The night of Wednesday, January 3, 2007 started off like any other. A few people came over to our house to share each others' company. In the pre-dawn hours of January 4th, I retired to my room at around 3:30 AM. I could still hear people downstairs as I sat down to play Rollercoaster Tycoon 2. In the middle of designing a fantastic "Inverted Steel Rollercoaster" my solitude was interrupted by Richard and Rollie who came barging into my room wielding a fire poker and shovel, respectively. They gathered around me and Richard posed a question: "Rivers, do you want to go to New Orleans?" Rollie quickly delivered a follow-up, something to the effect of: "I've never been. Will you take my New Orleans virginity?" The questions caught me off guard, as they should have, and so my natural instinct was to say "no", which I did. I supported my stance by raising serious questions about logistics (How would we get there? How could we possibly afford a trip like that? What if we breakdown on the way? Assuming that we make it, what do we do when we were there? etc.). So, in other words my immediate reaction was a resounding negative.
However, after some prodding from my meleé weapon-wielding compatriots, as well as some personal soul-searching, I changed my mind. Within the course of about five minutes I went from making preparations for slumber, to packing for a trip to The Big Easy. The catch to the whole thing was that I had to be back in Auburn before 8 AM Friday morning so that I could drive my car to Columbus to be serviced. The reason for that being that my "Service Engine Soon" light was on in the dashboard. This also put me out of the running for providing transportation to said Big Easy. Rollie's car was also out of the question seeing as how he has never had it tuned-up, and he has been experiencing problems with it recently as a result. This left the daunting task up to Richard and his mighty, golden Toyota Camry.
Rollie and I grabbed all of the essentials from our house, and departed with Richard much to the amazement of those still left at the house, those being Miles, Andy, Sean, and Matt. We made it over to Richards where he gathered his belongings, and after choking down some bitter coffee we hit the road.
Making extremely good time, we hit Montgomery in under an hour and got onto I-65 South heading toward Mobile. The drive down I-65 went by relatively quickly, and without incident. All three of us took a multivitamin from the bottle Rollie found under the seat. I'm not sure it helped, but it couldn't have hurt. We made a quick stop in Owassa, Alabama for rehydration before making the last leg of the trip through Mobile. In a moment I'll never forget, we drove across the bridge heading into Mobile surrounded by pea soup fog and listening to "Panama" by Van Halen. It was magic. Through Mobile, and onto I-10, the drive across Mississippi went very quickly (for me anyway).
We stopped near Biloxi to get gas and, literally, the first person I saw when I got out of the car was a FEMA worker.
After a refill on petrol, we made the last leg of the journey through Slidell, Louisiana and onto the longest bridge in the world, The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway.
At first, we were crossing the bridge with relative ease, all the while listening to Tom Petty's Full Moon Fever. However, something just had to fuck with our incredible timing (which was just passing the five-hour mark as we got onto the bridge). One lane was closed off and this jammed up traffic on the bridge pretty badly. The delay set us back about thirty minutes.
We finally got off of the causeway and into the northern outskirts of New Orleans. The damage from Hurricane Katrina was still visible everywhere even that far away from the city. To me, the most striking image was that of an abandoned shopping mall. Not just a little mall, but the size of Auburn's mall, if not bigger. There were no cars in the parking lot, just loose grocery carts and broken windows. The Dillards was missing most of the letters on its sign, but not all. I figured in America, stupid bullshit like shopping malls would be the very first thing to restock and reopen after a major disaster. Though it was shocking, there was more to see on the drive into the city.
On either side of the road, as far as you could see was nothing but abandoned buildings. I quickly came to the realization that this would be a very heavy experience. The shitty weather wasn't helping the mood either. We'd be coming up on buildings that looked to be occupied, only to pass by them and be able to look through the holes that used to be windows, past the superstructure and out the other side. I know that it's become the cliché to say this, but it truly did look like a war had happened there. The experience was surreal, it was like seeing London after the blitz.
Then, we crossed the bridge over The Industrial Canal and into the New Orleans metropolitan area. Many of the signs along the interstate were still twisted and bent with sections missing.
We got off the interstate at the French Quarter exit and began to follow the signs. It was at this point I realized that I needed to piss, badly. In lieu of the Powerade bottle Richard offered me, I had him pull over at a food-mart called Danny's. Lining the wall outside were about five homeless people, and as I knew it would come to pass, they hit me up for money on may way into the store. I gave them my stock excuse which is, "Sorry guys, I don't have any cash, just a credit card". I got inside Danny's and asked for a bathroom. They didn't have a public bathroom, and I, once again had to run the hobo gauntlet back to Richard's car.
We continued driving into downtown New Orleans toward the river. Finally, I saw a Starbucks. I figured, "Hey, every yuppie coffee shop in the world has a bathroom right?". Richard stopped the car once again and I ran inside. What I didn't realize was that the Starbucks is attached to a three-story shopping centre in which the men's bathroom is located on the third floor. After two quick escalator rides, I finally made it. Free at last.
