Always happy to be in New Orleans…

Rehearsal with Blodie and members of Dirty Dozen Brass Band went great yesterday so we “had” to celebrate. First Stop Fahy’s Pub on corner of Burgundy and Toulouse. David and Terri broke out a couple of Nola Brown Ales.

Then we headed over to visit Jerry and Marion, old friends who live in a beautiful Victorian Style house on Barracks St. As we enter the house David was taken by a large painting of a black angel baby in the foyer. In honor of that painting, he had his first Mojito, and second Mojito, Roy Orbison serenading in the background. So David didn’t have to drink alone, Terri had a couple of Abita Ambers. I nursed my customary club soda and cranberry, with a twist of lime. Ah, refreshing!

Then we headed down to Frenchman’s Street for tasty Japanese meal, gypsy jazz sitar, guitar and standup bass accompanied the seared sashimi and skewered eel. David tried out a couple of bottles of saki, maybe three, but they were small, though pricey. Terri again was accommodating, chasing her saki with Orion beer. My water and lemon was divine accompaniment to sun dried fish and horseradish.

Then we ambled down Frenchmen’s Street where Terri and David tried and some more local beers at the Spotted Cat. (Quite a few more beers but whose counting? Not me.) The music was awesome, powerful conga, sassy saxophone, drums all over the place, gorgeous guitar, tasteful bass…we met a couple of New Zealander’s in the crowd who became instant friends. Amy, is a hippy girl who was raised in a bus and whose grandfather has a Marxist radio program back home, and her husband, Sean, is a very sweet guy, a psychologist who I found it easy to confess to. They were on tour of the US, on their way to Nashville today, they promised to join up with us at the New York ROCKPILE gig at the Gershwin Hotel. Terri danced and David tapped his metal sticks on the dance floor mesmerized by Terri’s free form marimba. I thought of my promise to Patricia to bring David back in one piece. So I gave him the once over, he was doing fine, full of high test but straight as an arrow. Lord knows what was going on in his sprightly mind. Another Club soda and tons of second hand smoke, I couldn’t have been happier.

We sat through the second and final performance of this festive and brilliant jazz band, and ambled out onto the street of music, blues across the street, jug band next door, this is Music City, not Nashville (an industry town) and drove over to a smoky local bar on Esplanade, Buffa’s, and began a gestalt session over rare mahi sandwiches, a few more beers, but not me I was drinking coca cola. Alice Cooper on the jukebox, and Alice Cooper kids crowded around the bar. David sang happy blues at the urinal. “I woke up this morning/with a sty in my eye”. This may have not been one of David’s most eloquent compositions. But he made his point.

I was checking my watch now. None of us young but all of us crazy. It’s hard to know when to stop. But it was time… So we headed home. Of course, I drove. Sober as the day I was born, and still got lost in the drunken Quarter streets, crossed Bourbon St. three times, then finally got pulled over by a New Orleans cop for making a U-Turn in the wrong place. He was incredibly sweet. I simply told him I was lost and let him peer into my clear eyes and see that I was simply disoriented not intoxicated. He pointed us in the right direction. Maison Dupuy, it was absolutely time to sleep. It. Off…. –MR

3 comments

  1. tasha robbins says:

    o very beautiful… have (continue to have) an incandescently wonderful time in nola… lots of lagniappe, + much love to one + all there…..

  2. James Burbank says:

    I just wanted to say that there are many of us out here listening and watching your journey. We are the “silent majority.”

    The meteorologist whose kid wasn’t really in the balloon proved to be a publicity stunt, and now the police want to put the balloon away for longer than Polanski. Never disappoint people! It’s a crime.

    Since you left New Mexico, the air is somehow different. Today it rains. I can’t see the sky. My cat keeps covering up the sky by lying on my face. Miss you…

  3. Marina Lazzara says:

    I’m at work and you sweeties are dancing and eating and drinking in my head and all I wanna do is toast a mojito with David, but on the other hand want to yell “you’re cut off” although I promise not to cut off anything important. Can’t wait to go home and watch the video of the performances. Ah. Heavy wierd 30 minute downpour two days ago caused 5 inches of flood in the Rabbles practice space and now drying equipment covers the top floor as we let go a little of material reality and endure the humbled flukes of what we cannot control. Our challenges are a gig Friday night with either no amplification (I love my Super Reverb!), a watery kind of sound or the knowledge that everything dries out in time…..ok. Keep the memories comin’. Your Blogged Groupie! Marina Today’s words to log in are “grandmasters yamagata”.

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