The Jazzfest Chronicles - Day 2

Jazzfest Chronicles - Day 2

    I awoke the second morning with a familiar dull achy pressure in my skull.  The seductive sort of quasi-hangover that invites you to suppress it quickly by consuming more alcohol... probably mixed with some variety of nutrient, such as juice or a cigarette. That would be the breakfast of champions in a place like this, but instead I allowed myself to be suckered into a trip to the gym on the 3rd floor; "let's go sweat it out!", said my brother in law.  My response should have been "Go shit in your hat", but I gave it a 10 minute attempt, which was the last I would see of a gym on this trip. 

    Around 10:00 a.m. the puker was continuing to toss and groan in bed while apparently trying to marshall the forces of her decimated chi, but that wet dark swamp dog was humping the rest of us and we needed to eat.  Lisa was our compass that morning, and soul food was magnetic north.   There's a place called Mother's, and I suspect that even the smallest and healthiest of their dishes exceeds 2500 calories, and you have to stand in line for at least 20-30 minutes to place your order.  My prize at the end of this wait was the Ferdie; a Po'Boy stacked with ham and roast beef and debris (I'll define "debris" later), served in a bowl because the bottom piece of bread is sitting in a quarter inch of grease (they call it Au-Jus, but it's grease)..  you can tell when your chest aches and your stomach clenches.   

    So, one Ferdie, one Bloody Mary, and one cigarette later, the swamp dog was off us for awhile.  Back at the room, the puker had made a pretty miraculous turnaround, but there was no question that any of us were yet ready to walk anywhere, so we found the nearest street-car and spent an hour and a half riding around the city. It's a good way to see lots of the different districts, while allowing the final vestige of the previous night to fade away. 

    By the time we were back at the hotel the swamp dog was humping again.  Gumbo was in order... and beer.  Then back to the room to quaff some of the bottle of rum that my ever-so-foresightful brother-in-law had been wise enough to bring along (*note - a free .750 bottle of rum is an ideal augmentation to a trip like this).  

    Finally it was time to head to Jazzfest.  Getting a cab as no problem, and while the flat rates they use during special events certainly err in their favor, it was still a pretty cheap ride.  Then a quick push past the gauntlet of water sellers from the drop-off point to the main gate, and we were in! The fairgrounds were large and accommodating, and the crowds were minimal (Thursday is the day that the locals all go to the fest, and most of the tourists haven't made it in yet, which made us cool like locals, not douchebags like the tourists). An easy 200 food stands made up 3 large food courts, and it only took one trip past them before the eating frenzy began:  Fried green tomatoes, crawfish beignets, ribs, sweet potato pies, crawfish po'boys; we couldn't stop.  All of this in a 2 hour period leading up to Ben Harper, at which point we could no longer even move.  All we could do was sit and let our bodies try to deal with the full frontal assault we had waged.  Daquiris, Hurricanes, and beer helped wash it all down, but the fact was we had laid the base of a gastrointestinal cement block that would take days, if not weeks, to work its way out. A few friendly gents next to us must have sensed our physical discomfort, and offered to help by passing a joint our way every few minutes. I won't speak of anyone else's activities, but I will say that I, for one, felt the situation demanded good manners.  10 minutes later, not surprisingly, the physical discomfort had subsided greatly, but my chair and I kept falling over backwards.   

    Back at the hotel; a quick shower, another nip at the rum bottle, another beer at the bar, and off to Bourbon Street again... but this time for the nighttime experience.  In the real world, I could have gone 3 more days without eating, but based on numerous recommendations, we made our way to Acme Oyster house.  Sadly, the line was over half an hour long, and the thought of raw oysters had the swamp dog sniffing around again, so we went around the corner to the Redfish Grille.  A dozen raw oysters, a dozen barbecue oysters, another bowl of gumbo, and finally a Double-Chocolate Bread Pudding, ala mode, with extra chocolate syrup and white chocolate syrup poured on top.  The food coma was coming... I could feel it.  We had to start walking, and drinking.   Two blocks down, another Hurricane.  Another two blocks down, a Hand Granade (allegedly the "strongest drink in New Orleans", but if that's true then there are a lot of pussies in the New Orleans bar industry).  Two more blocks down, and we walked into Pat O's (again, per recommendation), but we just couldn't handle another Hurricane right then, so another couple of blocks down and we found ourselves back at the Cat's Meow... ... which is where I finally blew chunks. It's important to state, here, that nobody vomits in public as discreetly as I do.  Just ask anyone who's gone to Vegas with me.  And this wasn't a 'too much drinking' puking, either.  It was a 'way too much stomach distention - gotta get some fucking food out of my body' puke.  It did the trick, I was right as rain and ready for more.  A lot of blurriness after that, to be honest, and that's the end of my notes for the day.  I'm not sure when we got back to the hotel, or how we snuck all four of us past the front desk by elevators, but we made it.  A fine day indeed.

~ZMF