Daily Dose #48 (07/15/11)

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Just a quick note for all of you faithful peep-a-roos. As the blogs start to collect, it's become increasingly apparent that negotiating and accessing archived, blandly numerically sequenced material in the Blogger platform is kind of a pain in the ass.

This was an unforeseen problem, so here's my quick fix.

I created a master index, with direct hyper-text links and brief descriptions of the contents of each and every "Dose". This will allow you to pick and chose, or re-access a former Dose a whole lot easier.

If you would like to receive a weekly, updated master index of your very own via email, please write me at piannaplunker88@gmail.com.

Best,

"The Exile on Helen Street padding around in Pink Bunny Slippers"



A Katrina Story: Part 3

Amy and I both thought that we might pull a fast one if we hit the road as quickly as we could the minute we got home from work. Traffic might be light that early in the morning. She had been home an hour earlier. All I had to do was peel off my stage monkey suit, and pack the car. She had piled everything in the my front living room for a quick load up.

We stuffed it all into her little green Ford Focus wagon, stored a few more items up in the loft, walked the dogs, and dug out a nesting area in the back seat for Huckleberry and Doodle.

By 5:15 am Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop was in the rear view mirror, bathed in the dawn's early light; Outta "Da Quatahs", the 900 block corner of Bourbon and St. Phillip behind us and an unknown adventure ahead as we made our way toward the I-10 on-ramp.

Although by mandate of our illustrious Mayor C. Ray still a "voluntary evacuation", by the time we got on the I-10, it was a parking lot. It took us about 7 hours to travel 2 miles west of The Superdome. All we could do was sit and listen to the radio, and everything coming out of the speakers indicated that we were inching closer to a doomed state of affairs.

Both of us hadn't really had any sleep since Thursday morning, so maybe we were just sleep deprived and paranoia had taken hold. We sat still for hours in traffic and watched families having wienie roasts in the middle of the highway while eye-balling the fuel indicator slowly descend as the disembodied voices of the radio announced that Katrina just upgraded herself to a Category 5 hurricane. When C. Ray Nagin finally announced a Mandatory Evacuation by 10 am, we were barely past the Fountain Bleu Hotel, The Rock and Bowl, and the Carollton / Tulane Avenue off ramp.

The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray. We thought we had a shot at hitting the contraflow lanes at a reasonable hour, but it was time to improvise. There wasn't any traffic in the Eastbound lanes, so we finally got off the 10 a little after noon and headed East, the new plan being to get across the causeway that spanned Lake Pontchartrain, hit Route 12 on the North Shore and pick up I-10 a little further west of Baton Rouge. We figured we'd just might get to Lafayette at around nightfall.

By the time we hit the Causeway, we were at a dead standstill again.

When you're bumper to bumper and side to side surrounded by the waters of Lake Pontchartrain, every layer of the whole economic strata of Metro New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Shore was on parade; from trashed cars held together with spit and duct tape rolling on two donut wheels packed with enough people to qualify as a clown car to big assed luxury vehicles with only one or two folks riding high in air conditioned comfort.

We were all in the same boat. That boat was about to sink, and no matter who or what you were, it didn't matter. We were all full of anxiety. We were all scared. We had to move forward, and none of us were.

And yet under the most trying of mental circumstances, we were all on our best behavior. Usually situations like this would invoke a bit of road rage, but there was none. We were all in this cluster fuck together.

In the midst of a climate of impending catastrophe, the Universal unseen connective tissue between seemingly unrelated points was clearly on display. As you looked out your car window, all you felt was a collective human unity as you looked at others suffering the same thoughts that were running through your head. What you drove didn't matter. Status didn't matter. Money didn't matter. Education didn't matter. Gender didn't matter. Race didn't matter. We all were Universal matter, thrown together by a single circumstance; compacted for maximum density.

As Katrina made its way to landfall, the longer we sat still, the more fucked we were. It was a mass Exodus in suspended animation, and Moses was no where to be found.

We all had to get out, and get out as peacefully as we could.

At about 5pm, after being stuck in a car for about 12 hours, we finally got across the lake. Route 12 was closed to westbound traffic and was being diverted into contraflow lanes headed North through Mississippi on Route 59. We weren't going to our designated landing strip in Lafayette, by mandate of the State Police.

We had only one option; Head north through Mississippi, and try to stay ahead of the projected path of the storm.

We had had no real sleep since Thursday, trapped in a claustrophobia car for over 12 hours with two little doggies, and still we had no destination known like a couple of barely crawling stones. We had to pull one more improvised rabbit out of our hat.

Amy quickly got on the phone with her friend Stacy, who was riding it out and still had internet access. The closest dog friendly hotel that had a vacancy was a Hampton Inn about 350 miles to the North East in Birmingham, Alabama.

When we hit the contraflow lanes on Route 59, traffic finally started to move, albeit at a slow 30 mph pace. But it was perceptible movement, and we could finally take a collective exhaled breath. We were going to escape.

There was about 80 miles of contraflow lanes set up, so when we got North of Picyune, we stopped at a little country filling station and fried chicken emporium to re-fuel the little green wagon. It looked like a refugee camp, with hordes of humanity and chicken bones strewn across the gas station's parking lot and lawn.

Although Katrina was still about 10 hours away from her official land fall, her ire could be witnessed first hand as we cruised towards Alabama. She was at full Category 5 strength in the early evening Sunday hours before the sun set; a pissed off whirling dervish of 175mph winds gusting up to 215 mph.

The north eastern view out of the windshield was nothing but clear blue sky, but in the rear view mirror? Anything but.

The sky was the color of a deep black-purple bruise. You could see flecks of debris in it, and the clouds looked like they were rendered by a cubist Picasso. They were angular. All the soft edges were squared as lightning flashed through the deep purple-gray soup of a sky.

The car became increasingly more difficult to keep on the road, as the first tendrils of Katrina's winds intermittently pushed us off axis from the passenger side. We started to get pelted by pine cone projectiles as the southwestern swirl slammed into the trees that lined Highway 59, and the pine needles on the road were so voluminous that they started to drift like snow.

