May 5, 2003

JAZZ FEST SPECIAL EDITION

    The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival is the largest music festival in the United States, and every spring hundreds of thousands of music fans from all over the world descend upon the New Orleans Fairgrounds for a six day gumbo of music, food, and partying.  As with any massive outdoor event, portable toilets are a necessity.  Ranging from the hundreds of spartan, blue green Port-o-Lets ringing the infield to the massive air-conditioned six stall Crowd Pleaser Winnebagos, the toilets of the Jazz Fest have developed a lore and mystique all their own.  Let's listen in as our panel of Jazz Fest experts - Jeff, Ed, and Dave - share some of their fondest remembrances of the colorful

 Tales of the Jazz Fest Port-o-Lets

JEFF:  I'll tell you, fellahs, I've seen some amazing things at the Jazz Fest over the years, but last year on the final Sunday of the Fest takes the cake.

DAVE:  You're not going to tell the Nicole Kidman story again are you?

JEFF:  As a matter of fact, I am, Dave.  So there I was sweating it out at the Acura Stage watching Fats Domino.  There were over a hundred thousand people there baking in the sun grooving to the Fat Man.  Well, I'll admit it, I had been drinking - quite a lot, in fact - so right about halfway through his set I took a break  to run to the head.  I got to my favorite hidden Port-o-Lets - a line of six tucked right behind the Lost Children Tent - and I get lucky.  Although they are all occupied  there are only about six or seven people waiting in line.  So I stake out a spot in front of one waiting for whoever is inside to finish up so I can take a whiz and get back in time to see Fats bump his piano across the stage.  After about ten minutes, the door finally creaks open and who should walk out but ...

ED:  Academy Award winning actress Nicole Kidman!

JEFF:  Yeah, it was Nicole Kidman, but this is my story so let me tell it, Ed.  Anyway, the only way I could describe her is to say she was "a vision of loveliness." She was wearing this elegant white sundress -  probably one of those Valentino or Oscar de la Renta numbers - and she looked like she was floating on air.  With that auburn hair flowing behind her, a white magnolia tucked behind her ear, and clutching a little white handbag, she looked like she had just stepped out of a fashion magazine.  I nudged the guy behind me in line and said, "Geez, it's Nicole Kidman!" but he was pretty drunk and didn't speak English.  I think he was from Bosnia or someplace.

    Well, she stepped out, gave me a little wink, and then floated away like a little, white cloud.  I rubbed my eyes.  I thought it might have been a mirage.  Anyway, I've still got to go really bad so I step up and open the door to the Port-o-Let Nicole just came out of and you wouldn't believe what I saw.  It was absolutely disgusting in there.  There was crap all over the place.  It was everywhere like some kind of animal had been in there.  Maybe a horse, a big one like a Clydesdale.  And not just any Clydesdale but one with some kind of horrible intestinal disease.  Every surface was covered and mixed in were undigested chicken bones, bottle tops, even something that looked like a yo-yo.  It was disgusting.

ED:  Yeah, I hear that Nicky is a beast.

JEFF:  I'll tell you the truth.  I'll go just about anywhere, but I couldn't even think about stepping in there.  By the time I finally found an open Port-o-Let and got back, Fats had finished, my blanket was gone, and Tom Carney had run off with my date.

DAVE:  That's never good news.

JEFF:  Yeah, but I gotta tell you, Nicole looked fantastic, fresh as a daisy.

ED:  You know, it's interesting, but I had a "Brush With Celebrity" Port-o-Let incident myself just last Saturday.

DAVE:  Really?  Do tell.

ED:  I will.  I was watching Ceryl Ballou and the Zydeco Trendsetters at the Fais Do Do Stage when I heard the Call of Nature, so to speak.  Usually it is not a good idea to use the potties near the Cajun stage ...

DAVE:  I hear you.  Do see what those Cajuns eat?

ED:  But when you've got to go, you've got to go, and there wasn't too long a line.  So I'm in front of a Port-o-Let and the door finally opens and who should stagger out but Matt Damon.

DAVE:  You mean the guy from "The Bourne Identity"?

ED:  Yeah, him, and he looked like hell.  He was really drunk and sweaty and he kind of staggered out pulling up his pants and trying to zip himself up.  I thought he was going to fall flat on his face, but he steadied himself and staggered away.  So, I'm reaching out to open the door and go in after him when it flies open and who should tumble out the door but sexy, sultry, boy toy, teen singer Christina Aguillera!

