So much talent.....

New Orleans can boast of having excess in so many ways, humidity, beads, calories... and talent. Down here talent is the rule, not the exception. I have met and made friends with folks who are just overwhelming with creativity. Painters, musicians, writers and actors. I have hung out on a couch with friends channel surfing and stopped mid click to say "Hey look. There's my friend Robert playing a cop." I get to go out for a beer with the artist Peter O'Neill and we hardly talk about art, just politics.

My friend Chris over in the Marigny turned me onto the music of Canadian born Lindi Ortega. She has a voice that I could best describe as "haunting." Talented guitar player, writer and singer who is not hard to look at either. Chris showed me her video for "Black Fly" that was very well done and shot down in the swamps here in Louisiana.  The song had my attention from the opening chords, her voice had me hooked. I dig old fashion dysfunctional love songs. As we watched the video on YOUTUBE, it suddenly struck me that my friend Chris was playing the drunk asshole boyfriend in the video. Again, in New Orleans you get accustomed to people you know personally popping up in TV commercials, on stage or in background of films. Chris is an extremly talented classical guitar player and actor. Although having hung out with him on Frenchman, I'm not too sure how much "acting" he did in this video.

Here are some links to Lindi Ortega,  check out more of her work.
lindiortega.com

Throw me some asprin mister!

Well, it's over.  I got to experience Mardi Gras at ground zero. I worked as a doorman at Molly's, tossed beads from a balcony, drank a little too much and got a lap dance from a 70 year old woman.  I really didn't take in any parades to speak of, a little too chilly out for me. Besides it's a crowd thing that I can't cope with.

Fats Domino - Mardi Gras To New Orleans

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Most of my friends in the Quarter had to work through out the past week. Otis would finish his graveyard shift at 6 am and take his 2 year old daughter out to parades during the day.  Most of the Quarter Rats I spoke to said that this was one of the slowest carnival seasons that they could remember. All said they made much better money on New Years Eve.

Things were so slow this year, when you threw beads, women only flashed one boob.

The streets were still packed with revelers in costumes.  I wandered down Royal Street for my daily exercise. Ok, for smokes and energy drinks. I loved the costumes. This city always has a surreal atmosphere, but during this season costumes seem the norm. Simple errands become adventures. 

This guy in the Dallas cheerleader costume I saw all weekend long when I worked at Molly's. He always made me chuckle, more than the midget in a Superman costume being pushed around in a shopping cart.  When this guy walked by the balcony on Fat Tuesday I had to ask him to stop for a photo.

In another two months the FEMA float will be here.

What? Do you mean that you don't pass couples like this on the way to the supermarket in your town? I guess living here takes some of the magic out of it for me. When I first got down here I had roomamtes who spoke of this as some sort of religious / magical event. Perhaps they over sold it, To be honest, I think it's over rated and the city places too much of it's identity in the event.  I understand it's business, the tourist buck pumping up our economy before the slump of summer.

The real magic of the French Quarter is here year round. There is so much that this city can boast about besides being a Mecca for the annual pilgrimage of alcoholics.  Mardi Gras does bring this city closer together. When Ash Wednesday finally gets here, front end loaders are used to scoop up tons upon tons of garbage, fire trucks are used to hose the vomit from the streets and sidewalks. Everyone sighs collectively.

Guess what I did last night...

I worked. My editor Otis asked if I would be interested working as the door guy at Molly's on Toulouse for a couple of nights during Mardi Gras.  Having no social life to speak of (by choice) I said sure if for no other reason than the chance to say I had done it.  The only vocational experience I had to draw from was driving cab at night on the Jersey Shore, this was a lot easier and safer.  Safer because I had other staff and all of the local regulars to cover me if any shit went down. Driving cab alone with one or more belligerent drunks sitting behind you can hang your ass out to dry. 

