It's New Years Eve in New Orleans so Peace Yall

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It's bright and fresh in New Orleans. The sun streaks down the grubby but not filthy streets of the French Quarter. Bourbon Street is linen with peep shows, topless table top dancing and all night bars. On one corner a slow, lazy and drunken Jazz is played by a barley formed and half awake, ragged band. Booming, flatulent tuba bass is accompanied by rattled, jangle boned piano. The drums sound like they are falling down stairs in slow motion as an absentminded rhythm is stroked out by a guitarist who rocks back an forth in double time. The singer croaks the songs lyrics in cracked, broken and hacked tones and a trombone slurs out a melody. In a bar a few streets down a young man in dungarees, shaven headed, manically scratches out a rattled rhythm on wash board as a thousand notes a second whirl out of a white accordion played by a fat, black man. Accompanied by driving punk like drums and bass the result is a crazed cacophony, an old rusty fair ride, with rattling bolts and springs driven, spinning too fast, thrown in and pulled back on the edge of control towards some impending doom. The crowd bays for more speed, the whirly accordion plays on.

As night falls the streets become more crowded and more drunken. Strings of beads are thrown down from the curly, iron balconies. At first they are thrown to people, female or male baring their chests but later they are thrown to anyone and every one. There seems to be some competition to gather as many beads as possible as the crowd begs for beads from people above. A sign in Xmas lights reads 'Peace Yall'.

We sit in a bar where some old boys play blues and a couple in their late forties grind on the dance floor. He stares off a thousand miles into some hazy distance as she rubs her groin up and down his leg like some over excited mutt. A 'waiter' comes to our table and tells me that it gets better after a drink. 'Happy fucking New Year' he says and sways as he takes our order. He is not paying full attention to what we say. He returns with an order that is fifty percent correct and asks for a tip. 'I get two dollars an hour, and I have to pay her rent.' he gestures towards a blonde woman who was obviously once pretty but now looks as if she has drank and smoked and lived a little too much. I tell him that the drink he bought for Lou is not what she ordered and he says it's her fault for pointing at the wrong drink on the menu and walks off. I grab his attention and ask if we can change the drink for what we ordered. He comes back a little later with another drink 'Right, now you gotta give me a tip 'cause I had an argument with my boss over this!'. I give him a dollar. 'Oh look he gave me a dollar' he announces and throws it across to his bedraggled girlfriend. I ask her if he is indeed her boyfriend, it is. I wish her good luck. She tells me that he pays her rent and is painting her house. 'He looks after you then?' she smiles and nods. 'Well I guess you better hang on to him them'. A large, blond woman is summoned over by the singer and guitarist of the blues band 'Come here you big ol' pussy'. We finish our drinks and move on to the next bar where an MC beckons in the crowd offering three for one drinks in between singing along to the music replacing chorus lines with vulgar lyrics and dancing, southern style with hammered women. 'Who's getting laid tonight' he shouts, many of the crowd shoot up booth arms and yell. He announces the band will be on in twenty minutes. Twenty minutes later in announces that the band will be on at eight. By nine o'' clock we have had several rounds of three-for-one beers and a few shooters and are quite enjoying ourselves. The band starts up. In think that they are on day release from Betty Fords geriatric wing. The singer is dressed as a cowboy all in black with a long white goatee. He sits on a stool as I do not think he can stand. He gruffly, mumbles lyrics to well known songs he makes no sense to me but the crowd sings along. We leave to get some food.

After eating burritos we go to the Mississippi river bank to watch the midnight fireworks display. It is freezing and the firework show is pathetic. We queue for twenty minutes to pay twenty dollars for two bears before returning to the writhing chaos that Bourbon Street has become. Rival fans from Utar state and Alabama argue about the out come of the Sugar Bowl that is to be played on the 2nd of January. It is passionate and loud but good humoured with no threat of violence. 'Utar? U- who?', say the Alabama fans. A young woman leans over the bar and points out to the Alabama fans, after a quick head count that 'There are two pussies over here' referring to her self and her female friend. 'How many pussies you got with you? none huh!'. We get back to the hotel around two singing 'I wanna be in New Orleans' by the Red Hot Chilly Peppers'. It was a bit of a struggle to extract ourselves from the tangled, drunken mass but we made it in one piece feeling like we'd brought in the new year in style. Perhaps not in a stylish manner but New Orleans style.

Whilst in New Orleans we took a ride on a old steam boat down the Mississippi. The views were fairly industrial as New Orleans is a massive port importing and exporting all sorts from its river banks. The rusting metal industrial landscape, chimney stacks, tug boats, cranes and freighters made for interesting views and we enjoyed the sunny afternoon on deck with a few beers. We took the Hurricane Katrina tour which was fascinating. Four years on and New Orleans is still recovering. Many of the estates suffer from what they call the lantern effect where broken and abandoned houses sit next to new builds that in turn sit next to empty lots. Many of the people evacuated have no way to return and no community to return to. Some businesses have come back and some new have sprung up but many others are yet to return and people have to travel much further for groceries and other conveniences that were once just around the corner. Brad Pitt has put five million in to building new environmentally efficient housing and many other people have helped to get New Orleans back on its feet from students emptying houses of peoples once treasured but now ruined possessions to stars making charitable donations. It was an illuminating tour please take it if you ever come to New Orleans.

We did a few other things in New Orleans including taking a tram out to the famous New Orleans cemeteries, I'm not sure if they filled that scene in Easy Rider here but it looked familiar. We took a cab, driven by a really friendly old guy, out of the town centre to an Irish bar that looked just like all the other houses but painted green with an Irish Flag. We watched Villa beat Hull City one nil over a couple of Guinness. We walked about thirty blocks to a curry house that was advertising in the local paper to find it was closed for the holidays. On the way we stopped in a bar with smokey windows through which you could not see. It turned out to be a gay bar with pictures of the old wrinkled bar man in various drag outfits on the walls. Three electronic gambling machines bleeped along one wall faced by a huge poster of Marilyn Monroe opposite behind which dusty renovations were taking place. Old, grey and creased men chatted and laughed at the bar. On our long, hungry walk back we ducked into a fashionable restaurant where I tried Gumbo, a dark grey, brown sea food broth with mud coloured muscles and half a crab. I kept it down for about three hours at which point I decided that it would be allot easier to put my fingers down my throat and expel the horrid concoction.

To the outsider the people of New Orleans appear to have a slow, easy, self satisfied and contented demeanour. They smile and accept life's troubles, eat well, drink and get on with it all with a smile. We found New Orleans to be a friendly and hospitable place that I sincerely hope continues to repair and grow.

I left New Orleans hoping to return one day when I'll go and watch the Saints play football, the Hornets play basketball, see a load more crazy jazz bands and taste the beautiful madness of this city once more.

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Comments

[Steve]

You paid twenty dollars for two bears near the Missipi river around midnight - Polar or Grizzly? Did they do owt good for their money?