A Blogging Pirate Looks At Forty

IT’S MIDNIGHT AND I’M NOT A FAMOUS PIRATE YET

Weird BeardWell here I sit looking back on it all. One of my rationalizations for quitting my job and embarking on this adventure was to take a mulligan on my literary dreams and ambitions as forty approached. Now that it has arrived, I can’t help but reflect upon all that’s led me to this point.

My favorite song has long been “A Pirate Looks at Forty,” and back when I lived in Virginia and attended Buffett shows three times a summer I’d dress like a pirate and stroll around with my guitar during the tailgating, which was as much the draw as the show. Soon I was recognized as simply ‘The Pirate’ by the returning faithful and pirate imitators started springing up in the Virginia/Maryland/North Carolina triangle. Yes, of all the crazy costumes at this annual bacchanalia I was the original pirate. Never, though, did it seem possible that someday I’d actually be that pirate looking at 40, and much like the subject of that song—a real Buffett compatriot in those early Key West days, not some escapist fictional conjuring—I feel like a man meant for another era floating outside the mainstream rather than marking the years with those typical adult mile-markers: wife, kids, promotion, retirement, regret.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JZHNSrl9KsU

Perhaps I don’t feel 40 because  [Read more…]

French Quarter Living: Labor Day Last Hoorah!

WAITING FOR THE OTHER SHOE TO DROP (SNAKES WITH FEET?!)

My Favorite French Quarter View: Leaning Out the Bathroom Window!

Favorite French Quarter View:
Leaning Out Bathroom Window!

It will be two weeks Monday in my new home and so far so good. For the first time since heading this way in February I feel settled and truly able to focus on not only the blog but other writing and personal goals. My Year of Mardi Gras is a gift to myself and if at times I’ve seem frustrated, it’s because I felt like I was inadvertently squandering this precious time. There is not much of a chance for this adventure to fail (my motto, remember, is that if this blog fails it will be the most fun failure in history!) but if I look back and realize I squandered my time on foolish drama (i.e. Jake & Snake) that would qualify.

It Looked Quaint & Funky...

It Looked Quaint & Funky…

Granted, I did get some great stories from the debacle and had more reader responses to those posts than just about any others. If I am able sell this adventure as a memoir, it may turn out to be hours well wasted. Sometimes, though, you don’t realize just how stressed you were until removed from a situation, and the release of tension from my shoulders has surprised even me. Not only has my blood pressure plummeted, but my mind is clear and focused. I moved into that quaint but crumbling French Quarter apartment where gray dirt rained down from the ceiling on a daily basis coating floors and furniture like living in a coal camp because it teamed with history that promised literary inspiration. Instead, [Read more…]

A Nightmare on Decatur Street II: The Return of Jake & Snake

HALLOWEEN (COMES EARLY)

halloween-movie-posterAll apologies for my prolonged absence. My life has been a bit tumultuous the past couple of weeks and I wasn’t able to find the time or sanity to post. The situation in the French Quarter finally imploded and I was forced to flee like Jamie Lee Curtis on the last day of October.

The sad thing is that I had finally settled in and began enjoying French Quarter living after Jake moved out in early July; alas, nothing good lasts forever, especially in this city of extremes and mercurial temperament. Debra had mostly stayed away. Our communication was terse and to the point, but the fragile truce held. I’d been told that the block on Decatur Street I was living on was ‘ground zero’ for the Halloween parade and other activities so I was trying to keep things between the lines at least until then. Little did I know Halloween would come early this year, for, as I returned in late August from a week with my family in Myrtle Beach, I arrived to find the apartment door ajar. Inside was pitch black.

My mind instantly raced with possibilities. A break in? An error by Debra? She had moved back in? I stepped inside only to be startled by a familiar voice. Jake was lying in wait on the lounger just inside the door.

“What the @#$#?!”

He immediately began to explain and try to calm me down. Debra had sent a cryptic text mid-week inquiring when exactly I was returning. Now I knew why. He’s baaaaaaaaaaaaack! [Read more…]

New Orleans Attractions: Mardi Gras World

A MAJOR TOURIST TRAP TREAT
MGW MeOne of my goals for My Year of Mardi Gras is to create an archive of popular New Orleans Tourist Attractions, thus Mardi Gras World is an obvious must-blog destination. Blaine Kerns Studios is the premiere producer of Mardi Gras floats and Mardi Gras World is the name they use to advertise the exhibits and guided tours offered at their flagship  location (one of sixteen local warehouses). Although thematically relevant, Mardi Gras World‘s advertising can appear a bit touristy so I was a little more hesitant in visiting compared to my unabashed excitement at seeing the National World War II Museum. MGW’s media and publicity director, however, was kind enough to respond to my inquiry so I headed out on a recent rainy Wednesday and found myself not only pleasantly surprised but reluctant to leave.
MGW Monkeys MGW No Admission
WHIMSICAL, FANTASTIC, SUBVERSIVE
Located just upriver from the Convention Center at the end of Convention Center Blvd., Mardi Gras World is a working warehouse where floats for Mardi Gras come to life along with exhibits for [Read more…]

If Love Is A Red Dress, Well Dress Me In Drag

MANLY MEN IN RED EVENINGWEAR

DSC02876 DSC02877

You were my angel, now you are real.

So like a stranger, colder than steel.

The morning after no one should brag.

If love is a red dress, well hang me in rags.

DSC02880I don’t know if Pulp Fiction is the greatest movie ever made (I could be swayed) but I’m pretty certain its soundtrack is the best ever assembled. (Making The Statler Brothers hip is in itself accomplishment enough to assure Quentin Tarantino’s genius!) The night before returning to New Orleans I streamed this classic for the first time in years and and wound up with one of its lesser known tunes, “If Love Is a Red Dress,” stuck in my head. I should have taken this as a sign to rush out and buy one that fits for that first weekend back every manly man in New Orleans donned the most outrageous red lady’s wear he could find and took the the streets of the French Quarter.

RUNNING WITH A SIDE OF BEER & BREASTS

RED DRESS 1The previous Thursday I’d returned to Two Tony’s to chat with New Orleans Guardian Angel/Cajun Jedi Master Pat Thompson. On my last visit he’d pontificated on [Read more…]

New Orleans Living: Red Beans Bashes And Pork & Pie Pop-Ups

LONELY BEANS & A MONTH OF MONDAYS

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Near Empty Bottle of Tequila:
Tonight Was a Good Night

Having spent the better part of two decades flirting with Cajun and Creole cooking, I had made giant pots red beans and rice before and even shared with friends, but I never gave the dish its due as a headliner or perceived its deep cultural significance until I moved to New Orleans. The battle for title of best red beans & rice (Joey K’s? Coop’s Place? Kermit Ruffins Treme Speakeasy?) is every bit as fierce as the gumbo wars, and in Gumbo Tales, Sarah Roahen documents the dishes power to bring friends together on Mondays, as much a vehicle for community building as physical nourishment.

Upon reading about this Monday ritual, I’d begun cooking batches in my kitchenless place Uptown with a dull knife and a tabletop hot plate, but it was a lonely endeavor. My roommate would occasionally try a small bowl, I offered some to the old black lady living next door who looked at me suspiciously and said she ‘had the diabetes’ and had to watch her diet, and I brought a container to the neighbor across the street who’d helped jumpstart my truck who never acknowledged the unsolicited gift in subsequent passings—no ‘thanks again’s or ‘those were good’—leaving me wondering if they went straight in the trash. Thus, with few people to share with I was able to make one pot last a month of Mondays.

THREE’S COMPANY, BACHELOR EDITION

Seasoning Simmering For My Very First Monday Batch

Seasoning Simmering For My Very First Monday Batch

Once I hit my stride in July I decided to give it another try, hoping to call on some of the tenuous friendships I’d established. I still had a bag of beans I’d bought upon first moving in (anything requiring cooking had survived Jake’s munchies) and enough ingredients to season a batch without ‘making groceries’ (although later that day I caved in and stop by Rouses to buy greens—scallions and parsley—for garnish) and sent up the Bat Signal. Bart, the recent college graduate from book club, was the only RSVP but as I fled [Read more…]

French Quarter Living: Rhythm of the City

BACK WHEN MEN WERE MEN (WITH WOMEN’S HAIR)

Oh, The 80s, When Real Men Knew How To Tease Their Hair

Oh, The 80s, When Real Men Knew How To Tease Their Hair Living

I began July in a Frenchmen Street bar sipping a cold Corona (not to be mistaken with a Cocharona!) and thinking back to a cheesy Survivor song beloved in my adolescence, “Too Hot To Sleep.” As the month closed, another song from that same seldom recalled album was stuck in my head: “Rhythm of the City,” for after a rough start I was finally easing into the rhythm of French Quarter living.

A GOOD WEEK FOR GUMBO

DSC02862Things finally calmed down after my 4th of July visitor and subsequent busy week, and I gradually got back to doing everyday things like ‘making groceries’ at Rouses Uptown, stopping by Dick & Jenny’s next door first to give their cuisine a second try. I’ve become comfortable eating alone at the bar and ordering (relatively) light—an entrée only, fish with spinach. It was excellent, though this will never be my go-to spot as it seems to be for many locals.

DSC02857DSC02856The following days were spent writing and wandering the Quarter, eating out less and focusing on lunch when I did. One afternoon I stopped by [Read more…]

New Orleans Living: A Dark Passenger, Jedi Master, & Home For Wayward Boys

MY MOST BELOVED HATED RESTAURANT IN NEW ORLEANS

Jacques ImosThe problem with the 75 cent pork sliders and meat pies at the American Sector Restaurant is that when the adjoining National World War II Museum keeps you mesmerized through lunch until it closes at 5:00, ‘you’ll ruin your dinner’ as mother warned. And we had big dinner plans.

DSC02849I fell in love with New Orleans via Jazz Fest, but Jacques Imo’s may be the first local restaurant that stole my heart (though it could be Mother’s—memories are fuzzy). I remember the first time my oldest brother and I visited circa 1999. We were blown away by its upscale eclecticism and adventurous cuisine. We returned a couple of times, but my life changed directions and it’s been well over a decade since I’ve been back. I’ve become somewhat of a New Orleans foodie in the interim and, in the process, have discovered that Jacques Imo’s is perhaps the most divisive restaurant in the city. I mentioned a couple of posts ago how it is hip to deride any New Orleans restaurant that doesn’t fit your taste as a tourist trap, but nowhere does this battle rage so fierce as within the funky Jacques Imo’s bedecked with color folk art such as bright blue goes or “Be Nice Or Leave” plaques. It’s ridiculously off the beaten path, though, for a tourist trap, hiding on Oak Street on the complete opposite side of Uptown from the French Quarter so near the river bend that you could almost hit the Mississippi with one of their garlic cornbread muffins.

But you wouldn’t want to [Read more…]

French Quarter Living: Holiday Hanging & Restaurant Reviews

MANDINA’S: OLD STYLE CREOLE ITALIAN FOR AN OLD SOUL

mandinasSince my visiting friend was proud of her Italian and Creole heritage, I headed immediately from the airport to Mandina’s, an 80-year-old Creole Italian institution on Canal in Mid-City. There is a huge Sicilian population in New Orleans (see St. Joseph’s Day) so Creole cooking has a heavy Italian influence along with its French (colonization) and African (exploitation) roots. Thus, it’s common to see red sauces—or ‘red gravy’—on the menu with fried seafood po-boys and gumbo, and the Muffuletta sandwich now ubiquitous locally was created by the Italian Central Market Grocery back when the French Market was an active and thriving Italian food and produce stand rather than the t-shirt and trinket bazaar of today.

Mandina'sI first tried Mandina’s right after Mardi Gras when I was sick and staying in the CBD. At the time I could barely breathe and couldn’t taste anything but the fried oyster po-boy I ordered there was the only thing I mildly enjoyed. Since their food tasted good when nothing did I couldn’t wait to try it in good health.

Mandina’s is an old open house with white table clothes on square tables and pictures on the wall—classic old style New Orleans. Our waitress had a thick ‘Yat’ accent (Brooklyn meets [Read more…]

Independence Day (& the 4th of July) In The French Quarter

JULY 2nd INDEPENDENCE DAY (REPRISE)

7.3.22 Liuzza's BBQ Poboy

A Happy Ending, N’Awlins Style!

When I awoke Tuesday July 2nd, or Independence Day as I came to know it, Jake was already shuffling around nervously. “I fixed your bike this morning,” he said before confiding that Debra was on her way. He was genuinely distressed. “She’s one of my best friends, man,” he said, shaking his head. “But everything’s cool between you and me.” The writer in me was fascinated. He was absolving me of my sins, unaware that I may have a lingering gripe and mystified that Debra was turning on him.

I’m fairly certain (though I never got a reason) that Debra’s annoyance stemmed from Jake’s failure to acquire work and, as she said, “contribute.” To her. Even though I’d been pulled into this unwittingly, she later told me that what happened between the two of us was between the two of us . . . she was not our mother. That went over like a Led Zeppelin.

As I said before, Jake never struck me as malicious. He at times tried to be helpful and wanted to connect, complaining that he hated to eat alone and cooking that contraband breakfast before I left. He had met Debra consoling her after a bad break-up. From the start, though, he struck me as someone who never grew up and took responsibility—like an early teen who feels small acts of kindness (I took out the trash and called grandma in the hospital) are sufficient exchange for food and shelter. He arrived from three weeks in Africa helping his brother-in-law on a film project, allegedly falling ill and subsequently being abandoned. I’d always suspected he’d quickly outstayed his welcome, as he now had once again. I can’t know for sure, but like a good scientist I have a strong body of evidence with which to form a theory.

SUGAR RATIONING (SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE)

As he packed, Jake asked for a cup of coffee with the crestfallen look of Charlie Brown realizing he hadn’t got a single Valentine. I nodded. Holding grudges wouldn’t change anything. “You got any sugar?” I shook my head. “You somehow consumed an entire container while I was gone.” He waved nonchalantly. “No problem. I’ll [Read more…]