Fortunately both nights were pretty mellow, no trouble to speak of. I had made my mind up that any if any shit went down that I would dive in. I'm not sure how much help a 170 pounds of arthritis would be in a bar fight, but we are Quarter Rats. We look after our own. Being so skinny, I can't really stop a bullet but I might  be able to slow it down.

Molly's was one of the first bars I ever went to in the French Quarter and I even ended up living across the street from it when I finally settled in the Quarter. A cool local haunt with plenty of characters that is a stones throw from Bourbon Street. Knowing a few of the bartenders made it easier on the new job and a few of the regulars came over with their drinks to keep me company and give me some pointers.  I stood in the doorway from 10 PM to 3 AM watching the mass of madness swirl past down on Bourbon. Small groups would splinter off heading towards me on Toulouse.  I immediately tried to figure if they should show I.D. or not, if they were just looking for a bathroom or were too drunk to be allowed in.

Protecting our bathroom was my primary duty. Across the street next to the Tropical Island the city set up a couple of port o johns. At one point I looked over and some guy was standing next to one, pissing on the outside of it.  All night long women in their late teens were coming up to me with thighs clenched and bodies jiggling. 

"You gots a bafroom?"

"Must be twenty one, one drink minimum." 

"Just to use your bafroom?"

"Yes, customers only. Look , there's port o johns across the street." 

"I don't wanna use dem, there's a line and deys nasty." 

"So you you want us to open up our restrooms to the non paying public so ours become as equally congested and unsanitary?" 

"Uh, yea..."

"Must be twenty one, one drink minimum."

"Yo a asshole."

"That's what my ex says too, have a goodnight."

I met a lot of cool folks, some where Molly regulars, others were visitors from around the country. Two very young attractive ladies wearing bustiers, boots and fishnets walked up to the door. I asked for ID's, and by their reactions I could tell they were regulars who worked as shotgirls on Bourbon. They were polite realizing that I was new and just doing my job. The one dumped out her boot containing her cell phone, rolling papers and driver's license.  They sat by the door and we chatted about the craziness. The two shotgirls would come into Molly's every couple of hours to escape the insanity of the front line. Upon their last exit, one turns and hands me a few singles. "Wait, young, attractive women in fishnets are handing ME singles? I like this job."

 

The five and six hours shifts flew by as I stood on the stoop watching the real Mardi Gras parade pass by.  Ridiculous hats, costumes and tourists with so many strings of beads around their necks that it just added to the power of gravity trying to pull them down to the vomit slick payment. A constant stream of young slutty dressed women flowed in and out of the Dungeon next door, "Oh, that's where they come from."

Before my shift I went up Royal to Unique Groceries for three $.99 Rip It energy drinks and a pack of smokes for my shift. My first night at Mollys I worked my whole shift just having just energy drinks.  A few drinks were offered during the night, but I declined. As much as I feel at home in this city, as much as I feel like I belong in the French Quarter, the one way  that I feel like an outsider is that I don't enjoy drinking.  It's kind of like joining the Navy when you don't enjoy the water.

My second night I was a bit more relaxed so I said yes to everything offered. Two Spanish dudes from Texas bought me a shot of Tequila because they thought I was "Cool as hell." I always had a good rapport with drunk Mexicans when I drove cab.  I'll take three drunk Mexicans over one drunk Italian any day.  Drunk Australians are hit or miss as tourists. I had a couple bad experiences with them while driving cab. I met one last night that improved their grade curve.

While driving cab, I always had to be on the look out for drunkards trying to sneak drinks into my cab. Weekends in the summer that was a constant aggravation. Arguments like: "I won't spill it" "I can drink in a limo" "It's only water" "You need to lighten up" "No tip for you asshole" Last night gave me flashbacks. I was amazed how many people thought that they could bring full drinks into a crowded bar.  Try to bring a plate of food into a restaurant and reply when stopped, "Oh we're going to buy dessert here." And those GODDAMN Green Handgrenades drinks. Walking up to a doorman while holding one of those is like wearing a T-Shirt that says "I'm a fucking idiot."

