|
|
|
stop the vacation I want to get off
Thursday, October 7 1999
By this point in the vacation I was tired of all the hustle and bustle and relentless restaurant experiences. I would have been perfectly happy to just lie around the house all day watching cable teevee. There were many times more channels to watch in our temporary apartment than we get with our basic rate back in San Diego. (By the way, VH1 is by far the most interesting channel on cable. What does that say about me?)
But Kim was dismayed with my apathy. She wanted to do something, and watching teevee wasn't cutting it for her. We ended up having a huge fight about the issue. For perhaps obvious reasons, Kim felt it a terrible waste to lie around a semi-basement apartment during a vacation to New Orleans. For my part, though, I was just wishing the vacation would stop so I could get off. I had no further interest in fancy dinners, excessive alcohol consumption, or the taking of various controlled substances. I couldn't think of anyone I wanted to hang out with. I just wanted to kick back and let the teevee do the vacation for me.
In the afternoon, Kim had an appointment down in the French Quarter with Anne Teachworth, the psychotherapist who wrote
Why We Pick the Mates We Do. I dutifully tagged along, until a point. I had no interest in actually meeting Anne, even though Kim thought it would be a good idea.
The Kim had vanished into the apartment on Chartres Street, I was finally a stranger alone to himself in the world. It was the first time in a year I was free to explore a piece of a distant city on my own. For my passive observational style it's ever so much better than the drudgery of bars, restaurants, friends and family. I prefer to sit back quietly and observe, not having to mention to anyone what exactly I'm seeing. That's just not important to me in the present tense. I need to sort that all out later anyway.
I wandered Jackson Square starting from the corner of St. Anne and Chartres, looking at the skinny gutterpunks, overweight tourists and locals, musicians, bums, beggars, fortune tellers, rogues and ruffians. There was a certain Downtown Mall quality at work here, but it seemed simultaneously more European and more Southern. I sat for a time out in front of an old French café called the Madeline, doing nothing more than secretly snapping pictures with my digital camera.
A few dramas played themselves out.
- There was a fat crossdressing homeless man wearing pink jogging pants and, like me, also watching the passersby.
The gods were unkind and sent a wind to knock over an old grey haired gentleman's tarot-reading stand.
- Some gutterpunks mingled quietly with a couple of black men. They've picked their own little pre-industrial society to join. It's a little like prison in its primitiveness and also for the fact that a gutterpunk's only possessions are worn on his body. Unlike prison, though, it's a lifestyle chosen to maximize personal freedom.
A woman smashed a piece of bread in a puddle so the pigeons could more easily peck it apart.
- A group of cops arrested a couple middle-aged ne'er-do-wells. They did so with utmost deliberation, stretching out a five minute procedure to fill a whole hour.
I went into the Madeline for a bottomless cup of coffee. It's not exactly a hip trendy scene by any stretch of the imagination.
-
I looked out the window and I saw the people passing one another.
Hey. How can you just let her walk away? Gothic gothic gothic goo.
An early 50s crane of a woman came into Madeline's with a beret on her head. Then a
Deya-like girl with a mom. It's obvious when a mom is there that the non-mom wants to break away free if only just in fantasy.
When Kim's appointment was over, we walked together through the French Quarter.
Bourbon Street, first introduced to me as the most singularly Schteveish part of town, proved to be an unexpectedly exciting place. There are plenty of bars that face the very street itself, taking full advantage of the lack of open container laws in New Orleans. One could get a glass of Bud Lite or perhaps a "Dixie" (a cheap New Orleans beer) for as little as $1.00 per glass. Kim chose instead to get a huge styrofoam cup of White Russian ($7 or so at a bar that also contained several casino games). It's not exactly the most healthy form of alcohol; she says that back when she was a freshling in Loyolla such daiquiris caused her to gain a full twenty pounds.
We ended up catching a ride with one of Lindsay's co-workers from the Contemporary Art Center back to "our" apartment, where we hung out for a time. The plan for tonight was to do dinner over at Chris and Genevieve's place. C & G are a cute artist couple living a rather carefree lifestyle in a big house they bought in a somewhat shady part of town. (Not shadesville, but close.) After an obligatory tour of their latest art (there wasn't much; they've not been especially productive of late), we ate a fairly typical New Orleans dinner of rice and fish that Chris cooked up. The two house chihuahuas clustered around Chris for the whole meal, revealing who in the family was the biggest sucker for their big-eyed begging.
Then we all smoked dope and parked ourselves in front of the television. Judging from the social calls we've made during our trip, television is an especially popular diversion in New Orleans, even amongst the "smash your television" demographic. C & G are especially fond of the comedy channel, but somehow we ended up watching a Howard Stern re-run, the one where he interviews a band called the Jesus Twins. It was hysterical. One of the Howard Stern producers described the music as "frighteningly mediocre," but we didn't get to hear it immediately. During the interview Howard himself was acting fairly cool, letting his various henchmen do all the taunting, and there was much to be done. Under this assault the two Jesus Twins grew gradually angrier and angrier in an almost Jerry Springer Show sort of way, defending their precious music with comic brutishness, even rising to their feet at one point as though about to attack one of Howard's guys. Kim and I wanted to go back home, but we couldn't until we got to actually hear the music. I don't know how many ad breaks Howard managed to keep us there for, but there were definitely a few. Our curiosity (or at least my curiosity) was reaching the bursting point. Then we actually got to hear the music. Let me just say, it was the worst possible combination of R & B, classic rock and hip hop you can imagine. It had all the originality of a 1994 Ford Escort, all the excitement of meatloaf, and all the inspiration of an English remedial class midterm essay. But that wasn't all. Then Howard Stern added insult to injury, actually reading from the Jesus Twins' lyric sheet. Let's just say, I have never heard a worse application of a thesaurus. The term "ubiquitous" has no place in a pop song. I get the feeling that the Jesus Twins are some sort of made-to-be ridiculous media construct.
Buildings near where the French Quarter borders the Central Business District.
Overweight people are common in Louisiana, where the average person is heavier than in any other state. Jackson Square is in the background.
Mostly tourists, mostly listening to live music in Jackson Square.
Kim sips a huge White Russian from a styrofoam cup.
Satellite dishes on top of a New Orleans building.
Kim (above) and me (below).
Construction across from the Contemporary Art Center. In the background is the ugliest skyscraper in New Orleans.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?991007 feedback
previous | next |
