Installment #7

Howdy YA'LL from Sooner country, i.e. Oklahoma for you non Americans....I'm in Oklahoma City, having Wichita FAlls, Texas this morning and driven with my cousin up into the near Midwest. This installment will cover New Orleans and up through Thanksgiving so here goes.....

Got off the bus with Kenichi and we walked through some interesting neighborhoods finding the hostel. Came upon one intersection that had no cars but six dogs, some of which were limping away as we got closer, strange but true. The hostel was all right, big with a nice courtyard and when I got there at 10 in the morning, the only person I knew was Kenichi who I met on the bus. He didn't speak any English and so the two of us took off for Bourbon Street. Had a drink before noon in a place that was covered with business cards. It was called the Absinthe House and had layers of business cards, thousands of them lining the walls and giving it a rustic feeling. From there we took the ferry with a couple of other hostel mates we came upon across the Mighty Mississippi River and into Algiers Point. There isn't much going on there. Had lunch at a place called Mena's Palace and shared Seafood Gumbo and a Meatball Po-boy with Kenichi. I had to order his drinks for him because he didn't know how to do it, I hope he got the kinds he wanted. Eventually, after dinner, we went out to check out a place near the hostel called Igor's. We were both exhausted, well at least I was but wanted to see New Orleans at night for a bit. There I met an "interesting" woman who was also a writer but she was even stranger than I was. For fear of offending anyone, I'll just say that she enjoyed telling me that she had purposely gone out the two previous nights to get drunk and as she said, "get me a man." Naturally when she asked me to "ditch your foreigner friend and come out and have drinks with me," I politely let her know that wasn't going to happen and moved on. As we were standing outside, Kenichi was smoking a cigarette and probably politely waiting as this drunken woman alluded to her being an "eccentri millionaire" and then walked off into the humid night. THAT was the end of day one.

Day two became more interesting as I convinced a Swiss guy, and English couple and another Englishman to go to a place I had heard of called "Henry's Soul Food and Pie Shop". It entailed us walking 10 blocks or so through some "dodgy" areas, dilapidated houses, overgrown and trashy sidewalks, the whole nine yards. We DID make it there, but not after some drunken woman trying to fix her car on Claiborne called me baby after seeing my Otis Redding shirt. Henry's was interesting. I ate rice and red beans and pork chops dripping in sauce and cornbread, all for 4.25!! It was salty and fatty but delicious, the moment was made. As we walked Claiborne towards the Superdome, where todays' Bayou Classic between Grambling and Southern is being played, I went into a gas station to get change for the bus. The area was becoming worse and worse and it was during the day. Peter, the Swiss guy comes running into the gas station and says, "HUrry up, we've got a ride!" I'm thinking to myself, I don't know anybody in New Orleans, who's giving us a ride? It turns out her name is Sara and she was driving a large Volvo to acommodate all five us. Apparently she had said to them while I was in the gas station, "Get in, you're not supposed to be here," and then she proceded to drive us to the French Quarter where we walked around for a while. It was at Tower Records on Decatur that we got the free concert tickets at the House of Blues that night. We grabbed a bunch of them and went back to the hostel looking for folks that would want to go. There ended up being eleven of us total going out that night, moving like a centipede in the New Orleans night. You don't want to know how much of a challenge it was to find a place to eat but we did, and they had dollar drinks to boot. We went to the House of Blues,

all eleven of us (their names as I try to remember are: Helen, Lynsey, Dean, Scott, Gemma, Zach, Jason, Shmonie, Hika (sic) and Peter and me). The musician that night was Andy J. Forest, a harmonica player and he rocked the house. Note for Black Crowes fans: They ended the first set with Mellow Down Easy. The second set was brought alive by the people next to us dancing. They were wild and had the best time so naturally we joined. After that, the concert got out about midnight and we straggled onto Bourbon Street which was just coming alive. We went to the Bourbon Street Blues Company where they had a 3 for 1 special!!! 4.25 for three budweisers and 5.20 for three Heinekens, it was crazy. The place had a balcony and after awhile I went out there and watched stragglers cruise the strip, some giving away beads to these very friendly women around me, some earning them the hard way. The place was out of control. A girl next to us was kind enough to take a picture with me while one of our shirts were off, thank you Salina! That picture is going up there with me and the Chicago cop flipping off the camera!!!! A guy exposed himself in the streets and earned small beads for them and was enraged. Five minutes later he was being accosted by the cops and arrested. By three am, I was ready to call it a night and six of us squeezed into a cab and had this Indian guy driving like mad, running red lights and honking as he went through as if it were a warning to cars who had the ride away...THAT was day two.

