Independent America

Film Preview: Rising from Ruins

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Here's a 3-minute, in-production preview of Independent America: Rising from Ruins.  Music is by the most excellent New Orleans funk group, Groovesect. The song is "Danza" from "On the Brim."

Baseball cap battles in Kentucky

Dan Smith sent us this e-mail after watching "Independent America: The Two-Lane Search for Mom & Pop" on the Sundance Channel last week (it's on again this Tuesday).  We'd like to share his thoughts with you.

I woke up at 2:45 a.m. this morning from a nightmare of my small business being taken over by a large conglomerate. I was arguing with the new credit guy whom told me that we could no longer extend credit to two of my biggest customers. I was yelling "but you must still have faith and trust in some people!"

On the Road with Independent America Day 6

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EVENT: Why Local Business Matters

Please join us for a workshop conducted by co-founder and co-director of the American Independent Business Alliance (www.amiba.net), Jeff Milchen, on Monday, March 31 from 6 - 8 pm at Kirschman Hall Room 112, on UNO's Lakefront Campus (see map: http://www.uno.edu/university/maps/maincamp.asp).

The workshop will focus on the vital importance of local ownership and community-based business toward a healthy and self-determined community. 

This workshop will be filmed as part of "Independent America:  Rising from Ruins," a documentary focused on New Orleans' small businesses and their role in New Orleans' recovery.  The film is a sequel to the 2005 film "Independent America" (www.independentamerica.net).

NOLA population: Good or Bad news?

Too many years dealing with stats in marketing have made me keenly aware that numbers can be valued differently depending on the context. It’s the old half-empty/half-full dilemma.

Last night, I got a few Google alerts with exalting headlines like: “Population rebounds in storm-hit New Orleans: census” (Reuters). This immediately seemed in conflict with my initial research that indicated that New Orleans was still regaining population but at a much slower pace.

This morning, as I feared, I had a voicemail from Hanson asking me to look into it. I couldn’t hear all the details of his VM (bad connection), but it was clear that he needed me to get the right picture with the state of the population in New Orleans.

So what IS the right picture?

IA: Rising from Ruin inspired cooking!

Kirk here, assistant to Hanson Hosein, director of the upcoming sequel to IA.

While I've been away my wonderful foodie girlfriend Robin has been blogging away on her site: A Chow Life

On the Road with Independent America: New Orleans

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Today we traveled around New Orleans with Hanson interviewing local business owners as well as dropping in on a Tulane business class meeting discussing the future of New Orleans small businesses. Tomorrow we have a hectic schedule of interviews around New Orleans as we continue to create content for the sequel to Independent America. So far the people that Hanson has interviewed have been amazing.

With this busy schedule, Kirk and I are disappointed we couldn’t keep up with the one-a-day schedule on the videos…but don’t worry more are on the way.

Kirk and I went to Bourbon street tonight and sampled the local beverages (hurricanes! :) and even though its late we have edited a quick video to post to the web. We hope you are enjoying this glimpse into the trip.

Palace Cafe: Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

We completed five thousand miles of arduous secondary-highway driving, from Seattle to New Orleans yesterday evening.  It took us four and a half days.  There were a few occasions where I was tempted to give up, and opt for the quick fix of the Interstate.

But my companions were having none of this.  They were up for the challenge, perhaps inspired by Aristotle's Poetics, which we studied in Storytelling class in the winter (no good story comes without some kind of need to overcome a serious obstacle).

I always intended this road trip to provide the link between the first Independent America film, and this one -- something like Act One, before we dove into New Orleans' Acts Two and Three.

And once we crossed into Louisiana, I felt that imperceptible upshift in our story.  At the suggestion of Civic Economics' Dan Houston, we stopped at the Palace Cafe in Opelousas, right off US 190, the Acadian Highway.

They made it to La!

Just got word that the HJK team made it the great State of Louisiana! Last night they were still in Colorado so they managed to get through Texas in less than a day. The 22hrs driving was crazy, and mostly done by John. What is his secret?

[Hanson's update: 36 hours later, we've just arrived in the French Quarter of New Orleans.  It's great to have finally arrived.  We'll report more on our first few hours in Louisiana soon.]

Nutritional facts of this power formula can be found at:

Gummy Bears

Mountain Dew

Red Light Camera Scourge, IA Surge

Eleven hundred miles on secondary highways, driving for over 24 hours without breaking for more than twenty minutes.  From Colorado to Oklahoma, and now, almost all of Texas.   John decided he didn’t need to sleep last night, and drove almost all the way, fueled by gummi bears and Mountain Dew.

We just had breakfast in a “family restaurant” in eastern Texas where you have to walk through the considerably larger smoking area before you reach the back of the bus – the small, glass enclosed, non-smoking section.  My tired eyes still teared from the contamination that had no problems passing through the open passageway.