New Orleans Day 1 - Trees of Life, Museums of Death, and Black-Out Drunk Sword Swallowers
Prologue: After the car accident, I spent the next morning running around trying to salvage as much of my worldly possessions as I could from my wrecked car. I actually did a lot better than I expected, but it felt weird to be driving the rental car to the tow yard so soon. I was a little shaky behind the wheel, emotionally I mean and hopefully not literally. I did have a little bit of time before my flight back home to Mass, so I went back to T-Bones Records and Cafe to get some coffee and a turkey bacon sandwich. It was such a good sandwich and combined with their coffee and record selection, that place has really been put over the top as a must go in Hattiesburg.
From there the rest of the day was spent mostly in the air. My parents and I figured that whatever would come next, it would be easier to plan it from home. Plus I think the second I called my mom about the crash, I didn't really have much choice in the matter. Conveniently, Hattiesburg actually has their own airport. It is adorably tiny, but the people there are incredibly nice and helpful.
The flights were very pleasant and I spent them mostly passed out from exhaustion. When I landed in Boston, my parents were waiting for me and my roommate from college also went to the airport to surprise me. It was amazingly sweet. I was so tired, sore, and demoralized from everything, but seeing them and receiving text messages of support from old friends and new, did make me deeply grateful for the life I've had and the people I've met along the way. All things considered, I've been insanely lucky.
When I was home, life wasn't too eventful. I mostly just depression napped until one or two in the afternoon, went through the twin fun processes of sorting out insurance and shopping for used cars, and hung out with friends or cousins when they got off work. The last one was actually a lot of fun, but I didn't have time to really mope too much because my sister, Lauren, and I had a plane to catch for New Orleans.
Lauren's Christmas present from my parents was a trip to New Orleans during the week that I had planned on being in Louisiana anyway. We didn't want my crash to ruin her Christmas, so my mom worked some sky miles magic to get me on the same flights there and back. My mom is freakishly good with working rewards programs, be it sky miles or Kohl's cash, to the point where if she didn't have such a strong moral compass, I think she'd make a hell of a grifter. She's got a head for angles and schemes, but it usually just leads to us getting real;ly reasonably priced jeans. I really appreciated her making this happen though.
I was excited to get to see New Orleans with Lauren, because she was in college when Katrina happened and went down to help out with the clean up and construction programs in the 9th Ward. It had been such a formative experience for her, and she fell in love with the city but she hasn't had a chance to go back since so I was really glad to get to share in her reunion and to have a seasoned pro guiding me around. Being the surprise baby of the family, my brother and sister were really important in raising me and shaping who I would grow up to become. Because she was just a little bit closer to me in age and actually liked books (my brother now appreciates books but he took a while to warm up), my sister had a particularly strong impact on me early on by giving me Calvin and Hobbes comics and Kurt Vonnegut novels when I was in elementary school. As I hit middle school she snuck me Tarantino movies, Monty Python, and graphic novels, helping me get a jump start on my college hipster phase. She let me sleep over in her college dorm, and she always made me feel like I was way smarter and cooler than I really was, which I've always been incredibly grateful for. My siblings and I love each other very much, but we're not exactly the types to "talk about our feelings" or "say nice things to each other in person" so I figured I'd say all that now just so it's on the record that she means a lot to me (You do to, Dave if you're reading this, but you haven't visited me yet, so I can't count giving you a shout out as part of the blog).
We arrived Sunday night, but all we did was go right to sleep to get a bright and early start to the week.
One of my friends from college grew up in New Orleans and she gave me a very nice spreadsheet of all her favorite things in each NoLa neighborhood, which was absolutely amazing. We started our first morning with her suggestion for a cafe in Uptown called Satsuma Cafe. They had great coffee and sandwiches. New Orleans coffee is famous for adding chicory to the coffee and I really love that extra flavor. For my sandwich, I got my Dr. Seuss on and had a green eggs and ham croissant. The eggs were green from pesto, and it was absolutely delicious. I would eat them even without a goat or not on a boat.
