Blast from the Past # 10 - September 2, 2005
Ah, the decline of the city of debauchery! That spit in the face of nature, a major port city built with a swamp as the foundation, a place that has suffered through being changed over to the rule of differing countries like a spoiled brat being tossed back and forth between reluctant parents who never should have had kids to begin with. That inconvenient city that has been neglected, corrupted, bought and sold, taken over - all the while home to murder, slavery, the birth of the "free people of color" - offspring between slaves and the white plantation owners became so widespread, they became their own segment of New Orleans society, even with slaves of their own to serve them, while throwing octoroon balls so the beautiful daughters of the free people of color could meet and be set up as long-term mistresses to priveleged Creole men. Not to mention the recurring presence of the plague brought on by the innocuous mosquito wiping out populations making the Nile Virus look like the common cold. Not to mention voodoo - everybody in New Orleans takes voodoo seriously, thanks to the 19th century mulatto free woman of color, Marie Laveau, who made two fortunes before and then after the Civil War - when everybody there lost everything and the arrival of Yankee Irish carpetbaggers was there to scavenge Louisiana and other parts of the south - due to her reputation as a powerful sorceress.
It's hard to believe that so much beauty existed in such a thoroughly whacked-out place and you have no idea how much it hurts my heart to see the pictures and read the reports of the destruction of that city.
Although it had been pimped out to common tourism (we in Juneau know nothing about that, now don't we?) New Orleans never lost its mysticism, nor its magic. I could write a book about the short time that I spent there, and it's impossible for photos, news reports, or writing to do that city justice. New Orleans to me, was one of those places that really made an impact on my psyche, even if I didn't spend years of my life there. My parents went to college at Tulane where they met, and even married there. Without New Orleans, I wouldn't exist, so there's always been that connection. Then, of course, there was the writing of Anne Rice and Truman Capote...
Mysterious, fascinating, decadent, violent - New Orleans never should have existed except for the megalomaniacal vision and ambition of man, from the day Sieur de la Salle saw that space in the swamp with access of the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico - and was consumed with trading glory for France. He never found that spot again, got lost in Texas and was murdered by his crew before they ever found it, so Bienville and Iberville were the brothers given credit for founding the city built on a swamp.
"So what's your story?"
(Common greeting to new people)
Thus began the superbly fucked-up story of that place - La Nouvelle Orleans was unstable from the word go, it's part of its charm and nobody can do dysfunctional with the same expertise and charm of somebody born and raised in that area. They revel in their dramas, and always welcome newcomers so they can perform their story for a fresh audience. The one thing I remember about that city is that lots of people helped me stay, but it was like extricating myself out of molasses when it was time to go. Let's face it, anyplace built, not on a swamp, but in a swamp, is going to encourage stagnation, not growth.
But there's no place like it on earth - the feeling of that town with its decadent homes where 11 foot ceilings are considered stunted and modest - with wrought iron gates, magnolia and jasmine trees scenting the night, and the hanging oaks insuring the privacy of the doings inside the houses. It's a city of sin and secrets, masquerade and carnival - even if Mardi Gras has been degraded from nudity and body paint, fucking strangers while in mask to a frat boy street party where "Show your tits!" and fresh-faced twenty-something teeny boppers pull up their shirts is the pinnacle of thrill.
There's nothing quite like being drunk in New Orleans, it is literally a different kind of high, all the ju-ju, mojo, and mysticism get in the air and permeate the alcohol. A town where seeing people smoking joints in the street is not an uncommon sight and of course, taking your drink with you when you leave the bar to go to the next - whether in the French Quarter or any other part of town. Lawless.
"No human being should be in New Orleans during the months of August and September." Laura, my lunatic roommate in the part of town, known as "Uptown," when we were discussing the humidity of New Orleans.
The heat and humidity still live in my memory...and I was raised in Florida, no slouch in tropical weather humidity, but in New Orleans, it's worse. But from the first week-end visit before I moved there a month later, the beauty and the vibe of that town knocked me out and I absolutely loved it. I found a job and my first place to live within a week.
"Five fifty?! For a beer?!"
