Michael in New Orleans

Jazz Fest Musings
Or
Just Another Day
“Michael…come down and talk to me”. Up ahead a member of New Orleans finest is calling up to a second floor balcony, gun drawn and held behind his back. Quietly in the hood, the streets are blocked by flashing blue moonbeams, no sirens, as Michael pokes his head out and says something soft and incoherent. Michael has closely cropped hair, a gaunt composure and blood running down his arm. I’ve just picked up a sandwich and I’m headed back to work. I check to make sure my van isn’t in the line of fire and redirect my steps to avoid Michael, the cops and any drama that might be going down. Here comes Michael’s landlord rushing down the street waving the keys like he’s ringing a bell; I’m sure that he’s only trying to avoid his door being kicked in, it doesn’t appear that anyone really gives a shit about Michael but the man in blue with the gun.
But, you know, that’s the way it is in the city. Lovers walk connected at the hip, taxis prowl the Rue Dumaine looking for fares, a drunk stumbles into the glaring sunlight and Michael’s situation is unfolding around him like a urine stain on the fabric of his life.
One of the things that I don’t like about the nowadays of my life is the apparent necessity of making sure that I have one eye on the road and the other eye looking over my shoulder, almost sure that trouble will sneak up on me unless I stay alert. There was a time when I could be slow and stupid and breeze along immune to negative happenstance, blissfully ignorant and comfortably numb in a cloud of naiveté. Then again, at that time I rarely read newspapers, didn’t worry about a job, rent or where my next meal was coming from. All of that seemed to be taking care of itself; it seemed like all I had to do was ‘do my thing’ and the universe took care of the details. Cool, huh? I mean, I did work, I paid rent and was definitely not malnourished, the point is that at one time I didn’t think about those things being so strenuous.
Back… thirty- five years ago or so… I had a man come to me for a job and flat out told me that he wouldn’t work for less than $4.50 an hour. Of course we were paying that, four-fifty was the coin of the realm going rate for any reputable house of employment. Why do I mention this seemingly worthless piece of information? It’s not just another ‘when I was younger’ tale, it is a point of reference as to what is making life difficult here.
Back when I was paying cooks in my employ less than what minimum wage is now, a person could live on four frigging fifty an hour! AND my point is that three and a half decades later the cost of living has not kept in line with the average wage being paid. Even at three times the wages (which is lower than the norm) the cost of keeping my head above water (no pun intended) is tenfold what it was. And that, my friend bites the big one. In a manner of speaking, when someone tells you: “you’re doing a fine job, whatever they’re paying you is not enough” they couldn’t be closer to the truth than if they said: “ a snake’s belt slips because he has no hips” but that’s neither here nor there. Face it, Buddy: you’re sweating your cajones off while the fat cat still skims the cream from the top of the pitcher. And it is not that the cost of living has gone up, the fact is you’re not getting paid enough to cover that expense.
I think about that when I hit the ticket booth of the Jazz Fest. Usually with a “the price is WHAT???” And then I turn into my parents with the ‘I remember when blah blah blah and phone calls were only a nickel blah blah and who’s getting all that money and why can’t I bring my own sandwich etceteras’.
Yes, it is going to cost me at least a hundred dollars a day if I’m going to have my kind of fun at the Fair Grounds. No shit, I don’t come cheap and I intend to have big fun spending money I don’t make on the best time of year that anyone with warm blood in their veins could have in this city. And I know that there are lots of folks that the Fest is just not for ---and that’s good… for them.
But, you know what? I’m going to go out every day that I can! That’s right, cash in the chips, raid the piggy bank and to hell with the housework… I’m going to the Fest!!! And unlike most everything else in this crazy life of ours, it’s going to be worth every penny that I’m parting with!
I know that in years past that I’ve written about The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in terms of what to wear, who to hear, how to avoid the crowd and still find a reasonably clean rest room in my thousand word missives. Not so this season I’m not. So? This is this ‘what up’ for this year:
The Jazz Fest is probably the best time in your otherwise stressful life that you are going to have and still remain vertical. The food, the music, the people, and the atmosphere continues to rock me, every year, since I was paying line cooking dogs four-fifty an hour.
You know, you walk through those gates, the world outside goes away and you (at least I do) forget for eight hours all the other stuff that I have to do and not once look back over my shoulder unless it’s to catch another glimpse of some hot number who’s mama let her get out of the house wearing that outfit.
In what has become my personal tradition, this year I’ll raise my first beer and wish a good god bless to everyone that can’t quite make it, where ever they may be. And one for Michael.

