Well, well, well. The proverbial three holes in the ground. That would be the pot hole, the sink hole and the hole that my mind fell into three years ago when the veil of illusionary normalcy was ripped from my eyes, mind and sanity. Has anybody else around here noticed that our pity party is over. Yeah, well, fires, floods, earthquakes, tornados, suicide bombers and assassinations happen, right? Why should we keep getting all the attention?
Public figures are disgraced, the crook is up for re-election and the blame gets shifted to the innocent. As usual. No good deed goes unpunished and the floggings will continue until morale improves and for god sake: hide the homeless! With a nick knack paddy whack give my kid a gun….And blah, blah, blah frigging blah.
Yes, I was gonna do another rant, but you already know the drill. You’re tired of hearing about it, talking about it and/or thinking about it and so am I, so I’m not. Got it?
No, I’m not part of the ‘Nation of Whiners’ and I’m not in a ‘mental recession’, I’m well aware of how sucky things are and how little chance we have of doing anything about it. You don’t have to use flash cards for me to know that we’ve passed the eleventh hour or that Jesse Jackson is capable of harboring thoughts of testicular mutilation on public radio about presidential contenders.
I do know that we Americans are better off than most of the rest, if not the rest, of the planet. We’ve got the Four Freedoms. We’ve got freedom of speech which means nobody can tell us to shut the fuck up about anything we want to say anything about. We’ve got freedom of religion; which means Christians rule and the rest of you keep a low profile. We have freedom from fear as long as you mind your own business and watch your back; and we have freedom from want, unless you wind up undereducated, under-employed or under the overpass. President Franklin D, Roosevelt told us about these Four Freedoms on January sixth nineteen forty-one, so blame him, not me, if your country sells you short.
So what about gangs in our streets beating and robbing law abiding citizens? Population control. What about our levees being stuffed with newspaper to fill the cracks; we recycle different from a other folks, that’s all.
I say re-elect the crook, let’s show ‘em how stupid we really are. Also let’s all start wearing clothes pins to signify how we’ve been hung out to dry by the powers that be; and, let’s re-institute the draft to give those poser kids something to really whine about. But above all: let’s quit bitching, Prudence, open up your eyes and come out to play.
Who cares if there’s no public restrooms, mailboxes or telephones? All I care about is whether or not I’m gonna get mustard greens for lunch on Sunday. I give up. I’ve got my own stuff to think about. If I don’t hear another thing about the election, the recovery, the price of oil or the war it will suit me just fine. I’ve got my own opinions and solutions and hey, they’re not doing anyone any good, not even me.
I’m falling back on my old family approach to life: “I’m okay---you’re not!” and “everyone in the world is nuts---except me”. I, along with others in my peer group, knew twenty years ago about global warming. We learned about it from Calvin and Hobbes. The controversy on bilingualism and Social Security can take a flying leap. On immigration I say ‘let everybody in!’ and on gay marriages I’ll go along with my kid sister who speaks for us all when she says: “who gives a fuck?”
What I care about is whether or not there is a friendly familiar face on the other side of the bar handing me a frosty Pabst Blue Ribbon and not about having a doctor who tells me that if I have more than two drinks a night my bones will shrivel and I will be an alcoholic loser that doesn’t deserve a decent erection.
I care that new things that I purchase either break easier or wear out faster than they used to and the instinctual reaction, now, to such substandard goods is to throw them away and buy more; and, I’m really pissed to see that there are grocery stores that want me to buy fresh garlic that is imported from China.
I care and hate the fact that our farmer’s market has such a small following, such slim offerings and such high prices. I also don’t want to see imported crap souvenirs of New Orleans (made in foreign countries) being sold in the French Market where we should have our own home grown purveyors of fruits and vegetables installed (in stalls) on a permanent basis.
And while we’re at it: open the breweries to make beer not to be cut up and sold as condominiums. What are they thinking? I know, they’re thinking that money talks and the rest of us walks, whatever that means. Does it not seem like something that everyone should care about is that New Orleans has become a pit stop for the world and were it not for the drunks, shoppers and snoopers of the world, we would have no reason or income to justify our existence. Is it just me or are we a city with a past and no future other than what some fat cat can get by bleeding our culture a little drier.
I further care about being able to sit in my yard and not be eaten alive by mosquitoes because the landlord next door filled in the culvert to increase parking for the people that have me keeping my cats inside because they’re scraping lead paint into my walkway and NOT cleaning it up properly. Is that not caring? Is that not American?
Yes, it is, because I have the freedom to bitch. I vote.
Showing posts with label New Orleans Views. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Orleans Views. Show all posts
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Advice for New Arrivals in New Orleans
Cab drivers and communists! Cheese and crackers! Christ on a crutch! My long lost nephew has moved back to The Big Easy!
Actually, I don’t know if he’s ever lived here before; I haven’t laid eyes on him since he was knee high to a Huge Ass Beer ™ cup. But, his parents used to live here, so that’s enough for me to classify him as a replant, of sorts. There was, as I recall, a certain gleam in his Daddy’s eyes while he was here, who knows, it may have been him.
I’ve only seen him once since he’s been back, but knowing the intelligence level of his family, and mine, I feel sure that he’s reading this. I must tell him about Mardi Gras, lest he become grist for the mill.
Dear Nephew,
Welcome back and let me say, for one, that things have changed a bit since you were here last in flesh or in gleam and not, I fear, for the better.
You see, there’s this thing called Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday (not to be confused with Lundi Gras, which is the day before, or Foie Gras, which is the Friday before). Fat Tuesday has always been preceded by Carnival. It is, definitively, THE uber-experience. There’s even a Mardi Gras Cake that won $25,000.00 in a national bake off.
The word Carnival comes from the Latin ‘cruise from Hell’ or ‘flesh be gone’ which ever you choose to believe. Carnival is a time for partying, exchanging body fluids, dancing, eating and throwing up, all to excess. A lot of natives do this all the time; but, when you have millions of amateur ‘visitors’ trying to keep up, it can get real messy.
Mardi Gras in New Orleans is a tired old horse that middle-aged merchants start whipping at the beginning of the year in the hopes that by Ash Wednesday the frothing, wide eyed, sweat soaked, bleeding and exhausted mount will have generated enough profit that some of it may actually stay in Louisiana.
Carnival officially starts at Twelfth Night, which is twelve days after Christmas, called Kings Night, after the Three Wise Guys who came to see newborn Baby Jee; they had given all the gifts they could, starting with a partridge in a pear tree, had to split back to the Orient and marked the occasion as a Catholic holiday. Amen.
What we do nowadays on Twelfth Night is: bake a cake with a baby in it, smear it with purple, yellow and green icing and whoever bites into the baby gets to sue the bakery or buy the next ‘King Cake’ and continue the cycle. Needless to say, a lot of dentists make money during Carnival. This continues until Mardi Gras, which is the day before Ash Wednesday . Ash Wednesday is forty days before Easter and nobody is supposed to have a good time during that period. It’s Called Lent. Why? I don’t know.
When is Mardi Gras? Forty-one days before Easter. When is Easter?
Officially, Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox or Winter Solstice or something . So, to find out when Mardi Gras is, do the math, consult an occultist or look at a calendar.
To start celebrating Carnival, start drinking at Thanksgiving and don’t stop until the trash on Bourbon Street is waist high and everyone else looks really, really strange. The two may, at times, be mutually exclusive.
