Home again, home again

I've been back in Baltimore for about ten days now, having pulled into town the Thursday before Thanksgiving in the pouring rain. So much for bringing the weather with me like that Crowded House song recommends.

I had just spent a few blissful 80 degree days on Skidaway Island in Savannah with my Uncle Bob and family. My father's brother's wife's brother, Bob may not genetically qualify as my uncle but more than does on every other level. He and my dad were best buddies, and the tales of their bachelor days in Harrisburg with which I am regaled during my stay--stuff my dad conveniently failed to mention to me during his lifetime--only enhance the legend that is Don Conley. (I can feel my mom's eyes roll back in her head as I type this.)

Anyway, I drove north from Savannah listening to a few of Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcasts (of particular interest: Show #2, where he uses the analogy of Mike Tyson fighting Muhammed Ali to illustrate the East's and West's differing styles of warfare) and then, when I started to get tired, Nirvana's Nevermind, and then, when I realized that I was driving way too fast, Steely Dan's Aja, which is among my favs and never fails to remind me of late winter afternoons in Lewisburg, PA. Snacks were kept to a minimum to prepare me for reentry into my jeans. (#4522: A week in New Orleans will pack 5 to 15 pounds on the unsuspecting visitor.)

Back home, I was presently reunited with a brown dog who at first seemed thrilled to see me but, as I unpacked over the next couple of days, became a bit surly and gave me the cold shoulder for a good 36 to 48 hours. I assume he smelled the assortment of hounds with whom I'd been intimate during my absence, but who can know what goes on in the heart and mind of a brown dog? I told him how good he has it one night last week as he spread-eagled himself to claim 85% of the surface area of my queensize bed, but he was already asleep.

Hey now

I guess it was a week ago now, that encounter with the Ghost Tour I detailed in my last post. (#592: Time flies when you're on the road.)

The sheer volume of blog fodder that accumulated from the surreal nature of my time in New Orleans totally overwhelmed my ability to capture it on the Treo keys. I left the Big Easy early Sunday a.m., after having spent Saturday night with Sidney and a crowd of friends at Rio Mar for their pal Julie's 50th birthday celebration. The night before, I had attempted Tipitina's, but it was the Kermit Ruffins & BBQ Swingers' 15th Anniversary party, and I couldn't even get close.

On Thursday, however, I hit paydirt at Jacques-Imo's (a homonymous take on the the Iko Iko lyric), having sought it out based solely on a passing mention in the Moon Handbook. The funky creole-cajun culinary hole-in-the-wall on Oak Street has been rated by many top foodie magazines to be among the best restaurants in the city, as I later learned from the wall of reviews while waiting for the loo. As luck would have it, I found a seat at the bar within moments of arriving and ordered a slice of alligator sausage cheesecake and some gumbo before being offered some cornbread by the brother sitting next to me--killer, but not the best I've ever had. (#879: A bartender will never steer you wrong on menu recommendations); (#931: the best cornbread on the planet is made by Owen Murray's sister.)

Born and raised in Austin, Texas, Buddy, as I came to know my cornbread source, moved to Los Angeles to follow his dream of becoming a stuntman. He finds himself in town frequently for K-ville, a TV show about New Orleans filmed on location. (His other credits include Pirates of the Carribean, which is why he was wearing a Pirates of the Carribean sweatshirt. ) We chatted about his profession, and about K-ville, and about New Orleans. Apparently some of the local K-ville crew were disappointed when a network picked up the pilot because they felt that the show portrayed the police there as being on the right side of the law, which was not true-to-life in their opinion.

After finishing his crawfish etouffee, Buddy was heading to a bar on Magazine where one of his favorite bands was playing, and he invited me along. I was happy to save him the cab fare, so we drove over to Le Bon Temps Roule. The place was empty when we arrived, but got claustriphobically crowded as the Soul Rebels got ready for their show. The stage was no less crowded. The nine of them I counted--a full brass band, tuba and all, and two drummers--looked like an NFL defensive line, with the exception of the skinny Asian guy who carried in the equipment and turned out to be the guitarist. The percussionist couldn't even fit on the stage and faced the band from the front of the floor. After they started to play the place got even more tightly packed, and 45 minutes later, the crush of the crowd began to overshadow my enjoyment of their fusion of hip hop and jazz so I said good-bye to Buddy and left. He was headed back to California in the morning because the writers' strike had put an end to K-ville production for the time being.

