Smiley Anders for June 11, 2009

• By SMILEY ANDERS
• Advocate columnist
• Published: Jun 11, 2009 - Page: 1B

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The start of hurricane season moved Travis Keowen, of Lottie, to come up with a poetic look back at the late unlamented Gustav.

Here’s part of the poem — read it and weep:

“Sick of MREs; sick of cutting up trees;

pass another hot beer if you please.

It’s steamy and it’s hot, ain’t nothing in the pot;

tempers are short, mosquitoes are not.

I got a tarp on my roof and a limb in my door;

Good Lord, please don’t send that hurricane around no more.”

False alarm
Ronnie Stutes says, “I imagine the headline in the sports section of the Tuesday Advocate (‘With judge’s OK, destruction of Tiger Stadium resumes’) raised a few eyebrows, and maybe even sparked some comments about ‘activist judges.’

“Actually, the article was referring to Detroit’s Tiger Stadium.”

• Summer Camp

My beach book for this summer is John B. Camp’s “Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger,” in which the former CNN investigative reporter tells of his encounters with wayward evangelists, Mafia dons and dope smugglers — and his own personal demons.

John recalls that at the height of his muckraking days I referred to him as “Baton Rouge’s mini-Mike Wallace.” (I don’t remember that, but it’s a good line, so I’ll take credit for it.)