We were in no way out of the woods, out of the dark, and no where near the "light". At any minute I expected to see Elmira Gultch fly by on her bicycle.

The dogs started to freak. Every time the rifle shot sound of a pine cone whipping into the car, Amy started to freak. Here, my dears, was real adrenaline pumping fear.

The only option was to go all Dale Earnhardt on Katrina's ass, and out-run her. Traffic had opened up considerably enough to peg that little Ford. I slammed my foot on the gas and held the speedometer between 85- 90mph. In my hallucinatory state, that shot of adrenaline was a welcome injection.

For about 20 miles, we weaved in and out of those headwinds, from feeling safe to feeling totally in a state of compromised fear.

I knew if I drove like a white-knuckled maniac, we'd get some distance between us. Katrina might have been cyclically moving fast, but her northern encroachment toward land and rate of speed was still pretty slow.

By the time we got to Tuscaloosa, night had fallen. We gassed up the car one more time at a flying bug infested filling station, and Amy took the wheel. I passed out from exhaustion, and woke up in the roundabout of the driveway of a Birmingham Hampton Inn at around 1:00 am Monday morning in the middle of an industrial park.

Our new home.

We checked in, and oddly, when we told the girl at the service desk that we were evacuating New Orleans, she wasn't really aware the storm and its potential consequences to her upcoming rate of available hotel vacancies. She would become well aware, because by morning the hotel lobby was jammed with displaced refugees from the City That Care Forgot.

My little family, as embryonic as it may have been at the time, was safe. Maybe by the skin of our collective teeth, but we had a roof, a bed, and we were far enough out of harms way no matter what Katrina was going to deal out over the next couple of days.

All Amy and I could do now was try and get some sleep, track the actual body slam of storm to land on television, and pray that we would end up with a home to return to.

Did we remember to pack the Ruby Slippers? I was too fried to care as my head hit the pillow.

(Stay tuned for part 4)


"You may shoot for the stars and end up in a back alley behind Pluto, beaten and bloodied, but at least I dare to dream, and that’s better than being Earthbound, mired in the muck of mediocrity.

I judge my forward progress and success by the crushingly epic nature of my failures.

The more epic the crash, the more I’m convinced I must be doing something right"

AS ALWAYS: PLEASE FEEL FREE TO COMMENT, SUBSCRIBE, AND SHARE THIS BLOG ADDRESS VIA COPY AND PASTE IN AN EMAIL, THROUGH THE TWITTER OR FACEBOOK "SHARE" BUTTONS,WORD OF MOUTH, FILTHY WHISPERED GOSSIP, FALSE NARRATIVE, TIN CAN AND STRING CONFIGURATIONS, PONY EXPRESS, OR CARRIER PIGEON. WITHOUT FEEDBACK OR ACTIVE "SHARING", WHAT YOU JUST READ.... DOESN'T EXIST!


THANK YOU KINDLY,

COLONEL BEAUREGARD "IRON THIGHS" JEFFERSON, A.K.A. "THE MANAGEMENT"

Daily Dose #47 (07/14/11)

We interrupt our regularly scheduled blog cast for a message from the emergency blog-o-thon system, and your personal "Daily Dose" administrator, Crazy-as-a-shithouse rat Little Georgie, the pink bunny slipper wearing, rust coated Shaman in exile on Helen Street:



"Hey you! See that "share" button? The sign up for direct email delivery? The Google and Networked Blogs "Follow" option?

If you've been reading this blog regularly and haven't availed yourself to these tools, then you are a parasitic lamprey eel, and you should stop reading now. We don't want usurpers here in Peep-A-Roo land, only givers and receivers that understand the concept of that type of momentum, and the value in sustaining it.

Have I alienated 95% of the folks that read this? Probably. I don't give a tumbling fuck, frankly.

There's an implied trade off and pact between sharing the contents of "The Daily Dose" by not selling advertising, or monetizing the blog-o-thon in anyway....the content is free, and all I ask is that you help spread it around some to be able to receive it without the fear of being taken advantage of by me and Google Adsense.

I respect that implied pact, and backed it up with the only thing I have left of any true value to prove it: My Integrity. I made a public promise, and I keep my promises.

I'm looking for active participants in the Universal recycling system, not boat anchors. If you haven't grasped the concept of "tearing off a piece for yourself, and then passing it along" by now, you probably never will.

You're a hole that can't be filled. This blog ain't for you.

I'm seeking quality, not quantity. People are always impressed by a big number, but the numbers don't mean a thing to me. The "Dose" is an experiment, and experiments aren't shaded for a desired outcome. They are conceptualized, guided by an hypothesis, designed, and then executed.

I'm writing these blogs specifically for the people that are sharing them and realize the value of that kind of participation. The experiment was designed to specifically identify and then unify these types of people and personalities. Everybody does a little of the heavy lifting, making it light work.

At the end, the result will be a world wide closed circuit of group communication, and that will be extremely valuable to all who have participated in the process in the future.

So if you are reading these installments passively without any reciprocated effort? At least you now know who and what you are. Maybe you should recalibrate, or maybe you should just stop reading "The Dose" altogether. Your personal decision on this particular issue is beyond my control.

In actuality, I'm hoping that the initial metric reaction to this statement is that the number of page views goes radically down. Then at least I'll know that people are actually reading the thing and are paying attention.

If you read it, then you should re-post it, share it and give feedback like you're on auto-pilot. That's the ritual and the price of entry.

That's the deal. Anything less than that frames you as a thief and an energy usurper. Even though I look a bit like a young long haired, jowly Don Corleone in the above portrait (taken by my dear friend Laura Brazak, BTW), If you can't be bothered, it is a deal you absolutely must refuse.

God Bless You, and God Bless America".


And now, we return our regularly scheduled blog-o-thon broadcast already in progress:


A Katrina Story: Part 2


Even though Amy and I had both played at Pat O'Brien's duelling pianna and booze-o-rama emporium on Friday night and didn't get home until 4am, the television stayed on to track the storm. There would be no sleep.