******************************************
Carnival is also celebrated with Fancy Dressed and Masked Balls (no pun intended), Parades, public humiliation, and large amounts of money going to other Third World Countries. The only thing we stop short of is human sacrifice, I think.
Parades and Balls are put on by Krewes, which is French for Crews. Krewes are made up of ‘social and pleasure’ clubs that elect a King and a Queen to lead them in parades where they cheerfully throw things like cabbages, condoms, coconuts, medallions, doubloons and strings of beads at frothing, maniacal spectators who then fight over them. The King is usually a middle-aged merchant and the Queen is usually a young woman from a well to do family who has reached drinking age. The King remains masked while the Queen wears Lancôme ™ tastefully. What’s up with that? Again, I don’t know; they’re called ‘Secret Societies’.
Another group of ‘Secret Societies’ is The Mardi Gras Indians. The fact that I consider any ‘Society’ that doesn’t invite me to join them, ‘Secret’ is another issue altogether. The Indians, far and away, would be the last group to ask me in. Why? I can’t sew and I don’t speak their language. Let me explain:
‘The Indians’ trace their roots back to the native Americans that befriended persons of color that they felt a kinship with because of the, non native, persons of non color’s rotten attitude toward anyone besides themselves, middle-aged merchants and young women who had reached drinking age. That’s how I see it, I could be wrong, it’s only my word against anyone else’s.
Anyway, Indians sew elaborate, intricate and complex Native American costumes, the likes of which would have Sitting Bull standing in his grave. They parade in groups of twelve to twenty resplendent in sequins, feathers, fabrics and heavy artillery. In their words “when you see us comin’, better get out the way!”
The Indians chant words like “Jock-imo findo hondo-wando fee nah nay”,
“Iko Iko”, “Tu-way-pa-ka-way. Oowa-a-a!” and “kick your ass on the overpass”. This either means: “my ‘Spy Boy’ spotted your ‘Flag Boy’ and ‘Big Chief’ (from the Metarie Ridge) has a shiny pistol and is “gonna make you jump in de river”, or “War, huuh, (good God, y’all) what is it good for?” (Absolutely nuthin’!).
********************************************
Anyway, Carnival generates a gazillion samollions towards the housing, education, working conditions and welfare of the needy for places like Mexico (tee shirts), Burma (sweat shirts), India (condoms), China (baseball caps), Indonesia (beads) and other parts of this country (food stuffs, plastic ware, breast implants and alcoholic beverages), none of which you’ll ever see. Content yourself with having a good time watching a bazillion of out of towners doing things that they would never do at home and remember:
Never drink anything stronger than you are, or of a color not found in nature.
Never, ever try to stop someone from acting improperly. One woman that I know did that and got her ass kicked by not one, not two but three ‘visitors’.
Don’t fight old ladies for beads. Doing so is a sure way of getting a heel print imbedded on the back of your hand.
Dress appropriately. No beads, wallet, credit cards, expensive jewelry or more cash than you care to part with.
If someone wants to bet you that they know ‘where you got your shoes’, tell them that they’re not your shoes.
Your loving Uncle, Phil
P.S. If you want the recipe for the $25,000.00 Mardi Gras Cake email me
Plamancusa@aol
Actually, I don’t know if he’s ever lived here before; I haven’t laid eyes on him since he was knee high to a Huge Ass Beer ™ cup. But, his parents used to live here, so that’s enough for me to classify him as a replant, of sorts. There was, as I recall, a certain gleam in his Daddy’s eyes while he was here, who knows, it may have been him.
I’ve only seen him once since he’s been back, but knowing the intelligence level of his family, and mine, I feel sure that he’s reading this. I must tell him about Mardi Gras, lest he become grist for the mill.
Dear Nephew,
Welcome back and let me say, for one, that things have changed a bit since you were here last in flesh or in gleam and not, I fear, for the better.
You see, there’s this thing called Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday (not to be confused with Lundi Gras, which is the day before, or Foie Gras, which is the Friday before). Fat Tuesday has always been preceded by Carnival. It is, definitively, THE uber-experience. There’s even a Mardi Gras Cake that won $25,000.00 in a national bake off.
The word Carnival comes from the Latin ‘cruise from Hell’ or ‘flesh be gone’ which ever you choose to believe. Carnival is a time for partying, exchanging body fluids, dancing, eating and throwing up, all to excess. A lot of natives do this all the time; but, when you have millions of amateur ‘visitors’ trying to keep up, it can get real messy.
Mardi Gras in New Orleans is a tired old horse that middle-aged merchants start whipping at the beginning of the year in the hopes that by Ash Wednesday the frothing, wide eyed, sweat soaked, bleeding and exhausted mount will have generated enough profit that some of it may actually stay in Louisiana.
Carnival officially starts at Twelfth Night, which is twelve days after Christmas, called Kings Night, after the Three Wise Guys who came to see newborn Baby Jee; they had given all the gifts they could, starting with a partridge in a pear tree, had to split back to the Orient and marked the occasion as a Catholic holiday. Amen.
What we do nowadays on Twelfth Night is: bake a cake with a baby in it, smear it with purple, yellow and green icing and whoever bites into the baby gets to sue the bakery or buy the next ‘King Cake’ and continue the cycle. Needless to say, a lot of dentists make money during Carnival. This continues until Mardi Gras, which is the day before Ash Wednesday . Ash Wednesday is forty days before Easter and nobody is supposed to have a good time during that period. It’s Called Lent. Why? I don’t know.
When is Mardi Gras? Forty-one days before Easter. When is Easter?
Officially, Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox or Winter Solstice or something . So, to find out when Mardi Gras is, do the math, consult an occultist or look at a calendar.
To start celebrating Carnival, start drinking at Thanksgiving and don’t stop until the trash on Bourbon Street is waist high and everyone else looks really, really strange. The two may, at times, be mutually exclusive.
******************************************
Carnival is also celebrated with Fancy Dressed and Masked Balls (no pun intended), Parades, public humiliation, and large amounts of money going to other Third World Countries. The only thing we stop short of is human sacrifice, I think.
Parades and Balls are put on by Krewes, which is French for Crews. Krewes are made up of ‘social and pleasure’ clubs that elect a King and a Queen to lead them in parades where they cheerfully throw things like cabbages, condoms, coconuts, medallions, doubloons and strings of beads at frothing, maniacal spectators who then fight over them. The King is usually a middle-aged merchant and the Queen is usually a young woman from a well to do family who has reached drinking age. The King remains masked while the Queen wears Lancôme ™ tastefully. What’s up with that? Again, I don’t know; they’re called ‘Secret Societies’.
Another group of ‘Secret Societies’ is The Mardi Gras Indians. The fact that I consider any ‘Society’ that doesn’t invite me to join them, ‘Secret’ is another issue altogether. The Indians, far and away, would be the last group to ask me in. Why? I can’t sew and I don’t speak their language. Let me explain:
‘The Indians’ trace their roots back to the native Americans that befriended persons of color that they felt a kinship with because of the, non native, persons of non color’s rotten attitude toward anyone besides themselves, middle-aged merchants and young women who had reached drinking age. That’s how I see it, I could be wrong, it’s only my word against anyone else’s.
Anyway, Indians sew elaborate, intricate and complex Native American costumes, the likes of which would have Sitting Bull standing in his grave. They parade in groups of twelve to twenty resplendent in sequins, feathers, fabrics and heavy artillery. In their words “when you see us comin’, better get out the way!”
