Apologies for missing my first blog posting since maybe Christmas on Thursday but I was on hiatus. More accurately, I got out of town for a few days and made my way down to New Orleans, Louisiana. There are a few places on this planet where I naturally feel that I belong and New Orleans is one of them. It does feel that I have spent a number of past lives in the town and every corner seems to hold some remembrance of a forgotten history. Had a great time and I’ll share some highlights here.
1) Had the fun Southwest “Let’s stop at every airport on the way there” flight plan. It is disconcerting to find yourself landing in Tulsa. It makes you ask yourself questions like “Tulsa has an airport?” and “Is it possible to land a plane on a gravel runway?”
2) I have often heard that New Orleans is the most European of American cities. I’ve also heard it described as the most northern Caribbean city. In my mind, though, there is nothing like it in the world. There is just an otherworldly quality to the entire place. Where else do you have the chaos of Bourbon Street next to the art of Royal Street and the sheer vibrancy of Jackson Square. The glamour of the Garden District juxtaposed with the unending power of the river. Where music literally emanates from the buildings. It is truly a city out of time. It is not from this century or any other century. I think that you could truly live forever there because time simply doesn’t exist within city limits.
3) Thursday night. Yeah. Wow. You’ll have to wait until my novel is published for that story. I was there and I can’t separate the fact from the fiction. All I can say is that walking back to my hotel at the end of the night I felt like my main character come to life.
4) A few people who have been in my apartment have seen this picture of Pirate’s Alley that hangs over my CD collection. Pirate’s Alley is my favorite part of town. It’s just two blocks right next to the cathedral and it just feels like Limbo to me. You have the noise of Bourbon Street behind you and this cathedral in front of you and in your soul you know you are at that moment halfway between heaven and hell. And I love those in between places, most of my stories focus on those in between moments in life. Well, for a while I have been talking about my dream of buying one of the buildings (along with my goal of living in New Orleans for a year and writing about it). I walked down it this weekend and saw that one of the buildings was for sale. I actually called up the realtor to get a price range. We’re talking about 800K here. If anyone knows where I can get a low interest loan (in the range of “Here’s a ton of money now go live your dream”) let me know.
5) Oh, the other thing that I dig about Pirate’s Alley is Faulkner lived there while Sherwood Anderson lived a block away and Tennessee Williams lived two blocks in the other direction. At the same time F. Scott Fitzgerald had an apartment overlooking one of the cemeteries. There is something about knowing that I was walking the same streets as those figures that makes me feel incredible.
6) The random conversations are the best ones. This one took place at an oyster bar one night
Guy at Bar: “You have to examine the positive and negative externalities”
Deuce the Oyster Schucker: “Explain”
Guy at Bar: “See a negative externality is…let’s say you sit down at a bar and the guy next to you is smoking. He’s making your night worse but you can’t ask him to pay you for your suffering. That’s a negative externality.”
Decue the Oyster Schucker: “I got it.”
Guy at Bar: “Now a positive externality…”
EC: “Is the pretty girl sitting next to you at the bar.”
Guy at Bar: “Exactly. (Points to his girlfriend) We should be paying her for allowing us to sit here.”
7) If there is a place to find redemption in New Orleans it is Preservation Hall. Every trip I make there I spend the last night sitting on their floor and listening to some of the best jazz ever played. I always feel better about humanity when I see what can be created by people working together. It is a glorious thing.
8) I made this trip for one reason and one reason only, to figure out what I want to do with my life. Anyone who has been reading the blog understands that my life has been going through a lot of flux recently and I needed to get away and get to a place that I call home and to just think things through. And late last night, as I sat in Café Du Monde I had a lot of things dawn on me that had been behind a lot of mental screens. Some were enlightening, some weren’t pleasant but they all were apparent through my adventures this weekend. All I can say is watch this space over the next few months. Great things are afoot.
I’ll tell a few more stories as the week goes on. I have to get ready for work tomorrow. No, I can’t believe I left NOLA to go back to work either.
The five random CDs of the week:
1) Jay Farrar “ThirdShiftGrottoSlack”
2) The Tragically Hip “Live Between Us”
3) Martin Zellar “Born Under”
4) Henry Rollins “Think Tank”
5) The Shins “Oh, Inverted World”
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