We needed that energy because without a car, we ended up walking 2 miles to our next stop. We could have gotten a Lyft, but it was such a beautiful day that it was worth the exercise. Plus we got to walk right alongside the Mississippi which was cool even if we couldn't always see it because of the levees. Eventually we made it to Audubon park, which was one of the most jaw-droppingly beautiful city parks I've ever seen. The trees were so windy and fantastical and the hanging moss just gave it an extra magical quality. My sister wanted to take a break from walking for a bit and just enjoy the shade and the good climbing, so I took these photos I call "Nerd in the Wild"
The big draw in the park is the zoo, which was unfortunately closed today, but there were plenty of neat little treats tucked in throughout. Our first cool stop was a beautiful public arts installation called Hyams Fountain, which is dedicated to all the children enjoying the park past, present, and future. The actual fountain head is a sculpture of a mother and three young children and it feeds into a gorgeous reflecting pool with just the gentlest hint of ripples. At the end of the pool is another sculpture of a slightly older boy putting his first tentative toe into the water, and it really captures a sort of wonderful energy that makes you feel like a kid again.
The next little hidden gem in the park was a stone labyrinth dedicated to healing and meditation in the wake of Katrina. It was a really nice and peaceful place to hang out. When we saw labyrinth on the map, we were definitely expecting more of a corn maze type vibe, but this was better, even if it was easier to solve.
The main thing we wanted to see in the park was the Tree of Life. It was incredible. The giant winding oak is over 300 years old, it's 35 feet in circumference, and it's branches extend over 160 feet! It's one of the most spectacular trees I've ever seen, and even better it's fully climbable.
A you can see, my sister and I have slightly different approaches to tree climbing.
The tree is right next to the zoo, and even though it was closed today you could see the giraffes poking their heads up over the fence. What silly creatures.
After all that Tree climbing, we were in need of an energy boost so we walked to a coffee shop called Cafe Luna. It was a really cute place with a porch to sit on, giving it that extra little bit of a homey vibe. The coffee was really good, the barista told me an absolutely disgusting joke (see below), and it was nice to get to just sit down for a bit. The best part though was that the walls were decorated with all these great pictures of marching bands. If that tuba player doesn't melt your heart, then I don't know what kind of stone you are made from.
From there we walked down Magazine Street, which is sort of the go-to cool, hip shopping street filled with all kinds of local stores, art galleries, and restaurants. It reminded me a lot of Newbury Street in Boston, but less bougie and more funky. When are feet couldn't take much walking (mind you we still had all of our luggage with us because we hadn't been able to check into Air BnB yet), we stopped at a place called the Hey! Cafe because of their wonderfully disturbing logo. From there we called a Lyft, and got some homemade lemonades while we waited. I also decided to get into the Mardi Gras Spirit a little bit and got a King Cake Blondie. I didn't get the king, but I had a delicious snack without biting into a plastic baby so I honestly think I came out on top.
We checked into our Air BnB with no problems, and then set off unencumbered to walk to the French Quarter. Along the way we walked by some impressively decorated houses, but this mural really took the cake. We ended up having a really funny conversation with the next door neighbor who was sitting on his porch. He said that he stares at everyday and he likes it but he has no idea what's going on in it. Then he said a sentence that neither my sister nor I saw coming: "All I know is if a pervert walks by and sees it, he's gonna play with himself" Poetry is alive and well in the streets of New Orleans.
When we did make it to the Quarter, our first stop was immediately to go see the statue of Ignatius J. Reilley. As I mentioned earlier, my sister and I have always bonded over cool books, and we both geeked out pretty hard over the hilarious A Confederacy of Dunces. The hilarity of the book is only matched by the tragedy of its back story, as the New Orleans-raised John Kennedy Toole kept getting his manuscript rejected by publishers, and he eventually killed himself. Nearly 12 years later, his mother finally succeeded in getting the book published and it ended up winning a Pulitzer Prize because it's so damn good. The book really is a love letter to the city in a lot of ways, and it's nice to see the city celebrate it's fat, cantankerous, lovable asshole of a protagonist. We were so happy to see it, our valves nearly collapsed.
It also took us almost no time at all to see live music which made me incredibly happy. If only more cities appreciated the Tuba as much as New Orleans does. This was to be the first of many tuba sightings, and the street musicians were almost across the board tremendous players. You could probably spend a day not going into any shops, and the streets in New Orleans would keep you plenty entertained.
Our next stop was the Old Absinthe House on Bourbon Street. The building is over 200 years old, and is famously the spot where Andrew Jackson met with a local pirate name Jean Lafitte and enlisted his crew to help fight the British during the War of 1812 in exchange for full pardons of their pillaging ways. The back story is fun, the building is really cool, and the absinthe is strong and tasty. Because it's on Bourbon Street, it's a little over-priced, but a glass of that 138 proof Grand Absinthe will make you forget that and most other things.
