French Quarter Undercover

New Orleans, the music is hot, but this part of town is even hotter. They call it the French Quarter, a place with no rules except live for today and forget about tomorrow. Two men call the French Quarter their home, their beat, their job is to keep it from exploding. And they do it the only way they know how....with pure guts. This is the French Quarter, where they never let the tourists see what's really going on. Where people can do anything they want, as long as they don't do it to anybody else.

I'm re-posting this Youtube video of a trailer of the 1985 film, FRENCH QUARTER UNDERCOVER. Looks like a hokey Miami Vice rip off action cop buddy type of film that was big back in the 80's. The two T-shirt clad  undercover detectives are played by Michael Parks and Billie Holiday. I'd like to find a copy of it, but apparently it's only available on Betamax.

A place where pleasure is a way of life, and death is often the only way out of town.

"New Orleans undercover cops Andre and R.J., partners for 17 years and in danger of being suspended for their recklessness, are enlisted by the F.B.I. to track down a terrorist who plans on poisoning the water supply of the city, gaining access through the World's Fair."

 

Two tough cops whose job was to tame the hustlers, the prostitutes and the petty crooks in the French Quarter now have the assignment of their lives. Stop the terror.

Hey God....

Hey God, if I haven't thanked you in a while, let me touch base with you. For the past couple of days I have woken up in a warm bed. I've walked to a job that I actually can tolerate and most of the time enjoy. Spent the day working with people I like and enjoy being around while listening to people that you blessed with the gift of music. I return home to warmth and fill my stomach. For the past two nights I have spent my time with brilliant creative company at my elbow. Folks that I consider myself fortunate to call friends.  

Tomorrow, I hope to rise to the challenges that you set before me, I doubt you will give me anymore than I can handle. Look after those I love. Help me to treat others as I would want to be treated. Thanks, you've been good to me.

Resolution

 

We at the Quarter Rat really have to get cracking on this animation project if we ever hope to get it into production. Otis and myself have day jobs, well his day job is at night. Plus he has a family to look after. So I decided from here on out to devote at least two hours a night to making this a reality. Here is the first part of many many steps to our ultimate goal. I'll periodically post anything new as it comes along.

Dumb shit tourists say....

Quarter Rats are stuck in a dysfunctional relationship. They have to put up with abuse and bullshit to survive. We in the Quarter must tolerate and amuse the ten million or so tourists every year. Tourists are the life giving blood to the French Quarter, and also the most intolerable part of living here.  It doesn't take long of living in the Quarter before you stop seeing them, or even noticing their presence. Like not seeing the flies when you work in a barn until you find one swimming in your cup of coffee.

The other day while walking to work along my usual route of Royal Street on a beautiful morning, one scolded me. I was looking down at my cell phone to see if my employer had called yet to ask where in the hell am I with the keys to the apartment that we were painting, when I heard a shrill annoying voice bark in exasperation "That idiot in the white ruined my shot." Hm, what a coincidence, I'm wearing white I thought.  I half turned to my left to see some chubby housewife from the midwest holding a camera in one hand and a Bloody Mary in the other giving me the stink eye while facing a building that I just walked by.  Fuck you bitch, people live here I mumbled.

Once while having a smoke break on a bench in front of the Upper Pontalba, a tourist stopped, pointed a camera directly at me and snapped a photo. They then walked away without so much as a thank you. How rude I thought. What if I hung out in the parking lot of where you worked and snapped your picture as you were getting out of your car to go inside to work. You probably would find it a little creepy and tell me to go fuck myself.

Today Jackson Square was mobbed. As I tried to carry buckets of paint and ladders from one apartment to another, I had to walk at a snail's pace behind thick packs of tourists. Groups that all of a sudden stop dead in front of you, or park in front of a window blathering about how expensive everything is. Forcing everyone else to walk an additional ten feet around them, only to be obstructed by someone's brat chasing pigeons with a balloon animal.  Daily.  You deal with it, it's part of life here.

On the corner of St Peter and Chartres I passed a loud group of four discussing lunch plans. I couldn't help but to over hear yet another irritating woman with a drink in her hand and a voice that caused dogs to bark. "WHAT do the locals eat?" she loudly questioned. I wanted to retort "Hot dogs and Ramen noodles." I know I would have been met with the look that I have witnessed tens of thousands of times in my life, people sneering at me like I AM the idiot because they failed to grasp my humor. I shuddered at her voice and continued on my way fantasizing about smacking her in the face with  a paint brush still wet with the color "Urban Putty."

 WHERE do the locals eat? would have been a more appropriate question. If the four of you hadn't seemed like total dickwads, I might have taken the time to point you towards a few places where you would have found great food at very reasonable prices by the French Quarter standard. Real Cajun food prepared by real Cajuns while sitting next to locals who might have bought you drinks if they liked you. I kept quiet, I wouldn't do that to my neighbors. You probably would have responded "Coop's Place? I neva heard of it! Where's Bubba Gumps?"  Go. That's all you deserve anyway.

Merry Christmas

Home Video

Eric, would you post some random pics of your block someday? Every block is cool, and I'd love to see yours.

Ok, Brooks, here is my little corner of the world...

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.