'Big 50' Bash - The Finale

    There’s no need to describe the state we’re in this morning, If you’ve read the first three posts of this story, then I’m sure you can guess, although one of our crew said it perfectly:

    “There’s too much blood in my alcohol system, and it’s making me feel weird”. Yep, that covers it.

    But we’ve done it! We’ve pushed ourselves to our middle-aged limit, and perhaps a bit beyond, and now the finish line is mere hours away. This was the mission wasn’t it? The plan. The intended journey. The opportunity to ask and perhaps have answered, is 50 really the new 30? 

    The jury is still out on that.

    On another note, one of you who’s been reading this asked me who the vampires might be. The ones referenced above the door that first night.

    It was a good question. Could the monks (the ones who may or may not be monks), possibly be the vampires? Is that why the odd guy gave me a knowing nod, because I was wearing the monk bracelet from San Francisco? Did that save our lives?

    Or was it Alaska Crazy? We never did find out where she was staying… perhaps it was at 433 Bourbon Street.

    Or was it the hustlers, the working girls, and the gunmen. Was it just the gritty underside of the city?

    Or was it us. The tourists. The masses of American suburbanites. And if that's so, are the doors through which we pass nothing more than our experience there? Our foray into a place that is exotically unfamiliar, where by our very presence we dilute its mystery and history and richness? 

    Maybe.

    But I prefer to think it meant actual vampires, passing through those actual doors. 

    Time to go home. I expect I'll spend the next few days in a hammock, resting in the shade of a rehab center.

~ZMF

 

‘Big 50’ Birthday Bash - Day 3

    Seven Hells! I don’t know how long we could actually maintain this pace, but I'm glad this is the last full day.

    Early to rise but slow to get moving, we were in a collective daze, or perhaps a haze, it was difficult to tell through bloodshot eyes. We owed thanks for our vegetative state to the steady infusion of adult beverages and late night fried chicken, yet there was a new bottle of vodka sitting ominously on the kitchen counter, and we were all pretending we didn't notice it. Had we bought it the night before? 

    This couldn't be healthy, or wise, but it's the Big Easy. Our dominos were tipped days ago, and they were still falling. There was no getting off the trolley now. The ferryman would demand his coin, and we all knew it.

    There was a question that lingered in each of our foggy minds, “what happened to Alaska-Crazy?”. Her part in our story had ended unexpectedly the night before, when she walked out of a bar and disappeared into the Quarter, leaving her days worth of Nola merch in Joe’s possession. It had been so abrupt that it took a good fifteen minutes to decide she wasn’t returning. The crew had moved on, yet we now found ourselves wondering, did she eventually find her way back to the bar to retrieve her goods? Did she get to her hotel safely? These were questions for which we had no answer, though it would not remain that way for long.

    It’s a funny fact that when you tell someone you abandoned an established career to write a novel, they suddenly have many questions for you, or about you, and this had certainly occurred the previous night at Saints & Sinners, as we all got to know each other. It had made my duties as a wingman a little more difficult, but hardly unmanageable. Regardless, Alaska-Crazy had insisted on my full name so that she could keep an eye out for the eventual publication, and, at the time, it made sense to share it. Future readers are needed.

    So it was thanks to this small conversational detail that Alaska-Crazy was in possession of a name, someone she could track down the following morning, as she recovered from her own excesses and began to take stock of her casualties. Shortly after 8:00 a.m. I received notification on my phone of a LinkedIn mail message, which started with the words, “Hi Eric, we met in New Orleans…” and it went on to request assistance in tracking down our bachelor. On one hand, uh-oh, and on the other hand, I had to respect her resourcefulness.

    Regardless, my wingman duties were long since complete, so I passed her number along to Joe, dropping the problem squarely in his lap. He had been our avatar of ice-breaking, and to the victor go the spoils. 

    He closed the circle nicely, though, letting her know where she could locate her bags. Her responses seemed normal and friendly, even admitting that her memory was more than a little fuzzy and that she’d perhaps overdone the Long Island Iced Teas the previous night. Suddenly our room was filled by the unspoken question of whether our bachelor might be contemplating another ticket for the crazy train. But let’s move on from that for now. 

    Mother’s Cafe. Yes, that was the answer to our current malaise. Nothing will get a man on his feet again like a mid-morning poboy and a cup of gumbo, washed down by a Bloody Mary. Then it was back to the apartment. Where did that vodka come from, anyway? We knew we should probably quality test it before heading out to the St. Patrick’s Day parade. 

    That's right, a St. Patrick’s Day parade, a full week before St. Patrick’s Day. But parades are in the blood of the city, and the Irish seemed to be as eager to get their drink on as we had been these last few days, so why wait? Every day should have floats, music, beads, and green beer.

