‘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.