Who you gonna call?

I left New Orleans on Sunday and made the long slog to Savannah. (#3523: Fresca is tragically unknown in the Florida panhandle.) As my last post indicated, my work:play ratio in NOLA had tipped toward play--when in Rome, as they say. But it was as much because there were no pressing Relief Spark projects in progress requiring volunteers, with the exception of helping at the Animal Rescue, where they can always use more help and where I spent Wednesday and Friday.

On Thursday I was scheduled to help with Project Greenlight, a nonprofit that replaces standard light bulbs with compact flourescents to help people save on their electric bills. But the coordinator was out of town, so I met Sidney at her home office in River Ridge and
rode shotgun on her day's activities: lunch with Live St. Bernard (a nascent non-profit that two very nice former Americorps volunteers are trying to get of the ground); a stop to check out some potential Relief Spark office space within the office of a company called Voodoo
Ventures in the Central Business District; and a visit to an aging mansion in the Garden District that Sidney is hoping to lease for housing the college groups coming to voluteer during winter and spring break.

On Fourth between Prytania and St. Charles, the 13 ft-tall suit of armor beside the even taller front door made the place easy to spot on a block of much better maintained properties. Sitting on the front steps were Annie and Laverne, both of whom worked for the mansion's owners at Creole Gardens, their bed & breakfast around the corner. Annie had been living in a room on the first floor of the mansion since she lost her house in Katrina, and she showed Sidney and me
around inside. The place was something to behold--once, a long time ago--but now there was water dripping through the 16 ft. ceiling in the first room we saw, and all I could think of was how much it must cost to heat or air condition.

After the full tour, Sidney continued to look around inside, and Annie and I returned to the front steps to find a walking tour group and their guide gathered on the sidewalk. I couldn't quite hear what the guide was saying to the group, but when Annie began to banter with the guide, I quickly came to understand that the group was on the New Orleans Ghost Tour and the mansion at 1539 Fourth was widely considered to be haunted.

After the tourists had ascended the front steps to photograph each other standing beside the armor, the group moved on, and Annie explained that the haunting was done by two apparitions: the ghost of Andre, who had died of smoke inhalation in the house many many years ago after falling asleep with a cigar burning in his mouth; and the ghost of Stephanie, who as a little girl had drowned in a basement stairwell that had filled with water during a storm. His cigar smoke and her laughter and playing were evident to anyone who spent time there,
supposedly, and both Annie and Laverne attested to encountering them frequently. Apparently there had been frequnet seances over the years, and professional paranormal investigators had visited a number of times, one night recording the laughter of a little girl on audio tape amidst nothing else but static.

By the time Sidney emerged, Laverne and Annie had pointed out Anne Rice's old house on the corner and moved on to debating whether they should make candied yams or sweet potato pie with Thanksgiving dinner, and had graciously invited me to join them for the holiday. (#2576:
The people in this world who have the least are often the quickest to share what little they have.) Sidney had tested the water pressure and thought the place would be perfect for her college groups. I agreed as we drove away in the suburban.

What day is it, anyway?

Partaking in the local culture over the last few days has dramatically compromised my pecking speed and accuracy. Not to mention that it's tough to focus on these little keys. Will hopefully have access to a pc later today and will catch up.

Errata

1. Daiquiri is spelled with 3 i's. (#425: There is no spell check on the mobile version of Gmail's compose function.)

2. Regarding the road snacks on the trip south, they were Whoppers, not Milk Duds. I recognized the box of the former at the check-out counter of the Dollar Store near the St. Bernard Community Center and realized that I mistakenly called them Milk Duds. (#42: There's something about malted milk that screams dud moreso than whop.)

3. I should have better qualified my comment in the last post on the fucked-up nature of so much that goes on here as relating to government and politics. While there's no lack of local culpability, the mess extends to--indeed is in many cases a direct result of what happens in--Baton Rouge and (surprise) Washington.