Television meteorology in New Orleans had reached a high dramatic art during hurricane season. I had been bemusedly watching Bob Breck's wide eyed, gap toothed, adorned with a combination Beatle meets Roman Gladiator hair-doo Fred Sanfordesque "This-is-the-big-one-'Lisbeth" shtick since Hurricane Georges trained his ugly little disrupted eye towards the Crescent City back in 1998.

Evacuating the city was a pain in the ass, but ultimately it was sort of like an unpaid forced vacation. You drilled the plywood panels over the windows, gassed up the car, and took off for a three day holiday, usually at a point west of the city. Hurricanes, when the made landfall, usually took a northeast doglegged trajectory.

If you don't have the financial where with all to do that, you just got some batteries, water, filled your ice chests, and rode it out.

There hadn't really been a Hurricane of massive destructive consequence since "Billion Dollar Betsy" back in 1965. Camille was a bitch as well, I had been told. The populace, a culture already fiercely proud of their collective "Laissez Faire" attitude, approached an oncoming hurricane with a large amount of collective ennui. In the aftermath of any Hurricane, it always seemed like ultimately it was a decision to take a forced vacation to Texas, or stay put, protect your stuff from possible looters, and have a little home camping experience.

But on that Saturday morning, everything had changed. Satellite pictures don't lie. The sheer category 5 force and scale of Katrina at that point indicated that no matter where she hit land fall, it was going to be a storm of Betsy-like proportions regardless of what the talking heads on the local news were saying. If you didn't get out there was a high likelihood and probability that you may actually die.

At around 1pm, Mayor Ray Nagin was on the tube with Governor Blanco basically telling folks to start getting the fuck out of dodge, especially if you lived in Algiers or The Lower Nine; and if you didn't, make sure you had a hatchet to chop yourself a hole in your roof to prevent getting trapped like a rat and drowning in your own attic.

Although curiously not yet called a "Mandatory Evacuation", as far as I was concerned, this was the Big One, 'Lisbeth. I called Uncle Charlie, the piano lounge and entertainer plantation overseer at Pat O's, to see what the official corporate position was.

"Charlie, you're not seriously thinking of opening tonight, are you?"

"If you want a job on Sunday, your ass better be down here tonight"

Now in his defense, Pat O's doesn't close for nothing. That place is cranking out fruit juicy rum laden Hawaiian punch in Hurricane glasses for 364 day a year, and only shuts down for Christmas night. Again, there really hadn't been a big one since 1965, and everybody's job, including his own, was predicated on those cash registers ringing as much as possible; especially in the sleepy "no tourists and no college kids" end of summer days. Big weekend nights were crucial to operations.

But this stance felt a bit irresponsible towards human life. I wanted to preserve my job, and yet a painful seed of conflict got planted in my head. The I-10 westbound lanes were already reaching parking lot status by early Saturday afternoon, and me and my little family (Amy, and my two furry children Huckleberry and Doodle) weren't going to be allowed to evacuate until 5am on Sunday at the earliest.

Ultimately, there really wasn't an alternate decision to be made. We needed our jobs, so we rolled with it.

The French Quarter is high ground in New Orleans. If any area was going to survive a weather related catastrophe, the Quarters had the highest odds of doing so. Getting gas for the car was already problematic for folks in the 'burbs of Metairie, but not in the Quarters. That afternoon we headed to the gas station on Rampart Street and gassed up Amy's forest green Ford Focus Wagon, checked the oil, necessary fluids and tire pressure and headed to her Mid-City apartment. We grabbed her "hurricane preparation box": A purple plastic file box with important pictures and documents that looked like a little cosmetics suitcase.

The rest of the afternoon was spent getting essential items like musical instruments and computer gear stuffed into a little loft space that I had built in the spare bedroom of my Bourbon Street shotgun flat, and crammed all our clothes into an attic crawlspace that I also had built in advance preparation for such an occasion (and the future occasion of Amy eventually moving in permanently, frankly). Anything of any import had to be above any possible impending water line.

Amy made the four block walk to St. Peter's Street to work at 8pm, and I trudged down there at 9pm. We were working alternating one hour sets with separate partners, so our breaks during our respective seven hour shifts were spent alternately alone back at what we thought was going to be our future short term home on 922 Bourbon Street, finalizing the packing plan.

We were both in delusion hoping for that typical three day forced vacation scenario, and packed accordingly. Just enough essentials: important paperwork, clothes, food, water and doggie supplies to survive for three or four days and then return to our lives as we knew it.

Although there were a few customers to be serviced in the early sets of the evening, by midnight, Bourbon Street had transformed into a tumble weeded ghost town thoroughfare, and so had the duelling piano lounge at Pat O's. There was nobody but staff, and the sound of crickets chirping after every song played.

The gossip scuttlebutt around the wait staff and entertainers revolved around whether we were going to catch a break, have the plug pulled early, and gain a few extra hours to leave town. There were no customers, and there was no sense in staying open. We were all following the news on our breaks. We all knew that we were working under the umbrella of empending doom by that point.

No such break would materialize that night.

Damn the torpedoes, the joint's house lights weren't going to be turned on until 4am, on the dot. All us agitated chillun, from the green jacketed wait staff, the maroon jacketed floor managers, the velveteened bow tied bar tenders, to the entertainers were going to be taught a lesson on how things actually operate, and just what value the collective paranoia and unspoken opinion really was worth.

I walked in through the breezeway entrance on St. Peter's at 2:45am on Sunday morning, took the right hand turn into the lounge, and sat down next to Mr. Eddie Gabriel to watch Amy and her partner finish up for the night. I had one more show to go with my partner for the evening, the lovely and talented Mizz Vicki Amato. She was the lead pianist of all of the entertainers; A Pat O'Brien's Lifer that had been grinding out the hits of the day for over twenty five years, and whenever you worked with her, she never let you forget the fact that she had been grinding it for twenty five years.

She had earned her right to do that. She had the chops and the voluminous repertoire and was better at the gig than the rest of us newbies, but sometimes you ended up the night wishing she didn't exercise that right quite so liberally.

Some nights were musically brilliant, and some nights I felt like I had just spent the evening bouncing around in a clothes dryer. You never knew which way it was going to go when you pulled Mizz Vicki as a partner for the night.