    Then Alaska-Crazy started following up with the bachelor. The bar had only been able to locate one of her two bags, and now she was distressed. Was he certain that’s where the bags had been left? Answer: Obviously, since she was able to recover at least one of them.

.

    Hours later, back from the parade and walking the Quarter, we started to hear it, over and over. The Hustle. “I like those shoes!”. Thinking of the guy from last night, we wondered, do hustles go viral here? This one had an easy formula: tell someone you like their shoes, and if they respond, bet them $20 you know where they got them, “You got them on yo feet!”, and try to claim your easy winnings. New Orleans is most definitely hustle-town, and these people were its champions.

    We needed to get ready for a concert, but there was still time for icy boozy drinks. It had been a long walk to the parade and it was a warm day. Surely the ice would offer hydration. Then there were more calls from Alaska-Crazy. She wasn't convinced that she was getting the truth from the bachelor, and it was becoming clear that there would be no round-two of opportunity for him, but at that point we could all agree it was probably for the best. 

    Next it was off to the concert at Tipitinas. Tab Benoit crushed it... If you ever get a chance to see him play, take it. His opening act, J.D. Simo was outstanding too. I even bought a record. Legit vinyl. Now I just need a record player. 

    Finally we staggered our way back at the apartment. It was after midnight, and suddenly gunshots (yes, actual small arms fire) rang out on the street below, and for a moment we wondered if Alaska-Crazy had found us. Was our bachelor in danger? It was not her, though, and luckily nobody on the street was hit, but we enjoyed a front-row, birds-eye watch-party of the gunman being taken into custody and hauled off toward an unpleasant future of incarceration. Oh my! 

    And, of course, once the street was clear there was only one thing left to do, go back out for more fried chicken.

 ‘Big 50’ Birthday Bash - Day 2

    'Kayso, there’s no way to approach Day 2 with brevity, so I'll just try to not let it run too long.

PART I:

    Of course there was a hangover. Not the bad kind that involves a scorching headache smothered in a mildewy layer of nauseous regret, but rather the kind where you wake up and you’re just ‘not right’… that moment where your brain is sloshy and your body is protesting, though against what, you’re not entirely sure.

    So what’s the best answer? Hair of the dog? Abstinence until you’ve had a meal or two? Perhaps even a bit of water? Sure as hell not exercise. Not that. Not here.

    For the Big Three’s 50-Year Bash, the only honest option was option number one, followed by beignets at Cafe du Monde. Those helped, but they didn’t quite steady our stride. It’s okay, though, we’re old enough to be experts in this field, and a 2nd round of dog-hair in the form of a spicy Bloody Mary on Decatur Street quickly got us back on track…, or enough so that we were capable of meandering around the touristy markets next to the river for awhile. This is the place where you find open air vendors hawking random wares that range from sugar skulls to lacquered alligator heads to T-shirts bearing the image of a crawfish with the words “It ain’t gonna suck itself”. In other words, you know, "class".

    Our future path was uncertain, but if you don’t know where you’re going it doesn’t much matter where you end up. Finally, though, we found ourselves next to Jackson Square, listening to some of the best street musicians we’ve ever heard, while for additional entertainment we had a front row view of an amply rotund 40-something mom getting her sexy-dance-groove on with an enthusiasm that had her 12-year-old daughter literally melting with embarrassment… Hey Lady! #party-foul!

    Then we were off on a tour of creole style edibles, imbibables, and street scenes. We swung for the fences with a self indulgent fest of crawfish & gumbo, along with a steady drumbeat of Hurricanes and other icy boozy drinks as we randomly wound our way across the Quarter. There were street markets and street musicians. Street preachers and street politicians. We hit Pat O’Briens, and a cigar bar I can’t recall the name of, and finally a shop in which we could purchase an $8K wall sconce shaped like a monkey made of light reading a book. Not joking. Yet we dared not to enter that place. That couldn’t happen, not while we couldn’t walk a straight line. No sir. 

    We also discovered that Buddhist monks are everywhere here, like busy bees, hustling people with wooden bead bracelets in return for “donations”. I fell prey to them once in San Francisco, and I’ll admit I still like the bracelet, but in this place I’m starting to doubt their monkiness. Some of them are wearing Air Jordans and Airpods. Some of them smoke cigarettes. We even stumbled across a bunch of them chattering angrily at each other. It sounded like blame was being passed around, as if perhaps one of them was not meeting his bracelet quota. 

    Easy bros, I thought. As the Buddha himself once said, “Homey, you gotta let that shit go”.

    Then there were the street poets with their typewriters, which is where the day took an unexpected turn.