The Indians chant words like “Jock-imo findo hondo-wando fee nah nay”,
“Iko Iko”, “Tu-way-pa-ka-way. Oowa-a-a!” and “kick your ass on the overpass”. This either means: “my ‘Spy Boy’ spotted your ‘Flag Boy’ and ‘Big Chief’ (from the Metarie Ridge) has a shiny pistol and is “gonna make you jump in de river”, or “War, huuh, (good God, y’all) what is it good for?” (Absolutely nuthin’!).
********************************************
Anyway, Carnival generates a gazillion samollions towards the housing, education, working conditions and welfare of the needy for places like Mexico (tee shirts), Burma (sweat shirts), India (condoms), China (baseball caps), Indonesia (beads) and other parts of this country (food stuffs, plastic ware, breast implants and alcoholic beverages), none of which you’ll ever see. Content yourself with having a good time watching a bazillion of out of towners doing things that they would never do at home and remember:
Never drink anything stronger than you are, or of a color not found in nature.
Never, ever try to stop someone from acting improperly. One woman that I know did that and got her ass kicked by not one, not two but three ‘visitors’.
Don’t fight old ladies for beads. Doing so is a sure way of getting a heel print imbedded on the back of your hand.
Dress appropriately. No beads, wallet, credit cards, expensive jewelry or more cash than you care to part with.
If someone wants to bet you that they know ‘where you got your shoes’, tell them that they’re not your shoes.
Your loving Uncle, Phil
P.S. If you want the recipe for the $25,000.00 Mardi Gras Cake email me
Plamancusa@aol
2002 Literary New Orleans
The P.H.D.'s daughter got her wooden leg stolen by a bible salesman that she had tried to seduce.
Here I am again, friends and neighbors; flying in under the radar with a report on the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival slash Writers Conference slash Platform for anyone dumb enough to think they can yell 'Stella!?!?!' as good as Brando (in my opinion if Baldwin couldn't………..) March 20-25, 2002.
Last year, as a literary hopeful, my ‘Main Frame’ and I had scored press passes (hint, hint) and were determined to “be there” rather than “be el-seven”, if you catch my drift. I was curious as to what type of birds these would be; and, aside from bad hair, the absence of clothing style (for the most part, Honey, I don't mean you!) and an epidemic of comfortable footwear, they were much the same as you and I, that is, weird.
I didn't feel like much of a writer, while I was there…at all. I’m confused by the difference between illusion and allusion. I don't know the difference between ambivalence and ambiguity and, I guess like my Mama said when I asked her if I had halitosis (at age nine I had read an advertisement but wasn't sure what it was), as far as 'catharsis' and 'pathos' goes: "if you don't know what it is, you aint got it". I was wondering if what I had was what it takes to have been there at all.
I went to a whole bunch of panel discussions, in fact so many, that it was hard to tell where one let off and another began. A couple of them were yawners, but most were lively, and, mostly, I just tried to keep up with the discussions on things like: 'voices', 'revealing' characters, their development and their flaws, 'juice', 'languaging', (that one's not even in my BIG dictionary) 'perception', finding a gay friendly publisher, and what Willie Morris said to who (or whom) on the telephone late one night.
I also, to my dismay, found out that practically nobody makes a living from writing, it takes up all your time (one guy said it took him four years to write eighty two pages) and that if I keep using parenthesizes, I'll never amount to much at all.
I don't think I'll amount to much as a writer anyway because, I don't keep notes on cocktail napkins, my childhood illnesses weren't severe enough, and although my mother kicked my ass on a regular basis, I wouldn't consider her 'overbearing'. I can't even begin to guess where 'third person past tense' is, let alone write from that perspective. I'm also not at any kind of 'psychic intersection'; if anything, I'm just this guy, you know?
So what makes me think I can be a writer? The panels. I can do those panels. I mean, I didn't know most of those guys, so how do I know they wrote seven books? Because the moderator said so? Hmmmm. If I had one book that I could hold up and call my latest, and then, talk about my last book, or better yet, my first book….
Also, I can answer questions, I've got a 'whole lot of opinion' on a myriad of subjects and I can cut up and b.s. my way through just about any topic, with the best of them. Or so I'd like to think.
I attended panels on Southern Culture, Good and Evil, Wit and Wisdom, Hot Properties, Alternative Writing, The Muse stops Here, and others; and I kept saying to myself "I could have said that!" Once when a question was asked during the 'Bad Girls" panel, I almost raised my hand and yelled "pick ME!"
I can see myself sitting with 'quiet authenticity' after being introduced as a writer of 'complex fiction' with a 'clear sense of the absurd' saying: " that's a very good question, Rex; but as we all know, ' you don't have stories unless bad things happen' or as Flannery O'Conner put it: " The average reader is pleased to observe the stealing of a wooden leg".
Thank you, I'll be signing books in the lobby, and I don't care whose (or is that whoms?) they are.
Here I am again, friends and neighbors; flying in under the radar with a report on the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival slash Writers Conference slash Platform for anyone dumb enough to think they can yell 'Stella!?!?!' as good as Brando (in my opinion if Baldwin couldn't………..) March 20-25, 2002.
Last year, as a literary hopeful, my ‘Main Frame’ and I had scored press passes (hint, hint) and were determined to “be there” rather than “be el-seven”, if you catch my drift. I was curious as to what type of birds these would be; and, aside from bad hair, the absence of clothing style (for the most part, Honey, I don't mean you!) and an epidemic of comfortable footwear, they were much the same as you and I, that is, weird.
I didn't feel like much of a writer, while I was there…at all. I’m confused by the difference between illusion and allusion. I don't know the difference between ambivalence and ambiguity and, I guess like my Mama said when I asked her if I had halitosis (at age nine I had read an advertisement but wasn't sure what it was), as far as 'catharsis' and 'pathos' goes: "if you don't know what it is, you aint got it". I was wondering if what I had was what it takes to have been there at all.
I went to a whole bunch of panel discussions, in fact so many, that it was hard to tell where one let off and another began. A couple of them were yawners, but most were lively, and, mostly, I just tried to keep up with the discussions on things like: 'voices', 'revealing' characters, their development and their flaws, 'juice', 'languaging', (that one's not even in my BIG dictionary) 'perception', finding a gay friendly publisher, and what Willie Morris said to who (or whom) on the telephone late one night.
I also, to my dismay, found out that practically nobody makes a living from writing, it takes up all your time (one guy said it took him four years to write eighty two pages) and that if I keep using parenthesizes, I'll never amount to much at all.
I don't think I'll amount to much as a writer anyway because, I don't keep notes on cocktail napkins, my childhood illnesses weren't severe enough, and although my mother kicked my ass on a regular basis, I wouldn't consider her 'overbearing'. I can't even begin to guess where 'third person past tense' is, let alone write from that perspective. I'm also not at any kind of 'psychic intersection'; if anything, I'm just this guy, you know?
So what makes me think I can be a writer? The panels. I can do those panels. I mean, I didn't know most of those guys, so how do I know they wrote seven books? Because the moderator said so? Hmmmm. If I had one book that I could hold up and call my latest, and then, talk about my last book, or better yet, my first book….
Also, I can answer questions, I've got a 'whole lot of opinion' on a myriad of subjects and I can cut up and b.s. my way through just about any topic, with the best of them. Or so I'd like to think.
