Sunday, December 30, 2012

Christmas in New Orleans

Christmas in New Orleans is, in beauty, akin to Christmas in Paris--trade in the snarky locals for totally awesome laid back locals and they are equal in so many more ways than mere beauty.  This being my first Christmas in New Orleans I have tried to make my rounds and experience many of the town's holiday traditions.  Outside of seeing my first black Santa at the Thanksgiving parade down Decatur, my first stop was the Roosevelt Hotel.


 
 
I walked from the dark of night into an orgasmic wanderlust of sparkle and color and thousands upon thousands of lights.  It is magnificent.  It is also a little overwhelming, like a surreal cotton candy acid trip in the North Pole, but it is beautiful.  This has been a tradition of the hotel since 1994, but  the lobby had been decorated for Christmas off and on since the 40's, depending on the owners.  The birth of the version we see now, though it has evolved over the years, started in 2009 when the hotel reopened with a flourish after Katrina.

On Christmas Eve I had the opportunity to see the bonfires along the Mississippi. I'm always down for a good bonfire, add that to Christmas Eve and you've got a beautiful family evening.  Kind of feels like the kinds of things people would do where I grew up in North Carolina.  One of these families kindly brought me in to their bonfire circle and explained to me that the bonfires are supposed to guide Papa Noel, New Orleanian's Santa Claus.

I went to a play on a Réveillon dinner in the Bywater, which, for all intents and purposes, was a potluck. It has been explained to me by my lovely regular Miss. Gloria that when she was growing up the Réveillon dinner was the feast you ate on Christmas Eve that was supposed to ride you through Midnight Mass to Christmas morning. As most traditions the dinner has morphed into an opportunity for special prix fix menus at some of the best restaurants, gala opportunities in Uptown, and most importantly, an opportunity to get together with whatever form of family you have here and feast and drink and be merry.

My final Christmas in New Orleans moment included a walk to the Quarter to see the lights at Jackson Square, a chilly moment with the Mississippi River (this is for sanity, the river is so constant and calming), and a quiet moment along Decatur listening to a loan musician's rendition of Louis Armstrong's "Christmas in New Orleans".  My walk ended with Christmas Caroling at Washington Park near Frenchmen Street.  I had forgone the Jackson Square Caroling because I wasn't really in the mood for all of the people that would involve and knew the Washington Park one would be a good neighborhood activity.

New Orleans' Christmas has been criticized by some tourists for downplaying Christmas over New Years.  I have kind of seen this outside of the above, work hasn't been as busy, it seems like a lot of people went out of town, my neighborhood has been silent except for the random bursts of fireworks.  It would surprise me in no way shape or form if this was actually the case because New Orleans knows when to keep things sacred and when to party. 

Save the party for the eve of the New Year--which is in about 25 hours.


Sunday, December 23, 2012

Dodgy Drunks & Pissed up Wankers. 2nd Installment

This morning I locked up my bike a couple of posts from a parked pick-up truck with the engine running.  I thought nothing of it at the time because the newspaper delivery guy drives the same truck and in my groggy 6am head I didn't even see the guy sitting in the front seat, and I didn't put much together very cognitively, I just assumed.... 

Almost an hour later I was bringing the out the patio furniture and was surprised to see this truck still out there, and still running.  After a brief consultation wit the famous Welmon Sharlhorne, whose artwork you can see at the Smithsonian, or here; who just so happened to be walking by, and which went a little like this:  "Can you kill yourself sitting in a running car if it's not in a garage?" and ended with Welmon, who looks like the spirit of the Saints barfed black and gold pimp glitter all over him, and is also one of my most favorite Frenchmen Street people, looking down at me from his lens-less gold rimmed glasses stating pointedly, "Oh, he's goin die".

