Mitch works at the New Orleans Historic Collection, and took the time to show me some unique items. This is one of many small books in the collection of brothel guides, known as blue books. There was a part of town known as Storeyville that was set aside as a red light district. If you wouldn’t mind correcting any misinformation, Mitch, I’d appreciate it.
I can’t wait to get home and water the plants. Got to the airport at 7:30 this morning and I’ll be in SF at 9 tonite. That’s too much airport. I’ll be hard pressed to keep out of the stall in men’s room tapping my feet like a senator. Something about airports make me horny. Lot’s of pretty ladies dressed nice and other gals in uniforms…nothing to do but sit and watch how those hips make the skirt move. High heels and open toes. They ought to sell saltpeter at the magazine kiosk.
But enough about my inner turmoil. It’s boring you. Let’s talk about this last week. I got a handful of change and one nickel was the color of the Mississippi – aka old muddy.
“You got a Katrina coin!” Lesley yelled, like I won something from the top row at a fair booth.
“The coin star machines all had signs on them after the flood, ‘No Katrina Money’. It messed them up.”
We never got me to a drive through daqiuri bar, where they give you an alcoholic drink in a styrofoam cup with a lid. If you don’t put the straw in then you don’t have an open container. The local treat is a snowball – shaved ice with flavored syrup poured over. It’s an institution down here, like roadside ice cream stands up north.
“I’m going to heaven” was the straightforward claim on the bumpersticker Mitch’s neighbor stuck on his door.
Lesley and her friends were in the photobooth at the bar the nite of the election, drunk, laughing and yelling. They came out to a silent bar trying to listen to a historic acceptance speech. I wonder who else out there was acting a fool that moment? Who was lighting their fart with a match when man first landed on the moon? Why were you stealing tomatoes from your neighbors garden when Kennedy was shot?
photo posted from my iPhonetook a drive through the 9th ward, things were looking good. Some lots were completely bare, houses just demolished, but the piles of waste were gone, no cars in the trees, no rubble. Lesley and I asked the girls at the stop light where the dinner was they were advertising on the signs. “That house right on the corner. Go on inside, my momma’s there.” And so we pulled around and parked in front with a large canoe tied to the truck. A few women sat in the shade of the little porch. She brought us in and Gramma was inside at the kitchen table. I got the fried chicken Lesley got the ribs. “My daughter passed Halloween night, she didn’t have no insurance so we raisin’ money for the funeral.” I wanted to ask some questions but that sure wasn’t the right time.
I’ve been through a southern election that elected a black man. I asked a guy, “how come the south is so full of blacks but that’s the only region that voted McCain?” “They all headed to Detroit” he answered. I’m in a racially divided town during the most momentous election in my lifetime. (there is no return on this computer, the gal spilled wine all over the keyboard so we don’t get paragraphs today) I was at a mixed race bar the night of the election. People were excited but there wasn’t any craziness. But every time I touched a black person and said, “Congratulations,” they broke out into a big smile. I felt the same way when the red sox finally won. It was an underdog victory. We elect symbolic representatives. And this was a major symbol to the world. I was so excited. I bought champagne and tried to make out with girls. What a great night. McCain gave an impressive speech, and then Obama gave an amazing speech and I thought to myself, “this bar is crowded, I’ll go next store and get a drink.” That’s what’s amazing about New Orleans. You can buy a beer and tell them not to open it, walk outside with it and go into a different bar. Or stand on the corner and drink it. This country is not running at full efficiency. I realize that. We could be a lot looser. Is Obama gonna bring me that? I don’t know. All’s I know is those big Black girls went off the chain when Michelle came out. She was so black up there! And looking so good! This morning when I went to the donut shop to get coffee, this black guy says to the black woman behind the counter, “How’s it feel to be a first lady?” and she answered, “I been a first lady for a long time.” That’s when it all sunk in. The majority of Americans have gotten over judging people by skin color. I’ve met people here this week that hate “niggers”. That’s true. But most americans have finally understood that whole thing about content of character. And that’s what makes me proud, finally, to be american. even if my parents voted for McCain.
i was hoping new orleans would look like this all over. Desolated deteriorated crooked with rust. Is it a superiority complex? I want to feel healthier than a city? Or does it help me accept old age to know that things live on past their usefulness and aren’t immediately discarded? Or does it help me confront death to know that all things crumble into dust? From what I’ve seen of this city, most of it doesn’t look like this. It looks like people have replaced the windows, put on a new roof and painted the pillars on the front porch and are back to living.