I got back to the car and we found a cheap parking spot located behind Jax Brewery.
We got out of the car and walked down Decatur, making a left onto Toulouse Street heading towards Bourbon Street.
After nearly busting my ass several times on the wet sidewalk and street, we made it to Bourbon Street. The air was muggy beyond belief, and the next order of business was to find some food. Since I wasn't hungry and wasn't going to eat I left the decision in the hands of Richard and Rollie. We finally settled on a place called The Clover Grill. Imagine a Waffle House that's 30 feet long and about 8 feet wide. That's more-or-less the impression I got from The Clover Grill, a diner in the classical sense. My comrades ordered a to-go order of a couple hamburgers and some fries. It took quite some time, but we got the food and walked down Dumaine back toward Jackson Square.
Jackson Square was perfectly manicured, as always, and we opted to eat on top of "The Moon Walk" across the street from Jackson Square.
FOX News had their territory staked out, those fucking assholes.
The fellas took their bounty of precious food from the paper grocery sack and began to eat.
While they were eating, I snapped some photographs.
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, that picture just about sums up our trip to New Orleans.
It was at this point I called my mother to tell her that I was in New Orleans and have her look up the location of the fabled statue of Ignatius J. Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces. I got the address, and we walked back up Decatur in search of the street called Iberville (though, at some point, I twisted it in my mind to become Iberson).
On the way, we passed a sign which marked the entrance to a national park. It was the former residence of the founder of New Orleans, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville
Admittedly, we weren't there long (maybe five minutes), but I did use the opportunity to call Chandler, who was at work, to brag.
We left the courtyard, and found Iberville. The reconstruction efforts on that street seemed to be coming along nicely.
The instructions from my mother were that the Ignatius statue was located on the Canal Street entrance of the Chateau Sonesta Hotel at 800 Iberville Street. That's exactly where it was.
Behind the classic statue is a bit of modern art.
It was an incredibly fun journey looking for the most obscure fucking thing imaginable in New Orleans, and then actually finding it. Thanks mom.
Another favorite picture of mine: Our heroes loitering on Canal Street.
From the statue, we spotted a cool building down Magazine Street and up a couple of blocks. We decided to investigate.
We crossed Canal Street, and upon reaching the other side we saw a woman being arrested outside of a liquor store, presumably for stealing, judging by the conversation the defendant was having with the arresting officer. We continued up the street until we found the building which turned out to be a Catholic church. Boring. We chose another street to walk down on our way back toward The French Quarter. When we reached Canal Street, less than 10 minutes since the first incident, we saw the same cop arresting someone else, this time a man. The girl he arrested was still in his custody. She was in the backseat with her hands cuffed in front of her instead of behind. This allowed her to bang on the window of the car, which she did, while screaming "'Scuse me!" over and over.
After one last stroll through the French Quarter, Richard, Rollie, and I made our way back to the car. Rollie passed out in the backseat almost immediately, as Richard and I navigated The Crescent City using Richard's AAA guidebook. We drove all the way up Magazine Street to Grant Square and eventually into the Garden District. We passed Tulane and Loyola. Unfortunately, our one and only New Orleans connection, Wick, was in Texas at the time so I missed a big opportunity to fulfill a dream of mine. That is to show up at Wick's room at Tulane, unannounced. That day will come, Wick.
One last obligatory stop we had to make was to uptown New Orleans, particularly Gentilly and The Lower 9th Ward. We made our way toward the London Avenue Canal, that being one of the biggest levee breaches during the hurricane. Once we found it, we followed the canal inward to the neighborhoods that were hardest hit by Katrina.
An abandoned schoool.
FEMA trailers lined the streets. Perhaps the most striking thing about the area was the silence, absolute silence. There were no moving cars and no people.
The levee is visible at the end of the street.
We got back on the interstate and headed for home.
Hosted by Richard shortly before Christmas, I felt like this party was one of our better ones. The fact that people actually showed up with artwork was amazing in-and-of itself. The fact that it was all really well done is even more amazing.
Here's the artwork with the artists listed below.
Ian.
Top: Sean Bottom Left: Conor Bottom Right: Adam G.
Sean.
Rachel. (To be honest, I don't know who Rachel is, but Sean says she did this piece and so I believe him).
Adam and I bought tickets for the event a couple of days in advance. On the day we left, Adam told me that Miles got a ticket on the night previous and that he'd be riding up with us. I, of course, had no problem with this. Miles, however, did have a problem. Turns out Adam was misinformed, and Goiter had not gotten the ticket. This fact only came to light when I mentioned that the show for that evening was completely sold out. I said so as we were passing through the intersection of Glenn Ave. and East University Drive on the way to Exit 57. I started to turn the car around so I could drop off a defeated Bugg at his car. I drove very slowly in the direction of Miles' car and quickly talked him into throwing caution to the wind and coming with us to Atlanta.
