“New Orleans is FUN. Be careful. It is a very dangerous city. Stay in the Quarter or Garden district. If you go to see Marie LaVeau (voodoo queen) do NOT go alone. The cemeteries are a maze and are full of thugs. The Quarter is FANTASTIC! You will see! Have fun”.
Quite a few people have said stuff like that. New Orleans. It’s fun, but be careful. It’s a dangerous city. Be careful. I’ve normally got a decent radar for that stuff, but I did… I don’t know. A bit on guard, maybe.
I was going to meet someone, but “I just had dental surgery earlier today and I won’t be going outside the next three days”. Shame, we’d have had so much in common.
I got into the hotel around 10pm, ready to go out around 10.30pm. I asked the bloke on reception where to go, what was a good thing to do. So we had a chat and he said “Well, if it’s your first time here, go to Bourbon Street. It’s good to see, but be careful. There’s a bunch of people who’ll say to you things like ‘Buddy, I bet you $20 I can tell where you got your shoes from’, you know, hustlers”.
The street the hotel’s on is two away from Bourbon, but they’re dark. The pavements and roads are in a bit of a state. It’s all still a bit post-Katrina and I know I should say this, but frankly they could do with a bit of TLC.
The next street up, Royal. Still dark. It was kinda odd because… where’s the noise? Bourbon Street’s loud – I’ve been here before, admittedly in a different life, but still. It was quiet. Then… I saw a group of people up ahead, too far ahead to hear but close enough to see shapes. I’m thinking “Actually, I got them on Ebay…” but then I got closer and could see there was one person standing a little away from the others. And then I got closer and could hear. He’s talking like a preacher, kinda howling “And this is where Madame La Blackcat, the voodoo queen used to… And some people say… ” Tour guides. Late night tour guides. Howling about vooodooo and graves and magic and the old days, trotting out lines from the Mickey Rourke film “Angel Heart”.
A horse drawn carriage went by. The carriage full of people, the driver howling “And this is where Madame La Blackcat, the vooodooo queen used to…”
Bourbon Street is loud. A mad cacophony of noise. People milling around, lots of people. Lots of visible police. Every other door is a bar and in every bar there’s a band and every band is loud. There are no singer-songwriters here. No sensitive acoustic types doing Nick Drake covers. It’s loud. There’s a lot of jazz, honking horns, but the deeper you get into Bourbon, there seems more bluesy rock – Vinegar Joe meets Creedence sort of thing. “Proud Mary” covers. It’s busy. And it’s hot. At midnight, it’s busier and it’s still hot.
Food bars selling gumbo this and crawfish that, drinks bars selling “fishbowl” drinks and daquiris, clip joints and strip clubs, hustlers offering 2 for 1 anything and honking horns. Then there’s the thing with beads. On the street, there are loads of discarded bead necklaces. People stand on the balconies and throw them down at passing women who, in return for being showered in beads, flash their tits. I can’t imagine why you’d do that – the beads are a bit rubbish – but it’s a thing here.
There are lots of down and outs, a few crazies and, as always, the juxtaposition between the fat consumption and the people on the street, but… nothing new there. No one came up to me and talked to me about my shoes. No one. A few people approached, but nothing that wasn’t easy to swerve.
At one end of Bourbon is Canal Street – big high street, big high street shops. At the other end is Esplanade and on the other side of Esplanade is Marigny and Marigny is what, I guess, is the hipster bit. Now that’s more like it.
Running through is Frenchmen Street and here we’re talking cool bars, better music, proper jazz, no “Proud Mary” covers (though I did see a pumping, jumping take on Uptown Funk). Again, you can’t move for people and sweat. The best club – The Spotted Cat – had great music and atmosphere but there were people hanging off the rafters and rivers running down my back.
New Orleans was, simultaneously, the loudest place and the quietest place because there’s nothing like loads of people being together and being loud – being visibly loud – to make you feel alone. I wasn’t looking to make friends on Bourbon. If I hung out on West Street and I found myself here, maybe I’d be heading to Bourbon Street. And it’s kinda ironic (or it would be if I knew what that meant). In England, sometimes people ask where I got my shoes. Here…
And over on Frenchmen, it would be OK if I was the type of bloke who could just start dancing and smiling and then it’s a short step to dancing around people and smiling and then it’s a short step to dancing with people and smiling. And then you stop dancing for a breather, maybe a drink, maybe a smoke, and then you start talking and… that’s it. But I’m not that bloke. Who’s that bloke? I don’t know, I was thinking maybe Paulie. But I’m not sure who else. I’m the bloke who meets people in cafes and quieter bars, and there are cafes and quieter bars, but they’re in different cities.
Actually, it’s fine. Just sitting and hanging out in bars that are playing fantastic music… there are worse things in the world.
There was an extraordinary big brass band, about 15 of them, just on the street outside a Fried Pizza place, kicking an amazing noise that slipped into a jumping brass take on Michael Jackson’s entire catalogue. Properly wild. And last night I spent a few hours in a bar called Vaso watching an astonishing three-piece blues band. The singer-guitarist was all grey-haired grizzly beard. The bass player had a beautiful five string Fender Jazz that properly rumbled. He hardly moved his fingers, it did all the work. If they played in Brighton there’d be queues but here, just another bar, just another band. Vodka and tonic, $5 a pop, which out here isn’t bad and, yeah, there are worse things.
But I do have to keep reminding myself what a luxury this is, what a privilege. (Yesterday afternoon I kinda lost sight of that, so I logged onto Uni mail. That sorted that out).
Just read that back. That sounds a bit miserable, but it isn’t meant to be. It’s just that the travelling alone thing can be a bit challenging at times, and it’s no bad thing to recognise it. I also know that before I even know it, I’ll be standing back in front of SJ480 explaining what an apostrophe is. An apo… Oh, never mind.
