On a dark note...

A friend who I worked with doing background just posted from the ER. Apparently she got mugged and roughed up pretty bad.  The thugs took all of the money she had earned working the past 24 hours. As she laid on the ground dazed and bleeding, herds of revelers just stepped over her. Another girl from Tulane was shot tonight.

I'm sure tomorrow the news will be filled with gruesome stories of shootings, robberies and rapes. The lesser crimes will be so numerous that they probably won't even make police reports. One of the reason I don't mind staying in from the festivities that so many travel here to partake in. This city can turn vicious at the drop of a jester hat. Halloween night an Iraq war veteran was walking down Bourbon with his wife when a group of guys made a comment to her. The Marine of course defended his wife's honor. He was stabbed to death.

Thanksgiving day a popular bartender in the French Quarter had just finished a long grueling shift. While leaving the Quarter he had an altercation with a group of teens and was shot to death. As much as I praise the city I will not deny the ugly, vicious dark side of NOLA. For hundreds of years cutthroats, thieves and scum have roamed these streets in search of victims.



My friend who was cruelly attacked tonight was sober but tired after working for so many hours. She was lucky to have escape with her precious life. Many victims tonight can blame only themselves for not knowing the area and being an easy drunk mark. Tourists and money are like chum in these shark filled streets. 

I don't work on Mardi Gras

I knew a guy who made that statement anytime he applied for a job. Needless to say he never really worked. The painting company I am working for is swamped with work, in fact a few extra people have been hired on. So today we started off to work and gave up on the one job site on Esplenade in the Quarter. Thick sluggish traffic being detoured around parade routes and streets cluttered with  float traffic and dim witted drunks stepping in front of cars without even glancing up. The only way I could describe the entire City of New Orleans to New Jersians would be imagine Seaside Heights on a Fourth Of July weekend.



Beneath the overpasses on Claiborne large crowds flowed towards countless Bar B Qs as the music took on an eerie sound echoeing under the traffic of I-10. Every route that we tried to navigate was lined with brightly costumed groups of liquored up revelers who obviously don't work on Mardi Gras either. We were trying in vein to get caught up on jobs. Deciding that working in the French Quarter was out of the question today, we slowly headed to a painting and siding job uptown. While working, a surprised home owner stuck her head out and proclaimed "Oh, your:e working TODAY? It's Mardi Gras..." "Yea, well, we're Yankees, so here we are."

There are many people who are working today in New Orleans, bartenders, servers, cab drivers, cops and emergancy workers.  I know what they are going through having driven cab on the Jersey Shore for five years. Tomorrow they will wake up exhuasted, aching and with a hatred for humanity.

We were going to run an errand to the Post Office, but they don't work on Mardi Gras either. 

My first Mardi Gras Parade

Tonight I return from my first Mardi Gas parade. After hearing about it for the past 12 months and seeing how this city and it's population are dependent on this season, I had to go. Like a drunk working til Friday every year, New Orleans can finally cum on itself.  Three parades on right after the other tonight.

Bobby and I were joking today about the ladders. There are some die hard parade fans who make it a family event. One tradition is a small open sided box mounted on ladders. Parents bring them along to the parade, and set them up along the parade route. They place very young children into the boxes above the heads of the rest of the crowd so their two year old can catch the best throws.

Bobby commented "Let's see, you're going to place your toddler in a box, nailed to the top of an eight foot ladder, on an uneven sidewalk surrounded by drunks..." I added "THEN you encourage drunks on floats to throw a handfuls of plastic beads at your kid's face. Might as well just put the kid over a dunk tank with a toaster in his lap." Perhaps it's just us being from Jersey, we think this way.

To be honest, I've been dragging heals about going to a parade, it's just me. I hate crowds and dislike drunks, add a lot of walking and spending money to that combination to see why I put it off. Today I had a business meeting in the Quarter and a parade got in the way. So for the sake of this blog and being able to say I went to a parade, I went. I don't drink, however while on Bourbon Street I got downwind of "the wrong crowd."  Second hand smoke, I swear. Really. I was down wind of them from Toulouse to Canal. Caught a buzz. Anyways, that made me want to see a parade. I walked along the St Charles line looking more at the crowd than the parade. It was like watching the religious holiday of a shoe fetish cult.

How did I like my first parade? It was ok.