Day Three in New Orleans had a slow start. Dean and I got some coffee and then walked back to get some of the others together. Helen declared she would make dessert that night, seeing as that she is a pastry chef when she's not travelling and so I said I would coook dinner. We walked miles that day, all over and deep into the Quarter to get groceries for that night's dinner. By seven, we had gotten back to the hostel and we used left over money to buy bottles of wine. It was an intense fiasco cooking Chicken and vegetables and couscous for 8 people or so and had to cook veggies in a couple of different containers. It went over pretty well though and then four of us, Anica, Scott, Dean and I declared ourselves the pilgrams who would get more wine for the group. I walked ten blocks barefoot and got a picture with me and a New Orleans cop with wine in my hand. He was "watching" over a wedding involving dignitaries and was bored but was nice enough to us. I rapped with the security guard while the three of them got what turned out to be a jug of life (large bottle of wine that has a handle on it), another bottle of wine and two bottle of champagne. When we got back eventually, dessert was ready, a bread pudding with stewed apples and it was oh so tasty!!! The drinking took on festive proportions and twice we had to be reminded that there was no alcohol on the premises. Finally at ten o'clock we dragged our group to Igor's grabbing some last minutes folks for a group as large as the previous night. Missing a few details (wink, wink) I awoke the next morning to find my dodger hat on one of the benches out in the courtyard. The next day I rented a car.

Scott and Gemma, Lynsey and I were all heading west. I couldn't bare the thought of taking another overnight Greyhound and so I coaxed them into renting a car and getting to Austin with me. Scott and Gemma wanted to get to LA, Lynsey to Austin to meet friends and me to Dallas for Thanksgiving so I thought it would work out good. We picked it up at the airport and the four of us took off west, me in my first rented car and them in their first time on the right side of the road. My leaving memory of New Orleans is a poem that I wrote before we left:

The dirty feet, and the brown river

From the free ferry in the day,

The blue and sweaty day

Is barely real, enough

I speak in a native tongue

And eat with forks.

The sun has gone down here,

Given up on the timing of these men.

Their eyes, red and slow

Request Bloody Mary's

Choking on the celery, glad

Drinking exists, exists

Like the God many forsake to sit,

Confessing the sins of every man,

Nearly proud there is a confession,

Nearly asleep from Twenty-four hours

Of the Big Easy.

Tomorrow and Yesterday

Are Today, again.

After talking into the sunset, Scott and Gemma decided they wanted to go to Houston because the train would be easier to catch there. We stopped in WAllisville, Texas and met a family who had just come back from hunting, I got a picture with the kid who had nailed his fifth buck, and then the dad was playing with the hooves on the bed of his truck. We left after that into the darkness towards Houston.We had the damnest time trying to find it, that being exemplified but us meeting a cabbie who had just gotten to the train station and he had trouble finding it. Houston had a weird vibe for those few hours and Lynsey and I were glad to get out of there, headed west on highway 290. We stopped in Brenham, because it was late and we wouldn't make it to Austin that night. Lynsey and I found Days Inn and chose it for the complimentary breakfast and after we awoke (I was a perfect gentleman I'd like to add), we scarfed up waffle, toast, tea, cinnamon buns and took some fruit for the road for Austin. We made it to Austin around eleven am and had to immediately return the car. We made it with about ten minutes left to spare and then , stranded at the airport, Lynsey suggest that we take the bus downtown. I went along with it and twenty minutes later we turn the corner of Congress onto Sixth avenue and there is a festival going on, on a MOnday no less!!!! Free water, cheese and crackers and little souvenirs and a funky jazz band and then lo and behold, Jamie Lee Curtis is cruising around the crowd signing autographs!! Apparently she was part of the festival, trying to help sell this new cell phone system to the people. AFter a while of that, we cruised around Austin and I showed Lynsey the fine art of salsas. We hit a couple of different Mexican places on the way back to the hostel and noticed how the salsas and the salsa verdes tasted different at each place. She talked me into a Whistling Cointreau and that was fantastic and then we made it back in the warm Texas wind to find her friends checking into the hostel. There was a free dinner that night for a story and so I told the story about Quebec City and the free sweater and Lynsey, her two friends and I went out to a dive bar which happened to be the place for Monday night football. A couple of dudes came upon us and it was fun watching them try to hit on English women. Needless to say they didn't have much in common.

The next morning I went for a nice run and then BARELY, BARELY made my bus to Dallas. It had crazy traffic in WAco and I arrived an hour and a half late to see my parents there. This was the first moment that I had seen one person that I'd known for six weeks and it was strange though it was good to see them. There I finally met Meredith and she went out to eat with my parents and I then we went to a cool Jazz club called Sambuca's. From there the night ended and I headed off to Wichita Falls for Thanksgiving after.

Not much to say about Thanksgiving though the food was plentiful and it was nice to see my grandparent's new house they just finished building a few months ago.

Tonight I'm being "dragged" to a club in town called Cowboys. I can't wait. Hey all, peace and love to all, write somebody on your list and dammit, if someone writes, write them back, let's spread some joy in the world.(there, Terry, is that better?)

As always, please check out my website

www.geocities.com/jasonconga

and send any thoughts on it to [email protected], Ravi's the guy keeping it all together, thanks Bro! Back downstairs now to watch the biggest sporting event of the year in Oklahoma, the Oklahoma versus Oklahoma State football game.

Peace,