Christmas, Elvis and New Orleans

Po boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered
Or
Santa Claus Is Back In Town

I didn’t want to work on my birthday, much less around Christmas time and December in general is not a good time for me; but the call came. I was to chauffeur Elvis (yes, he’s back) while he was in town to give a speech on globalization. I couldn’t refuse, I mean, how often do I get be behind the wheel of the Beast. You know… my 410, duel carb, three on the tree, ’67 Checker limousine? You know, the one with the speedometer that goes up to 140 MPH and doesn’t lie? The one that will do 90 in second gear …up hill? The one that takes up as much parking space as my girlfriend’s apartment? I’ll tell you…not often enough. I welcomed any excuse, even if it was only to drive Signor Presley, as he was now known, around the French Quarter. Dressing for success, I put on clean underwear and a rare smile. I sharpened my wit for the unsuspecting.
The first stop was at Claire’s on Conti where we hooked up with three waitresses of my recent acquaintance; comparisonwise, they made the Witches of Eastwick look like girl scouts. Their assignment was to keep Elvis practicing his Cuban accent (he said that it had helped Desi Arnez remain undetected for decades and was working wonders for him as well).
While I was grabbing a smoke in the patio by the pool, the ladies grouped around him and drilled him in the art of accent. Even though only one of them was actually Cuban, they all knew their stuff (“no, no no!…not ‘Evre tahm Ah’m taykin’ thuh elevaduh’, “say it again”… ‘Ebbree tine Ayne een de allibater’”). I moved out of earshot and practiced blowing smoke rings. Lucky Strikes make great smoke rings.
Christmas in New Orleans is like that; a perpetual light drizzle in an unctuous gray sky, slightly depressing, but not particularly cold yet, smoke rings in the air, and ‘The King’ practicing his Cuban accent in a cozy patio bar in the French Quarter. Go figure.
Imagine a wet Labrador, after rolling on a dead snake, or in mule dung, insisting on a big lick of your face and a cuddle up. It doesn’t get any better than this. Unfortunately.
I wandered outside to check on the Beast. As I passed the door of the ladies room, and arm shot out and dragged me in. It was dark in there and someone, decidedly feminine, was nuzzling me, the scent of tea olives was heady in my senses. ‘What’s the worst that can happen, I thought?’
Suddenly the lights slap on and an elderly Asian couple, escorting an overweight mentally challenged young woman relative burst in with their language barrier in tow and I dive for the shower. Meantime Elvis is in the back seat of the Beast making out with all three of the waitresses. A train whistle blows.
It’s quiet now in the rest room and I sneak back to the bar dressed in the only thing I could find to wear, a lavender waitress uniform. I’m looking for my clothes.
I come up behind Claire who’s taking a drink order from a table and I hiss my demands. She out-hisses me with something that I could swear sounds like “f#cking moron” and proceeds to ignore me. I slither towards the door, hugging the wall. A small boy sitting on the floor by the door, back to the wall, tosses me my dripping trousers and jerks his thumb, indicating that, apparently, the rest of my apparel is outside on the street. In a rare fit of clarity, I decide that it’s time to wake up from this dream and find a drink. It’s not easy living in a cul de sac of sanity; it’s kind of like being backed in to a corner that you’ve painted yourself into.
Outside everything was back to normal. Christmas lights were strung everywhere, Dads were lugging home dead fir trees, and blindfolded children were swinging long sticks at piñatas. ‘Twenty somethings’ were snake dancing down Bourbon Street with hunger in their eyes and beer on their breath, singing “play that funky music, white boy”. There were women in tight clothing and men with powerful hand guns. Large birds were about to be sacrificed for the Baby Jesus' birthday. My goose would be cooked. Bells would ring, dogs would bark. It was good to be home. It was a street gumbo study in black and white. A regurgitated pasta jambalaya with fettuccine.
Somehow I felt safe in the harsh olfactory reminder of excess, impatience and inebriation. These were my ‘peeps’, my ‘rounds’, my ‘dogs’.
Here, I’m Peter with the lost boys. I never have to grow up; I’m not a face in the crowd, I’m not some ugly rumor, I’m not just tolerated. I’m loved because of who I am, not left alone because no one cares.
I could cross Canal Street; I know a half a dozen bars that house incoherant mutants that, since noon, have been jabbering nonsense into the air, passed one another and into outer space. Cosmic debris, like me. But no, I prefer to be who I am with people who know me.
I go to Molly’s on Toulouse, Polly pours me a ‘chilled beverage’. “Lovely to see you again my friend”.
It is amazing to me that after traveling, no, after wandering. those hundreds of thousands of miles that I can find the spirit of Christmas in a friend’s eyes, right here at home.
Or as the Moody Blues said a long time ago: “Isn’t life strange?”
Or as Ren and Stimpie said, more recently: “Happy, happy… Joy, joy”. Only love can save you.