May 2, 2011: Rabbit Hole

Sunday May 1st:

Did my usual, hit Buffa's Bar for 2 eggs and some coffee. Sat next to your typical jazz fest guy, drinking bourbon on ice, and smoking a cigarette. There is a back room to Buffa's, you go in the back, down a corridor that reveals nothing and bammo! you turn a corner and there's the back room - teaming with new orleans local life, filled to the brim, not an open seat to be found, plates of biscuits and gravy on tables, a jazz ensemble playing, ladies in hats, its like you fell down the rabbit hole. That is New Orleans, surprises of life behind the door, around the corner, an explosion of energy, a secret society of fun, music, drink, food, celebration of all things that should be and ARE - there, in New Orleans. You want to be one of them, you ARE one of them, you don't want to ever leave. You want to shut the door on your old, non working life, and put on a party hat, and order some food that will kill you, and forget everything else indefinitely. Please put cheese on my fries! Please put everything on my roast beef sandwich from Verti Mart, that is possibly the best roast beef sandwich I have ever had in my entire life. Did you know that Verti Mart [a deli/grocer in the lower quarter] is open 24 hours, and delivers? You wouldn't discover that by walking the same path, same street, same place. It was a .30 min wait for that sandwich, as the kitchen was backed up, and the person taking the orders was actually one of the cooks and didn't know how to work the cash register, but you forgave him instantly, because of his blue crinkly eyes and ponytail, and the fact that you knew he would be in the deli until sun up making food for drunks, insomniacs, and musicians.

Sunday morning, you knew everyone else was in a hurry to get up to the fest, to close out 1st weekend. I stood waiting for the bus, but was taken over by a sneezing attack, and had to abandon post back to Buffa's for a kleenex. When I came back, a lady joined me at the curb. She was a local. We talked about bike riding to fest, but she said she was worried she'd get hit by a car as she was usually trashed when she left. I personally don't know how people maintain any level of drunkenness there what with the heat, and all the walking. [I would disprove this theory later]. The bus never came, and luckily, my new friend Lisa had some friends drive by and offer her a lift, and after the 'once over' they invited me. Once in the car, I understood the once over looks: a full p**&^ of Jamaican h*$#, and a lovely, relaxed ride to the fairgrounds - again with an unexpected turn, a car full of locals, listening to their stories of catching up, who they were going to close the fest with, and about the dead body Lisa found on her front porch the other night.