Eddie wasn't going to bother getting up on stage, because there was no one in the house to throw any money on his tray. He was waiting for his wife to pick him up

Eddie was a lifer too, and his on-the-job experience had everybody beat. For 67 years he had been hopping up on stage between the the two copper sheathed pianos with a metal tray and thimbles on his fingers, banging out rhythm on the underside of the tray and catching tip money. Back in the day, they threw coins, which is probably why the pianos were coated in sheet metal.

Mr. Eddie wore wrap around dark shades,sported a dapper pencil thin mustache, and had a rug sitting atop his head that had seen too much Brylcreem and much better days, but on a good night he still knew how to make the cabbage flow directly into his tray for his eight little 15 minute sets, performed 5 nights a week for sixty seven straight years. He never missed a day of work, ever, in all that time. At the age of 95, he was still going strong, and was truly a New Orleans and French Quarter institution.

Whenever I would help him up onstage to negotiate the floor monitor and drink laden obstacle course of a stage, he'd permanently paste on his omnipresent fifteen minute shit eating grin and whisper in my ear "Muthafuckas gonna throw that money ta-night!" or "Muthafuckas ain't tippin worth shit!" depending on how the night was going. He was a true and authentic old school New Orleans character.

He was crusty and he was salty, but he was truly a beautiful ninth wonder of the world who lived in the lower ninth ward.

From our seats in the rear of the lounge I turned to Mr. Eddie.

"You gettin' outta Dodge tonight Mr. Eddie?"

"Hell yeah, I'm gettin' the fuck outta here. I done seen 'em all. Betsy, Camille. I ain't stickin' around for this one. Gettin' too old fer this shit, Boy."

This was serious. I put my hand on his thigh.

"Eddie, travelling is gonna be rough tomorrow. You promise me you're getting out, right?"

"Boy... doanchew worry 'bout me. You jes' take care of yer own ass"

"Good enough, Mr. Eddie. Just makin' sure"

"Screw you, Boy!" He laughed and slapped my leg, and I made my way to the stage for the final set to be played for no one but green jacketed employees.

On slow nights, sometimes management would be merciful and turn the house lights on somewhere between 3:30 am and 3:45 am, but not on that night. The point had to be made, and made it was.

Mizz Vicki and myself were the last pianna plunkers playing on the strip on the last night of a the pre-Katrina Bourbon Street world. I ended the set with Randy Newman's "Louisiana 1927", to make a musical point of my own to the management and staff alike.

That was a trick I had learned from my ex, Kim, also former long time pianna plunkin' veteran of Pat O'Brien's. One night David Duke was in the audience and threw a fairly sizeable tip with a request for "Dixie" scribbled on a bar napkin.

She played John Lennon's "Imagine" while staring at Duke and his party of goons straight in the eye instead, God bless her.

I said my goodbyes to Joe, another Pat O's lifer and my favorite waiter, grabbed a bag of music, and headed out the door.

Uncle Charlie was standing by his big black SUV, parked out front, talking on his cell phone.

"You set?" he asked.

"Yeah... Amy and I will call you when we land."

"Where are you headed?"

"We're aiming to stay with Amy's friend Anne Marie's family in LaFayette, but I don't know if travelling west is even an option anymore. That's the plan anyway"

"Allright. Just make sure to call and let me know where y'at."

Charlie was a big man. He stood about six foot four, and he was imposing when he wanted to be. We shared an intense history that went way beyond my working tenure at Pat O'Brien's.

I looked him right in the eye.

Not a word about how we were really feeling was spoken in that moment, but there was a clarity of message delivered, and the lines in the sand were drawn right then.

We both knew what the outcome of our personal relationship would be if the shit truly hit the New Orleans metaphoric fan.

But in true New Orleans fashion, none of it would be verbalized, it would just be rolled out passive aggressively over the next few months.

I turned around and walked toward home, not knowing if it was going to be the last time I would do so, but feeling in my soul that the odds were in favor of the fact that it might be.

Sorry, Charlie. I know that life is cheap in New Orleans, but my life was worth more than putting it at risk all in the name of squeezing the last nickel out of the Quarter with fruity drinks in large glass containers embossed with the clever catch phrase of "Have Fun!", before it went possibly asunder.

And so was everybody else's.

I didn't know it yet, but my days of musical whoredom were officially at an end as I listened to the Palmetto bugs skittering across the side walk, breathing in the scents of the night: The perfume of night blooming jasmine laced with effluvium of stale beer, piss, vomit, and the lingering greasy stench of hamburgers coooked under hubcaps that flowed out of The Clover Grill, long since boarded up and braced at the ready for God's upcoming muscle flex.

It was going to be a long day.

(STAY TUNED FOR PART 3)

"You may shoot for the stars and end up in a back alley behind Pluto, beaten and bloodied, but at least I dare to dream, and that’s better than being Earthbound, mired in the muck of mediocrity.

I judge my forward progress and success by the crushingly epic nature of my failures.

The more epic the crash, the more I’m convinced I must be doing something right"

AS ALWAYS: PLEASE FEEL FREE TO COMMENT, SUBSCRIBE, AND SHARE THIS BLOG ADDRESS VIA COPY AND PASTE IN AN EMAIL, THROUGH THE TWITTER OR FACEBOOK "SHARE" BUTTONS,WORD OF MOUTH, FILTHY WHISPERED GOSSIP, FALSE NARRATIVE, TIN CAN AND STRING CONFIGURATIONS, PONY EXPRESS, OR CARRIER PIGEON. WITHOUT FEEDBACK OR ACTIVE "SHARING", WHAT YOU JUST READ.... DOESN'T EXIST!


THANK YOU KINDLY,

COLONEL BEAUREGARD "IRON THIGHS" JEFFERSON, A.K.A. "THE MANAGEMENT"

Daily Dose # 46 (07/13/11)

A KATRINA STORY: PART 1

Watching the televised weather reports in New Orleans in the last week of August, 2005 was an exercise in fear management.

By Friday, that big swirl of clouds called Katrina filled the entire Gulf of Mexico and looked as if it was headed straight at the "City that Care Forgot."

