All of this naturally came as news to me.
There was a gang of lesbian street rapper-poetesses who performed together and formed a militant ad hoc arts collective. There were six of them: three were white; two were black; and one I found was quite frankly impossible to categorize accurately. They were posed in a centerfold group shot that showed dark lipstick grins and an abundance of less than finely toned flesh, which they clearly couldn’t give two shits about. The ladies were scheduled to stage a guerilla reading event tonight, part poetry slam, part agitprop declaration. The tenor of the article strongly suggested that those of us who possessed penises, and who used them in a heterosexual manner, were permitted to attend, but only if we promised to behave ourselves and “shut our prissy little asshole breeder mouths and let women talk for a fucking change.”
It was the work of a spilt second to not schedule that event on my busy dance card for this evening.
I put the magazine down in defeat and looked at my phone.
I’d now been all the way through the archived obsessions of Croftertales and I’d read every theory and fan note contained therein. I still had more questions than answers about Logan and his last days and death. The mystery of the Deltatones was solved. Logan tuned a guitar and one of their songs got played that way the one and only time. The people who had spotted the similarity were to be commended for possessing a sharper ear than I could claim.
There was still the whole wide expanse of the Internet to trawl for more Logan lore, but my suspicion was that I had already covered the cream of the conspiracies, and that the balance would be a rapid descent into avenues of even more labyrinthine fancy and fixation.
I was still curious about “Circumstance.” How come nothing existed on this other example of music theft? Was Stephen Park mistaken?
Where to look next?
My ruminations were interrupted by the sound of the café door opening. This was a welcome development. The boudin bank was now open for withdrawal. When I got to the front of the line I willed my arteries to relax and open wide, as I scanned the menu in a desultory fashion. Every breakfast entrée came with a cupcake for fifty cents extra. I considered the offer carefully. There was little possibility I’d eat it after the boudin. I was certain I would keel over and expire if I tried.
“Would you like a cupcake with that, Tom?” The same young lady had now served me twice. It was one of those places where they attached your first name to the order, and she had remembered mine for some reason. She smiled at me encouragingly.
“Why not?”
* * *
It’s still not clear to me where the divide between the Marigny and Bywater districts occurs. It may not matter that much, as my intended stroll along Chartres would surely manage to bisect both.
It was a ridiculously fine day.
My chosen route passed new urban planning: an art gallery; an environmentally friendly play-park, which naturally looked boring; a steep rusted footbridge over the train tracks; the first stages of a waterside common area with massed flowers and a spongy manmade path, the surface forgiving on legs intent on hitting the ground hard and often.
Marigny and Bywater were in classic rebirth mode. Next would come far higher rents, mass bohemian exodus, teardowns, and gentrification projects. The locals would certainly whine.
There was still isolated blight. I noticed the gaudy wrecks of an abandoned diner and a vegetable-canning factory. And, in the in-between stages: a clearly extant junkyard; artistically over-graffitied garage doors; a record shop; a bare-brick neighborhood restaurant boasting praline bacon. I just knew that tempting treat would react adversely with my not insubstantial boudin and cupcake base. It was wiser to keep moving, rather than lick my figurative chops and foolishly linger.
The record store seemed the healthier option.
The outside offered up a scruffy mural to the ghosts of New Orleans music. I recognized Fats Domino and Louis, Prima and Armstrong. There was a host of others I was unwilling to confess I wasn’t familiar with.
A woman paid for a Two Gallants record with a twenty-dollar bill and received distressingly little change. I realized I didn’t have much cash left on me, but one preoccupied, moustache-muffled grunt from the Fu Manchu lookalike behind the counter assured me that my credit card would do just fine.
Most of the main floor was devoted to vinyl and, as such, was of little use to me. Many years ago Nye and I donated our turntables and all the albums we owned to a soup kitchen where we volunteered.
An imperial stout–fueled pact preceded our altruistic act. We agreed that one year would have to elapse without a second spent cringing to the cracks and hisses of our long-cherished galleries of plastic. The allotted time had passed and we made our donations gladly.
We had both come to regret our spirit of largesse.
I could always start over. But my house in Boulder is a little one and space is restricted. And what would I do with all my compact discs? Find another needy church sale perhaps? I could give them to the homeless shelter in Boulder where I volunteer.
A veritably vicious circle of compulsive collecting and altruistic discarding insidiously beckons.
Fu was pulling records from a cardboard box and placing them on the glass countertop; it was primo punk plastic from the end of the seventies: Buzzcocks, Undertones, The Damned, Sham 69 et al, mostly in twelve-inch colored vinyl and picture sleeves. His face remained impassive. This had to be his buyer’s countenance, his game face, the one he used to accompany shameless acts of barefaced lowballing.
He was appropriately turned out in a pit-sullied Stiff Little Fingers T-shirt, paper-thin and stretched across a substantial gut.
“Be with you,” Fu mumbled without looking up.
The seller was an older gentleman in a short-sleeved Chicago Cubs shirt and pleated denim shorts. He was summoned over. The verdict was grimly rendered. A piece of paper was slid perfunctorily across the glass.