There are a number of things, arguably the most important in this life, that they've got down here better than anywhere I've been:
1. food.
2. music.
3. alcoholic beverages, in both content and consumption habits. Did I mention Drive-thru Daiquiri?
4. architecture.
5. sheer warmth and hospitality of the people here.

Nanou, Nanou

Crepe Nanou sits just off Pyrtania a few blocks west of Napoleon. Wayne Gravois recommended it the night I arrived. Listening to him describe how he makes gumbo made me confident that he knows of what he speaks when it comes to food--with the possible exception of hogs head cheese. I'm sure tasting his gumbo would convince me otherwise. (#711: Hogs head cheese is the x factor differentiating sublime gumbo from gumbo that's merely exceptional.)

My work at the St. Bernard Community Center left me in need of sustenance, so I sought it out (Crepe Nanou, not hogs head cheese) after finding nothing of interest in the fridge at the condo. (#842: There is never anything of interest--in a good way--in a group fridge.) My day was spent in a damp and dusty warehouse sorting damp and dusty clothes that had been donated to the center. There was a radio to keep me company, but the news was dominated by the death of the 13 year old kid who had shot himself in the head yesterday at a
prominent local school and been in critical condition since. Otherwise, the local talk shows discussed a variety of depressingly intractable recovery-related issues, corruption among local officials, and one reported live from Emeril's restaurant, where a fund-raiser for cystic fibrosis was in progress.

The mindlessness of my task was not enhanced by my suspicion that no one ever would (nor should) wear these clothes. Iray himself confirmed this when he said that people would do more good by throwing away a lot of the crap they donate. Iray is the center's director and he looks like a Beatnik straight out of the '50s, beard, beret and all. He came to New Orleans right after the hurricane, and went back to New Hampshire only long enough to close up his house. He feels now though, as he told Sidney yesterday during our visit, that anyone coming to New Orleans to start a non-profit two years after the fact ought to go home, where they might do some good, since they'd consume so many resources just to understand the situation on the ground here. He may have a valid point. From what I've gathered in 72 hours, words cannot begin to describe the stratospheric heights of fucked-upness that surround almost every aspect of what goes on here. No wonder they have Drive-thru Daquiri.

So it was with enormous gratitude that I settled into a chair at a table by the door in the crowded and soon-to-be absolutely packed Crepe Nanou. The waiter recommended the crepe coq au vin--excellent--which I washed down with a glass of red wine.

Back at Napoleon, I've been expecting some communique from Sidney about tomorrow's assignment, but no word yet. Nola senses the cold front coming through tonight, and has planted herself squarely in the middle of my bed waiting to usurp my body heat, just like a brown dog I know.

It feels like a Monday

A little after 10 this morning, Sidney Ray, the founder and director of Relief Spark, met me at Napoleon St, and we spent the rest of the day touring the city in her white Suburban, accompanied by Chica, her white Westie. Chica rode in her lap, mostly, occasionally jumping up to bark at a passing trolley or birds. Sidney came to New Orleans in November 2005 from Southern California, where she had a business called Bella Pooch, a wholesale supplier to luxury pet boutiques and marketing consultant to designers of such products. While she still does some work with Bella Pooch, it's becoming less and less. Seeing what was going on in New Orleans caused her to reevaluate the relative importance of luxury pet products.

We went north into Broadmoor, then around City Park and Lake View before heading into Mid-City, the French Quarter and the 8th Ward. Still clearly visible on many buildings are the spray-painted markings of the agencies that searched the properties after Katrina -- usually an X with, in the respective quadrants: the date searched, the direction the building faces, the abbreviation by which FEMA identified the agency, and the number of bodies found inside.

We circled back to the Warehouse District for a grand lunch at Rio Mar. It's one of the top restaurants in town, and the owners generously donate lunch to RS volunteers. What a bonus!

I hoisted myself back into the Suburban for the afternoon drive east into the 9th Ward, the Lower 9th and St. Bernard Parish. While a few of the neighborhoods on the morning's tour had seen heavy flooding, especially Mid-City, the rebuilding is well underway. This is not the case in the Lower 9th, where entire blocks were wiped out by the levee breach and many, many people lost their lives. We stopped by the St. Bernard Community Center (I'll be helping there tomorrow) before heading back to Uptown, where we had started.