My life had finally settled down some by that point. I was playing at a duelling piano bar called Pat O' Brien's. If not very artistically rewarding, it was the best money I ever saw as a professional musician, certainly enough to live on, get health insurance, and build a retirement fund; Maybe even buy a house.

Playing piano bar "hits" for five nights a week with Mondays and Tuesdays off ("Piano Man,"Tiny Dancer" "Brown Eyed Girl", "Sweet Caroline","Lucille", "Margaritaville", etc...) wasn't exactly how I thought I'd end up, but that cash money can make you swallow a whole lot of shit sandwich, especially when you've lived your entire life on the edge of total economic doom.

I wasn't getting any younger. At 45, you start to think about real life issues like being able to go to a doctor. I know that may seem inconsequential to some, but I had lived my whole life not having access to medical care. Having the stress an economic sword of Damocles constantly over my head (How am I gonna eat? How am I gonna pay the rent?), was a lifetime of daily stress, and I was tired of dealing with it.

Especially for a concept of "Artistic Integrity" that at 45, was looking increasingly like a bad investment as far as a life strategy was concerned.

So you start to sell that integrity off. I knew what I was doing the minute I took that gig. Instead of selling it off piece by piece, I had a fire sale and sold it all at once.

There were plenty of artistic and professional rationalizations that I had for doing so besides economic ones. I didn't have to hustle gigs. I didn't have to hump gear; just show up and sit behind a piano and play with a random partner. It was going to afford me the opportunity to intimately acquaint myself with the "Great American Songbook". I was going to learn a new skill as I had never played "solo piano" before.

Ultimately making a comfortable living playing the piano and singing was what turned me out.

If I was going to be a whore, I was going to be a well paid one. After two years, walking the four blocks from my 900 block Bourbon Street apartment to Pat O's on St. Peter's for a shift felt like walking to Uncle Charlie's world famous plantation-vibe house of ill repute. Just slam a shot of liquid courage before your shift started and smoke the occasional cheeba on your breaks for head maintenance issues: All I had to do was close my eyes, never "kiss", and give the drunken "johns" the songs they wanted with absolutely no personal emotional investment attached but yet appear to be totally invested. I got real good at faking orgasms from behind a copper coated piano.

Keep smiling, Monkey Boy... You got through the night and stuffed your pockets with mondo tip money. It'll be allright by 4am. It was routine, and it was ritual.

It was just like work at a factory assembly line, only you got to play music instead of assembling widgets. I had worked at an actual assembly line, so I had the ability to compare the experiences.

As long as the cash registers rang and you didn't fall off the pianna stool, you still had a job the next day. Uncle Charlie wasn't one for validation, feedback, or constructive criticism. He just left you alone.























I was cool with the Devil's Deal. Nothing in life is for free, and through a lifetime of experience, Satan knew I could drive just as hard bargain as he could. He may have gotten my soul, but I didn't walk out of those negotiations empty handed.

Far from it. In fact at the time, my trump card was that I knew that Satan had over-valued what he was after. My soul was damaged goods, but I hid that fact pretty well. That was his massive strategic mistake, and it resulted with me ending up with a pretty great package of perks.

There were other advantages to a somewhat normal life, with a regular schedule and finally an economic safety net below me. My aging parents could finally relax and let go of the regretfully aching "What are we going to do about George?" conundrum that had been a constant irritant in their adult lives.

I finally knew where my next meal was coming from. I could go to the dentist, and pay the bills. I could buy the dogs their own food instead of considering having to share it with them. I could start to let go of some artistic and emotional demons that had me rotating over a spit for the past eight years. But the biggest prize that I beat out of the Devil?

Amy.

Amy worked as a piano entertainer at Pat O's as well. I guess through work schedules and proximity factors, we became friends first, and then discovered a little later on that we had a mutual attraction.

I had never experienced a "May-December" romance before. The age divide between us didn't come without a set of cultural and emotional maturity disconnect problems all its own, but we were negotiating them gracefully. At the onset, a 20 year age difference indicated to me that the relationship had a pre-programmed short shelf life, but she was such fantastic soul I didn't care, although in retrospect I should have.

I was just grateful for each day she chose to spend with me.

At the time we became lovers, I truly felt that my capability of feeling love and being able to reciprocate it was no longer in my future, in perpetuity. She proved me very wrong.

In that last week of August in 2005, Amy and I were just starting to organically take those small steps to a long term commitment. Although she still maintained her Mid-City apartment, she spent most of her time with me in the Quarter. I finally had put half my clothes in storage, and made room in the actual and metaphoric closet for her to move in permanently. We were having discussions about the future, and maybe starting a family. We had even started to shop for a condo to share together in the Quarter. I never thought I'd ever have the chance to start a family of my own, and now I found myself in a position to consider it with a truly loving partner.

Things, if not perfect, were as perfect as I could have crafted them. I had a future finally, and one that was clearly mapped out and visualized.

But as that week in August ticked down toward the weekend, and as you watched that behemoth of a category five hurricane aiming dead nuts on New Orleans, no matter how hard you tried to rationalize or go into an outright state of denial, you could feel the impending doom in your bones.

Your perfect life was going to take a roundhouse punch. All you could hope for was minimal damage after the fact, and the ability to raise yourself off the canvass before God counted to ten.

"You may shoot for the stars and end up in a back alley behind Pluto, beaten and bloodied, but at least I dare to dream, and that’s better than being Earthbound, mired in the muck of mediocrity.

I judge my forward progress and success by the crushingly epic nature of my failures.

The more epic the crash, the more I’m convinced I must be doing something right"

AS ALWAYS: PLEASE FEEL FREE TO COMMENT, SUBSCRIBE, AND SHARE THIS BLOG ADDRESS VIA COPY AND PASTE IN AN EMAIL, THROUGH THE TWITTER OR FACEBOOK "SHARE" BUTTONS,WORD OF MOUTH, FILTHY WHISPERED GOSSIP, FALSE NARRATIVE, TIN CAN AND STRING CONFIGURATIONS, PONY EXPRESS, OR CARRIER PIGEON. WITHOUT FEEDBACK OR ACTIVE "SHARING", WHAT YOU JUST READ.... DOESN'T EXIST!


