LIVE at the GILMORE on TOUR in NEW ORLEANS 
a bit of a travelogue for you dear reader with lots of photos of varying focus and clarity
Jour UNE: Arrived 2:30 on Tuesday afternoon to sounds of blues jazz band booming through cavernous airport–clearly tourism board setting tone. Feverish with hopes to see pelicans. Is there a “Formation” tour? Hotel desk clerk’s accent so thick and mellifluous seems improbable. Even with just a cursory 
walk around NOLA I can see it’s going to be hard to tell just what is beautiful and what is evil and what is beauty somehow managed to be begotten out of/despite evil. Oh, the history of race in America. Bourbon Street seems like giant trough for American youths to barf daiquiris.
Jour DEUX: St Louis Cemetery No. 1 stunning (pix/don’t/justice). The glorious beauty of decrepitude. Just a knockout. Possibly greatest place to play hide and seek on earth. And SO MANY truly fantastique protracted (lots of “de la,” etc.) French names. Tour guide described tombs as “slow cooker cremation.” Holds Marie Laveau and somewhat less interestingly Nicholas Cage’s (future) tomb ici. 
A poke about a convenience store in Treme for a trad Hubig’s pie (outta biz, sad face) yielded a conversation with elderly Honduran gentleman who’d been in NOLA for 50 years who cautioned me in a level mild voice “you be careful now.” So photogenic is NOLA, I swear there’s a veritable patina of photographed-ness, you can just…feel…the number of pictures that’ve been taken. Backstreet Museum includes much history of Mardi Gras Indians and social clubs with eye-goggling manifestly awesome/gorgeous costumes and stories of the neighborhood/people who have passed. 
I didn’t see any costumes of Big Chief Allison “Tootie” Montana but tribute and picture of him–one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. Congo Square not as big as I thought. Bought New Orleans Pralines at gas station on way home. OK but suspected copious nut-shaped lumps designed to throw you off the-lack-of-(expensive)-pecans scent. While I doubt they make much, nice to see a city where more musicians can get jobs. Fair amount of anarchistesque trainhop youths. WHERE IS THE SPANISH MOSS? 80% of the reason I came here.
Jour TROIS: Ursuline Convent on Chartres. Wowzers. Old. Very clean (easy to imagine a lot of nun pray-scrubbing). Church/chapel just awesome. Saint statues so pleasing. 
Caught in coastal downpour, hovered in doorway. Polite if not totally coherent solicitations for $. General observation of NOLA down/out: alcohol seems to be more the conduit to lives gone off rails, than like the opioid/meth vibe of Portland, ME—but I sure dunno for sure. New Orleans Museum of Voodoo, small, cramped, crammed. This museum could be 20x bigger. 
Has someone done a side-by-side comparison of Henriette DeLille (1813-1862), who started Sisters of the Holy Family and Marie Laveau (1794–1881) both Creole, both women of color, and major players if in very different worlds. Voodoo may I say with an irresponsible lack of data (including things I’ve bumped into this visit but other brief encounters in books/documentaries) strikes me as better able to name/express the depth, breadth, and complication of human experience than much of Christianity I grew up with. Fair? Huh. Café du Monde beignets worth every bit of hype. 65% of NOLA dogs pit bulls? No one has used the word ‘racism’ on a tour yet. Coffeehouse fella says potpourri truck goes down length/breadth of Bourbon St. in summer to smother the vomit/pee smells—I can’t help but laugh long and noisily. Hotel has free popcorn.
Jour QUATRE: no Big Freedia sightings. French Quarter, etc., zoning laws must be draconian to keep out all but drugstore chains. St. Louis Cemetery No. 2 could (has supplied?) supply of endless album covers. Lovely. Deconsecration (burial in these cemeteries a little more fluid than one might imagine from outside) must be big biz. New Orleans African American Museum of Art, Culture and History closed for renovations, rats. Tomb of Unknown 
Slave, well—to say words are inadequate is inadequate (text from plaque below—do read). Bumped into small parade in Treme. Unclear if I was voyeuristic tourist ghoul by following. Decided maybe not. Realized unpositive associations with marching bands possibly related to college football hysteria/worship. Ate fried chicken from a liquor store. Gave WWOZ a listen. The Joan d’Arc parade entertaining but more LARP (and white) that expected. Shiny-sparkly-vampy-campy versions for other days, other times. Ducked into Napoleon House for a club soda and to admire Napoleon busts and inhale atmosphere of 18th century NOLA governor’s plots to assist exiled emperors on Corsican islands. I miss my guitar.
