The Barryfest Chronicles

This afternoon, I was trying to fish out a tip for the barista at Rue De La Course when I found a relic from the previous evening crumpled in the back pocket on my jeans.  A quarter page, bi-fold pamphlet titled The Only Doorway was mixed in with the loose dollar bills and bar tab receipts one would normally expect to come across after a night out on the town.

When you think of a typical French Quarter souvenir, I’m not sure if literature extolling the virtues of receiving Jesus Christ as your personal God and savior makes the short list, but this type of shit is actually more common than you may think.

New Orleans is full of sin, and wherever you find sin you’ve bound to find a few people trying to offer salvation.  And when religious zealots descend on Bourbon Street, they are usually armed with megaphones and offensive placards reminding all the Democrats, drunks, rock ‘n’ rollers, adulteresses, potheads, homosexuals, lesbians, Masons, Shriners, Mormons, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Evolutionists, Catholics, Satanists, Abortionists, Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, liberals, fornicators, prosperity preachers, atheists and “worldly lukewarm once saved-always saved Christians” that they are in imminent danger of eternal damnation.  Desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess.

These obnoxious bigots start making a scene around the time Mardi Gras rolls in by harassing every poor soul that drifts into earshot and relish the opportunity to take the fight to any inebriated onlooker that dares to inquire what, exactly, they are trying to accomplish with their message of hate.  If you test any one of the shitbirds impeding your safe passage through Jackson Square, you learn pretty quickly that they’re not just throwing this nonsense around for effect and don’t take their intolerance with cream and sugar.  They devour and expel that poison neat with the rocks on the side.

So when I noticed a huge PVC cross off in the distance as my friends and I were leaving Pat O’s after putting in some heavy work at the Piano Bar, I braced myself for an explosive encounter.  I realize that an “Eat shit and die, you anti-Semite fuckstick” – no matter how artfully delivered – only fuels these sad, sad individuals’ fires and adds little to the philosophical discourse, but what can I say?  After a few Hurricanes, I usually don’t have the wherewithal (or desire) to stop myself from shouting the first bit of reactive gobbledygook that pops into my head.

I had an expletive-laden opening argument primed and ready but instead of crude signs and small-minded rednecks, I was greeted by thoughtful individuals speaking with 12 inch voices and respecting everyone’s right of way.  And even thought I was part of a pretty tough crowd – one which was both shitfaced and 70% Jewish – their message stuck it’s landing a lot more than expected considering it was coming from the New Testament.

See, instead of using a fucked up notion of spiritual superiority as a cloak for violent prejudice in the manner of most Bourbon Street evangelicals, these people just seemed like they might be on to something hip and wanted to spread the word.  Even though we were less than polite at times, their pleasant demeanor and cooler heads prevailed and the entire encounter made a lasting impression on me.

To be honest, though, I still don’t understand why The Bible, out of all the hundreds of thousands of works of literature produced in the annuls of human history, has developed such an incredibly fervent following.  Sure it’s a pretty cool story, but so are The Odyssey, Don Quijote, and The Lorax.  Even a nearly unreadable mess like Naked Lunch sheds some light on the human condition if you catch it right, so where are the barkers on the street spreading the gospel of doing bag after bag of heroin and staring at your toes for days on end?

I am guessing that this is where “faith” comes in, an idea that I have spent many years disparaging in the bitter, condescending manner favored by modern-day secular intellectuals such as myself.  But even though I wasn’t buying much of what those good folks were selling and still think religion is pretty asinine; their patient way of carrying water for the topic lead me to believe it shouldn’t be looked at with any more disdain then most of the bullshit I do in my free time.

After giving it plenty of thought, I can’t really think of any material difference between those kind missionaries dispersing fliers outside Big Daddy’s Female Impersonator Show and yours truly spending $12 to play Gaucho all the way through on the jukebox at Monkey Hill, except for the fact that the Jesus freaks were surely a lot more genial and probably had much purer intentions.

I guess it is in everyone’s best interest to find a few things that they love and are not afraid to share with the world.  For me, these things include an ironic jazz-rock band known by most people my age either as a punchline in a Judd Apatow flick or “that dude who did ‘Rikki Don’t Lose That Number.’”  For others, it may be a belief that your personal relationship with an unseen almighty being determines what happens after you shuffle off your mortal coil.

These are two very diseparate things for sure, but trying to objectively judge one as more valid than the other is really just a waste of time, time that would be much better spent partying with whatever it is that happens to get your rocks off.

My brother has lived in New York City for almost a year and a half now, and this has given us two or three occasions to engage in the Manhattan version of our favorite shared pastime: walking around a major metropolis without the trappings of a destination or an agenda.

The starting point of our trip is usually determined by where we want to catch lunch and we head out equipped with nothing more than a comfortable pair of shoes and a good sense of direction.  No cabs, no subway, just two dudes who haven’t seen each other for a while running wild on the public thoroughfares of a big city. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve already had my fair share of “firsts” since I relocated down to the Big Easy.  Since January I have experienced my first Mardi Gras, my first bowl of turtle soup, my first Jazz Fest, my first crawfish boil and my first concert at Tipitina’s, just to name a few.  And there is a chance I will be experiencing another first as early as Saturday morning:  my first hurricane evacuation.

That bastard Gustav has already got 20 50 some bodies on him and is doing a dance around Jamaica at the moment.  While he is still about 5 days away from hitting US soil, the pained and protracted guessing game has already begun.

As the local weathermen poked holes in the NHC’s computer model of Fay less than a week ago, they were brazenly flippant, dripping with a wisdom and confidence that was oddly reassuring.  “That bitch over there?  Fuck her.  Trust me man, she ain’t shit.”

But Fay was sweeping in from the Atlantic, and those predictions were made after she had been bumping around on land for a few days.  This fucker, though, is a horse of a different color.  Any storm that looks like it will be parking in the Gulf of Mexico before it make another run at land gets more local attention sooner, but there is no news to report that does not involve hypothetical modeling and statistical doubt.

No more meteorologists defiantly holding middle fingers up at the weather map superimposed behind them as it shows tropical disturbances A-F shattering apart as they hit terra firma hundreds of miles to our north or east.  Instead, experts are now cautiously sharing their best guesses, reiterating in no uncertain terms how uncertain they are.

In reality, the chances of even having to evacuate are slim, and it would be irresponsible to make any definitive predictions about a storm system that is 1,200 miles away.  And I wish I could keep my cool like those life long New Orleanians, you know, the ones that used to evacuate to the French Quarter and stave off the hurricanes made famous by Mother Nature with the hurricanes made famous by Pat O’Brien.

But for a newbie like me – someone who didn’t spend their childhood hoping for the tropical storms of yore to blow in so classes at Newman would be canceled for a few days and is only familiar with the collective consciousness of post-Katrina New Orleans – with the uncertainty comes a greater level of stress, worry and anxiety as we play a waiting game.

We have to wait to see what happens as Gus gets the chance to regroup and recharge in the widest part of the Gulf, where the warm water runs deeper than it has in the history of the planet and acts like high octane jet fuel in the hands that ruthless son-of-a-bitch off in the distance.  We have to wait; knowing that there is not a single thing anyone can do to change his path or itinerary; hoping that he at least tips his hand soon enough so everyone that needs to react can react accordingly; and praying that if he really wants to test the mettle of a city just out of the blocks on the long road to recovery, that he isn’t out for blood.