The Daylight Savings time change, on top of the time zone change, combined with the sobering sights of the day, have sapped my desire to explore the many great music venues (Tipitina's is just blocks away), so I'm turning in early, to peck another day.

Stars fell on Alabama

Having stared at Alabama license plates for countless hours yesterday, I woke up this morning with these words burned in reverse onto my forehead. (Must find out what it means, exactly.) But with the frightfully early start I got from the Motel 6 in Knoxville thanks to the pre-dawn canine chorus in the parking lot (universal truth #573: the walls on the brand new Motel 6's are no thicker than on the old ones, which is to say about as thick as the Baltimore Sun paper on a slow news day), I made New Orleans well before sunset even with the crimson tide of game-day traffic I found myself among on an accident- and construction-riddled Rt 59, headed for the reckoning with LSU. Doh.

The drive was without incident, though, and once I got out of Alabama, went mercifully fast. Because I had stopped for breakfast at a Waffle House before getting on the road (#267: if you ever find yourself at a Waffle House, you will do yourself a favor by avoiding the food altogether. They do a decent cup of decaf, though) I stopped only for gas--both kinds. (#38: even after many hours without a meal, a roll of Breathsavers will still trump the baby carrots.)

So I arrived at 1101 Napolean Ave before 7 pm, and after a phone call by the tenant in Unit B, was met by Wayne Gravois, the owner of the property. He let me in, showed me around, and we got to chatting. A New Orleans native and retired architect, Wayne's the kind of guy who after 15 minutes of conversation inspires a call to Ken Burns. I realize then how foolish I was to think I could write this blog from my treo and kick myself for not schlepping the laptop. But not to worry--I'll peck out more on Wayne eventually .

After a while, James Abner, the tenant who shares this condo with Relief Spark, comes in. He helps people negotiate insurance claims and has been here since right after Katrina. His brush with greatness: his childhood friend from Cincinnati is the kid who gets his tongue stuck to the flagpole in A Christmas Story. This comes up when, walking his dog a little later, we pass a house that has in its window the same leg lamp that the father wins in the movie, and it gets us on the subject.

Today I spent walking dogs and otherwise helping out at Animal Rescue of New Orleans, a 100% volunteer- and donation-powered no-kill shelter. They do a pretty incredible job. Nola, James' dog, must smell my virtuousness, because tonight she's bedding down avec moi! Sorry Henry!

One night in Knoxville

I was aiming for Chattanooga but what with the late start and the accident at the VA-TN line, I fell victim to the billboard advertising a brand new Motel 6 at exit 398 and wussed out early. It is brand new, and quite literally a scene out of Best in Show. I rode the elevator with a heavily made-up woman in a rhinestone-studded twin set who happens to be staying right next door with her husband and West Yorkshire or some such terrier in anticipation of tomorrow's dog show here in Knoxville--just one of many canines in the house tonight. Sorry Henry...it coulda been your moment to shine!

Universal truths uncovered today:
1. If your road snacks include Milk Duds, pretzels and baby carrots, the baby carrots will go uneaten.
2. Milk Duds and pretzels, when consumed simultaneously, approximate the taste and texture of a Take 5 candy bar.
3. Fresca is indeed the sauvignon blanc of sodas. I owe Rich Luppo for this unassailable insight, but today I came to understand it on an entirely new level, somewhere between Harrisonburg and Blacksburg.
4. As go road snacks, so go audio options: the ear candy goes first--in this case the George Carlin CD and the Ricky Gervais podcast, followed by some hand-selected tracks from my Blue Skies Ahead playlist and, when the ipod's FM transmitter crapped out, Paul Simon's Graceland in its entirety, which has in whole or in part intermittently played in the background of my life since Lori Scott brought the LP through the Rubble House door in the halcyon autumn of 1986. Among the ear carrots: a series of podcasts on the Byzantine emperors. Maybe tomorrow.

Sayonara!

So I had planned to leave at the crack of dawn, but then decided on a later start to miss the DC traffic (which conveniently coincided with my sleeping a couple of hours later). So I'm leaving now, very well rested.