Jour CINQ: Jazz Pilates exist. Wondered at beignet patent laws, munching through several more at Café du Monde. 
Everything tastes better under a striped white and green awning. Came across ceremony commemorating anniversary of Battle of New Orleans in Jackson Square with assemblage of priests, baby-faced military cadets, men in 19th c. naval hats. 
Pre-Mardi Gras-gaming round of King Cakes (so many species BTW) has dried up. Heresy: two po’ boys in and not wowed. Never realized how Catholic NOLA was. St. Patrick’s on Camp St. has all the eye candy of that religious affiliation. Taken out by pals (bless them) for fancy foods, including Pommes Soufflé, Frenchly fried puffy potato throw pillows and a fav of my good friend Louis Phillip I. Jazz played. I do like a banjo. Disconcertingly wee saxophone. Think the amount of French peppering menus, streets/lingo in NOLA is just the right amount for me to be able to keep up my French affectation.
Jour SIX: Garden District ahoy. Decided tour guide was flirting with me. Less garden-y and gardenia-y though than might have expected. Liked a big pink house Mark Twain liked. Red beans/rice for lunch. First street trolley ride: ace. As we passed (another) monument with (another) historical bronze dude, my pal B asked, 
“Wonder who that is?” and I said, without thinking, “Oh, some asshole,” and I was about right. Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo is really a gift shop rather than history or quasi-history museum (BTW THIS WOMAN DESERVES A MUSEUM) and reminded me of Salem, where Wiccan accouterment is sold in a manner one might find spiritually dubious. Debated if there were more porkpie hats or massage/foot reflexology parlors. Bumped into casino looking for ATM ($6 fee—retrench!) reminded me to look up ride on Steamboat Nanchez to discover in seasonal repairs, natch. Must be satisfied with Algiers Ferry. STILL have not heard the word racism in any touristy context. Did the tourist board ban? Have now witnessed 3 street fights.
Jour SEPT: Joggo led me through hard luck haunt Pontchartrain underpass (there/but/grace/god, x1000) scouting for possible visit to mansion with dollhouses/frog legs (failed but FYI) I was fixin’ to see. 
Fleur de Lys on my waffle at hotel breakfast bar. BTW, have NOLA and Venice (Italy) talked—much in common—threats of flooding, famous for cuisine, big masked parties, 
seafood, depravity, livelihoods based in part on some cultural moment frozen in time? God bless grids of NOLA, not ever really lost yet. Katrina. Katrina, Katrina, Katrina. Conversations often back to Katrina. Wandered around Tchoupitoulas Street, mostly because I liked name of street. Considered buying muffalotta but not big olive fan. Saw truck with giant smiley red crawfish and WE HAVE MUDBUGS written underneath. Still chewing over story Louis Armstrong sold brick dust as youth in Storyville (red light district) to break spells.
Jour HUIT: Ooomphed up for day’s adventure with Big Freedia vids—“release your wiggle” best line ever? Bayou 
Swamp tour. Gators lured with marshmallows tossed on water resemble turtle eggs. Glassy water. SPANISH MOSS. Sinister 
fecundity, unrelenting, upsetting decay. Involved in the gentlest shipwreck ever after the engine of the “L’il Cajun” died. Bonked about against cypress knees, reeds, water hyacinths while guide with Cajunly philosophical calm called to Swamp Tour HQ and we were shortly led to board second boat. Saw two baby gators, one of which our guide almost fell out of the boat trying to pick up, a nutria (like rat crossed with capybara) and lots of tall birds with skinny legs. Our guide—55? 60?—talked about swamp life in old-tymey manner, possibly pretending to be the exact thing he exactly was. Tourist industry leads to weird psychological situations maybe. The seafood market had awesome carnival décor. Back in NOLA filming on Royal St. bored looking extras in 19th century costumes. New Orleans Pharmacy Museum (first U.S. sorta official apothecary shop) more interesting/less horrifying 
than might have 
thought. Attempted comparison-shopping and beignet-ed alfresco at second café listening to cops good-naturedly nag loiterers. Shocked to discover may be possible for something to be TOO deep fried (!?) Paid $1 to be insulted. Taken to dinner at Irene’s—suchatreat. Even if the food had been terrible, and it was very, very, good, it would have been awesome, for the hunkered down, old school, wood paneled glory of it. Just a wee peek at hotel cable newz reminds me that Louisiana opus All The Kings Men possibly most apropos. Will I ever eat a vegetable again.