    It’s important to note here that we had lingered at the cigar bar for a spell, spinning our pseudo-intellectual wheels as we contemplated 'ice-breakers'... The kind of ice-breakers that a man might use to strike up a conversation with a woman he finds attractive. It was idle fun chatter, but by the time we reached the street poets at their typewriters, our idle chatter had reached the ears of kismet herself and she had cast her eyes upon our path.

PART II:

    For the sake of discretion we’ll just refer to the woman we met as 'Alaska-Crazy'. In truth she was visiting from Texas, but as we later learned she had previously spent many years in Alaska. She was eye-poppingly attractive and surprisingly friendly, and it was at the ephemeral station of the typewriter-street-poets where we made her acquaintance. 

    It suddenly seemed that the cosmos had offered us a chance to put our glorious ice-breaker theories to the test, and Joe, being the bachelor of the group, accepted fate’s challenge with the most vigorous of courage. Adam and I suddenly became wingmen, as was proper. Our job was to hang back, keep out of the bachelor’s way, yet remain close enough to quickly reconvene if kismet should win the challenge.

    It did not take our bachelor long, though. Friendly conversation on the street evolved into drinks at Saints & Sinners, and the wingmen were invited to tag along. It was fun. Good times. She didn’t seem crazy - but we’d heard about Alaskans, which everyone knows are as bad as Floridians - so the possibility of crazy certainly lurked beneath the surface.

    Finally, though, the hour came for us to bail, for we had already obligated ourselves to a Ghost Tour. Yet suddenly Alaska-Crazy was part of our crew. Our roster had grown. The bachelor had given kismet a black eye, and his wingmen had performed dutifully by keeping Alaska-Crazy's attention pointed at the right person, so as we trekked off toward the tour the night seemed to be going his way, until…

    “Does it bother you that I’m from another planet?” She finally asked him, as she purchased her ticket for the tour. The question didn’t seem to be a metaphor for anything. Uh-oh. Did Alaska-Crazy just turn into I’m-From-Mars-Crazy? 

    The wingmen were too busy procuring 32-oz ghost-pepper-margaritas to overhear the question, but the story would be retold before long. We were concerned for him, but let’s be honest, the margaritas were giving us our own problems, not least of which was how to carry an open topped bucket of booze around New Orleans. 

    Regardless, the situation went downhill after that. It went down hard, it went down fast, and after a string of hit & miss moments along the way, Crazy disappeared into the dark of the night, leaving our bachelor literally holding the bags of items she had purchased throughout the day. What to do? Finally, the bags were deposited at the bar from whence she had disappeared, and the crew found itself back at its original three man roster.

    Yet the cosmos was not done with the ice-breaking test. Within only a few twists and turns on the streets of the French Quarter, our bachelor found him self face-to-face, and arm around waist, with another surprisingly friendly and attractive woman. This one even wanted to go back to his place with him! But this was a night for curveballs, and this curveball took the form of a $350 price tag attached to the carnal offer. The bachelor took a raincheck, but we never learned if there might have been an amount he would have agreed to.

    Finally there were the three Tulane coeds at Willie’s Chicken Shack (yes, we needed more southern fried chicken), and the bachelor was firmly on his game now. “Can I buy you a drink?”, he asked, which as ice-breakers go is a tried and true classic. The wingmen stood to the side, casually watching in admiration. Sadly for the 50-year old bachelor, the coeds lacked daddy issues, but one of them was certainly happy to accept the free drink, so for 20 minutes he got to at least enjoy the attention and verbal frolic of three much younger ladies, each adorned in dresses that would leave Venus herself blushing.

    The last of the ice breakers was not to be directed toward a woman, or to even originate from our crew. No, it was hollered at yours truly by a representative of that great army of New Orleans hustlers: “I know where you got those shoes!”, he affirmed loudly. 

    I’ll admit I was unsure of the point of this, but being one inclined to curiosity I played along “Is that so?”, I replied.

    The hustler was adamant, and he proposed to tell me where I got my shoes, if I was up for a twenty dollar bet over it. I managed to dodge the bet, but eventually got him to surrender the answer of where I got my shoes.

    “You got them on yo feet!”.

    Oh my. It was finally time to retire, and rest this weary head.

 ‘Big 50’ Birthday Bash - Day 1:

    Ah, New Orleans. I remember you now. It’s been a minute, hasn’t it. Have I missed you? I’m not sure, but now that I’m here I can already sense that invisible swamp dog circling me, ready to lift its leg and leave its mark.

    For those of you who have chosen to indulge this story, please allow me to set the stage and make an introduction. 

    This is a tale about a boys trip. Not the type of boys trip which you likely heard about in the 70’s and 80’s, when degenerate twenty-somethings went to Tijuana to watch the donkey show and search for the ever elusive Spanish Fly; no, this is definitely not that. 

