We had a lovely time in New Orleans. Secret Agent Fred had never been and was most impressed with all the the charm, the architecture, the food, the cute boys, and mostly the law that allows you to take your cocktail with you out of the bar in a plastic Go Cup. There were many Go Cups involved.
Also involved was the ongoing misapprehension by about everyone we came in contact with (including the hotel desk clerk, who I'm pretty sure was an old trick of mine) that Fred was my spouse and that I was an abuser. Spousal Abuse! How hilarious. Fred had gotten in a brawl in a bar here the night before we left (oh, those Irish hooligans) that resulted in a broken jaw, a black eye, and various scrapes and bruises.
I thought about getting a tee shirt that said "Not My Fault" but I never got around to it.
It also resulted in us using a candy wrapper as an eye patch and a 40 of piss water beer as an accessory one late night in a patio at our hotel. It was a very late night.
The same night, same patio, I was a middle aged mutant ninja. I supposed it was result of all those people thinking I had popped Fred in the eye in some misguided homage to Rick James.
Speaking of happy times, we celebrated my birthday at one of my favorite joints, Liuzza's, where we were joined by a gang of best old friends
Let's just call them "The Girls."
as well as Diane von Austinburg and blogger extraordinaire Jason from Night is Half Gone
who very, VERY sweetly brought my favorite birthday cake in the world, a New Orleans specialty called a Doberge. Rich and totally delicious.
We also got to hang out with Jason and his drastically good looking boyfriend at an odd bar outside the French Quarter. The joint had this bullet proof door you had to be buzzed in through, I suppose with the idea it would keep out the low lifes, but there were plenty more riff raff inside than out, so maybe that plan wasn't working so well. Also, I have no pictures from that part of the evening because by then I was so loaded I apparently mistook my car keys for some kind of super spy camera and tried taking pictures with them. Again, another plan that so very didn't work. Still Jason and his boyfriend John were funny and charming, just like his blog so it was fun.
Most of our time was just spent wandering around the French Quarter and the neighborhood next door, the Faubourg Marigny. During the prehistoric time I lived there, The Quarter was the gay neighborhood and Marigny a quiet little backwater, but time marches on and now The French Quarter is much too expensive real estate for impoverished poofters (like I was) and now all my friends have fled to the Faubourg, a charming area full of pretty houses that have benefitted from this migration.
My friend Cow Queen says the places that used to be cheap apartments in the Quarter are now vacation homes for out of towners. Certainly that would explain the odd, almost deserted quality its streets have at night now, so different from the crazy buzzing energy of my youth there.
It was sad and sort of poignant to walk them after midnight, as we did so often, and see so few people around. It reminds me how wildly lucky I was to be there when I was.
What else, let's see....
At some point on every trip I make to the Old Country someone snaps a "I Walked with a Zombie" shot of me.
Our hotel, the Provincial, located directly across from where R Man and I used to live, had an unexpectedly charming bar in it. If you're in town I recommend it.
You get home from a trip, look through your photos and wonder "Why did I take four pictures of a dumpster?" Then you remember you liked the color of the shutters and were, perhaps, a tiny bit loaded.
Our friend Rich has the most charming patio. Full of bananas and elephant ears and ginger, it's like the definitive New Orleans setting.
So, yeah, a fabulous trip and a sweet reminder of how I love the old place.
Wow, everybody looks great! Well, except for poor Fred. I hope he's doing better. And since when did Jason have a boyfriend? How did I miss this? Now I'll have to cross him off my list.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I'll just settle down with Diane...
(Not that that would be "settling" in any way!)
DeleteJason is the very embodiment of discretion, the sly minx. If I hadn't weaseled it out of him in person, the world would never have known. And the boyfriend is CUTE cute.
DeleteThom, you obviously have not been reading Jason's blog enough. Even I knew he had a boyfriend! And I take your comment in the spirit in which it was intended: vodka, I think.
Deleteplease stop beating up dear fred. being a secret agent is hard work, and a surprise vacation beating is j ust too much. so glad you had fun.
ReplyDeleteLooks like fun, but poor Fred.
ReplyDeleteCan you tell us more about his fight?
"You get home from a trip, look through your photos and wonder 'Why did I take four pictures of a dumpster?'"
ReplyDeleteBeen there.
Jx
There's a bar on the ground floor of the building he lives in (that pretty much says it right there, doesn't it?) Fred took exception to something someone there said to him, came back to paste up signs accusing them of homophobia, the bartender came upon his vigilante art and beat the crap out of him. Fred's doing much better now. The bar tender's in jail.
ReplyDeleteHooligans.
Prison is too good for a thug that would beat the lovely Fred.
ReplyDeleteDiane looks so lovely in that photo.
Will Mr. P have one more than the usually imbibed one drink this July, with us, when we're there for my half-century? It's not a requirement, but it might help you to enjoy the company of a couple of Scottish 'teuchters'. Which spell check wanted to change to 'touchers'.
I love traveling with you and Fred! Thank you for sharing your adventures with us. I haven't been back to NOLA since Katrina, your observations are revealing and appreciated.
ReplyDeleteI once used my metal business card case as a camera... overall it was probably best.
Somedays I wish I hadn't taken a non-violent pledge or what wouldn't I say about the homophobic bar owner.
OMG. Best wishes to Secret Agent Fred for a full and speedy recovery, as well as a smooth transition to a new undercover identity and life. After all, he can't be a secret agent now that his once- and soon-to-be-again-handsome visage has been spread across teh Interwebs, now can he?
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear you, Fred, Ms. Von A., and your other hangers-on enjoyed the trip to your old stomping grounds. It looks like you had a lot of fun. And wasn't that building with the clock featured in "Dark City" or "Insurrection" or "Back to the Future" or some similar film??
Lastly, you took that photo because the Dumpster is an interesting and attractive shade of dark orange. You're just trying to lead the trend of revisiting the decorating colors of the '70s. I think Mr. Brady's employee Alice would feel right at home with kitchen counters in that color. ;-)
So much right-clicking of Peenee to do.
ReplyDelete