The view out my office window, a costumed midget in a shopping cart.

Twice the bartenders came over and reminded me to keep an eye open on people bringing drinks in. I couldn't understand how they got past me. I made it a point to look at the hands of everyone coming in. It's tough to give a once over look to revelers wearing sequin alligator hats and with so many beads that it looks like they're wearing a gay life preserver. Strands of beads  dangling with throw cups, coconuts, dildoes and blinking lights on them. I ain't no TSA agent. Then I figure how the sneaky bastards were doing it. A group would come up, I'd be checking ages in the doorway as the ones outside were handing the drinks to the ones inside through the open window. You muthafuckas.

I saw them coming up Toulouse. A snotty, whorish dressed rich girl texting on a smarter than her phone. Her frat boy companion who you could tell the only thought bouncing around in his alcohol soaked brain was "YES! I'm going to get laid tonight!" Both had three quarter full cups of beer. She looked like she down the rest of hers in one gulp. This girl made Snookie look like Mary Tyler Moore. They came up to Mollys and looked in, and both knew that it was probably the least crowded and most reasonably priced place this close to Bourbon Street. As I check the ID's I mention that they can't bring in outside drinks.

She snaps in that spoiled bitch tone. "WHAT? Are you for real?"

"No. I am a hologram telling you that you can't bring in outside drinks."

"You're an ASSHOLE."

They hang out front sipping their beers, she is texting on her phone as he's rubbing her lower back staring at her 22 year old boobs.  They spin around and slam thier half full cups of beer into the large garbage can outside of our door splattering me with slop from the can. I imeadiatly step to my left blocking the very narrow doorway.

"Sorry, you can't come in."

Her expression was like I just kicked her in the twat.

"WHAT?! We got rid of our drinks like you asked!"

"You called me an asshole. I don't have to let in anyone who calls a staff member an asshole." 

Her boyfriend rolled his eyes realizing they just tossed $6 in beer and I am putting her in such a lousy mood he probably won't be getting any from her all night. He had to restrain her from slugging me.

"OH! You're a FUCKING ASSHOLE!"

"Yep, that's what my ex says too. Goodnight."

Louie Louie

Friday night the Quarter Rat delivered the lattest issue (#26) to all of the finer drinking establishments in the French Quarter. Like the previous times the copies were dropped off by topless girls with their breasts painted in festive Mardi Gras themes. We started out with ten lovelies, I think only three managed to finish the route. One didn't even make it out of the first bar. Rather than writing about the night in my blog like I usually do, we videotaped the entire adventure. I know we should be able to edit it down to at least 30 minutes of non stop debauchery, nudity, stupidity and fun.

The Kingsmen - Louie Louie

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As Otis and I were unloading cases of the magazines from his car, I looked up across the street and famed street mime "Uncle Louie" was walking by with his bucket from working all day on Royal Street. It just turned out that Uncle Louie made the cover of this month's Quarter Rat. I grabbed a handful of copies for him and went over to hand them to him. I'll admit that I couldn't wait to see his reaction. Anyone who has visited the French Quarter has seen Louie in his pristine white suit posing on Royal, anyone who lives in the Quarter has shaken his hand and probably had a drink or two with him. A real cool man who is a staple to the French Quarter.

We had to videotape the evening because I really don't think anyone outside of the Quarter believes the stuff I write about. We couldn't get our buddy Zan and his pedicar to help deliver the boxes this time around. Zan said that he had a wheel fall off or something. (Personally, we think his wife got tired of him peddling up and down Bourbon Street with topless young women. We're not sayin, just sayin.) So I dressed up like a homeless guy and pushed a shopping cart around the Quarter loaded with cases of magazines. At one point on Lower Decatur Street I passed an actual homeless guy with a shopping cart loaded with personal belongings. Awkward at first, I had to comment to him about his cart "Nice model, what year is it?" 