My reasoning was simple. If Miles finds a ticket, good for him, everyone has a good time. If he doesn't find a ticket, then Miles is stuck in Atlanta on New Year's Eve. Either way, I win.
As soon as we got into Georgia, the drive turned perilous. We drove through blinding rain until eventually we had to pull over somewhere on the outskirts of Atlanta and wait for the rain to calm down. It never did, and we were forced to drive about 50 MPH the rest of the way.
Upon reaching Atlanta, we went to meet up with, literally, a friend of a friend of a friend. His name was "Bill" and he seemed like a nice-enough fellow. He was also going to Drive-By Truckers. Cory, who was our connection to Bill, was also there taking sips off of a keg of Sweetwater 420. Cory was going to see Sound Tribe Sector 9 with a couple of the other nameless faces at this quasi-party going on at Bill's. Afterwards, Cory said it was a great show. Unfortunately, I can't afford the amount of drugs it would require to make that show bearable so I decided to stick with "THE FUCKIN' ROCK SHOW" (as Patterson occasionally calls it). After hanging around Bill's for about 20 minutes, Miles and I made our way over to the venue.
Now, back to the ticket situation, here we are standing outside the venue, "SOLD OUT" in large letters on the marquee, it's one-hour 'til showtime, it's raining, and Miles has no ticket. Furthermore, the motherfucker doesn't have cash. So, we walked up to the nearby Chevron, and, of course, their ATM is out of order, and the only other ATM in the neighborhood is inside The Variety Playhouse.
Miles and I walked back towards the venue. The plan was that I would go inside with his bank card and get some cash out of the ATM (his PIN number is 2457, by the way), and slip the dough and the card through the lattacework in "smoker's alley". He would then use the capital to obtain the desired ticket. So, we stood in the line waiting for the doors to open. Within thirty seconds of our standing there a guy came right up to us and asked the magic question: "Who needs a ticket?" The guy was even nice enough to let Miles use the ticket to get inside and use the ATM. God's providence shone upon Miles that night.
After a taxi-ride from Bill's, Adam caught back up with us just in time for the show to begin. (By the way: This is just one man's opinion, and I don't want anyone to take this the wrong way, but, I think Miles looks like a very hot lady in the above picture. That's a compliment, Miles. Run with it.)
Soon enough the show began:
For maybe the first time in my life, I was familiar with the opening act, Centro-Matic. I even knew a couple of their tunes, and I enjoyed their performance a lot. They're a pretty good band. That said, they didn't have shit on DBT.
And, in case you were wondering, here's the setlist:
Lookout Mountain Gravity's Gone Easy On Yourself Wednesday Women Without Whiskey Life In The Factory Goddamn Lonely Love My Sweet Annette Marry Me Feb. 14 Danko/Manuel The Living Bubba Where The Devil Don't Stay Do It Yourself Dress Blues A World Of Hurt Let There Be Rock
Encore:
Grandaddy Bulldozers and Dirt Let Me Roll It Zip City Keep On Smilin' Never Gonna Change Shut Up and Get On The Plane Buttholeville Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love People Who Died
Happy New Year!
After the show ended, we all went back to Bill's. Unfortunately, when we got there, the only one to greet us was Bill's dog who was in the window behind a locked door. The rain had given way to a light mist, so we stood in the front yard drinking off of the keg that was still outside, waiting for people to return. After about thirty minutes, Bill came back to the house having walked all the way there from Variety Playhouse, a distance I estimate to be in the 2 to 3 mile range.
We went inside and soon enough, Cory and all the nameless faces showed back up to the house. I went inside, and sat on the couch. While I sat there, I thought about the best way for us to make our exit. Suddenly, I heard some light commotion in the kitchen. I got up and turned the corner. In the kitchen, Miles and Adam were feeding Tostitos to the dog. This was a big dog, the kind of dog that will sacrifice his body for the sake of grabbing food out of mid-air. This kind of thing is always entertaining to me, so I gladly joined in the fun. Eventually Miles went back outside with the others leaving only Adam and I in the kitchen. With no one to monitor our activities, we fed the entire bag of Tostitos to the dog. Soon enough, another dog showed. So, we opened up a bag of pretzels and started feeding those to the dogs. We ended up feeding them about 3/4 of the bag.
A few minutes later, we all said our goodbyes, and made our exit from the house. On the way back to the car, I told Miles about the ridiculous amount of pretzels we had fed to the dogs. Miles then informed me that the dogs would most likely get very sick due to a salt overload. As I drove back to Auburn, I couldn't help but smile at the thought of Bill, a guy we barely knew and would probably never meet again, cleaning up insane amounts of dog vomit and shit the next morning. That's why I'm not a pet owner.