    This is a story of old friends, of three 50-year old men, two of whom most recently crossed that accursed threshold, while the other lingers, just days away. These three friends felt drawn to the Big Easy, to go forth blindly and without plan, to drink and eat, and drink again, as they stumble their way through adventures yet to be identified. 

    But back to the introductions… There is Joe, the oldest, though by merely a couple of weeks. There is Adam, the middle child. And there is Eric, which is I, your humble narrator, who at the time of this writing still enjoys his few remaining days of youthful vitality.

    So, three semi-centennial Pisces have chosen to look into the abyss. Will it look back? Will we, perhaps, even learn whether 50 is really the new 30?

    Day 1 started upon arrival. Chaos was incarnate almost immediately, in the form of a Haitian cab driver who seemed hell bent on getting us all killed before we were halfway to Bourbon Street. Rules of the road - there were none. Street lanes - What are those? The fact that we survived seems of have been a matter of luck more than anything else, yet we made it, after which our destiny was placed once again into our questionably capable hands. 

    Despite being dropped off directly in front of the door through which we should have entered, we made a ninety degree turn and found ourselves meandering around the block. Yes, three 50-year old dudes pulling carry-ons, half a block over from Bourbon Street. We didn’t just look cool, we looked SUPER cool. Eventually a homeless street person took pity on us and provided directional assistance, while inquiring politely if we “needed anything” (wink wink nudge nudge).

 

    This brings us to the glorious aroma which fills the air with amazing consistency. Cannabis. It is apparently the perfume of the French Quarter. You can’t miss it, and you’d be hard pressed to avoid it. For many walking the street, this is exactly the way it should be, and for those who disagree, well, at least it covers the true smell of the street. So really it’s a win / win.

    Our weekend residence was a three room apartment on the fourth story of a building that seemed old, despite the renovations that have occurred over the last century, and we were admittedly a bit alarmed to find the building plastered with signs informing the world that this was a private residence and that short term rentals were prohibited by the City of New Orleans. Violators would be ejected. Yet… we were nonetheless admitted; Lock, stock, and vodka filled barrel. Perhaps local laws are more like suggestions?

    The first outbound adventure involved a bowl of gumbo and the first of what would prove to be many icy boozy drinks. Of course there would be more, and we all know what they’ll do to you, but if you intend to go down any path you might as well take the first step quickly.

    Next up was the liquor store run. A bottle of vodka and a case of beer seemed like a solid initial stash, one which could buttress our outings, ensuring we didn’t accidentally dry up. By the end of the night we would realize how woefully we’d underestimated out thirst, but for the moment we felt steady and ready.

    Finally, out into the night air of New Orleans we went. At the top of a graffiti plastered door at 433 Bourbon Street were scrawled the words, in discreet and surprisingly elegant script, “Through these doors pass the worlds most dangerous vampires”. I was intrigued, enough so to snap a pic, when suddenly I noticed a strange looking dude standing next to the doorway, giving me a knowing nod as though we understood the same secret. Shitballs!, did I just get myself into something?

    No time for such worries, there are Hand Grenades to be had. Oh, my, don’t these icy boozy bastards pack the proverbial punch! Ahead of me, the long stretch of nighttime Bourbon Street lights is starting to look like a pair of continuous neon rails. Wait, is my vision getting blurry?

    More weed - everywhere - Bourbon street is weed city - “pre-rolls, get your pre-rolls here!” - There's even a full sized weed bus that promises delivery, yet Google is certain that recreational cannabis is illegal in Louisiana. Once again, it seems that laws here are merely guidelines.

    Then there was a hustler on a bicycle, swooping in upon us from Canal Street. Wow. Wish I wasn’t already drunk, although perhaps that actually helped. He asked a question, and we tried to deflect, but he started talking and wouldn’t stop. We tried to disengage but he was like a steam roller. Telling a story that wasn’t a story, until finally we realized he was scatting. A senseless rambling soliloquy about a lion and an elephant, rattled out in a cadence that would make a metronome proud. There was only one way out of this, slip him a fiver for his time and get out of dodge. There was a late night hunger building.

    Willies Chicken Shack was the answer, serving New Orlean Famous Fried Chicken. OMG I would literally slip between the silk sheets with this stuff it’s so good. Willie also serves icy boozy beverages, though his are presented in a half-yard glass shaped like a dick (keep in mind this is a chicken place, so of course he calls it a cock). I won't admit if we tried one, but I’m sure that along with the countless empty Hand Grenades that litter the gutters of Bourbon Street, the Mississippi River is also floating a legion of Willies Famous Cocks toward the Gulf of Mexico.

    Finally… back to the VRBO. The night’s getting late and it looks like some derelict has already finished off the vodka bottle. I’m blaming one of the 50-year olds, most likely the one who’s already passed out on the couch. Glad I’m still 49. #youthfulenergy

    We’ll see what tomorrow brings...