After my co-worker and I knocked on the window for almost three minutes the man began to move as if coming out of a coma.  What looked like his attempt to roll down the window or turn the car off, I'm still not sure, he went on to run his hand into the radio like a blind zombie.  It was like watching life is slow motion rewind.  Three times he reached toward the radio but with no actual button triggered.  He then found the window lever and rolled it down a half inch and back up.  This guy was so wasted.  All the while he comes off as being completely oblivious to our yelling at him through the window, "Your car has been running for over an hour!" and  "Turn your engine off and sleep it out!".  He was moving around inside the running car with his arms and wobbling head, but denied us any response, much less a turn of the head to even look at us. 
 
Welmon said, "fu*% it, you woke him up.  You tried."  It was time to open the cafe so after a couple more attempts to get him to turn his engine off we went back inside, checking out the window every couple minutes to see if he was still there.  After a couple glances out the window, the truck was gone.  Vanished. 

The moment he was gone I didn't know what I regretted more, waking him up, or releasing this man to the world--in a vehicle. Shoulda called the cops, but it all felt like it happened so fast and even if we did, they would have never gotten there in time.

Fifteen minutes later in walks this sparkle faced, top hat wearing, vaudeville slaps the face of burlesque looking man. He was rather lively, his face was covered in red glitter, and he, being the only other person in the place at that time, went on to regal us with the stories of his night on mushrooms in New Orleans, starting with him in a nice suit and tie, and ending with him in a top hat, a burnt off tie (the knot and neck part still intact, and on him), a dirt covered blazer with matching tattered pants, and ridiculous sparkly red heeled man boots.  He apparently got slapped by a hooker, lost all his friends, found new ones, swapped shoes with a transvestite, rode a bike to the beginning of the Industrial Canal at the tip of Bywater across from the lower 9th Ward, was taken under the wing of Amzie Adams, the famous Frenchmen Street Artist and Spiritual Mentor, whose Art can be seen here, and caught a metal show at Hi-Ho Lounge.

His visit ended with us all dancing in the middle of the cafe to The Temptations.

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Gene's Po'Boys

By: Amy Thomas

I just so happen to live two blocks from the pepto-pink beacon of po'boy greatness, Gene's Po'boys, located at St. Claude and Elysian Fields.


Out of all of the po'boy spots in all of New Orleans, this one is my favorite.  It's open 24 hours, it's so close to me, and it is that dirty little food secret that is sooo bad and sooo good all at once.  I already know that their roast beef po'boy with cheese is something that I will crave no matter where I am in the world for my entire life .  For me, it's a toss up between the hot sausage and the roast beef po'boy, but I have to say I think the roast beef wins for me.  Steaming hot roast beef, gravy, gooey american cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickles, mayo, on fresh french bread, mmmmm...makes my tummy happy and hungry just thinking about it.  And it is huge, I can never make it much further than half-way through the sandwich, and it is always great later.

Gene's only has something like 5 or 6 sandwiches on their menu, a couple breakfast ones (I'm not really sure, I stick the roast beef or sausage), the hot sausage, the roast beef, and hot ham and cheese.  That is it.  No sides, no bullshit, just a po'boy and a free soda.

The location is considered by some to be a 'bad' part of town, I guess thats relative, go in like you know what you are doing, you already have all the menu items to choose from above.  I literally only go at night, for some reason Gene's isn't the same in the sunlight, a couple beers in your belly doesn't hurt either.  They are cash only, and our favorite daquiri spot is right around the corner on Elysian Fields--andt they are owned by the same guy.
Keep it local.

I know what I'm eating for dinner....




Gene's Po-Boys on Urbanspoon

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Dodgy Drunks & Pissed Up Wankers: A Continuing Saga

Opening a Cafe on Frenchmen Street at 6 am on a Sunday is like walking into the Ceasar's Palace suite of The Hangover before everyone woke up meets a really lame zombie attack .   It smells, there is trash everywhere, people are milling about aimlessly crashing, stumbly, drunken and/or coming down from whatever they took the night before.  And there is always an interesting situation that arises when one of them meanders into the cafe to attempt to purchase breakfast or coffee. 

