Ron's Big Life Update - February 1995

"Hi, everybody." - Dr. Nick Riviera from The Simpsons

So why have I been amazingly lax in sending out e-mail. Because I've been away from my desk for an extended period of time. FAR away from my desk.

How far? Try: NEW ORLEANS!!!!! (And Las Vegas, too, but I'll get to that later.)

About 8 months ago, my friend Steve-who-set-fire-to-the-Chinese-restaurant (don't ask) asked me if I'd like free tickets to New Orleans; he and a few friends were getting together for a weekend before Mardi Gras, and he wanted to know if I'd like to join them. He (somehow) got free non-transferrable tickets through work, and they'd go to waste if I didn't use them. So I thought for about a nanosecond, and said YES! YUP! YOU BETCHA! I AM THERE! THERE AM I! Bring on the dancing horses! BABY BABY BABY! Oh yes indeedy! Uh-huh! OK! Fine! No problem! Sure!

So I got plane tix to the Bayou. Steve took care of hotel reservations, (for some reason, he likes orchestrating large events), and ten of us descended on New Orleans from Thursday (2/16) to Monday (2/20). For those of you playing at home, that's the weekend before Mardi Gras. Well, I was already giddy as the plane was preparing to land in New Orleans. You could already see the smile on my face as the plane flew over some houses with extremely low property value. Good things were about to happen.

Initially, there were four of us in N.O. - Steve, me, and two other friends of his who I'd met before. In our boundless enthusiasm, we made a beeline for the coolest bar on Bourbon Street, "Pat O'Brien's", where we demolished a few hurricanes (32-ounce fruity drinks, with the equivalent of 4 shots of rum). Dan (one of Steve's friends) didn't fare very well after that, and spent most of the upcoming evening worshipping the porcelain goddess.

That pretty much set the scene for the rest of our stay there. We drank a lot, hung out in the French Quarter, ate like kings, and drank a lot. Oh, did I mention that we drank a lot?

The food was great - red beans & rice, jamblaya, alligator, catfish, shrimp creole, grits (I didn't particular care for grits, actually), and crawfish. Crawfish are pretty cool - kind of a cross between shrimp, lobster, and crawly bugs. The restaurant boils them whole, then you crack 'em open and try and extract some meat from their insides. Fun, but too difficult for a steady diet.

I tried to learn to talk Cajun, but I only mastered one phrase: New OR-linz. Not "New OrLEENZ", but "New OR-linz." I couldn't pick up any other phrases, much in the same way that I can't recover my New York accent. I did notice that the true Cajun folk speak of themselves in the third person, so Ron will be doing that from now on.

Steve and I managed to belt out a few of our favorites at one of the Karaoke bars on Bourbon Street. He sang his staples: "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" (which nobody really likes, but we don't have the heart to tell him) and "Dancing With Myself" (likewise), and I sang my staples: "Play That Funky Music" (white boy, indeed) and "I Will Survive" (sung in a painful falsetto that left me hoarse the next day). The crowd loved us, which I suppose, was our goal the whole time.

We took in a few parades while we were there. There was a big ol' parade through the city to officially kick off the berserk Mardi Gras festivities, with floats and marching bands etc. Right before the parade, one of the police horses unloaded right in front of where we were standing, which was pretty funny. And then, all the marching band people stepped in it, which was even funnier. There was a much smaller parade two days later - the dog parade. Apparently, this is a New Orleans tradition that goes back quite a few years. The local dog owners dress up their dogs in wacky costumes, and march them in a little parade through the French Quarter. Well, one of the first dogs through took a dump right in front of where we were standing, and we watched everyone else in the parade walk through it. A very strange recurring theme...

It rained for most of the weekend, but that didn't stop any of the festivities. Not by a longshot, actually. We spent most of the evenings and nights on Bourbon Street, along with 200,000,000 other drunk people. If you're like me, you probably don't know the Bourbon Street rituals that go on during Mardi-Gras. Allow me to fill you in...

For some reason, Mardi Gras partygoers fixate on beads. Strings of beads are effectively currency during M.G., although you can't buy things with them. The goal of the M.G. partygoer is to acquire as many beads as possible without buying them. One can get beads buy flashing parts of his/her body on the street, which will usually result in other people throwing him/her some beads. It's actually much more structured and organized than you would imagine. Bourbon Street is a fairly narrow road (blocked to car traffic), with 1-story-high balconies lining the street on both sides.

Dialogs take place between the balcony people and the street people (who usually can't see too many other street people because they're all at the same height.) For example, a street guy will single out one woman in the balcony and will serenade her with a gentle call of "Show your t**s!!!", which will usually generate one of two responses: (1) No, or (2) Let's see the beads. If they're cheap beads, like the ones they throw at you in the parades, then no deal. If they're really nice beads, then body parts are flashed, beads are thrown, and applause ensues from the entire audience. And women yell, "Show your d***!!!" also, so it's not completely sexist.

We were lucky enough to get up onto a balcony on Saturday night, so we got to see everything. Woo-hoo! I hope the pictures come out...

To look down on the crowds on the street level was like watching Times Square during New Year's Eve. Pandee-monium! At one point, as I was trying to make my way to a pizza joint for a slice, I got picked up by the crowd behind me, and was pushed about forty feet. I could only get one foot on the ground, so I pretty much gave up and let the crowd drag me wherever it wanted. Go with the flow, they say. And they say NEXT weekend is ten times worse! Yow!

I think one of the strong points of New Orleans is the music scene. I myself got sick of drinking after three days, but I don't think I could ever get sick of seeing the dozens of live bands in the city that are there every day. There's one restaurant/arena called the "House Of Blues", and their February lineup included lots of bands that I'd normally go way out of my way to see: Nick Lowe, Graham Parker, Barenaked Ladies, The Subdudes, Freedy Johnston, and lots and lots of others that I can't remember off the top of my head. I got a button from the House of Blues. Cool. And all the local bands know the Neville Brothers and Meters toonz that I love, so I was one happy camper. Oh, and I got my picture taken with Fats Domino's shoes, which were on display at the N.O. Hard Rock Cafe. Hope the picture comes out...

We also found time to visit the New Orleans Art Museum, which had a Monet exhibit going on. Cul-chah!

So after five days of drunken debauchery (which was plenty for me; I don't think I'll ever have another drink again), I flew to Las Vegas to meet my parents there. Coincidentally, they made vacation plans in L.V. the same week that I made the N.O. plans, so I flew up for two days to see them. We saw Sigried and Roy, which was easily the high point of my trip to L.V., but on the whole, I hated Las Vegas. I didn't like gambling at all (strike one), and it seemed like all people ever do in L.V. is gamble, smoke, and eat red meat. Well, I'm in no great danger of gambling away my life savings...

So now I'm back in Tucson. And actually very happy to be back; there's only so much abuse one can dish out to oneself, and I'm happy to be back in the land of sand.

On the flight back from Houston (a connection), I sat next to a woman who had spent a few months there. They talk funny there. If you're addressing one person, it's "Y'all." If it's more than one person, it's "All y'all." No joke!

Well, I don't expect to be able to top this for quite a while, so I hope you'll understand if things are a little quiet from my end.

"We make holes in teeth! We make holes in teeth!" - The Cavity Creeps
Ron