I wish I was in New Orleans

First posted 5-31-04

"I wish I was in New Orleans
I can see it in my dreams
Arm in arm down Burgundy
A bottle and my friends and me"
- Tom Waits, "I Wish I Was In New Orleans"

The New Orleans Diary, Part I

I wrote this Monday night after my first time on Bourbon Street. I had been drinking some, started with a Hurricane (perhaps one of the most vile drinks I have ever tasted) followed by many, many expensive gin and tonics at Howl at the Moon, a strange, lewd dueling piano bar. Somehow I ended up there twice during the trip, the only location I visited more than once other than my hotel, the convention center and Cafe Du Monde. I will attempt to translate the barely legible chicken scratches I made that night about 10:30, really far too early to be in bed when you're getting drunk on Bourbon Street. But I was with a bunch of party poopers, so what are you gonna do.

Anyways, I give you the first part of the New Orleans Diary:

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Standing in the Middle of Bourbon Street in the Eye of a Hurricane on Monday Night

I am mildly intoxicated, but not near the level to which I intended. The spelling is almost correct and the script almost legible. But I am determined to have a good time. This pen is a cold, smooth phallus in my hand. Out on Bourbon Street, the lights gaudy and flashing in neon kisses, I am a few gin and tonics the wiser. The first drink, the Hurricane. A vile concoction the flavor of cough syrup. Perhaps I just had a bad one. But I switch to G&T's and down them with purpose. Tipping waitresses heavily in a cheap, but not so, immitation of flirting. Singing to old Croce tunes I know. Then I slide down uneven pavement stones in an intoxicated grace. I have the doubts of my companions in my pocket, and the smell of Mothers meat on my hands. Sliding and gliding, running between pedistrians like a rum runner, slipped between their shoulders like an eel. Crossing the boundries of shops and hotels, catching wedges of AC air stuck into the night like pins. Hitting the wedges of cold air like bits of hell draped over the streets. Bourbon Street smells, like all this city smells, but it is lost to me in my desire to have a good time. I am determined. But I pass up the gazebo bar in the hotel, cold as witches nipples, to head to the room, comfy clothes and Cubs scores. This penmarked page, scratched like by knives. I am graceful in this stupor, drifting like breezes through summer nights, humid and sweaty and strong. Graceful through the halls of this hotel, the lights bobbing like a ship at sea as I row my way down this hall to my room.

I hope to write soon on the foreigness of this town, and the not-foriegness, on Cafe Du Monde and the sugar. Perhaps I can sneak away there. But tomorrow night I plan a sloppy drunk celebration of being. Of being lost. I don't drink to forget, simply because my memories of loneliness are not memories but realities. But I drink to change a momentary reality to something of desire and riches. Not to forget, but to change and lose. Not a denial, but a momentary evasion and a loss for a small price to pay on this Monday night.

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Less coherent than I remember. But I like the part about AC air. Anyways, more to come tomorrow.