The stock boy was smoking a cigarette as he broke down boxes behind the deli.
Being in an African American community down here in New Orleans today, election day, is pretty exciting. Folks are hopeful. They care about this election. “for the first time in history we can make history,” a man selling Obama t shirts said to me.
“What if he doesn’t win, or they try to steal it from him?” I asked.
“It’s in God’s hands. If Obama is supposed to win no man can take that away from him. God will make it happen to show there is a God.”
It might not be the tightest argument. It meant something to me. Marcus was his name he had white hairs in his mustache. He told me when he was young he didnt believe in God, he only believed he could pull his 9 faster than the other guy and that made him God. Eventually prison drugs and getting shot in the head changed his mind about all that.
Marcus with some younger guys, standing in fromt of the corner store. They played me tracks from their album, raps about Obama being president. It struck me then just how much an icon could give people.
Went to a native New Orleanian’s home last night. Got a big ol’ chunk of grilled lamb, baba ganoush and coleslaw, cooked up by Mitch’s friend Daniel Hammer. For real his actual name. His wife had this awesome collection of matchbooks. She was also Swedish, and I need to get her on tape imitating a southern accent with her Swedish accent. I want to thank the Hammer’s for a wonderful night out!
I should also thank Jacob and his lady, who drove me across town back to Mitch’s at four a.m. Halloween night. Just a random act of kindness, and today walking in the French Quarter I hear someone behind me, “Hey, Hey, Robot Man!” I turned around and there he was. Good to see you, and thanks for making me believe in New Orleans again after getting kicked out of that bar.
when I was 23 I joined the Merchant Marines. It was one of those things you do in life where you test yourself to see if you’re a man. Threw myself into a quasi-military training academy to learn how to tie knots and lower a life boat, operate a forktruck and put out a chemical fire. I lived with 12 other guys in a dorm room. We took showers together. We lined up and marched to class dressed in matching tan khakis.
When you’re young, at some point you want to know who you are. Nowadays going away to college is where American men find out who they are. But I didn’t go away to college. I took a few night classes down the road while I lived in my parents basement.
I wanted to know if I was gay. Probably the best way to answer that question is to have sex with a man and see how you like it. But men aren’t given the luxury to try that and then decide against it. Like women aren’t given the luxury of having multiple male partners without becoming “slutty”, a man can’t have even one sexual experience with another man without becoming “gay”.
Of course it happens. Guys get drunk and make out in a dark dorm room and never speak about it again. But you can’t suck some guy off and then go to the cafeteria the next day and tell your lunchmates, “Hey, I’ve been wondering if I was gay, and last night I found out I wasn’t!”
You can’t find out if you aren’t. You only find out if you are. So I took an indirect route of cloistering myself with 12 other young men for three months to see if I was gay.
Gay seemed like a possible explanation for why I was so weird. Being a weird dude was the real problem for me. It seemed quite plausible that my weirdness stemmed from a latent homosexuality, and to quit the weirdness all that was necessary was to start gaying out.
I really got to know these twelve guys in my dorm room. Maybe barracks is more appropriate. We had bunk beds and a foot locker and a little wardrobe to hang our shirts in. The floor was tiled. It led into a room with a row of sinks, and a sloped floor room with a single stainless steel pole in the middle with seven shower spigots sticking out of it was behind that but nothing had doors on it. Except the shitters. But I could lie in my bunk and look down the room past the sinks and see a guys feet under the bathroom stall. We were living on top of each other, in other words.
Not being sure of the point of this story makes it hard to wrap up, and I gotta get on the road now. Mitch, my gracious host, and I are heading into the 9th Ward to see how well our government has helped the victims of Hurricane Katrina. But the thing I think I learned about myself by joining the merchant marines is that I can’t deal with any issue in my life directly. Very few of us can.
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