I attended panels on Southern Culture, Good and Evil, Wit and Wisdom, Hot Properties, Alternative Writing, The Muse stops Here, and others; and I kept saying to myself "I could have said that!" Once when a question was asked during the 'Bad Girls" panel, I almost raised my hand and yelled "pick ME!"
I can see myself sitting with 'quiet authenticity' after being introduced as a writer of 'complex fiction' with a 'clear sense of the absurd' saying: " that's a very good question, Rex; but as we all know, ' you don't have stories unless bad things happen' or as Flannery O'Conner put it: " The average reader is pleased to observe the stealing of a wooden leg".
Thank you, I'll be signing books in the lobby, and I don't care whose (or is that whoms?) they are.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Essence Festival New Orleans 2003
The 2003 Essence Music Festival is here and it’s sponsored by Coca-Cola. That says a lot to me, although I don’t know what. Perhaps I’m unclear on the focus of the event; I mean, is the purpose of the ‘Party With A Purpose’ to party or to pursue purposes? I seem to recall (here I go again) that when I was first made aware of this event, it was described as a convention by and for African Americans to network, share experiences, and to work on/out cultural, political and economic challenges mutually exclusive to African Americans. Music was thrown in to help unwind after a day chock full of workshops and empowerment seminars. I don’t know, I’ve never been to Essence. I guess I felt like it was a place that an old white guy would be out of place in. It’s just that I don’t remember it as being…commercialized.
So, here I go, ready to pull my foot out of my mouth (where it’s sure to wind up) and write, again, about something I know nothing about. I may even have to get ready to ingest a little crow.
I have the credentials of the un-empowered. I was raised inner city, in the projects, on welfare, broken home, physical abuse, public schools…the works. But I’m not a person of color; in essence, I’m not black and have no birthright to the blues. And while my ‘roots’ did not fling open the doors of an affluent mover/shaker American society, many of those doors were left ajar, mainly because of my color, or lack of it. The same cannot be said for my many colored friends. As much as we need workshops now, we needed them more then, and, maybe if we had had them then, we wouldn’t need them now. Hmmmm.
Ask random New Orleanians about Essence and they’ll probably confuse it with Bayou Classic, which is mistakenly likened to a Mau Mau uprising. Am I prejudiced? Are we prejudiced in the Big Easy? Are we prejudiced in the South? Hell, while we’re asking, are we prejudiced at all in the good old Yew Ess of A? The answer is a resounding NO! (Anyone heard of ‘Racial Profiling’ though? Shhhhhh!)
One restaurant manager (White) explained to me that it wasn’t the out of towners that caused trouble. It was ‘our’ blacks coming in to prey on their own, or ‘them’ (black people in general are referred to as ‘them’ or ‘those people’ by whites). The restaurant was going along at a good clip that night, if I recall; but, when the call came in that it was “getting dark” up the street, we promptly closed.
Recently a woman (Black), who is much more intelligent and articulate than I am, made the point that Essence was a good thing…for the tourist industry. She also pointed out that the seminars and workshops did have a positive effect…for those that attended. We agreed that, in essence, it could be called a “Black Jazz Festival”. If she ever runs for office, she’s got my vote.
One point is that it’s easy for the rest of the population to make assumptions about African Americans. Blacks generally don’t go explaining their ‘Blackness’ to us dumb Crackers, or anyone else for that matter. We get our information from the examples that are set in public, and, the media. We are left to draw our own conclusions. Our conclusions generally run the gamut from Jack the Ripper (they haven’t proven that he wasn’t of color) to the idiots on Sanford and Son.
Well let me tell you: I don’t go there. If there are any Blacks that read this column, (gotcha!) let me tug on your coattail. I personally have seen persons of color ordering meat cooked medium rare, wine other than white Zinfandel, and then tip grandly. I know Black people who can’t dance, don’t spit, do vote, hold down steady jobs, marry and are faithful to their spouses, and don’t wear their trousers with their undies showing. I personally have seen a look of disgust cross a brother’s face when I mentioned that I actually liked pigs feet! And look, if I don’t say that some of my best friends are Black, it’s because I have no best friends. Hell, I’m as liberal as anybody else! It’s just that I don’t know who these people are!
If you saw me get out of my Eminem blaring ride, in FUBUs, with my baseball cap on sideways, gold crucifix around my neck, drinking a 40, smoking a blunt and grabbing at my crotch would you take me for a ‘Brutha of Anotha Mutha’? Probably not.
I know what I’d take me for: someone who needed to turn that damn music down and get to a seminar because I’d obviously got Black mixed up with stupid. But heck, a lot of folks display, in their image, their level of intelligence.
That also goes for overweight hicks in Mickey Mouse shirts, Asians that dye their hair blond, white kid pierced/tattooed gutter punks, Italian stallion goombahs, war perpetuating nationalists, public drunks, misogynists, self-serving hypocritical evangelists, people that take unfair advantage, plantation mentality bosses, breast beating liberals, those that don’t play fair, and Albanians in general.
But I’m not prejudiced.
I like to think of myself as… biased.
A while ago Calvin told Hobbes that he was writing a self help book called “Shut Up And Stop Whining: How To Do Something In Your Life Besides Think About Yourself”. Hobbes advised “You should probably wait for the advance before you buy anything.”
I’ll go one better: “It’s The Twenty-first Century: Stop wearing Other Peoples’ Names On Your Clothing” Or “Behave Like You ARE A Song In The Key Of Life. There’s still a lot of work to do”.
But that’s just my opinion.
So, here I go, ready to pull my foot out of my mouth (where it’s sure to wind up) and write, again, about something I know nothing about. I may even have to get ready to ingest a little crow.
I have the credentials of the un-empowered. I was raised inner city, in the projects, on welfare, broken home, physical abuse, public schools…the works. But I’m not a person of color; in essence, I’m not black and have no birthright to the blues. And while my ‘roots’ did not fling open the doors of an affluent mover/shaker American society, many of those doors were left ajar, mainly because of my color, or lack of it. The same cannot be said for my many colored friends. As much as we need workshops now, we needed them more then, and, maybe if we had had them then, we wouldn’t need them now. Hmmmm.
Ask random New Orleanians about Essence and they’ll probably confuse it with Bayou Classic, which is mistakenly likened to a Mau Mau uprising. Am I prejudiced? Are we prejudiced in the Big Easy? Are we prejudiced in the South? Hell, while we’re asking, are we prejudiced at all in the good old Yew Ess of A? The answer is a resounding NO! (Anyone heard of ‘Racial Profiling’ though? Shhhhhh!)
One restaurant manager (White) explained to me that it wasn’t the out of towners that caused trouble. It was ‘our’ blacks coming in to prey on their own, or ‘them’ (black people in general are referred to as ‘them’ or ‘those people’ by whites). The restaurant was going along at a good clip that night, if I recall; but, when the call came in that it was “getting dark” up the street, we promptly closed.
Recently a woman (Black), who is much more intelligent and articulate than I am, made the point that Essence was a good thing…for the tourist industry. She also pointed out that the seminars and workshops did have a positive effect…for those that attended. We agreed that, in essence, it could be called a “Black Jazz Festival”. If she ever runs for office, she’s got my vote.
