Famous Hat Goes to New Orleans

My goal was to make a pilgrimage to each of the Jazz Cities: Chicago, Kansas City, St. Louis, and the queen of all jazz cities, New Orleans. I had visited all the others when in September of 2005 my best friend and I had plans to visit the Crescent City, but a little thing called Katrina ruined our plans (and many other things!). I cried every day for a week and then got on with my life, thinking I had missed my chance.

Three years later, in September 2008, my best friend was sent to a convention in the Big Easy. Did I want to come down? You bet I did! She flew, but I took the train because what better way to get to the city of New Orleans than on the City of New Orleans? I brought with me four Hawaiian shirts, a violin I had found in the trash, and Famous Hat. At the train station there was a slight complication in that the station master said the train was only running as far as McComb, MS, which he claimed was a nothing little town you wouldn't want to get off in unless your Great Aunt Sally lived there. (This is not an entirely fair characterization of McComb - why, it has its own suburb, South McComb!) I was so determined to reach New Orleans that I was even willing to FLY (and I hate and fear planes), but the station master claimed there were no flights going in or out of NO due to Hurricane Gustav or Ike or whoever. I briefly entertained the notion of driving, but that is a VERY long road trip by oneself, even in a car as wonderful as Erin Caitlin O'Honda. Finally I decided to risk McComb, and that worked out fine because a couple of firemen on the train who were going down to help rebuild houses in the 9th Ward convinced AmTrak to let us passengers ride on the same bus with the employees, who of course had to get back to their homes in NO.

New Orleans is a place you either love or hate, and I definitely fall in the former camp. OK, Bourbon Street at night is a little disgusting, not so much because of the strip clubs (I mean, I was expecting that), but what's up with all the clubs featuring cover bands butchering Journey and AC/DC tunes? I mean, who goes to New Orleans to hear arena rock??? And the drunken tourists are not a plus either, but I did acquire quite a few beads without even having to show anyone anything beneath my Hawaiian shirt.

There is one fantastic club on Bourbon Street called Fritzel's, it's a European-style jazz club featuring groups that play really old-school jazz, like Prohibition Era. It's awesome to see a banjo used in a tight jazz ensemble, hardly anything better! We tried absinthe there (like drinking a black jellybean) and saw a guy wearing a monacle, I kid you not. On St. Peter, just off Bourbon, is Preservation Hall, which also has old-school jazz acts. No food, no drink, no bathroom, and hardly any seats, it's a tiny fire trap of a place with one door in and one door out. Next door is Pat O'Brien's, where the Hurricane was supposedly invented, and they have a wonderful courtyard with a fountain that has fire on top of it. Every night on the corner of Bourbon and Canal we saw a band of young guys playing New Orleans style jazz, with the tuba and lots of horns, just playing on the street for tips. Our hotel concierce sent us on a mission to Frenchmen Street to find Ready Teddy; we did not find him, but we did find someone who claimed to know him, and we also found lots of real jazz clubs like Snug Harbor (with the very cute bartender, Jeff) and the Spotted Cat. And of course there are always random street musicians playing in Jackson Square in front of St. Louis Cathedral, or by Cafe du Monde. (Shameless plug - best beignets in the free world, and probably in the world you have to pay for too.)

We accomplished many of our tourist goals, such as a mule-drawn carriage ride through the French Quarter and a paddleboat ride, but our plantation tour was canceled. We did take a tour of St. Louis Cemetery and actually encountered a voodoo guy in front of Marie Laveau's tomb. He was starting to tell us some stuff about voodoo when a tour guide who was channeling Sam Kinison hollered at him to stop defacing the tombs, since the voodoo people always draw three X's on Marie Laveau's tomb as if it were a bottle of moonshine. We thought there was going to be a terrific dustup, but the voodoo guy just kind of... vanished. We asked our tour guide if it was all planned for our amusement, but he swore it wasn't.

We also did some less touristy stuff, like taking the free ferry across the river to Algiers, which is an adorable neighborhood full of shotgun houses with tropical gardens, and we also took the bus to the zoo. Tourists may take the trolley cars (we sure did), but only real people take the bus. It was a rainy day, so I had my sunglasses on Famous Hat. If you don't want anyone to mess with you in the Big Easy, just wear a hat wearing sunglasses. It either makes you look tough or renders you completely invisible, I'm not completely sure which. At the zoo we saw a fake bayou full of alligators, and they were so creepy that I didn't feel any guilt about eating them on po' boys. (Not those particular alligators, of course.) Yes, the food in New Orleans is every bit as delicious as you have heard. Gumbo, jambalaya, muffalettas, bread pudding, okra, crawfish etouffe, oysters, shrimp - yum! Speaking of sea creatures, let me put in a plug for the aquarium down on the riverwalk, which has an especially extensive collection of jellyfish and seahorses.

People will try to sell you all kinds of things on the streets of New Orleans. Here is a list that is far from comprehensive of what I was offered: paintings, CDs, balloon art, and a live bird that some guy caught and tried to sell me for $20. (I offered him $5 so I could let it go, but he wouldn't come down on his price.) Then there are all the identical stores full of Cajuncrap, with names like Voodoo Jambalaya. They are open until all hours of the night, blasting zydeco music and selling obsene T-shirts and bead strands, cheap masks, and dried alligators. I did buy a voodoo doll for my bunnysitter. It was terrifyingly cute.

My biggest disappointment was not getting to meet the Trash Magnate of New Orleans, Sidney D. Torres IV. Check out his website (SDT Waste Collection or something like that) - he is one fine specimen! But his shiny black trucks were everywhere, cleaning up the French Quarter every morning with lemon-scented water. (Sidney, if you're reading this, call me!)

So now I am back home with my extensive collection of beads; in fact, I have them in so many colors that my first week back I resolved to wear beads with every outfit I wore to work. It's important to have goals. Would I go back again? You bet!

Famous Hat