"Bourbon Street and Beyond"

I got permission (kind of) to publish a tiny bit of the Quarter Rat book "Bourbon Street and Beyond" on line. If I had to choose one story as a favorite it would be this one. Perhaps because I have done mascot work before. One summer I had a job dressing up as a Seagull on the Seaside Heights boardwalk. Jersey's version of Bourbon Street. I hope you enjoy the sneak peek at the book, it will be up on Amazon.com, and available through out the French Quarter in time for Mardi Gras.

Two Queens and a Joker
An almost love story by: Jay Slusher

When I moved to New Orleans in the mid-90s my first job was at a club famous for its 190-proof, melon-flavored drink. They’re also famous for their mascot who dressed up in a heavy fiberglass suit with a full face of Styrofoam and a helmet. Part of my job was keeping drunks from beating on him. It was nerve wracking. I had to watch the door, the floor, and him. Needless to say, I got in a lot of shit.
Back in the day we had reps from the cigarette company come out and give away free smokes to the customers and employees on weekends. We had Winston and this one girl Gretchen. She was really hot for a merchant of death, let me tell ya. We talked about going out a couple of times.

Well, this particular night the mascot guy, named Chris, decided to drop a couple of hits of acid before he got into his suit. I’m at the door talking to Gretchen when I notice a commotion outside. Gretchen is just starting to write her number down, and I see these two drag queens beating the shit out of Chris. I’m talking two six-feet-tall black guys in heels, wigs, and mini-skirts. One of them is getting in some really good shots with a fanny pack with a brick in it. (Little known fact: NOPD doesn’t consider that a weapon. A lot of homeless people carry them.)

I got the real story from the Lucky Dog guy later that night (one of my network of spies and informants).
When the queens came by Chris says, “What’s up, dudes?”
One of the queens replied, “Say what, motherfucker?”
“You heard me, sir. How are you gentlemen doing this evening?”
They go ballistic. Chris is tripping his face off. So, I push Gretchen off and run out to break up the fight. It got rough, I got hit a couple of times, but finally I got that stupid fanny pack away. I hauled off and decked both of them, and they backed off.

I haul Chris to the courtyard where he fell out in the suit, tripping hard. His helmet was all twisted around, babbling incoherently. He couldn’t get up in that suit, so I left him there, face against a keg, hallucinating like a motherfucker. Now, I’ve had some absurd moments in my life but breaking up a fight between two drag queens and a guy in a Hand-Grenade suit is definitely up there.

I get back in the bar and Gretchen and the other, not as hot cigarette rep, are gone. I ask Jimmy the bartender what happened. He says they got scared during the fight and left. Well, shit! I look down on the ground and there’s the piece of paper with her name and the first three digits of her number on it. Double shit! Of course, I never saw her again. I left Chris in the courtyard until we closed; immobilized and tripping balls. Then to add insult to injury, I hosed him down just to help me ease the pain of the phone number lost.

Here's something that you don't see everday...

At least a few times a week you see something like this down here. In this Youtube video we see a wedding parade suddenly appear down Royal Street complete with a police escort and a band.  It's a great quality to this town, a chance of finding yourself caught up in the middle of a parade are about as likely as getting caught up in a rain storm.  For a fee, one can apply for a parade permit,  designated routes and times.  I'm sure it costs a few bucks, but it does come with a couple of cops stopping traffic for your party. I worked a couple of these parades as a Reveler and a Big Head. Fun job. 

Those Damn Beads

The first morning I woke up in my new home of New Orleans, I couldn't wait to go out and explore. As I wondered Magazine Street in the Irish Channel my toes kept kicking string after string of plastic beads. Some places they were so thick, they blocked storm drains. The disposable bobbles adorned fences, power lines, balconies and caused gutters to glitter. It was if plastic beads had been a form of precipitation that week.



I remembered the night before on my ride into the city seeing a large wholesale warehouse with a sign reading MARDI GRAS BEADS. Mardi Gras is not just essential to the spirit and reputation of New Orleans, it's a major part of the economy. Tourism pumps millions into pockets through the usual avenues of hotels, restaurants and drinking establishments, as well as specialty services. Rent a reveler for conventions, beads and throw distributors, float makers and overtime for police and public works employees.  Everyone benefits from out of town drunks tossing money around for experiences they will never remember.