JEFF:  She's hot!

ED: Not when I saw her.  She looked like hell, too.  She had on one of those little tube tops, but it was all twisted up and one of her breasts was hanging out.  Well, she's trying to pop her boob back in - by the way, she has pierced nipples - and at the same time she is trying to fix her pants.  She's wearing one of those lace up leather chaps and hot pants get ups, but she can't manage to lace them all the way back up.  All the time she is doing this she's cursing and muttering in Spanish as she walks away.

DAVE:  Are you sure it was really Christina Aguillera?  There are a lot of girls out there rocking that "trans-cultural skank" look these days.

ED:  I know that, but she had "X-tina" stitched in red below her butt crack on her little, leather hot pants.  Anyway, she looked like she had been "rode hard and put away wet" as they say.

DAVE:  Sex in a Port-o-Let.  Disgusting to even think about it.

JEFF:  Now, Dave, didn't you tell me your daughter was conceived in  a Port-o-Let by the Gospel tent five years ago during a Mighty Clouds of Joy set?  Remember how you you named her Jazzmine in honor of the Jazz Fest?

DAVE:  Yeah, I suppose you're right, but it was a Crowd Pleaser.  Not a Port-o-Let.  No way!

JEFF:  And if I recall correctly, didn't you meet your first wife in a Port-o-Let behind the Heritage Stage during a Jerry Lee Lewis show ten years ago?

DAVE:  Yeah, maybe so, but it wasn't sex.  We were just fooling around in there.  There's a big difference.

ED: Whatever, but I can tell you Christina most definitely had sex in that Port-o-Let.  So after she comes out dazed and confused, the door flies open again and guess who comes out of the same Port-o-Let next?

DAVE:  Grammy Award winning singer Celine Dion?

ED:  No, not Celine Dion.  It was Ben Affleck, and he was pulling his shirt on, and there were claw marks all over his gross, hairy, sweaty back.

JEFF:  Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Christina Aguillera in a Port-o-Let?  No way!

ED:  But it just gets better.  The door swings open again and out comes Daniel Day-Lewis, then George Clooney, and then Ashton Kutcher, and now it's just like one of those clown cars in the circus, and they just keep piling out after Christina.  I saw Peter Krauss, then that guy from "American Idol" ...

AVE:  Ryan Seacrest?

ED:  No, the other one.  Then some guys I didn't even recognize, they may have been in a band, and finally out pops Bono from U2 with one of those digital cameras and he starts showing everyone around the pictures.

JEFF:  That Christina!  A volume dealer!

DAVE:  Speaking of Port-o-Let overcrowding, I have  story, too.  It was about six years ago.  It was a Thursday at the Fest and not too crowded.  Well, I was over at the House of Blues Stage watching Snooks Eaglin - great set, by the way - and it was near the end of the day.  I was sunburnt, drunk, and I had run out of money.

ED:  I remember that day!  It was a great Snooks show.

DAVE:  Anyway, I needed two things and fast:  more beer and a place to pee.

JEFF:  There you have Jazz Fest in a nutshell.

DAVE:  So I hop over to the Port-o-Lets behind the Native American Stage.  Some guys onstage in feathers are chanting and banging drums.  Just as I am walking out of the john, a group of ten guys wanders by.  They're all blonde, and they don't speak English.  I think they were Norwegians, and they were really drunk, and they were chanting and dancing along to the tribe onstage.  So I don't know where the idea came from, but I started whooping and chanting along and ran up to them and told them that to complete their cross-cultural Native American experience they should go  into an Indian sweat lodge to contemplate the Great Spirit of the Wilderness.  Maybe I should be ashamed of myself, but I told them I had two portable sweat lodges, and I charged them five bucks apiece and shoved five each into the two empty Port-o-Lets.

ED:  No way!

DAVE:  It's absolutely true, and the Norwegian dudes even thanked me.  I can still remember hearing the chanting and drumming coming from inside the Port-o-Lets as I took that fifty bucks and bought a twelve pack of Bud.

JEFF:  Is that where you got all that beer during that Snooks set?

DAVE:  Oh you know it!  And for all I know those Norwegians may still be in there.