My sister was also very pleased with the graffiti in the Ladies Restroom, and shared this picture of some of her favorites. I had no idea what we fellas were missing out on.
I ended up being really grateful for that high alcohol content because our next stop was the Museum of Death, which, while fascinating, was pretty grisly. Definitely not a place for the faint of heart or stomach, so that little cushion of drunkenness helped me process some of the heavier stuff. The museum didn't allow any photography outside the gift shop though, so don't worry about scrolling down there's nothing too gory. The shocking nature of some of the museum is very intentional though. We talked pretty extensively to the guy running it, and his point is that death might be the most universal thing about humanity, yet we stigmatize it so much and don't really talk about it. He and his brother started getting really interested in the topic sociologically when they realized how much of dead people's possessions just get thrown out and how much history is casually lost this way. They began collecting various items, and soon their collection grew to the point where the museum became the next logical step.
The first thing you see when you go through the curtain into the exhibit is a human skeleton being eaten by an alligator skeleton which is just a great way to start any museum. Other notable items included art by and of different serial killers. It was kind of surprising how many of them made really good painting while they were in prison. They also had some paintings by Jack Kevorkian and one of his euthanasia apparatuses. I refuse to group him in with the killers' artwork wise though, because I think he was one of the most misunderstood figures in his lifetime and a real hero campaigning for peace and human dignity in the times when very few options were left. There were also a large collection of actual prison shanks, mummified and preserved remains, crime scene photos (these were what really got to me), coffins, medical instruments, and many more cool items I can't remember through the absinthe haze. There was even a small movie theater in the back called the Theater of Death, which played a homemade montage of various clips of death from new footage ranging from car accidents to public executions all underscored by super bright and peppy second line jazz. It was a very surreal mix of tonal inconsistencies. My sister had a stronger constitution than I, and really loved the anthropological aspect of learning about different cultural death rituals and approaches. I also really liked this, but I could have done without actually seeing the crime scene photos of Nicole Brown Simpson and Sharon Tate's respective murders. Those two events loom large over the cultural landscape to the point where they've almost become abstracted away into just things that everyone knows happened and that get made fun of in countless late night monologues. It kinda disconnects you from the human element of what actually happened, but seeing those photos makes it all too painfully real.
On that bright and shining note, it was time for us to get some dinner. My former bass teacher had just recently gone to New Orleans with his wife, and he couldn't recommend a place called Deanie's Seafood more highly. It was right across from the museum, and I have to say it completely lived up to his hype. I got the Bucktown Boil Pizza, which was a white pizza with gulf shrimp, crawfish, and crab meat on top drizzled with fresh mozzarella. It was out of this world good. The seafood came in big portions, the cheese was hot and fresh, and the crust was the perfect amount of crunchy. I never would have guessed how much my love of pizza and seafood would have complimented each other, but I guess as Boston boy, white pizza is essentially the solid form of creamy clam chowder broth so it all checks out. That description might be vaguely disgusting, but trust me, it was one of the best things I've ever eaten.
After dinner, it was time to do some comedy. One of my favorite comics from Vermont, Eric Dreiblatt, had actually moved out NoLa since last I saw him, so he gave me a nice list of his favorite mics in the city, and I was really happy to see him again and catch up. The first mic he steered me to was at a cool bar called 10th Street Live. This mic really was awesome. The place was packed with actual audience members not just comics, the bartenders were all super friendly and supportive of the comedy, and the hosts, Kate Mason and Laura Sanders (both awesome comics to boot) were giving away free sex toys taped to the bottom of random people's chairs as part of a sex positivity awareness campaign. What more could you want? They also did a fun thing where there was a theme topic of the night, where the bartender selected the best joke on that theme of the night and that person got free drinks. This night's topic was Soup which was very fascinating to watch people come up with jokes about. I think my favorite soup joke was from a guy named Alex (I don't remember what his last name was but my phone autocorrected it to Wood Chips if that's helpful) and the joke was: I was eating soup in the rain. It took forever.
