barge rats

Usually when I correspond with someone up North, I always ask "How's the weather up there?" just so I can rub it in. It's the asshole in me.  I found myself asking an Alaskan Quarter Rat fan "How's the radiation up there?" That's the friend in me when someone I know may be hit with isotopes. Dumb Japs. If anyone should be the most careful it's them. Perhaps if you put as much effort into nuclear safety as you do bad animation and pervy porn, you wouldn't be living in a microwave oven right now. At lest Russians had someplace to move the population to. You guys are shit out of luck.

The Alaskan Barge Trash are good friends with the Quarter Rat, we are honored. A tug boat crew working Valdez Harbor spend the long sadistic winters passing around DVDs of Treme, listening to WWOZ on the internet and reading The Quarter Rat. Next year they want Fat Tuesday off. My friend Jeff said it's the only Mardi Gras themed tug working up there. See? They get it. 

I tried to figure out the connection between a tug crew working in Valdez with those working in the French Quarter,  I can't figure it out. Other than  those up on Valdez have as much respect for big oil companies as we do. Think about it. These guys live fairly exciting lives on some of the roughest waters in the world and they spend their down time listening to our music and reading the adventures of bartenders and strippers on Bourbon Street.

Thanks guys, we'll send ya some beads for those railings.

Alaskan Barge Trash

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to visit my blog of late night ramblings about my life here in the French Quarter. I wouldn't be so presumptuous to think it's about me, it's all about the Quarter. Those who live here, those who have visited know that there is something different about this place from the rest of the Earth. Native Americans camped here hundreds of years ago, Europeans fought over it, tourists make pilgrimages here and a few lucky people can call it home. 

"Something about NOLA completely changed my outlook on life.

Can’t say specifically, but it was profound."  

I am able to check the statistics of web traffic to this blog, and it amazes me. Regular visitors from around the world. Some I have the privilege to actually get to know via Facebook and E-mails. A really cool couple from Australia are regular readers and FB friends, a former resident of my apartment building keeps track of the old neighborhood now that he's up in Canada.  I see by the stats that this blog receives regular visits from folks in Russia, Israel, Germany and the United Kingdom. 

These writings are in no way sponsored by the tourism board, I don't sugar coat the French Quarter. I'll do my best to write about the incredible energy and beauty of this city but at the same time tell the truth about dodging gun fire on Bourbon Street, constant harassment for a spare cigarettes or change and the overwhelming stench sometimes of human excrement, urine and vomit. If you want a white washed version of the French Quarter, visit Disneyworld. If you want to walk on streets that still have traces of pirate DNA in the gutters, we are the real deal.

I just received an E mail from a Quarter Rat fan in Alaska:

Eric,

You have a totally awesome blog and l look forward to reading it while I’m here at work. I was in NOLA for several days around Halloween and was fortunate to pick up a Quarter Rat at d.b.a. It’s one of the best souvenirs of my trip. I am missing NOLA badly. I want to go back.  Something about NOLA completely changed my outlook on life. Can’t say specifically, but it was profound.  

Totally understand about being away from your family during Christmas. It sucks major. I am currently working on a boat in Alaska this Christmas, and before you ask I have to say, “NO! It’s not like the fucking ‘Deadliest Catch’. There are other maritime related industries up here that have little to do with those meth-addled drama queens!”  Besides, we mainly stick to sniffing paint thinner.

Anyway, here’s a photo of a few of the tugboats in our fleet. I took this several days ago and since it kind of looks Christmas-ey and all that shit, I thought it was kind of cool. And anyways, since most people rarely associate tugboats with Christmas, why the fuck not?

Sincerely and Merry Christmas,

Alaskan Barge Trash

To sum up my response to his correspondence "There's plenty of tugboat action on the Mississippi River."  Read some Mark Twain up there in Alaska, you'll walk down here if you have to. This city only invites or keeps those people who "Get it." Thousands of tourists every week say "Oh, I want to live here." Very few ever do, or deserve to. You sound like you get it.

The "BIG EASY" got it's knickname from the "big easy bend" in the river given to it by riverboat pilots.  Over the years it's just adopted that as a philosophy.  My friend Darren from the bench in front of the Pontalba on the square says "The reason they call New Orleans the Big Easy is because it's so easy to live here. Ya got a smoke?"  Either version of how New Orleans received it's title is correct.

Stories have been written about tugboat men in New Orleans.