One point is that it’s easy for the rest of the population to make assumptions about African Americans. Blacks generally don’t go explaining their ‘Blackness’ to us dumb Crackers, or anyone else for that matter. We get our information from the examples that are set in public, and, the media. We are left to draw our own conclusions. Our conclusions generally run the gamut from Jack the Ripper (they haven’t proven that he wasn’t of color) to the idiots on Sanford and Son.
Well let me tell you: I don’t go there. If there are any Blacks that read this column, (gotcha!) let me tug on your coattail. I personally have seen persons of color ordering meat cooked medium rare, wine other than white Zinfandel, and then tip grandly. I know Black people who can’t dance, don’t spit, do vote, hold down steady jobs, marry and are faithful to their spouses, and don’t wear their trousers with their undies showing. I personally have seen a look of disgust cross a brother’s face when I mentioned that I actually liked pigs feet! And look, if I don’t say that some of my best friends are Black, it’s because I have no best friends. Hell, I’m as liberal as anybody else! It’s just that I don’t know who these people are!
If you saw me get out of my Eminem blaring ride, in FUBUs, with my baseball cap on sideways, gold crucifix around my neck, drinking a 40, smoking a blunt and grabbing at my crotch would you take me for a ‘Brutha of Anotha Mutha’? Probably not.
I know what I’d take me for: someone who needed to turn that damn music down and get to a seminar because I’d obviously got Black mixed up with stupid. But heck, a lot of folks display, in their image, their level of intelligence.
That also goes for overweight hicks in Mickey Mouse shirts, Asians that dye their hair blond, white kid pierced/tattooed gutter punks, Italian stallion goombahs, war perpetuating nationalists, public drunks, misogynists, self-serving hypocritical evangelists, people that take unfair advantage, plantation mentality bosses, breast beating liberals, those that don’t play fair, and Albanians in general.
But I’m not prejudiced.
I like to think of myself as… biased.
A while ago Calvin told Hobbes that he was writing a self help book called “Shut Up And Stop Whining: How To Do Something In Your Life Besides Think About Yourself”. Hobbes advised “You should probably wait for the advance before you buy anything.”
I’ll go one better: “It’s The Twenty-first Century: Stop wearing Other Peoples’ Names On Your Clothing” Or “Behave Like You ARE A Song In The Key Of Life. There’s still a lot of work to do”.
But that’s just my opinion.
Saint Charles Trolley in New Orleans
To all my friends that haven’t seen me in a while: I’ve taken employment uptown. I know, I must be nuts, but it’s a good job and only has two drawbacks. 1. It takes me away from my beloved French Quarter many hours a day and (b) having given up private transportation; I must rely on public.
Rely probably isn’t the operative word here. One cannot rely on something as nebulous as a trolley schedule and, at the end of the day (and the beginning and middle), those rumbling sardine cans rarely keep a schedule that logic and reason can fathom. Also, I seem to posses the unique talent for getting to the corner just in time to see the darn thing leave without me. Perfect.
Waiting for the next car (that’s what they call trolleys) can be maddening, especially in inclement weather and after dark when there’s no light to read by. It’s an especial challenge when I see from three to eight of the beasts going in the opposite direction before one comes going my way. Sometimes the fifteen minutes between cars, that the company promises, turns into forty-five or more.
Try waiting thirty minutes, watching one uptown car after another go by, it’s raining, there’s no shelter, your not dressed properly for the sudden chill and the car that stops for you explains that he’s only going to Lee Circle. And another twenty minutes passes before you can catch one going your way and finally get out of the wet and the cold. It borders on cruel and unusual punishment.
It seems to me, in my pea-brained intelligence, that, if we can time the movement of heaven, earth and the very stars themselves, then running a Municipal Railway shouldn’t be rocket surgery. Needless to say, I have a lot of time to think as I undertake my daily odysseys.
I was thinking about how, in the old days, you could stick out your thumb and easily catch a ride; and how, that ride would be more often than not with a longhair like you. Not so today.
Well, what happened to those happy hippies in their flying Volkswagens, with peace and ecology stickers, playing loud Rock and Roll heralding the coming revolution and vows to save the world with nothing more than the love in our hearts? I’ll tell you. At least fifty-one percent of them went over to the dark side.
Think about it and humor an old fart. In the sixties and seventies we didn’t just disapprove of war, ecological suicide and greed: we marched against it! We didn’t just sit back and let the status quo get off with easy victories at the polls we protested!
Our music told us that we had “questions about hate and death and war”, and that the Times They Were A Changin’ because we knew that we were on the Eve Of Destruction and that “it’s been a long time comin’ but I know a change is gonna come”. Each group was musically subversive.
A lot of us sat in at lunch counters, refused to sit in the back of the bus, sang songs and carried signs. A lot of us got our asses kicked and some lost their lives; where are all those children now? I’ll tell you.
They work for special interest groups that rape and rip off our planet and people. They’ve formed religious coalitions that espouse an expeditious hastening to their heavenly home that can come only after the destruction of our planet and all of it’s resources. And some, having lost all the fight in them, sit by bathed in ennui and complacency and allow it to happen without using their hard won vote and voice to change things. They never dare speak a word aloud about any insanity.
How many of you know that this administration refuses to accept and comply with other governments that are concerned with global warning? How many know about human slavery still existing, both economically and physically?
How many of you read about genocide, hunger, ignorance, poverty, violence and hatred and sit by, not raising a voice? How many of you know that we are destroying the only planet we have in the name of ‘economic stability’?
We murder animals and eat them. We buy gas-guzzlers for the tax incentives while the government reaps huge profits on the tariffs that they impose on gasoline sales. We roll finely shredded vegetable matter in thin paper, place it in our mouths, light it on fire and die of cancer. CEOs reap millions while children go to sleep hungry…in America!
Another example: if you own a car (at least in my neighborhood) you pay out the wazoo for gas, insurance and upkeep. Furthermore, you run the risk of being given tickets by parking Nazis that don’t even work for your city. Towing, stealing, breaking and entering, keying, antenna damage and that jerk from out of state that uses it for a urinal or worse, some homeless or street person using your bumper for a latrine are also considerations. For what? So you can go to work and work and work; without health benefits, equal pay for equal work, a threat on your Social Security and the possibility of your kid coming home maimed or wounded as a reward for fighting in a war that we started? In my day, ‘Supporting The Troops’ meant ‘Bring Them Home!’
Chase the American Dream like a dog chases its tail and hope only that you live long enough to see your kids through college and your house paid for and, I’ll tell you what. You have violated everything that we fought for forty years and more ago: the responsibility of changing the world for the better.
I have no pension, no benefits, no 401K and I’ll probably pay rent for the rest of my life. Yet I still listen to the old music; and yes, I’m the guy waiting for the trolley in the rain. What’s more; if I ain’t got nuthin’ nice say… I’ll say it anyway!
Rely probably isn’t the operative word here. One cannot rely on something as nebulous as a trolley schedule and, at the end of the day (and the beginning and middle), those rumbling sardine cans rarely keep a schedule that logic and reason can fathom. Also, I seem to posses the unique talent for getting to the corner just in time to see the darn thing leave without me. Perfect.
Waiting for the next car (that’s what they call trolleys) can be maddening, especially in inclement weather and after dark when there’s no light to read by. It’s an especial challenge when I see from three to eight of the beasts going in the opposite direction before one comes going my way. Sometimes the fifteen minutes between cars, that the company promises, turns into forty-five or more.