THANK YOU KINDLY,

COLONEL BEAUREGARD "IRON THIGHS" JEFFERSON, A.K.A. "THE MANAGEMENT"

Daily Dose #11 (06/08/11)

THE BEST OF TIMES AND THE WORST OF TIMES PT.2
(The Worst Best Day Of My Life)

















I spent my first year in New Orleans as a Yankee transplant, and I was there to work.

Between endless months spent in windowless recording studios with the occasional 15- people-shoved-in-a-van-for-thousands-of-miles road trips spent with The Wild Magnolias, my personal agenda of weaving my cultural experience in a meaningful way with all that New Orleans has to offer daily had been placed on the back burner.

I had made a pretty severe commitment to that agenda. I left a pretty sweet life in Syracuse, NY to start at the bottom of the New Orleans totem pole, completely from scratch at the age of 38. This was not exactly a pragmatic life choice, but it was one that needed to be made. If I was truly to be a New Orleans-styled musician, then I had to be from New Orleans, and soak it up from the sidewalk as a native albeit a transplanted one. Otherwise, I would have been just another culture vulture. Dues had to be paid, and shots to the body had to be taken.

This was a pretty huge gamble with my life's path. I was guided by three little ideas:

1. You're Only On The Planet Once, So Do Not Be Ruled By Fear
2. Go Big, Or Go Home.
3. Listen To Your Heart, and Follow It Without Question.

So after that year of work, I finally got my chance to start living like a native, and The Universe delivered me the romance of a lifetime, a runnin' podner, a best friend, and tour guide on schedule, in the guise of the woman of my dreams.

Now at the onset of this relationship, the temptation would have been to spend every spare minute in bed. That decision certainly could have been rationalized, and there was plenty of experiential evidence to back up that game plan.

But to me,Mizz Kimbly Ann Krohn was not only my living conduit to lust in the most mundane sense, she was the living embodiment of lust for life on all levels. I was in awe of her Joi De Vivre then, and I still am to this day. So on a beautiful New Orleans Sunday, (October 12th 1998, to be exact), after our now customary "wake-up-and-go-fifteen-rounds", we popped out of bed to seize the day, and experience all that New Orleans and life in general had to offer, with Mizz Kimbly acting as my personal tour guide.

First stop, Uptown for a Second Line... my first of what would turn out to be many.


Second Lines are held by various private neighborhood-based benevolent organizations, called "Social Aide and Pleasure Clubs". The roots of the traditions and functions of these societies were imported by via slave ships, and they are still very much alive in the present day. A "Second Line" is technically a component of a parade or funeral procession that follows the "Main Line", but on this day, a Second Line is a street parade hosted by one of these neighborhood clubs. It's a party, baby, and its all about community unity.

Walking into a Second Line scene is like walking into a joyful human tornado fueled by the celebration of life. So as Kim and I parked her signature caramel colored Super Beetle and folded ourselves into the parade like two little white chocolate chips in a bowlful of brownie batter, this is the scene:

Folks are all set up along the parade route, selling beer and bar-b-que out of the back of flatbed trucks. There are several brass bands, playing the polyrhythmic and polytonal funk that is the mother root of modern music, and they aren't moseying down the street: they are motoring a a pretty fast clip, and following the band are what seemed to me to be thousands of people dancing, ripping and running, whoopin' and hollerin': Flying into the air and swatting street signs, drenched in sweat, cooking in the hot summer sun and humidity so thick you couldn't cut it with a chainsaw.

And all those people are there for one thing, and one thing only. To levitate, elevate, and celebrate life itself... a massive throng of humanity with a singular purpose.

When you feel that for the first time, your life will be changed forever .

Kim took me to the crucible, and threw me in. As we danced we sucked down Heinekens like water; and in that sweaty cyclone of the energy of creation and the palpable life force that is all that is good in humanity, I thanked God for putting me in the path of this woman.

You can never give enough thanks, folks, and this was one of those moments where gratitude must be delivered in real time... it was clearly not the time for ego driven, self-centered jackassery.

The second line and the sponsorship of those parades by Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs, is mostly about caring. Caring for your neighborhood and caring for your own, in a city that at these moments is ironically labled as "the city that care forgot".

Next on the day's agenda was pool scamming, a time honored tradition of any French Quarter resident of limited means evidently, but one that I wasn't aware of at the time. The tour guide was about to show me how it was executed.

We were hot and sweaty, so we hopped in the car, stopped off home and grabbed some appropiate swim togs, and walked to The Hotel Monteleone.


The "Pool Scam" on the surface is pretty easy. Basically, you just walk in like you own the joint as a much valued guest of the hotel, and head for the pool; to relax, swim, hang out, and enjoy some poolside cocktails paid for on a cash basis.

But I was a stranger in a strange land, and a paranoid New Yorker to boot.

Me: "What if we get caught?"
Mizz Kim: "So what?"

These, were words to live by in New Orleans, but I didn't know that yet.

We waltzed right in the front door through the opulent lobby of this Royal Street Luxury Hotel, and went to the roof top pool. We sipped cocktails, swam, and lazed in lounge chairs until the sun started tucking itself in for the night. The cabana boys and bartenders packed up, and we closed the pool.

















As the sun finally dipped below the horizon line, we hopped in the women's shower to wash the days funk off, but instead decided to create more, and made love as the soap swirled down the drain. "Love, Rain Down Over Me", indeed. A fitting end to a most perfect day.

But my tour guide wasn't done with me yet. We hustled back to Frenchmen Street to Snug Harbor to catch Danillo Perez's first set.

Snug is the premier jazz showcase club in New Orleans, and located about half a block from Kim's apartment on the corner of Chartres and Frenchmen St. We got dressed, and moseyed on down to the club.

Kim knew George the manager, and he let us skate into the show for free. Can you say "The best tour guide EVER?"

Perez is a Panamanian pianist who is on the forefront of modern jazz. As we started with jazz in its purest raw form, we end with its current progeny.



Perez is a monster musician. His show was all about the same concepts:Communal elevation, levitation, and participation, but in the context of a Jazz Club. He ripped the top of my head off, plain and simple, and put me right next to the force of creation. Now THAT'S a fitting end to the most perfect day in my life.

