20 posts tagged “new orleans”

Since I've been procrastinating so much lately, I've come up with creative new ways of wasting my time. A few days ago, I joined Swap-bot, a site where you sign up for (you guessed it) swaps. I joined the Create-a-Mix III swap, where the theme this time is "Should be getting better but it keeps getting worse." Of course I chose New Orleans, and now I present the track list (in order even!):

1. City of New Orleans - Arlo Guthrie
2. New Orleans - Cowboy Mouth
3. Walking to New Orleans - Fats Domino
4. Mardi Gras Mambo - Zachary Richard
5. Down in the Quarter - Paul Soniat
6. King of New Orleans - Better than Ezra
7. Rich Bitch from the Garden District - Paul Soniat
8. Longest Bridge in the World - Dash Rip Rock
9. Pontchartrain - Vienna Teng
10. Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans - Harry Connick Jr
11. I Think I Just Seen Elvis in the Mildew on My Walls - Benny Grunch & The Bunch
12. I'm Dreaming of a White Trailer - Benny Grunch & The Bunch
13. The Avenue - Cowboy Mouth
14. Black Rain - Ben Harper
15. The Saints Are Coming - U2 & Green Day
    

Show us a picture of where you used to be.

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I drove back to Shreveport from New Orleans yesterday. It'll probably be at least three months before I can get back. Oh well. Janet was sick so I didn't go to Mardi Gras Day, but, then again, I haven't gone in years, and I don't feel like I missed anything. On Wednesday, I went to the French Quarter, mainly to get some photos of St Louis Cathedral that might be worth framing in my apartment in Shreveport. I have a few from a couple years ago, but either the camera or I did something to screw up the colors. Here are a few I'm considering:

I dunno. Maybe I could crop in on the first one.  Here are some others I took around the Cathedral.

While wandering around, I was *very* disappointed to find this building vacant:

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This was O'Flaherty's Irish bar on Toulouse near Decatur. I loved that bar. In fact, that's where some friends and I went to celebrate my 21st birthday. It had been around forever, and the owner, Danny O'Flaherty, was a locally famous musician. I'm really surprised they didn't reopen after the storm.

O'Flaherty's wasn't the only one, though. The Virgin Megastore is gone, along with Tower Records and Tower Books. I was heading over to the latter to get a copy of The Bridge to Terabithia when I discovered a for sale sign. I'd decided to go to Ash Wednesday mass at the Cathedral, and I had a couple hours to spare, so I thought it'd be a good idea to sit at Cafe du Monde with a book. That was a no-go, so I wandered over to the French Market. Again, I was disturbed at some changes they'd made:

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The empty part is the Esplanade Ave end. The other end used to have fresh vegetables and the like - food, generally - and the Esplanade side (now empty) had all the tourist stuff. Now the food is gone, and the tourist stuff is on that side.

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I assume it's just a renovation. At least I hope so.

I still had about an hour left, so I headed to the river to take some pictures.

I can't wait to go back.

If you haven't noticed by now, Mardi Gras is by far my favorite time of the year. And even though I said I wouldn't, here I am in New Orleans. I actually only made it to four parades this year, thanks to events out of my control, but I got to go to the big ones, so I'm happy. I saw Krewe d'Etat, Morpheus, Endymion, and Bacchus. Bacchus is my favorite. Here are some photos and the like:

I. Krewe D'Etat

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It was super-crowded, as usual. We got there really late (*not* because of me), so we had second row on small ladders. I spent a good deal of the parade rather pissed off. But that's okay.

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Taylor Hicks was the captain, and if he would have stopped moving for just one second, I could have gotten a nice, non-blurry shot.

Journey and Styx were co-captains.

Here's a video of St. Augustine, the best marching band in the city.

III. Bacchus

We got there even later for Bacchus (again, not my fault - I would have happily been there at 5am like I usually am), and we didn't use ladders at all. I'd rather no ladder than second row, and by the time we got there, the group we were meeting didn't have any spots left anyway.

The king was James Gandolfini. I did a little bit better with him than I did with Taylor Hicks, though it's dark and grainy. At least he's not blurry.

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So that was my Mardi Gras - at the very least it was memorable. Next year I'm gonna be in charge of planning. :)

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I subscribe to a number of New Orleans news feeds, and I ran across a particularly interesting one today. Craig Guillot, in New Orleans: Rebuilding a City, said something today that I've been trying to explain to non-New Orleanians for years: Give me a hurricane any day, but keep tornadoes the hell away from me. Here's what he said:

Sure, a hurricane might trash your city and your house but you’ve got a 99.99% chance of living through the ordeal if you just get in your car and leave town. Tornadoes, as we discovered this morning and as we recently saw in Florida, give no warning at all.

Okay, now I feel better.

NOLA-dishu stated it best in quoting an old poem:

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright.
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light.
And, somewhere men are laughing, and little children shout,

but there is no joy in Mudville --
mighty Casey has struck out.

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Again, sayeth the mother-in-law:

Whodatsaygonnabeatdemsaints

I didn't post anything about the big Christmas party my mother-in-law has every year.  Here are a couple videos of the kids singing Christmas carols:

And some photos:

This one is my favorite:

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Yep, it's over. Time to put away the Christmas music until just after Thanksgiving next year. But I'm gonna say just one more thing...

Listen to this:

2-03 I'm Dreaming Of A White Trailer

1 comment

So. Is it one of those things where you had to be there?

Oh, and in case you're interested, you can buy the album on Amazon.

12 Yats of Christmas: Tenth Annivoisery Issue #3

Benny Grunch & Bunch