Try waiting thirty minutes, watching one uptown car after another go by, it’s raining, there’s no shelter, your not dressed properly for the sudden chill and the car that stops for you explains that he’s only going to Lee Circle. And another twenty minutes passes before you can catch one going your way and finally get out of the wet and the cold. It borders on cruel and unusual punishment.
It seems to me, in my pea-brained intelligence, that, if we can time the movement of heaven, earth and the very stars themselves, then running a Municipal Railway shouldn’t be rocket surgery. Needless to say, I have a lot of time to think as I undertake my daily odysseys.
I was thinking about how, in the old days, you could stick out your thumb and easily catch a ride; and how, that ride would be more often than not with a longhair like you. Not so today.
Well, what happened to those happy hippies in their flying Volkswagens, with peace and ecology stickers, playing loud Rock and Roll heralding the coming revolution and vows to save the world with nothing more than the love in our hearts? I’ll tell you. At least fifty-one percent of them went over to the dark side.
Think about it and humor an old fart. In the sixties and seventies we didn’t just disapprove of war, ecological suicide and greed: we marched against it! We didn’t just sit back and let the status quo get off with easy victories at the polls we protested!
Our music told us that we had “questions about hate and death and war”, and that the Times They Were A Changin’ because we knew that we were on the Eve Of Destruction and that “it’s been a long time comin’ but I know a change is gonna come”. Each group was musically subversive.
A lot of us sat in at lunch counters, refused to sit in the back of the bus, sang songs and carried signs. A lot of us got our asses kicked and some lost their lives; where are all those children now? I’ll tell you.
They work for special interest groups that rape and rip off our planet and people. They’ve formed religious coalitions that espouse an expeditious hastening to their heavenly home that can come only after the destruction of our planet and all of it’s resources. And some, having lost all the fight in them, sit by bathed in ennui and complacency and allow it to happen without using their hard won vote and voice to change things. They never dare speak a word aloud about any insanity.
How many of you know that this administration refuses to accept and comply with other governments that are concerned with global warning? How many know about human slavery still existing, both economically and physically?
How many of you read about genocide, hunger, ignorance, poverty, violence and hatred and sit by, not raising a voice? How many of you know that we are destroying the only planet we have in the name of ‘economic stability’?
We murder animals and eat them. We buy gas-guzzlers for the tax incentives while the government reaps huge profits on the tariffs that they impose on gasoline sales. We roll finely shredded vegetable matter in thin paper, place it in our mouths, light it on fire and die of cancer. CEOs reap millions while children go to sleep hungry…in America!
Another example: if you own a car (at least in my neighborhood) you pay out the wazoo for gas, insurance and upkeep. Furthermore, you run the risk of being given tickets by parking Nazis that don’t even work for your city. Towing, stealing, breaking and entering, keying, antenna damage and that jerk from out of state that uses it for a urinal or worse, some homeless or street person using your bumper for a latrine are also considerations. For what? So you can go to work and work and work; without health benefits, equal pay for equal work, a threat on your Social Security and the possibility of your kid coming home maimed or wounded as a reward for fighting in a war that we started? In my day, ‘Supporting The Troops’ meant ‘Bring Them Home!’
Chase the American Dream like a dog chases its tail and hope only that you live long enough to see your kids through college and your house paid for and, I’ll tell you what. You have violated everything that we fought for forty years and more ago: the responsibility of changing the world for the better.
I have no pension, no benefits, no 401K and I’ll probably pay rent for the rest of my life. Yet I still listen to the old music; and yes, I’m the guy waiting for the trolley in the rain. What’s more; if I ain’t got nuthin’ nice say… I’ll say it anyway!
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Wasted in New Orleans
News from the front: no progress has been made and the wind, my friend, is howling at your doorstep, down your chimney and up your assets like the Dire Wolf, all six hundred pounds of sin. It’s hotter than July (go figger) and the perfect storm is forming in your aura, if nowhere else. I’m at a category three myself.
I know what you’re thinking: what else can happen? Well, this: we got a bunch of yahoos wanting us to believe that their temporary agendas, with outcomes that we can or cannot predict, alter or effect are dialogue that we should consider considering. Go ahead, they seem to say, use what few brain cells that you have left to store useless information about the inhumanity (on all fronts) of our lives and conditions. But, you know what? All of our challenges will not amount to a hill of beans if we don’t take care of the hill itself. The rest is, after all, just mental masturbation, Capeesh?
Shot at and missed, shit at and hit. The war, the economy and gas prices, sure are important; but, do you really concentrate on socks and shoes if you aint got no feet? Do you lock the doors when the walls cave in? If you ain’t got a planet left to wage war on…what’s the point of having peace talks?
The big ‘E’ word. The environment. And how would you like to come see the poster child for environmental dysfunction? Well, ‘c’mon down!’ Come on down to New Orleans and The French Quarter!
As residents and workers here, we can’t help but chuckle when we see a tourist, inebriated or not, trip over what should be a smooth walking surface. The city says the sidewalk maintenance is the responsibility of the landlords, the VCC says it has a say on what goes on there and not to fool with blockage or adornment. Landlords and residents shoot the bird at any responsibility and say that if they are city streets, let the city take care of them. It’s the big ‘not my problem’ all the way around and then I trip and bust my butt.
Oh, and watch out for fallen light posts (or non existent ones). The city says to report a missing or broken light post just submit it’s identification number (?) The story of our lives here – submit a number. By the way, THE LIGHTING DEPARTMENT ONLY INSPECTS DURING THE DAY!!!
Demolition by neglect? Where would you like to start?
Add to that, the dark corners where disrespect and crime flourish and there’s no better example of environmental disaster than the vomit and blood and urine and condoms and used hypos on our streets; unless it’s the frigging trash, like the drunk passed out in your doorway or dog shit on the sidewalk.
I know what you’re thinking: “why Phil, it’s a hell of a lot cleaner now that we have a trash company looking out for us”. Nooooo, Fool… we’ve got ten times the number of cleanup elves sweeping up after us… so fast that we can’t let a hint drop without someone being there from SDT to catch it before it hits the ground. We are NOT better citizens about cleanliness, we just have more baby sitters. With your eyes open you can still see trash being tossed everywhere; cigarette butts, chewing gum, chicken bones, go cups and a zip code of spit being left on our streets to be hosed down and picked up by our bazillion dollar trash service.
Paint, kitchen grease and construction mediums being flushed down our storm drains and ultimately to the lake? Let me count the ways.
Recycling? In your dreams, Sucker. One of the other things we have not come to grips with is that you can’t just throw something away… there is no away! It has to go somewhere, and if something that can be recycled is not recycled, you wind up wasting one resource and exploiting another to replace it.
Glass, cardboard, plastic, paper and even compost are parts of reclamation in any civilized community. Simple stuff like a deposit on a bottle, money for cans and cardboard or at the least, an environmental Nazi to fine the shit out of people that don’t take the life of the planet seriously are ideas that haven’t even occurred yet.
Yes, we’ve got trouble, right here in River City. We’ve got an epidemic of complacency that IS stuck on stupid. We have people that know the difference in right speech, right thought and right action with their ears in a cell phone and their pants around their asses. We have parenting with no skills, models with no roles and lots of work with no pay.