Towards the end of the night we had to meet up with the remaining girls and the rest of our krewe at the Ginger Lime Japanese restaurant at 200 Decatur. They treated us great with fantastic food. I vaguely remember eating sushi off of a couple of the women.  We had a few block to travel to get there so we broke up into small groups and hopped into Pedicabs for the journey. I however was stuck with a shopping cart loaded with magazines and almost had to walk. Otis yelled "Styles! Sit on your cart and hang on to the back of the Pedicab and he'll tow you." So, dressed like a homeless guy I was towed behind one of the bikes down several blocks of Royal Street. All night I had been rolling ontop of the shopping cart. It was like "Jackass on Bourbon Street" I did take a spill when the front wheels of the cart dug into a pothole. You'll have to wait for the video.

Don't let the parade pass you by

Last night was the first big parade of the season, Krewe du View.  It jumps starts the carnival season winding through the French Quarter. I had friends with bottles of liquor wandering the Quarter calling me for my location so I could help lighten the load of the bottle. Sorry, I have some work to do. Quarter Rat deadline was more important. Most Quarter Rats have to work the holidays. It's the fact of life when you work the service industries. Man, these folk create their own holidays on their days off.

I listened to the parade pass by a hundred feet or so away as I finished up this month's cover. No loss, I don't do crowds well. Especially down here, a few gun shots and you find yourself caught in a stampede of stomping alcoholics. If the crowd doesn't crush you, the response of mounted cops will finish you off with 3,000 pounds of horse.

I went out briefly after the parade and my work was done. Kind of how you go out and inspect the neighborhood after a severe tropical storm. I brought my pastels to offer my services as a "Police Chalk Outline Artist." I'll get a navy blue windbreaker with PCOA on the back in big yellow letters. The scary part about going out last night, I didn't see anything unusual. By French Quarter standards of "usual." 

Here is a cool site, www.mardigrasneworleans.com. You can find schedules and parade routes as well as history and backgrounds on the different Krewes.

Hey, I know that place....

Here is some background art to the animation that I am working on. Originally I was just going to do just a minute or so of very rough animation to demonstrate the look of the show. Of course it soon evolved into a four minute cartoon of continuous sight gags. Since we are still somewhat up in the air as far as the voice actors and sound production, we had to deliver on the visuals. The cartoon kind of plays out like the Old "Pink Panther" cartoons.  Our protangonist just trying to walk from one end of Bourbon Street to the other.

As you can tell, we are trying to put as much local flavor and characters into the show. Not just for those who live here, but so somewhere one of the tens of millions visitors who have spent time in the French Quarter will point to the screen and say "I've seen that."

I have a greater appreciation for the labor involved in animation. One scene Otis and I included needed a galloping police horse complete with a mounted cop firing his weapon. Just the horse and gallop took me about 6 - 8 hours to complete.  If that wasn't enough we added a swinging brass band, a running Baron Somalia, SWAT teams, gun battles and a huge chaotic finale. John Landis would find this final scene a challenge to direct. 

I am limited with the software that I have at my disposal. Photoshop and I-Movie is about all that I have to work with right now. The purpose of this short is to create interest for future funding of the 23 minute pilot. We have at least a dozen scripts written, and when Otis and I team up with the proper motivation, plots and punch lines come faster than we can write them down.

Here is one of the locations in the story line, a Bourbon Street strip club named "Barely Sane." The romantic interest of the lead character works there. Athena DeCruelle, B-movie actress turn fetish model, turned dancer and dominatrix. Don't expect a dumb bimbo type of lady. Athena  is a shrewd, manipulative and brilliant woman of Bourbon Street. Granted, she's sleeping around with about half of the men in the French Quarter, but only one man truly loves her, this is his story. I won't make any promises on a delivery date for the finished product, I won't debut it until it's ready. Someday I may have to face deadlines, hopefully by then we'll have a budget and a staff to yell at.

I changed my mind, I don't like football after all...

