ones?
Walmart???? Stay across the lake then. Everything I need is within walking distance of my New Orleans home, and has been before and after the flood. If his family advocates Walmart they simply don’t understand New Orleans.
I thought about making a whole post about the Walmart comment, but I get a little self-righteous about it. But…. I’d argue that the single biggest thing most of us can do to help sustain the recovery is support local businesses. When Cyril and his friends go to Walmart, they’re sending checks up to Bentonville, AK. If they bought similar stuff at locally owned stores–more expensive perhaps, but hey, I have an “obligation to help”–the economic impact is compounded.