As we walked home, I spoke of my utter amazement of my adopted home town. All this access to all that is amazing is just a daily occurence in the Beautiful Crescent City... on any given night you can walk down to Donna's on Rampart and hear a world class pianist like Henry Butler for five bucks, and Charlie (Donna's Husband) will feed you a free plate of Red Beans and Rice! Hop a cab, go to the Rock and Bowl and see Snooks Eaglin, or head uptown to the Maple Leaf and check out Jon Cleary and his Absolute Monster Gentelman...on Sunday, head to Second and Dryades to the H& R Bar for Mardi Gras Indian Practice. Go see Ernie K Doe or Allen Toussaint at Tipitina's French Quarter, or pop uptown to the original location to see Dr. John. Or just stay put, because invariably a parade was going to pass by your front door.

The music, the culture, and the history eneveloped your very existence like the abundant spanish moss hanging from the oak tree lined boulevards. It was inescapable.

And as I was sharing that revelatory moment with Kim, we took the left hand turn onto Chartres toward her front door steps, we saw it. Tons of flashing lights on the corner of Elysian Fields knocked us out of our ecstatic reverie.

Several squad cars of the NOPD were on the corner, less than a stones throw away from the front door.

I told Kim to go upstairs, and walked down to the corner. There in a pool of blood was a large man, shot muiple times, his body mutilated. And I knew him.

The Po-Po had just arrived, so the crime scene hadn't been cordoned off yet.

I told an officer that I knew the guy. They hadn't I. D.'ed him yet.

Me: "That's Raymond Myles"
Po-Po: "Raymond Who?"
Me: "Raymond Myles, The Gospel Singer".

I gave the Po-Po my name and address, and headed for Kim's third story walk up flat.

In shock, I thought about the fact that only a few days before, I sat with Mr. Myles in my courtyard. He had a record out on NYNO records, and their offices were in the slave quarters attached to the house I was living in at the time.

That's the real New Orleans folks. The one that the board of tourism doesn't want you to know about. It is a crucible, but there are two sides to it, one of light, and one brutally evil. My perfect day ended in utter abject horror and shock.

I trudged up three flights of stairs, and steeled myself to break the news. It was going to be a long night.

It was just another day in the city that care forgot.

AS ALWAYS: PLEASE FEEL FREE TO COMMENT, SUBSCRIBE, AND SHARE THIS BLOG ADDRESS VIA COPY AND PASTE IN AN EMAIL, THROUGH THE TWITTER OR FACEBOOK "SHARE" BUTTONS,WORD OF MOUTH, FILTHY WHISPERED GOSSIP, FALSE NARRATIVE, TIN CAN AND STRING CONFIGURATIONS, PONY EXPRESS, OR CARRIER PIGEON. WITHOUT FEEDBACK, WHAT YOU JUST READ.... DOESN'T EXIST!


THANK YOU KINDLY,


COLONEL BEAUREGARD "IRON THIGHS" JEFFERSON, A.K.A. "THE MANAGEMENT"

ERNIE K-DOE'S GREAT JAZZ FEST TRAIN ROBBERY

Ernie K-Doe had a a number one, top forty pop hit in the 1961 with the tune "Mother-in Law"....K-Doe proclaimed that it and the Star Spangled Banner were they greatest songs ever written. K-Doe also proclaimed himself "Emperor of the Universe". Need I say more? A true New Orleans Care-Rackter if there ever was one....

K-Doe was married to a lovely woman named Antoinette. He had met her in the early '60's when she was working the counter at a liquor store , and as she bent over to grab a bottle of ripple, evidently she made quite an impression. He married her approximately 35 years after that sighting.

One time Antoinette and Ernie were having a bit of a domestic squabble in the backyard. K-Doe recused himself from the tussle, stormed in the house and slammed the screen door behind him...not realizing that his lovely bride was following close behind. The door sliced one of her fingers clean off, at the first knuckle.

After much freaking, they hopped in the Cadillac and drove to Charity Hospital. When they got to the emergency room the doctor asked for the missing digit, (for re-attachment purposes) but of course in all the hub-bub, K-Doe neglected to project that as a possibility. The finger was still on the back porch.

The Dr. instructed K-Doe to hustle home, grab a baggie and pack the finger in ice, and hustle back to the emergency room.

K-Doe boogied home, found the finger and put it on ice, but by this time he was so frazzled that he decided he was not fit to drive, and decided to take the bus back to the hospital.

Upon his arrival at the emergency room, the Dr. asked for the finger....but K-Doe spaced out and left the finger on the bus!

Lets hope that no unsuspecting rider mistook the finger as left-over lunch.

But I digress.....

By the time the millennium rolled around, the great classic New Orleans
R & B artists were leaving this planet at an alarming rate, and K-Doe probably knew he was one of the last of a dying breed...if he didn't, his wife surely did.

A perennial performer at the Jazz and Heritage Festival, K-Doe always was forced to perform at, at least in the estimation of his extremely savvy (albeit fingerless) wife, way below market value (Around $2500-$5000 for K-Doe and his entire ten piece band, depending on who you talk to)

So just a couple of years before K-Doe left this earth, just as he was ascending to the stage, his wife walked up to Quint Davis (The head honcho and co-founder of The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival) and demanded $75,000 or K-Doe would not perform.

That year, K-Doe did not perform.

Well the scuttlebutt around the New Orleans musicians community was that Ernie K-Doe was categorically insane for demanding that kind of money....but I say crazy like a fox, or at least brave enough towards the end of his life to quit shuckin' and jivin' and start to demand his true worth.

The Jazz and Heritage Festival is produced under the auspices of Festival Productions. Festival Productions is helmed by George Wein (The founder of the Newport Jazz Festival). Wein is "a little more worldly" than his protégé Quint Davis, and realized that they could ill afford to allow the dirty little secret out that they were underpaying New Orleans musicians for years, and literally built a yearly festival representing millions of dollars in cash flow on the backs of the musicians they were supposedly were in support of. Pissing matches with legendary New Orleans figures just didn't make good business sense, especially if the court of public opinion caught a whiff and decided to pass judgement. So daddy applied the heat, and junior capitualted.

