the Jazzfest Chronicles - Day 4

Jazzfest Chronicles - Day 4

    Saturday morning came, and I felt like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.  Was this repetitious cycle of binge eating and drinking ever going to end?  Possibly not.  I saw myself in the mirror, and realized I had awoken an inner fatty that I didn't know I had.  I was no longer shaped the way I had been before coming on this hedonistic adventure.  I was swollen.. soft and puffy like a beignet, and the essence of crawfish and oysters seemed to ooze from my pores like some vile bisque.   

    The upside was that at least now I blended in with the locals.    

    Unfortunately the intestinal gridlock had only intensified after the previous days extensive indulgences.  I actually found myself envying the guy with the toilet paper problem from the previous evening.  Fortunately, though, for the second morning in a row there was no dark presence humping away at me, demanding satiation via gluttony.  So, for the second morning in a row, I took advantage and stayed away from anywhere that might lure me in.  Even the standard morning Bloody Mary (for the nutritional content, of course) could start the ball rolling.  I had to hold out as long as I could.  

    "Holding out" turned into an 11:00 a.m. trip to a place called Willie May's Scotch-House.  The place was legendary for it's fried chicken the way that Mother's was legendary for it's Ferdie.  The swamp dog was obviously still humping Lisa for some soul-food, so we planned the fried-chicken stop on the way to our final day of Jazzfest.  There was a lot of anticipation and build-up about Willie May's, and by the time we neared it, even I was ready to eat again.  Sadly, our good karma seemed to have runs it's course when we pulled up to the Scotch-House, only to learn they were closed for the day.  "Sorry for the inconvenience", said the simple white sign.  

    Disappointed (though I may have harbored some small secret relief), we forwarded on straight to the festival.  We hit the fairgrounds and were stunned by the crowd.  Thursday (local's day) had been great.  Friday was somewhat more packed, but still very manageable.  Saturday looked like ACL Music Fest.  Fucking tourists. Clearly, we had to get our grub on early if we were going to have the energy to work our way through the masses, and we knew the food lines would only get longer later.   So... we kicked it off with a fast and hard hitting series of crawfish, meat-pies, and banana-bread-pudding, washed down with daquiris and beer.  Ahhhh.. that'll get you feeling human again.  Later there were more beignets (apparently I'm a slow learner), and then Lisa found God in a basket of fried sweet-potato chips doused with powdered sugar.  We made the rounds to the stages as best we could.  We were offered yet MORE doobie (WTF? Were they growing it at the fairgrounds?).  We went to a powwow and Lisa got to dance in a smoke-circle.  

    Finally it was time to try and snag a viewing location for Bon Jovi.  The problem was that even two hours before showtime, the place was packed.  Standing room only for a good quarter mile around the stage.  Fuck that.  We'd catch snippets of his performance later, but ultimately, dealing the crowd wasn't even close to being worth trying to watch him.  Same reason I don't go to ACL.    

    So the festival was over (for us, anyway), and there was nothing to do but go pack and wind down for our 7:30 a.m. flight the following morning.  Of course, that didn't stop us of from grabbing one last beer and a final bowl of gumbo.

~ZMF