Last week this hipster Brit arrives and painstakingly orders a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich.  After much miscommunication between he and the barista the transaction is completed and he takes a half step over and procedes to fall asleep leaning against the counter.  Another customer entered and ordered around him, none are really surprised.  You have to be slighty desensitized to these kind of things here.

After tthe party...trash dat!
I rush his sandwhich, throwing it in a to go bag, no matter what the ticket says, and shoo him on out the restaurant.  This poor cat attempts to eat his sandwich on the chairs outside, this went unnoticed to us inside until I took a box to the trash and find him passed out, slumped down in his chair with the remains of his sandwich trickling from his mouth down his chest where the last remaining bite is resting in a sloppy mess of deli paper and melted cheese.

I wake him up with an abrupt, "Hey dude! You can't sleep here man.  Dude!" After a while he comes to and begins to argue and almost yell at me claiming that he was definently not asleep. 

"Asleep or passed out, you gotta get the hell out of here you pissed up wanker."

After another of these exchanges (I was a little hungover this particular morning and was feeling fiesty) he finally made his exit.  Mounting his bike like a man with brand new legs, and wabbled about 20 yards before literally just falling right over onto the ground.  It's like he just turned to dead weight, whatever happened, he and his bike fully ate it.  He popped right up like he was totally cool, as if nothing happened, remounted, made it to the corner where he tried to stop for a car, and ran into the curb busting his front wheel.  Taking it like a man, or the worthless drunken piece of clay he was at that moment, and vomited his sandwich right back on himself.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Shots Fired. Nothing New in New Orleans

We have now been here in the New Orleans's lower 7th Ward for over seven months and have seen a lot of good and a lot of change, and a lot of new experiences, good and bad. 

New Experience #1: 

Gun Shots. 
Gun shots are not something I have ever gotten used to in my travels around the world.  I was in a bar that was shot up/held up in Charlotte, NC one horrendous night, which was also one of the first nights I have ever actually heard a pistol shot with the exception of the reverberations of a hunting rifle in the distance while playing in the country growing up. 

In New Orleans, gun shots are something you can face on a weekly basis, sometimes more, sometimes less.  Things have been relatively quiet around here lately, but I can now precisely determine the difference between gun shots and a car back fire or fireworks. 

We have also had two drive-by's happen at the trap house (look it up) a block up the street.  One of which I was home for. I was on the phone with my boyfriend when the shots started, I stopped talking and hit the floor (bar shooting flash-backs have taught me something), subconsciously counting the shots as the echoed in my mind even to this day.  They stopped shooting.  I turned the lights off in the den and looked out the window to see people in the bar catty corner to me run out to see what happened.  Immediately after a police car actually came down the street (this ONLY happens when there are shots fired, the police are absolutely non-existent in my neighborhood otherwise, and I must note, my neighborhood is five blocks from the French Quarter). I went outside more to be with these people then to find out what happened.  I know what happened. But what I need is people to talk to about it and to feel that they feel the same terror and exasperation that I do.


Two men shot, the residents of these two blocks emptied out into the street to find out more information.  Drive-by, silver Chrysler, two men hit, one of them in the neck, 8 shots fired, the facts and questions now seem standard conversation.   The police erect their giant glowing night-time crime scene light stick that rises to over eight feet.  We are all now used to this.  The people that have lived here their whole lives are still concerned because these are there brothers, uncles, sons, and fathers. These are their streets and neighborhoods, friends and loved ones. 

We decided to go out after this. Stiff drinks help, they don't help to understand, but they help.  We saw one of the homeless guys that hangs on our street and comes out to the Marigny to beg telling us the guy shot in the neck passed away.

We return to a quiet and empty street and wake to buses of upper middle class white people being carted out to the Lower 7th to work on Habitat for Humanity houses oblivious to the tragic and constant battles of the night. And, no police presence until it happens again.