We’ve been hung out to dry on every level and now the long slow hurricane season of the soul sets in with flash flood watches covering the southern portion of my disposition and a line of thunderstorms developing in the western region of my mental health and the northern regions of my ability to deal rationally with my precarious emotional situation. Severe weather well into the afternoon except for a lone gust of wind in my bedroom in a high pressure zone with a 103 and millibar and weak pressure ridge extending from my eyes down to my cheeks.
We know what needs to be done, what needs to happen and yet with daily life and every indiscretion that we allow to happen, another nail is driven into the coffin of the planet. It is said that an impotent person, an oppressed person, a beaten person does not make waves, and the ignorant get away with crimes against nature. Not one of us is truly enfettered and alive until we complain about the stuff that bothers us… the things around us that insult us.
Our sensibilities have left our sensitivities for dead and put vice grips on our hearts and minds. Well, my forecast for the extended period of time until we wake up and take it all back is high tonight, low tomorrow and---
precipitation--------is-------expected.
(Excerpts of this piece lifted from Tom Waits and others… but, of course, you knew that.)
I know what you’re thinking: what else can happen? Well, this: we got a bunch of yahoos wanting us to believe that their temporary agendas, with outcomes that we can or cannot predict, alter or effect are dialogue that we should consider considering. Go ahead, they seem to say, use what few brain cells that you have left to store useless information about the inhumanity (on all fronts) of our lives and conditions. But, you know what? All of our challenges will not amount to a hill of beans if we don’t take care of the hill itself. The rest is, after all, just mental masturbation, Capeesh?
Shot at and missed, shit at and hit. The war, the economy and gas prices, sure are important; but, do you really concentrate on socks and shoes if you aint got no feet? Do you lock the doors when the walls cave in? If you ain’t got a planet left to wage war on…what’s the point of having peace talks?
The big ‘E’ word. The environment. And how would you like to come see the poster child for environmental dysfunction? Well, ‘c’mon down!’ Come on down to New Orleans and The French Quarter!
As residents and workers here, we can’t help but chuckle when we see a tourist, inebriated or not, trip over what should be a smooth walking surface. The city says the sidewalk maintenance is the responsibility of the landlords, the VCC says it has a say on what goes on there and not to fool with blockage or adornment. Landlords and residents shoot the bird at any responsibility and say that if they are city streets, let the city take care of them. It’s the big ‘not my problem’ all the way around and then I trip and bust my butt.
Oh, and watch out for fallen light posts (or non existent ones). The city says to report a missing or broken light post just submit it’s identification number (?) The story of our lives here – submit a number. By the way, THE LIGHTING DEPARTMENT ONLY INSPECTS DURING THE DAY!!!
Demolition by neglect? Where would you like to start?
Add to that, the dark corners where disrespect and crime flourish and there’s no better example of environmental disaster than the vomit and blood and urine and condoms and used hypos on our streets; unless it’s the frigging trash, like the drunk passed out in your doorway or dog shit on the sidewalk.
I know what you’re thinking: “why Phil, it’s a hell of a lot cleaner now that we have a trash company looking out for us”. Nooooo, Fool… we’ve got ten times the number of cleanup elves sweeping up after us… so fast that we can’t let a hint drop without someone being there from SDT to catch it before it hits the ground. We are NOT better citizens about cleanliness, we just have more baby sitters. With your eyes open you can still see trash being tossed everywhere; cigarette butts, chewing gum, chicken bones, go cups and a zip code of spit being left on our streets to be hosed down and picked up by our bazillion dollar trash service.
Paint, kitchen grease and construction mediums being flushed down our storm drains and ultimately to the lake? Let me count the ways.
Recycling? In your dreams, Sucker. One of the other things we have not come to grips with is that you can’t just throw something away… there is no away! It has to go somewhere, and if something that can be recycled is not recycled, you wind up wasting one resource and exploiting another to replace it.
Glass, cardboard, plastic, paper and even compost are parts of reclamation in any civilized community. Simple stuff like a deposit on a bottle, money for cans and cardboard or at the least, an environmental Nazi to fine the shit out of people that don’t take the life of the planet seriously are ideas that haven’t even occurred yet.
Yes, we’ve got trouble, right here in River City. We’ve got an epidemic of complacency that IS stuck on stupid. We have people that know the difference in right speech, right thought and right action with their ears in a cell phone and their pants around their asses. We have parenting with no skills, models with no roles and lots of work with no pay.
We’ve been hung out to dry on every level and now the long slow hurricane season of the soul sets in with flash flood watches covering the southern portion of my disposition and a line of thunderstorms developing in the western region of my mental health and the northern regions of my ability to deal rationally with my precarious emotional situation. Severe weather well into the afternoon except for a lone gust of wind in my bedroom in a high pressure zone with a 103 and millibar and weak pressure ridge extending from my eyes down to my cheeks.
We know what needs to be done, what needs to happen and yet with daily life and every indiscretion that we allow to happen, another nail is driven into the coffin of the planet. It is said that an impotent person, an oppressed person, a beaten person does not make waves, and the ignorant get away with crimes against nature. Not one of us is truly enfettered and alive until we complain about the stuff that bothers us… the things around us that insult us.
Our sensibilities have left our sensitivities for dead and put vice grips on our hearts and minds. Well, my forecast for the extended period of time until we wake up and take it all back is high tonight, low tomorrow and---
precipitation--------is-------expected.
(Excerpts of this piece lifted from Tom Waits and others… but, of course, you knew that.)
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Lafayette, we are here
The train pulls in like a tired, wet mule; breathing slow and hard, unable to shake the same wet and heat off that any junkyard cur has the inherent gift and liberty of doing, and sitting patiently achuffing as a group of passengers get off ahuddling under yesterday’s newspapers and dime store umbrellas to take a cigarette smoke break under the lone oak that plays depot to the town that is on the verge of realizing its own potential pure yet dormant, The year is 2002 but it could be a scene from a hundred years ago, rain is falling steadily, unaffected by, and not affecting, the heat. The precipitation feels like humidity personified. (Forgive the first paragraph-I is reading Faulkner)
We pick around the mud and start walking toward what appears to be ‘town’. We share three canvas bags and no umbrella. The rain is slowing and it’s four blocks before we find someone to ask directions from. We're headed the right way, but for sure, we’re not in the French Quarter any more.
Five blocks further and we reach The Blue Moon Hostel. As described, it IS right across from the Borden’s Ice Cream Parlor. Three kids (read: any adult at least half our ages) stand, beaming at us as if we were the village idiots who had finally found their way home. Two are male and that’s as much as I notice about them except that they are apparently unarmed (there’s the New Orleans coming out in me), the third is a charming woman, worthy of every positive adjective I can think of.
Anyway, with a smile that could charm puppets, paupers, pirates, poets, pawns and Kings (that’s life!) she says “looking for a room?” she’s actually grinning and on her it’s the grin of a window being raised in a stuffy room. The very air became lighter and fresher.
“No, I think we already have one” Debbie starts, “We’re looking for…”
and in unison three of us say “…Catherine!” and share a laugh. Sounds stupid, felt great.
“Welcome and welcome howareya jahavagoodtrip and I’ll show you in and we’ll be back in twenty minutes we’re goin’ for ice cream make yourselves at home”. Yes we were really not in the French Quarter, ice cream indeed!
It’s been like going to Grammy’s house. Living room, dining room, big kitchen, bedrooms, bunk rooms, back yard, front yard. Cozy, spacious, hospitable and definitely ‘Home’ (with a capital ‘H’) and more about this later.