I have written in previous posts that I never got into the sport of football. Never played it, never followed it and never even watched a game until I moved to Who Dat turf. I kind of appreciated the sense of community and how it brings this city into harmony. Recent events have made me reconsider that perhaps my first disdain for the sport was correct. 

I can't get the whole college football fanatisism unless you ACTUALLY attended the college. I was talking about LSU fans with the security guard down at the Pontalba building. I mentioned being originally from New Jersey, I never imagined that an entire state of non-alumni would give two shits about the college team. Back in Jersey no one but a Rutgers graduate would even watch a Crimson Knights game. I don't even know the name of Princeton's team, as many times as have been in Princeton NJ. The guard chuckled about how big college football is in the south. "We're big on all football down here. Mississip, Bama, Texans are the worst. Your Ivy leages don't turn out football players, they turn out millionaires."

For those of you outside of the Big Easy, you may or may not have heard about an incident that took place here in the French Quarter the night of a rival game between Alabama and LSU.  Alabama fans flooded into the Quarter to watch the game, I listened all night to cheers and hoots from Bourbon Street fifty feet away from my balcony. Alabama won the game,  so the LSU fans who out numbered the rivals 10 to 1 in the Quarter drank themselves stupid. I sincerely expected some form of violence that night.  LSU fans down here take their team more seriously than careers or families., I believe a small percentage of the team's fans couldn't spell L-S-U. I could drive you around New Orleans and point out houses painted the purple and gold team colors. During the day of the game, several vintage cars painted LSU colors cruised through the Quarter.

So following the LSU loss, Alabama (I was surprised to hear that they had a college) rejoiced and celebrated through out the Quarter as Tiger fans drank themselves unconscious. This is the story of one of them.  Synopsis of what happened: A LSU fan passed out at the Krystal Burger in the 100 block of Bourbon. That block is by far the most notorious and usually the most dangerous. Most of the high profile shootings took place in front of the Krystal Burger joint. The chalk outlines of the fallen are washed away by urine with in hours. The Krystal is like a 24 hour White Castle style place with counters at the windows that overlook Hustler Hollywood's storefront. As you dine on sliders, you can gaze upon mannequins dressed in S&M garb with each other on leashes. I'm not exaggerating any of this.

The LSU fan passed out at the window counter after one too many Handgrenades. First of all, he was an idiot with lousy friends. To get passed out drunk on Bourbon with no one trustworthy enough to watch your back is asking for trouble. He's lucky that he didn't wander down to Burgundy to pass out. If he had, he may not have woken up, or if he did wake up he probably would have been naked and covered with excrement of the homeless.  Instead, he was discovered by Alabama fans exiting the Krystal. Garbage was left on him, water dumped on him, what you might expect from individuals who follow the careers of football players more than their own career advances.

One of the Alabama fans, Brian Downing, 32,  evidently the closet homosexual of the group decides to whip out his junk and start to simulate sex with the unconscious LSU fan's ear by climbing up on a nearby chair. Yea, when I'm out drinking with my buddies, we are always trying to see who's penis is small enough to fit in another man's ear.  Due to the lack of motor skills and judgment, the ear rapist Mr Downing slips making full facial contact with the man in the purple and gold.  After he finished rubbing his male genitals on the face of an unwilling victim,  Downing stood in the middle of the restaurant with penis still exposed as his friends cheered.

Mr. Downing, understandably growing up in Alabama has forced you to feel the need to remain in the closet about your homosexuality. There were better ways to out yourself. If you were so drunk that you felt able to express yourself in front of your friends, then you should have gone down a few blocks to St Ann Street. There you could have found dozens of WILLING partners who would have been more than happy to allow you to rub your penis all over them, and they would have precipitated to teabagging on your face. Perhaps your future cellmate will be a LSU fan who will help you discover yourself in a healthier fashion.

Ironically, in High School I was bullied by the jocks who called me a fagot because I never played sports and liked art. I never tried to penetrate the ear of a rival artist with my penis.