So the next year, K-Doe was back on the Jazz Fest Stage, and a rate of pay that was commensurate with his stature as one of the last men standing from the golden age of New Orleans R&B.

Like he always said..."Emperor of the Universe"! It was nice to see him win one before he checked out.

This is not all The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival or Festival Production's fault however...the "plantation mentality" is in full effect here: All that the producers are guilty of is availing themselves to a system and mindset that's been around for 250 years.

It would be cool if that would change, but don't expect the beneficiaries of the system to all of a sudden grow a moral center...

TREME

There is a neighborhood bordering the French quarter on Rampart Street called the Treme.

On the Rampart side of the Treme is a large green space, and within that green space is an area called Congo Square. Things have ALWAYS been a little looser down here in New Orleans, even during the hey dey of the slave trade.

Traditionally, slaves were not allowed to have drums or any vestige of musical expression from their homeland, specifically for the very pragmatic reason (from a slave owner's point of view, anyway) that music, and particularly drums, were a form of long distance communication that could signal a revolt, escape, or a threat to the status quo. Plus the more miserable slaves were, the easier they were to control.

This was not the case in New Orleans...Slaves had Sunday afternoons off. Maybe it was due to the French and Spanish owners, who were a little more "cosmopolitan" than their American counterparts. ...But slaves were allowed to congregate, and more importantly, play music, play the communicative rhythms of Africa, dance the Bamboula, worship in any way they saw fit, and meld and weld the new "European" sounds (and instruments) they were being exposed to in their daily lives to the music they brought from Mother Africa.

I'm not an expert by any means, but it is generally excepted wisdom that that little patch of grass in the Treme was ground zero for several forms of what is now considered original American Music, from blues, gospel, jazz, funk,rap, hip-hop, soul (George Gershwin, for Chrissakes...no Congo Square, no "Rhapsody in Blue", or Aaron Copeland, or Leonard Bernstein...)...you name it...really except for more Appalachian centric forms (country, bluegrass) pretty much all popular music as we know it sprung from Congo Square., in the Treme.

Now bearing this historical "In Utero" period of American musical history in mind, I'd like to talk about the New Orleans tradition of "The Second Line"

I really don't know the total history of the Second Line, but I do know that from the nascent beginnings in Congo Square, it eventually evolved into three basic forms in Modern Times....two types are "planned".

The most familiar is the funeral procession, where a brass band leads the procession (and the onlookers, and neighborhood denizens form a "second line" behind the main procession),playing sad and mournful dirges until the place of internment is reached....on the way out of the cemetery, the band then plays the up tempo music, it gets funky, and everyone dances their way back to the party....its a way of sending off someone's spirit with good vibes as they cross to the other side.

So even if New Orleans is known for putting the "Fun" in funeral, this first form of jazz, the African American spiritual and the improvisational and poly tonal and poly rhythmic freedom found within the form, was solidified during funeral celebrations....deeply steeped in the spiritual context in which it was solidified.

The other type of planned second line is actually a street party that is planned by various neighborhood organizations, called Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs. Several Clubs pool resources, hire the funkiest brass bands in town, and a large parade is thrown, the parade route, and the second line itself, disclosed and promoted by word of mouth....Traditionally, they would take place every Sunday from Labor Day through the Mardis Gras season.

These are HUGE street parties...thousands show up for these events, there are entrepreneurial opportunities galore (People sell beer and Bar B Que out of the back of their pickup trucks) and the bands are literally running as they play, only to stop at a preplanned neighborhood watering hole, so the second liners can catch their breath, and have a cocktail....than, yippee, its off to the next stop.

These street parties are massive, collective, celebrations...but the thing that strikes me when ever I attend one is how powerful it is when 2-3 thousand folks are relieving the stress of their weekly lives simultaneaously...its a powerfully moving experience to be in the middle of that, and again, a spiritual one, even though the music isn't traditionally spiritual, but more poly rhythmic funk.

Last, but most definitely not least, is the spontaneous second line, and that's what I would like to focus attention on...as it is closest to the second line's true origins.

A much beloved neighbor or neighborhood musician passes away...the word spreads from house to house, door to door, or in modern times, cell phone to cellphone....musicians congregate in a central location and start to play spirituals to honor the beloved friend, neighbor, and if a musician, contributor to the culture.

Neighbors hear the music and naturally form a second line behind the band as it meanders on an unplanned route through the neighborhood.

Those who can't dance, sit on their stoops and porches, to celebrate the spirit of the neighbor crossing over...and to sing the old songs as the children in the street need to hear them, and most importantly learn them.

Approximately three weeks ago, one of these spontaneous celebrations popped up in the Treme to honor the sudden passing of a beloved neighbor and tuba player, Kerwin Williams....as the second line grew in size, and the mourners were singing "I'll Fly Away", 20 NOPD Squad cars flew into the neighborhood, sirens screaming, it's passengers outfitted in riot gear, truncheons at the ready.

The crime? Disturbing the peace, and parading without a permit. Two of he leading musicians refused to stop playing.This is what their fathers did, this is what their grandfathers, their great grandfathers...as far as their families can remember, this is who the were, and what they did.

They were summarily hog-tied, thrown in a squad car, and arrested.


Who sends a riot squad in to break up a cultural tradition that has been occurring for well over one hundred years without incident?

This is a very good question...I have some theories on that that I'll share in a later post.

Here's the deal, fellow planetarians: This is not an isolated incident, and its been happening before Katrina ever hit the shores of Lake Ponchartrain.

There has been a systematic strategy employed by the NOPD to crack down hard on second lines and Indian "parading" under the flimsy excuses of parading without a permit or "disturbing" the peace. The collective second line celebrations that are planned by the Pleasure Clubs were shut down by the police charging 500% of their normal fee for procurement of a police detail.

I'm not blaming police here folks. They do their best, but lets not forget that there is a chain of command...most importantly, they do what they're told.

Politically, as I'm sure you've heard, things are a bit Byzantine down here....but I would like to know who's giving that order, that prime directive....I would like to know where the buck actually stops.