To make a long story longer: we dropped off our bags and went to find ‘town’. After all it was only mid day Monday and we were anxious to see the sights.
Armed with a McDonald’s map of the downtown we found Jefferson St. and walked its length, about twelve of their blocks. We passed about four people. We found some businesses. They were all closed. We found some bars. They were closed except for the one (Chips) that we had a drink at that was closing in an hour. The most action we found was at Circle K.
Naturally delighted (not), we returned to the warmth of Blue Moon, made our dinner in the communal kitchen, opened our bottle of wine (word: never travel to unexplored territory without at least two bottles of a familiar wine, corkscrew and enough snacks for a family of four per person), sat in the back yard for a spell and then went inside, cuddled up on the couch and read our respective books (never go anywhere without a book. Never. Anywhere.) Miles Davis was playing softly and the City Rats (us) finally started to chill. I think that’s when we got it.
Believe it or not, what we consider our fair city; our Big Easy, to be: laid back; can only be true when we compare ourselves to other cities much larger than ourselves, like New York or Chicago. It seems, from even my limited perspective, that even a blind person could see that we’re all running around like lunatics here. We (in New Orleans) don’t take a walk on the wild side, we go at it like we’re keepin’ score on how much we can get accomplished, and you know what? Other people don’t do that! Not even other people a hundred or so miles from here that say that they live in a city called Lafayette, Louisiana.
Listen, we were on the Amtrak, snackin’ down, curlin’ up, happy as clams, watching the world go by, and two women whom we couldn’t help but notice came through the car, jouncing around, and as they pass us one says to the other “I’m gonna go slam back some Jack, this is soooo boring!” Huh? Well, it seems like this particular train didn’t have a designated smoking area and, have you ever seen a smoker going through a nicotine jones? Of course not. A smoker here can smoke pretty much wherever and whenever they want. Same with drinkers, gamblers and any other kind of stimulus junky. We don’t have to, but the point is we can.
Heads up! What did you do on your day off? Answer: you did too much!
The next morning, we looked at Lafayette through different eyes. The place is sweet. They have an Arcadiana Fest each September, they’re building a Planetarium, have a Children’s Craft Center, buildings 150-200 years old, antique shops and was the capitol of French Louisiana. Bring your car, there’s a lot to see outside of it as well. The place is et up with culture. They give tours fer Chrissakes!
We went to Don’s Seafood Restaurant; it was like a dinner from a time capsule, circa 1965. Lost in space and time and free of the !@#$%^&*( pretensions that we seek here.
Upon reading the brochure, at the Greyhound Bus terminal (the train was running eight hours behind, but they are building a terminal for it to stop at. I’ll miss that tree), I found out that the full name of our lodgings is The Blue Moon Guest House and Saloon. They have music on the weekends, guests from around the world, the most affordable prices and co-op type atmosphere. Except for the convenience of computers (they have a website too), you would think that you just stepped back in time, and, yes; I did go out for ice cream!
We pick around the mud and start walking toward what appears to be ‘town’. We share three canvas bags and no umbrella. The rain is slowing and it’s four blocks before we find someone to ask directions from. We're headed the right way, but for sure, we’re not in the French Quarter any more.
Five blocks further and we reach The Blue Moon Hostel. As described, it IS right across from the Borden’s Ice Cream Parlor. Three kids (read: any adult at least half our ages) stand, beaming at us as if we were the village idiots who had finally found their way home. Two are male and that’s as much as I notice about them except that they are apparently unarmed (there’s the New Orleans coming out in me), the third is a charming woman, worthy of every positive adjective I can think of.
Anyway, with a smile that could charm puppets, paupers, pirates, poets, pawns and Kings (that’s life!) she says “looking for a room?” she’s actually grinning and on her it’s the grin of a window being raised in a stuffy room. The very air became lighter and fresher.
“No, I think we already have one” Debbie starts, “We’re looking for…”
and in unison three of us say “…Catherine!” and share a laugh. Sounds stupid, felt great.
“Welcome and welcome howareya jahavagoodtrip and I’ll show you in and we’ll be back in twenty minutes we’re goin’ for ice cream make yourselves at home”. Yes we were really not in the French Quarter, ice cream indeed!
It’s been like going to Grammy’s house. Living room, dining room, big kitchen, bedrooms, bunk rooms, back yard, front yard. Cozy, spacious, hospitable and definitely ‘Home’ (with a capital ‘H’) and more about this later.
To make a long story longer: we dropped off our bags and went to find ‘town’. After all it was only mid day Monday and we were anxious to see the sights.
Armed with a McDonald’s map of the downtown we found Jefferson St. and walked its length, about twelve of their blocks. We passed about four people. We found some businesses. They were all closed. We found some bars. They were closed except for the one (Chips) that we had a drink at that was closing in an hour. The most action we found was at Circle K.
Naturally delighted (not), we returned to the warmth of Blue Moon, made our dinner in the communal kitchen, opened our bottle of wine (word: never travel to unexplored territory without at least two bottles of a familiar wine, corkscrew and enough snacks for a family of four per person), sat in the back yard for a spell and then went inside, cuddled up on the couch and read our respective books (never go anywhere without a book. Never. Anywhere.) Miles Davis was playing softly and the City Rats (us) finally started to chill. I think that’s when we got it.
Believe it or not, what we consider our fair city; our Big Easy, to be: laid back; can only be true when we compare ourselves to other cities much larger than ourselves, like New York or Chicago. It seems, from even my limited perspective, that even a blind person could see that we’re all running around like lunatics here. We (in New Orleans) don’t take a walk on the wild side, we go at it like we’re keepin’ score on how much we can get accomplished, and you know what? Other people don’t do that! Not even other people a hundred or so miles from here that say that they live in a city called Lafayette, Louisiana.
Listen, we were on the Amtrak, snackin’ down, curlin’ up, happy as clams, watching the world go by, and two women whom we couldn’t help but notice came through the car, jouncing around, and as they pass us one says to the other “I’m gonna go slam back some Jack, this is soooo boring!” Huh? Well, it seems like this particular train didn’t have a designated smoking area and, have you ever seen a smoker going through a nicotine jones? Of course not. A smoker here can smoke pretty much wherever and whenever they want. Same with drinkers, gamblers and any other kind of stimulus junky. We don’t have to, but the point is we can.
Heads up! What did you do on your day off? Answer: you did too much!
The next morning, we looked at Lafayette through different eyes. The place is sweet. They have an Arcadiana Fest each September, they’re building a Planetarium, have a Children’s Craft Center, buildings 150-200 years old, antique shops and was the capitol of French Louisiana. Bring your car, there’s a lot to see outside of it as well. The place is et up with culture. They give tours fer Chrissakes!
We went to Don’s Seafood Restaurant; it was like a dinner from a time capsule, circa 1965. Lost in space and time and free of the !@#$%^&*( pretensions that we seek here.
Upon reading the brochure, at the Greyhound Bus terminal (the train was running eight hours behind, but they are building a terminal for it to stop at. I’ll miss that tree), I found out that the full name of our lodgings is The Blue Moon Guest House and Saloon. They have music on the weekends, guests from around the world, the most affordable prices and co-op type atmosphere. Except for the convenience of computers (they have a website too), you would think that you just stepped back in time, and, yes; I did go out for ice cream!
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