My favorite comic of the night was Eric, and that's not me being biased because he did totally different stuff than what I saw in Vermont and it still killed. The joke that particularly got me was "Do you think when the wicked witch of the west said 'Fly, my pretties' any of the monkeys ever paused and said 'Aww she thinks we're pretty'"
Other highlights for me:
Johnny Azari: I just became a father. I got married and my wife already had a kid, so now I have a little white girl. I hit the jackpot. Do you realize how expensive that would be if you wanted to buy one?
Byron Broussard: I don't believe people when they tell me they're God.
Andy French- I got a $15 po boy today. That's a decidedly middle class boy
I kept my set light and silly, because it was younger crowd and I think it went over really well. I also had changed up my act quite a bit since Vermont, and Eric told me he liked my new jokes so that made me feel really good like I've actually made progress as a performer which is the trajectory I was hoping for.
There was another open mic that night that seemed fascinating so we didn't stick around too long after my set. The next mic was at a place called Siberia Lounge, and the reason it seemed so fascinating was because there were burlesque dancers who would perform in between the comics. By the time we got there though, there were only a few performers left. Luckily we got to see some good comics and the last burlesque performance of the night. I'd never seen a burlesque show, outside of that one great episode of the Simpsons, and I think I may have enjoyed it more if I wasn't very aware that I was right next to my sister the whole time. Regardless of the awkwardness, it was a really impressive and artful performance.
My favorite comic from this mic was Byron Broussard, who did a totally different set than he did at 10th Street Live that was a really weird conceptual bit about him reading his notes on stage. It's very hard to do it justice, but it was killing my sister and me.
The real highlight of the night though was when this super drunk guy who had been hassling all the comics all night took the stage. I thought that he was gonna do some drunken half-prepared comedy which is not uncommon at open mics, but then he announced he would be doing a sword swallowing act, which was equal parts terrifying and intriguing. I'd seen comics die on stage before, I was really worried he was going to make it literal. He started off on a high note by berating the audience until five people brought their chairs from the bar to the front of the stage. Also in case you were worried, he did have a fez and face tattoos. Once he was satisfied that people were sitting in front he said one of the most amazing things I have ever heard: "I am now going to swallow two swords at the time. Now not a lot of people do this" To his credit, he did do it, and it was pretty impressive, but also it was after midnight on a Monday so the crowd was hilariously ambivalent to his feats. That did not deter him though as he went way over time doing two more stunts. Next, he swallowed a sword and used it to lift a backpack while it was still in his throat, and his big closer was using a pair of tongs to pull a king cake baby out of his stomach. Instead he pulled out a Mardis Gras coin, and seemed genuinely surprised. It was unlike nothing I've ever seen before but luckily nobody was hurt.
As if that was wasn't surreal enough, as he was finishing his act Tim Heidecker from Tim and Eric walked into the bar wearing a bright pink tuxedo suit, ordered a drink, and then left with all the burlesque dancers. If my sister hadn't also been there and seen it, I probably would have thought it was a dream.
I ended up being the last performer of the night, so my set went okay, but there were only four or five people still left and they were all pretty tired and so was I so it wasn't my best performance ever, but it was worth it just to have been there for all that. All in all it was a pretty action packed first day.
Favorite Random Sightings: Dooky Chase's (apparently this is a chain, but I don't get how people are so cool with the casual Dooky); The World's Un-Fair (this was a poster for a fair); The Big Cheezy; Baby Bump (maternity store); Juan's Flying Burrito
Regional Observations: I guess this is actually fairly common knowledge, but I thought it was so cool that there are almost no graves in New Orleans just crypts and mausoleums.
Albums Listened To: None this whole week, because we weren't driving but there was so much music around I'll stick pick songs of the day
People's Favorite Jokes:
*Be warned this next one is pretty gross, but keep in mind someone told me this while they were at work* A man wanted to go to a prostitute but he had only ten dollars. He asked for the cheapest prostitute they had, and the madame said they had one for $5. He pays and goes up to the room and start having sex, but it's just terrible. "I'm sorry," the man says, "It feels like sandpaper down there, is there anything you can do about that?" "For 5 more dollars, I can make it better," the prostitute says. He pays her and she goes to the bathroom for a while. When she comes out they start having sex again, and it feels amazing. When they're done, the man asks "What did you do in the bathroom to make it better?" And the prostitute says, "I tore the scabs off"
Have you heard of the new band called 999 Megabytes? They don't have a gig yet. (much more wholesome)
Song of the Day:
