Train Graffiti

I walk in the mornings for about a mile down Crescent Park, which parallels the train trains downriver from the French Quarter in New Orleans. The cars are colorful with graffiti of all kinds. But sometimes there's one I like. Like this one.

Crabby hands

My mouth is tingly and my hands are stained reddish brown. There's a pasty, spicy mixture caked under my fingernails. 

It's crab boil time. At Vaughan's Lounge.

Reminders everywhere

Walking through the Bywater, warm summer afternoon. Faced again with a reminder to BE.

Alt-Mardi Gras

It was 6:30 in the morning, I was exhausted after a late night of revelry. But suddenly the sound of beating drums broke through my sleep. At first I thought it was the garbage men, but this wasn't their pick-up day.

Then I heard brass band music. Good Lord, I thought, who's practicing this early?

But something made me jump out of bed, throw a jacket on over my pajamas, grab my camera, and look out the front door.

There on Chartres Street, a few costumed people were assembled, and they were looking with anticipation downriver. The sound of the brass band got louder. I ran down to the corner. "What is it?" I asked a young woman there.

"It's Eris," she said. Then she looked me over. "You might as well come with, Looks like you got everything you need."

Named after the Greek Goddess of Discord, the Krewe of Eris is a renegade parade. In one 2011 neighborhood rag article, it was described as a "permit-disdaining anarchic foot parade....an explosion of beautiful costuming and craftsmanship that runs wild through downtown, clogging streets in boisterous celebration of unrule."

It was a wild, raucous, rag-tag bunch. The smell of marijuana was strong in the air. Costumes were made of rags and bits and tree branches and palmetto fronds. Paraders balanced on the bullwarks, crowded the verge of the levee. Some young men clambered up the side of the train cars and danced on top of them, waving flags.

I tagged along for three blocks. Then came to my senses. It was not yet 7:00 am, I was in my pajamas, without a cent of money. They turned the corner of Pauline and Royal Streets, and I stood on the corner, watching them go.

As I stood there, a young woman came up to me and pressed something into my palm. It was a tiny sharks tooth. Then another woman came and did the same - this time it was a small round acorn. "Water is life," she said to me.

As I watched them go, another resident stood outside his house. "I just got up to pee," he said in amazement.

"A bunch of crusties and stoners," said another guy on the street.

"I'm going back to bed," I said, and I did.

NOW - there is a follow up to this story. I did go back to bed, and when I woke up, about two hours later, I decided to go out for breakfast. I headed uptown to the Marigny, and at Press Street, where the train tracks split the Marigny neighborhood from the Bywater, there was a train on the tracks. While stopped there, I could see the blue lights of police motorcycles, and I could also see young men scaling the train cars, going up and over them.

I waited for about 15 minutes and then did what every Bywater resident has learned to do - go around. I illegally backed up half a block and then headed toward St. Claude Avenue, to cross it and go up to Claiborne Avenue, which arches over the tracks. But to no avail.

St. Claude was jam-packed - the train stoppage had halted a convoy of floats destined for uptown and parades later that day.

Just another example of living in New Orleans at carnival time.

Under seige

The last couple of afternoons, I've noticed big helicopters zooming overhead. I chalked it up to the tornado damage in New Orleans East, which took place on Tuesday. But they have been loud and flying very low in my neighborhood.

Last night I was awakened from sleep around 1:00 am by what sounded like an explosion, and by helicopters zooming overhead. This went on for some time, so I checked on my phone the local Next Door site - Next Door is a kind of neighborhood watch online.

Lots of people were up and disturbed by the activity. Some people said they'd heard machine gun fire.

Turns out it was the NOPD running some training games out of the old Navy facility on Poland Avenue at the Industrial Canal. On Facebook, a friend said he'd talked to a police commander at the gates who didn't seem all that concerned that an entire neighborhood of residents was being frightened out of their beds.

Another friend posted that patrons coming out of Vaughan's Lounge after a late night set by Corey Henry and the Treme Funktet were shocked and surprised, as though they'd entered a fire fight.

The NOPD's official announcement claimed they'd informed local residents and private property owners, but the Bywater Neighborhood Association said they had not been informed. Nor had homeowners or businesses on Poland Avenue.

There might be more of this over the weekend. At least now we know what it is.

UPDATE: NOPD says it's the Army running "urban military training." 

As another friend of mine commented, "They're training all right. They're training us."

My turn

This one's for Jack and Uncle Earl.

When Jack died, just a few days before Christmas, I was lucky to have the support of friends. My friend Scott helped me by carrying Jack's 65 pound body out of my house and putting it in my car to take to the vet; my friend Linda helped me by driving me to the vet, taking me out for food, cleaning my house and putting away all dog-reminder items while I showered, and then taking me out to Vaughans's Lounge and getting me drunk.

In passing

This seems to be a time of people passing. Here in my neighborhood, yet another loss. I did not know John Sipos, but if you read his obituary at the link, you will feel, as I do, that you wish you had.

His memorial, held at Vaughan's Lounge yesterday, drew a huge crowd of friends and family that spilled out into the street, danced and sang, and marched around the block.

Big Chief Honey Bannister of the Creole Wild West led the throng, who waved white handkerchiefs through the streets of the infamous "Barmuda Triangle" in the Bywater.

There was food, drink, joy and laughter. What could be better?

A fine tradition

January 6th is Twelfth Night, Epiphany; the date the Three Kings supposedly visited the Holy Family and the Christ child. It is celebrated in the Catholic tradition, within which the city of New Orleans is deeply steeped.

What Twelfth Night really means here is the start of the carnival, or Mardi Gras, season. The first parade and celebratory events of the season take place on this night. There is the Joan of Arc Parade*, which celebrate the birthday of the martyred girl saint - the 6th of January being her birthday. But that tradition, begun in 2008 is much less venerable than the heralding of the arrival of Mardi Gras season by the Phunny Phorty Phellows, a costumed and masked krewe that have been riding the St. Charles streetcar on this night, a tradition of celebration that goes back to 1878.

There's also a new krewe on the block - the Société Des Champs Elysée, who ride the brand spanking new Rampart Street streetcar line in a similar fashion to the Phellows.

It's all rolling tonight, though our weather is cold and raining, with thunderstorms and wind.

One of the traditions of Twelfth Night in New Orleans is the King Cake, which is a special pastry baked to celebrate the night. Traditionally, a bean is baked into the cake. Traditionally, whoever finds the bean is crowned king or queen of the night. However, in modern times, the bean has been substituted by a plastic baby doll, and whoever finds it is supposed to buy next year's cake!

Vaughan's Lounge is throwing a Twelfth Night Party tonight, and in preparation, some of the organizers brought several boxes of King Cake into the bar this afternoon, baked by a new bakery that has just opened here in the Bywater. The cake was sliced and offered for the day-drinkers to sample.

Several years back, I purchased a Rosca de Reyes cake from a little Oaxacan bakery in Santa Monica, on the west side of Los Angeles. This cake is part of a similar tradition in the culture of southern Mexico. Surprisingly, the first slice I cut from it held the baby!

Tonight, as I ate my slice of the delicious egg-based yeast pastry filled with chantilly cream, I bit down on something solid. Guess what? It was the baby!

Guess I'll have to bring a King Cake to Vaughan's next year.

*Latest update, the Joan of Arc Parade has been rescheduled to January 7 this year due to weather.

Sending her home

CJ was a beloved person in my neighborhood. She and her late husband held a place in the hearts of so many people that lived, worked, and played in what is known as the "Barmuda Triangle" of the Bywater - a three-block area housing Vaughans Lounge, BJ's Lounge, and the J & J Sports Lounge.

I never met CJ. But I was sitting at the bar at Vaughans last week when people learned that she had passed, and I could tell by their reactions how much they loved her.

Saturday, a celebration of her life was held, and because this is New Orleans, it was marked by a second line parade that started at Vaughans, and then snaked around the block, stopping at the other two watering holes.

Presiding over this was Big Chief Honey Bannister of the Creole Wild West. CJ's friends spoke and related their memories of her. One woman said:

"Here to celebrate our sister as we begin to come and to gathering today.
Know that although her flesh part has left us, her synergy self spirit still circles round above.
Each of us that she touched she is with us in spirit
And let us know begin to give that life walking home for her.
And let us rejoice and live the life that she would have expected us to
Rejoice even in our sadness."

"She was a refined woman!" said one mourner.

"Yes she was," said another. "And funny, and smart."

Then the assembled company took to the street.

As we walked, under the grey December sky, beneath the towering cypress trees that line Lesseps Street, we sang, our song accompanied by the diminished chord-like horn of the train that punctuates our lives here in the Bywater.

"Here come the Indians! Hoo nah nay!"

Sign of the season

Halloween is coming, and this is a holiday that New Orleans fully embraces. What could be more in keeping with the spirit of this city than a holiday that combines remembrance of the dead, macabre spookiness, and the opportunity to dress up in costume?

This morning walking to breakfast along Royal Street in the Bywater, I encountered a man carrying a plastic skull under his arm.

"Good morning!" I said to him.

"Good morning," he replied. Then with his hand he worked the movable jaws of the plastic skull.

"How ya doin'?" it said.

Then, "Oh, don't mind him," said the man. "He's such a chatterbox!"

Crabby Friday

Crab boil Friday night at Vaughans Lounge.

Night train rolling

Click any photo to "embiggen"

Yesterday evening, just after the Saints pulled it off against the Chargers, and the mad coven of fans began their victory dance, my friend Becky and I went out to the smoking bench outside of Vaughans Lounge.

It was a beautiful night, the sunset pink in the sky up Dauphine Street. As we admired it, we noticed a gathering of people at the corner of France Street, just by J & J's Sports Bar.

"Must have had a good crowd," we thought, but then we looked closer. There seemed more to the crowd than just a football celebration.

"It's a second line for our friend Nate," said a young woman I asked. "We're going down to the levee."

Nathan Tinglof, also known as Neight, was thirty years old and had spent much of his adult life exploring the world, riding freight trains all over the United States. He played his guitar for cash, and liked to draw. He'd settled down in New Orleans a few years ago. I didn't know him, but I'd seen him plenty of times in the neighborhood, riding his distinctive double-height bicycle, a guitar case strapped to his back and his long dreadlocks streaming out behind him.

Early Friday morning, Neight was shot in the chest and died at the corner of Villere and Arts Street in the St. Roch area. Police still haven't identified the suspect.

Here in the Bywater, his friends were giving him a New Orleans send-off.

The parade passed by as we sat in front of Vaughans. Bicyclists wove in and out of the crowd, some on the crazy double-decker bikes Neight admired.

Alongside the crowd rolled a pedal-powered wagon displaying a hot-tub full of mourners - in remembrance of a birthday celebration a few years past that had Neight and a group of friends driving around the French Quarter, drinking champagne while splashing in a hot tub on a pick-up truck bed.

The coming dusk and the steam-punk themed black clothing of the mourners conjured up a somber air that was leavened by the rollicking brass band, waving flags, and twinkling lights, as well as the love and affection expressed for a man considered by all who knew him to be a great friend.

A rainy Friday night mood

Outside Vaughan's Lounge, Friday night after the rain.

Mean streets

The first hole was dug right at my front gate. It was done in July by Cimmaron, a contractor for Entergy, our New Orleans gas and electric utility. One morning, a man named Felipe knocked on my door and explained that they were upgrading the gas lines. A white spray-painted marking on the sidewalk showed where the hole would be dug.

So in front of every house in my block, a hole perhaps 2' x 3' was cut in the concrete sidewalk, and a deep pit opened up down to the gas lines. These pits were encircled by orange plastic fencing. They remained open for weeks while workers ran new lines under the ground from pit to pit.

When they were finished, sometime in mid-August, the workers filled the pits with sand. They removed the orange fencing, and circled the sandy holes with yellow caution tape.

Finally, in early September, they returned with a cement truck, and laid down fresh concrete.

This was repeated in every block of the Bywater. First you'd see the white painted markings, then would come the concrete cutting and the prising up of the sidewalk. Then would come the backhoe, digging the pit; the workers with the pipes, and the ubiquitous orange fencing.

Each block is like an obstacle course for walking. There are orange fenced pits, or yellow taped sandholes. There is mud and sand in the gutters. The white markings advance downriver - from Bartholomew to Mazant, then to France. Now there's an open pit in front of Vaughan's Lounge on Lesseps. When I walk the dog, I walk down the middle of the street to avoid the mud and the holes.

Now it's mid September, and Bartholomew Street has been made whole; the pits have been filled and paved with fresh, new, white concrete. The rains are slowly washing away the mud.

Yesterday, walking home from Vaughans, I noticed on the ground spray-painted markings in yellow. Some were even marked right over the new fresh concrete.

This morning, coming home from the dog park, I saw a cluster of workers in dayglo lime vests hanging out in my street. The vests were labeled "Sewerage and Water Board." A back-hoe rumbled up, with a jack-hammer attachment on the boom. The digging began.

Yes. Now another utility is digging up the streets of the Bywater. Will it ever stop?

Tighty whities

Tonight was the New Orleans National Underwear Day Parade in da upper 9th ward. After a day of storms and tornadoes yesterday, it was a welcome infusion of fun and games.

Stripper pole

Risky Business homage

The group assembled at Castillo Blanco on St. Claude Avenue, and rolled through the Bywater this evening.

My friend Becky and I caught it on the corner of Poland and Burgundy, actually, we could see better on the neutral ground of Poland at that intersection.

We chatted with an NOPD motorcycle officer named Bernard, who was working the gig.

The parade turned on Burgundy Street, passed BJ's Lounge, and headed on into the Bywater, hoping to pick up more participants so they can set a Guinness book record!

I love living in this town!

Introducing Hairy Beggarticks

One of the most common weeds I see in the streets of New Orleans is this little daisy-like flower, Bidens alba, also known as Hairy Beggarticks. Also called Spanish Needles, it rambles up from cracks in the sidewalk. It is also growing out from under the raised piers of my little shotgun house.

Bidens is a natural antibiotic that will successfully treat antibiotic resistant bacteria.  It is said to  be able to out perform penicillin, tetracycline, methicillin, and other antibiotics for both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria.

Bidens increases the efficiency of the kidneys to excrete uric acid from the blood, decreasing the likelihood of a gout attack. It also acts as a tonic and preventive in gastritis and ulcers, diarrhea and ulcerative colitis. It is good to treat inflammation of the mucous membranes in just about any part of the body.

Because its active ingredients are not soluble in water, people make a tincture of its leaves, using alcohol like vodka, and add black pepper, which is synergistic and enhances the properties of bidens.

Recipes instruct users to steep the macerated leaves in vodka with peppercorns and some grated ginger for about eight weeks.

I don't think I'm going to put up a tincture of Hairy Beggarticks soon, but there's something intriguing about making medicine from the weeds that grow in your neighborhood, isn't there? Plus - how about a Harry Beggarticks martini?

The Fixed

In Chapter Four of Annie Dillard's Pulitzer Prize winning book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, she recounts an experiment by the 19th century French entomologist J. Henri Fabre. Working with pine processionary caterpillars, who travel through forests in single file, led by a silken marker laid out by the leader, Fabre lured them onto the rim of a large vase, where they marched around in a circle. Fabre wanted to see if they would realize they were trapped in useless motion, and do something to change their path. But, to his amazement and horror, the caterpillars continued marching in the same circle for over a week, unable or unwilling to change their course despite lack of food, the heat of day and the cold of night.

Out on the gallery at Vaughan's Lounge one afternoon here in New Orleans, a tussock moth larvae was trapped in its own lonely circle of hell, going round and round the rim of an ashtray. My friends and I saw it, and then, repelled at its bizarre, almost dangerous tufted yellow appearance, turned away and sat at the other table. Yet when we passed the ashtray again a little later, it was still there, marching around and around.

Dillard contemplates this "blindered and blinkered enslavement to instinct." Fabre calls it the "abysmal stupidity of insects" who "lack the rudimentary glimmers of reason" that would lead them to abandon a futile effort.

This has been an odd summer for me; one of tremendous change and yet numbing stasis. I procrastinate and put off creative work. I fall into mindless routines to take up my time, and though my kitchen is sparkling clean, my inner life is neglected. I fixate on the same emotions that repeat like an endless loop in my head, reliving old arguments or seeking to undo old mistakes. Like Fabre's caterpillars, I sometimes try to stray from the path, seeking nourishment, adventure, or escape, but am so often pulled back to it.

The inability to change, to gain a higher understanding of our place in the world and our own agency to forge a path for ourselves is what Dillard calls "The Fixed." It is, she says

a world without fire - dead flint, dead tinder, and nowhere a spark. It is motion without direction, force without power, the aimless procession of caterpillars around the rim of a vase, and I hate it because at any moment I myself might step to that charmed and glistening thread.

At Vaughans, once she realized the caterpillar was trapped, my friend Becky decided to rescue it. Together with another friend, LJ, she lured it onto a piece of cardboard and then took it across the street to a young cypress tree and coaxed it onto the leaves.

I first read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek just after it came out, in 1975. It was my last year in college, my first painful experience with love, and a time when I learned to let go of some childhood myths. I still have the same tattered paperback copy I bought then. Its pages are fragile and stained now, but I remember how her exploration of nature, and the cosmos opened my eyes and helped me orient myself in whatever new world I would inhabit.

A photo of Becky - posted with her permission. I think this is the night she rescued the crawfish - which is another example of how much of a hero Becky is!

Wish me luck

That moment of re-orientation is what I'm dealing with now. And now it's about time to lift my eyes from the fixed path and view the world around me, experience its wonder.