Jour NEUF: Ferry excitement. SAW 2 PELICANS (can one ever see enough pelicans). Feverish trip through Algiers, pardon Algiers you really do deserve better. Trolley to City Park, oh I’m glad I didn’t talk myself out of going as little out of the way. Delicate little bridges, showy palm trees, 
Spanish moss, White Ibis clustering decoratively (odd, funny, pretty birds, seems like David Attenborough would like). Gentility+. Had stranger take unflattering photos of me sidesaddle on lion sculpture (will not share). Celebration of Oaks, giant very very old oak trees everything I like about nature, and I sighed, then a breeze picked up and the Spanish moss drifted. Magic. Botanical Gardens less Edwardian or Art Deco gaga than I might have (greedily?) hoped but did have Mr. Bingle float warehoused in the back. Serious death glare from teenage ticket attendant, I’d hate tourists too after a while but still it stung a little. 
Trolley driver chatty, pleasant, on job for 25 years said seen lives go to pot, particularly from the drink and young people getting into stripping/prostitution racket (note: did not visit Larry Flynt’s Barely 
Legal Strip Club). Found Dooky Chase’s lunch buffet on Orleans Ave. Attacked with vigor. Peach cobbler like eating someone else’s happy memory. After food coma nap at hotel, overdue visit to Frenchman’s Street. Jazz ignorance as pervasive as anticipated but youth horn/drum fellas on corner playing loud and loose was awesome. NOLA Food Find Fail: Étouffée (references cooking method, means stifled in French, haha), and gumbo. Oh, eggscellent trip. And I was just getting started.
POSTSCRIPT: at airport was able to address question that troubled me: if Dunkin Donuts in Boston have Boston Crème Donuts do Dunkin Donuts in New Orleans have Beignets? No, they do not. Too damn many of them already I was told. C’est suffisant.
BABY’s GOT SNACK: Zapps Voodoo flavored potato chips
Zapp’s brand chips are a species indigenous to Louisiana. The brightly colored Voodoo flavor on display at the corner store (weirdly?) perked me right up after I’d wilted from excessive NOLA touristing. Alluring packaging indeed. May I point out all potato chips everywhere have cast spell over me, haha. I did read Zapp’s Voodoo flavor was begotten out of an accident where a bunch of flavors mixed together, which is pleasing potato chip flavor origin story. Was vastly entertained by thinking of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist flavored chips, and this made me wonder if anyone had lodged a complaint about the use of Voodoo, as we know, a serious religion, in this context. If there are dolls with pins all over the package how might crucifix go over? Huh Anyway. I opened. I chomped. And, here we are, my friends, where I must confess, when I know you rely on me so heavily for my snack discernment, what are the limitations of my palate. I attempted to detect buttery overtones of sour cream, hints of the brine of simulated crawdads, inflections of French colonialist history…and yet…well, not too much came to mind. I thought: they tasted good and maybe a little vinegary and had a good crunch. Lordy bless, what kind of snack review is that? OK, there was some flavor bunchball going on and I sensed more than could taste BBQ and all of it worked, but what was going I couldn’t tell. I briefly considered being fried in peanut oil made them seem thicker undertooth, but I suspect that’s just kettle-cooking. I did like them. I think they worked in fine tandem with a po’ boy or sub or veggie/ham/burger. I’d eat them again. But a second round, with a bag Spicy Cajun Crawtators proved was more to my liking. But I’d have preferred to prefer Voodoo.
From the plaque at The Tomb of the Unknown Slave: On this October 30, 2004, we, the Faith Community of St. Augustine Catholic Church, dedicate this shrine consisting of grave crosses, chains and shackles to the memory of the nameless, faceless, turfless Africans who met an untimely death in Faubourg Treme. The Tomb of the Unknown Slave is commemorated here in this garden plot of St. Augustine Church, the only parish in the United States whose free people of color bought two outer rows of pews exclusively for slaves to use for worship. This St. Augustine/Treme shrine honors all slaves buried throughout the United States and those slaves in particular who lie beneath the ground of Treme in unmarked, unknown graves. There is no doubt that the campus of St. Augustine Church sits astride the blood, sweat, tears and some of the mortal remains of unknown slaves from Africa and local American Indian slaves who either met with fatal treachery, and were therefore buried quickly and secretly, or were buried hastily and at random because of yellow fever and other plagues. Even now, some Treme locals have childhood memories of salvage/restoration workers unearthing various human bones, sometimes in concentrated areas such as wells. In other words, The Tomb of the Unknown Slave is a constant reminder that we are walking on holy ground. Thus, we cannot consecrate this tomb, because it is already consecrated by many slaves’ inglorious deaths bereft of any acknowledgement, dignity or respect, but ultimately glorious by their blood, sweat, tears, faith, prayers and deep worship of our Creator.