“I can maybe go more for trade,” Fu said.
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“Don’t do that much punk.”
“Could you go higher?” the Cubs fan pleaded.
There was a shake of the head before the delivery of a well-practiced pause. “Cash or trade?”
The seller’s voice was good and beaten when it finally emerged.
“Gimme the damn cash.”
A paltry sum of money changed hands, and the box was refilled and placed carefully behind the counter. Another in a long history of losses for the Cubbies.
The champ was ready for me now. At least he had the good grace not to be smiling.
I’ve noticed before that the relationship between locals and tourists in New Orleans is a bewildering one. The city needs out-of-town dollars badly and thus casts a forgiving eye on the more crassly loutish behaviors by the more exuberant vacationers.
You don’t need a carnival to carnival in New Orleans.
But the city also insists on snapping at the feeding hand on occasion. As a marketing strategy this works up to a point. The hardier sightseers will often request that their slice of local life be served up roughly by the street performer who simultaneously insults and cajoles as he smiles and picks your pockets. There’s a collective willingness to acknowledge the ever-present grift by both sides in the tourism game. Clearly no one wants the place mistaken for a Disney attraction, but the Big Easy denizens may push the envelope in their desire to offer a hardcore holiday. A sense of danger and real danger are two different things.
The guide books continue to delineate the safe zone of the Quarter, and hint at the danger lurking only feet beyond Rampart in the Treme section, but their warning tone seems intended as much to titillate as to caution, while unlucky vacationers do on occasion fall victim to a lot more than a good fleecing.
The huckster methodology can go too far. You can bullshit us
with your historical quadroons and your antediluvian voodoo tales, cajole us with offers of bouncy tits and shiny beads, and mock us for our wrinkle-resistant Dockers. Yet New Orleans does want and need our cash, and we know y’all do want us to come back real soon.
All this talk serves as preamble to the fact that I was more than ready for the guy in the record store, a certified colorful character, with an attitude certain to be pungent with mockery.
Best to play along. I went with an innocuous opening. “I’d like to buy some local music.”
“You want it on plastic?” A begrudged chance to not look like a total douche.
“No, on compact disc,” I said, earning zero hipster points.
“What do you like?”
“All sorts.”
“That doesn’t help. Tell me the last five shows you saw.”
I thought for a moment. “Carly Williamson in Oxford. Wilco in Chicago. War on Drugs in Boulder. Joe Henry. Andrew Bird. Punch Brothers.” I realized that was six.
Was he maybe the tiniest bit impressed? Had he expected James Taylor or Billy Joel for fuck’s sake?
“You’re kinda old for most of that shit.”
“You’re kinda fat for that T-shirt.”
“Fuck you, too.” But he was smiling.
“Henry’s about my age,” I told him. “The guy who plays guitar for Wilco is older.”
“Really?” Brutally sarcastic.
“Yeah. Really.” Ditto.
“Cline’s pretty cool though.”
“Your sales technique sucks.” I said.
“Like I give a fuck,” Fu retorted.
We had reached a standoff.
“Get the fuck over here Mister Hipster.”
He started handing me discs. We were shopping.
“Got a lot of compilations. Mostly jazz and funk and rap ‘round here. The people you listen to aren’t exactly known for their funk. Bird sung on a Preservation Hall collection. Henry was part of a Toussaint tribute. He produced some tracks on a compilation that raised a million bucks for musicians’ houses in the Upper Ninth. He produced Aaron Neville and Toussaint, too, when he played with Elvis Costello. He even helped that actor from “House” make some New Orleans music. He’s from the same place as you.”
“He’s English,” I reminded him.
“The ‘House’ guy did his best. Music was decent. He had Dr. John sing a song. Irma Thomas helped out. Takes some monster-ass showbiz balls to go up against those two.”
He handed me two more discs.
“These are okay,” He allowed.
I read the titles. From Piety to Desire: Music from the Crescent City Streets. The sleeves were both identical, except for two different volume numbers in red ink. Both showed a black-and-white photo of rail lines and a saloon on Basin Street at the beginning of the nineteenth century on the front side. On the back were the track lists and musician credits, running times; not too much else. The label was Raleigh Rye Records. The company address was a post office box in the Garden District. No phone number. No website or email address or social media outlets were mentioned.
“Been seeing these since the late eighties. Strictly a local label with limited releases. There’s been over forty,” Fu explained. “Owned by a strange old dude. He put a whole bunch out after Katrina, and his numbering system kinda went all to shit. Not much rap. Gotta admit they’re all really well produced.”
He handed me volumes seven and ten.
“Why did you give me these two?”
He shrugged. “Only shit we have in stock.”
“I want to see some live music.”
“Lucky you. Meters are playing on Napoleon tonight.”
“Where do I get a ticket?” I asked.
He smiled nastily at me. “Take care of you right here.”
“I want to see a second line.”
“The radio station website lists them. You got lucky again. Season just got started.”