I worked as a bartender on Bourbon Street during my first run there and well, it was a vivid experience. I've never worked so hard or so long in that profession as I did at that particular job - the only bartending job where I worked fifty to seventy hours a week during busy times - Superbowl, Mardi Gras, and Jazz Festival - for a very colorful family. I didn't make the bank that one would expect, due to appallingly over priced drinks, but I had to stay. I worked for the "Jewish Mafia" as one of my co-workers put it - the last of the old families that ruled the French Quarter from the old days before corporate companies bring Californication to the Big Easy put the smiley face homogeneous smear on the place. The kind of people who "bought" employees they wanted, instead of "stealing" them. They were hold-outs from a different time, and they were gleefully corrupt and cheerily greedy. I was definitely out of place there, and being the cog in the machine, I got yelled at every day for three months until I adapted to my surroundings and became a part of the "There's us, and then there's them" mentality they had towards outsiders.
"Larry, is your name motherfucker?" Gail, the manager, shouted to one of the cocktail waiters at a meeting geared towards building teamwork in time for the Superbowl/Mardi Gras season.
It was not a warm and fuzzy environment, being that I was working amongst a bunch of self-admitted hustlers. Stress ran high - squabbling, fighting, cursing each other out were daily occurences. And as I said, I would have made a lot more money in half the time spent at work at any of the other bars on the street. Most of my friends and family thought I was crazy working there, but I had to stay.
The Karnos who owned these bars and worked their employees like plantation slaves and played the nastiest head games with us because they could were the last of their kind and I knew I would never meet anybody like them again. Face it, they would have been sued out of business anyplace else but New Orleans. Their psychology was shaped by the absolute power of the good old days, when the bosses of the French Quarter could have people black-balled and one really didn't want to piss them off if one wanted to continue to make money there. Their core employees were still a part of that mentality and it was just enough to keep them frozen in time.
Even then, I knew it couldn't last - modern times were catching up with that swamp city of decay and decadence. I had a feeling my employers, who were holdouts to a lost time would lose everything, but not like this.
"Yeah, one good hurricane coming up the Mississippi would wipe us out, we'd be living underwater," joked Sammy Karno. "It hasn't happened in over two hundred and fifty years."
This isn't the first time a hurricane has wiped out New Orleans, the only difference was that the first buildings were last minute shanties. It wasn't the architectural marvel and fantasy it's been ever since.
"What keeps it up?" I asked Sammy. "Technology, or dumb-ass luck?"
"So far," said Sammy, "it's been dumb-ass luck."
It just hit me in the last day or two that many people that I knew and cared about are going through this misery. The folks I worked with were under-educated, ignorant (some had no idea the corridor between New Orleans and Baton Rouge was known as "Cancer Alley" due to the pollution of the Mississippi and looked shocked when I told them. I was equally shocked at their shock, I mean what do you say?), and living from paycheck to paycheck or tip day to tip day. If you wait tables in Louisiana, your base pay is about $2 an hour - apparently you can pay bartenders as low, but since Miss Billie, my boss, was paranoid about stealing and the bartenders had access to cash, she paid us minimum wage - I think I made $5/hr when I worked for here nine years ago.
"Hang in there, baby," said Gail and Dawn, my managers. "The Karnos will take care of you."
In other words, many musicians, entertainers, cocktail servers, and other bartenders did not evacuate before Katrina hit. There's no way, they can't afford to go and leave everything behind.
Both times when I left New Orleans, I was so thoroughly exhausted - physically, emotionally, mentally and psychically. It was a place that I loved, but it was impossible for me to be healthy there and I can't stand limbo, and being stagnant was unbearable. And of course, my friends and community there were shaped by decadence, drama, and other forms of abuse. I loved them, but they were draining.
They loved me and they didn't want to let go...
In New Orleans, lots of people will help you stay, but nobody will help you go. You gotta pull yourself out of the quicksand. The second time I left, I cut all ties and never looked back. I know this has nothing to do with the book tour, but I can't stop thinking about the people I knew there lately.
Montgomery
Hurricane Katrina. Enough said.
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