My haul now amounted to eight CDs at over a hundred bucks and a concert ticket for about half that. I summoned up my nerves and asked for a bag. It was grudgingly produced. I decided to make one last pitch for credibility and pointed at his shirt.
“I once owned Alternative Ulster.”
He wasn’t impressed. “Good for you. Wanna buy it again? Got a seven-inch first issue. Misprint on the label says Ulster was the B side. Let you have it for a hundred twenty.”
“I thought you didn’t sell much punk?”
“You want it?”
“No,” I told him.
“Enjoy the show.”
We were clearly done.
Outside the store I pulled up eBay and found a guy in London selling the same record for sixty dollars American, plus twelve to ship.
Same misprint on the record label.
Same two songs.
Better attitude.
* * *
The Meters played slick mechanized funk in a famous city club, and the downstairs dance floor was organic and seething. There were none of their original members on the stage. The club used to be in a juke joint where a handful of people got together to watch Professor Longhair perform in the seventies. The Meters were once the backing band for Lee Dorsey. I’d seen them play before, at a Chicago summer festival held on a city sanitation department parking lot on a blistering day.
Outside, the night air was cooling and the funk sweat evaporated on the skin as I stood on Napoleon and took a few deep breaths. A rusted-out Chevy Impala pulled up at the intersection and a window rolled down.
A voice shouted. “Y’all are fucking yuppies.” Three empty liquor bottles were thrown from the car. I ducked for no good reason. All three detonated harmlessly in bright splinters behind me as the V8 engine grew impatient.
“Fuck y’all.” There was a stabbing of laughter as the big car pulled away. The plates were Louisiana. That was as much as I got. The color was maybe a sky blue and navy two-tone paint job. The eighteens were chrome custom and shinier than anything else on the vehicle.
* * *
The Meters show had ended early and the four-mile walk would get me to the Quarter and the last show of the night on St. Peter at around ten. Regular tickets were dirt cheap but required standing on the street outside. The inflated price of a sugar-sweet cocktail in a plastic cup afforded me all access to view the shifting urban procession.
The concert was an hour long, and the audience mostly perched on benches or stood reverently in the mildewed darkness as the band sat on wooden chairs in the front of the peeling wreck of a room and played. Their uniforms were white short-sleeved shirts crisply starched, dark thin ties, sharp hats. All ages and hues represented on the tiny stage. I had reserved a seat for a twenty-dollar upcharge, which got me a fast pass straight inside, and squatting rights to the thin edge of a hard wooden bench.
* * *
The oldest bar in town was lit solely by single candles on each table and looked to be closed when I got there at eleven thirty. It wasn’t. The back of the room was empty. The tables outside were half full and the front of the room was packed with seriously hammered women aged around thirty-five singing to vintage Bob Seeger cranked high on the digital jukebox and devouring pitchers of Voodoo daiquiris. They all wore tight bejeweled jeans with a lot of white stitching and T-shirts that were stretched taut and bore the wordy and identical legend JANET’S GETTIN’ HER BIG OL’ ASS HITCHED AGAIN IN THE BIG EASY SO US BITCHES ARE GONNA PARTY HARD ON BOURBON STREET!!!
I was surprised to see that the carriage tours of the Quarter ran this late into the night. Each carriage carried a half dozen people and was pulled by a single horse. Each carriage slowed down outside the bar. Each guide barked out the advanced age of the place, recounted the inevitable tale of long-ago haunting, and remarked on the lack of damage the place sustained both during and after Ka
trina.
And each time, a number of Janet’s bitches would rush to the door of the premises and out onto the sidewalk where, with some effort, they would pull up their T-shirts, yank down their lace demis, and flash their tits while collectively cackling like fiends. Carriages full of young inebriates cheered loudly and threw their beads and empty to-go cups. Older passengers rolled their eyes, smiled stoically, and shook their heads in a weary show of indignation.
I sat at an outside table, drank a Turbodog, used my phone to check the second line listings for the next few days on the radio station website, and took frequent breaks to check out the impromptu burlesque each time a tour carriage arrived.
Janet’s bitches showed no sign they would be putting the girls away for the night anytime soon.
* * *
The next day at noon, I got my shoes on the corner of Second and Dryades in the Central City district. The Mighty Messengers of Concord were scheduled to march till four in the afternoon with four brass bands helping them out along the way.
The cinderblock bar at the intersection was to be the start and finish for the event. The place looked nothing remarkable from the outside; it was one of a half-dozen parade stop bars along the designated route. But it had some history. It had been one of the first places to reopen after the storm, and it had also been the scene of some alleged NOPD brutality. In 2006, the owner of the bar was tasered and beat down in full view of a dozen witnesses. No official investigation into the matter had taken place. The owner was black and in his mid-twenties; his customers were all older African Americans. The cops were white. The execution of five young men had taken place a week previous, just a few blocks distant.
Outside the front door, an older gentleman wearing a huge pink sash draped over a black shirt and matching black trousers was taking shelter under a gigantic pink parasol, with a cooler loaded with cold Dixies. He was doing brisk business at three bucks a can.
Colorblind Page 16