Tossed from floats by the tons every year,  the simple inexpensive trinkets have become a symbal for NOLA. Most locals won't be caught dead wearing them, except for higher quality ones on Mardi Gras. You could hold up a string of rabbit turds to see tourists clammer over each other to catch them. Of course the rest of the country has heard about flashing for beads. That only occurs down on Bourbon Street. The main parade routes wind through the old neighborhoods lined with families who have their young children propped up on ladders to experience the joy of a float reveler tossing them a string of beads or a plastic cup with the Krewe's logo printed on it.

With a little on line research I found a dozen or so bead distributors through out the state, each with at least a dozen or so employees. One business data site estimated the largest distributors of having 1 to 2.5 million in sales annually from beads and associated products. Some will end up hanging from rear view mirrors as the only memory of a lost weekend in New Orleans, the rest draped over tree limbs until the next storm.

Mardi Gras beads

Mardi Gras beads - Mardi gras Imports has a HUGE selection of beads, trinkets, and supplies! We carry every fancy and unusual bead that you could ask for, naughty or nice!

If it's called "Tourist Season" why can't you hunt them?

The book I am illustrating is written by those who work in the service industries down here in the French Quarter. I know the book will appeal to any bartender, waitress, bouncer or cab driver who works in a tourism area.  The Jersey Shore, Miami or Vegas, when folks leave their native environment and travel they forget to pack their manners.

Tourists will behave in ways on vacation they would never dream of acting in their own neighborhood bar or restaurant. When I was driving cab at night in the summer I would encounter individuals from North Jersey or New York who seemed to be void of any courtesy or respect for anyone outside of their drunken circle. Alcoholism does that to humans.

I would politely ask them to please stop screaming at the top of their lungs, not to play with the radio or point out the fact they can't throw pizza out the windows of my cab at pedestrians the general response was "You need to lighten up! We're just trying to have fun." Yea, well so is the total stranger in the white shirt walking down the street who you just hit with a slice of Sicilian.

The Quarter Rat highlights the difference between tourists and travelers. Travelers are welcomed and embraced by New Orleans. A traveler will stop in front of a 300 year old home and soak in the rich architecture and beauty. A traveler will marvel at the fact that people still live in and nurture these historic homes that have survived wars, fires, floods and countless hurricanes. A tourist will piss on the front steps of the same home at 3 am while singing "House of the rising sun" at the top of their lungs.

A traveler will seek out the hidden history and wonders of the city, a tourist will seek out blow jobs. One approaches the locals to find the heart of the land they visit, the other dehumanizes the local population for amusement.

Travelers behave like house guests respecting their hosts, tourists treat their hosts like servants. One summer I had several Guidoes in my cab and one juicehead loudly stated while staring at me in the mirror "Jersey SUCKS! You don't sell beer in 7-11's, the pizza stinks, and everything is overpriced"
"Then why do you come down?" I queried.
"Ta fuck yo bitches."

He was a tourist.

Bourbon Street Tease

"Welcome to the Big Show. Grab your artillery and let’s whoop today’s ass! File rank and gear up. Shotgirls and Strippers, Barkeeps and Barkers please report to the front lines. This is the battlefield known as Bourbon Street, where heroes are made and brain cells are lost. You take your post amongst the madness." 


Excerpt from the Quarter Rat book that I am illustrating.  I'll keep all of you posted on it's due date.

And over to your left....

 

"Tour Guides Bullshit"

Just completed these...

 

"Little Person, Big Waste"

This book I am illustrating is a compilation of stories about living in and working in the French Quarter of New Orleans. A relatively small neighborhood known world wide and respected by other cities of leisure.  Only in this town can a passed out dwarf in a window sill could become and overnight shrine to the patron Saint of Pushing the limits.

I know this book will appeal not only to those who live and work in the Quarter, but with bring laughter to anyone who has worked as a waitress, bartender, bouncer or manager in the service industries.  As a Jersey Shore cab driver I know that assholes are universal.

Bourbon Street Blues

 

"Bourbon Street Hustler Blues"

Not to jinx the deal, but I've been contacted to do illustrations for an upcoming book about working in the service industries here in New Orleans. Very funny stuff written by the the people who live and work in the French Quarter. They proudly call themselves "Quarter Rats." I hope to be one some day soon. Here is one of the first graphics. Sorry, but I can't give you any of the stories, for that you will have to wait until the beginning of the year and buy the book. 

"Two Queens and a Joker"

Thank you, come again....

Today I sat in Coop's bar on Decatur talking business with a veteran of the Quarter.  I listened to the war stories like a grunt transfered to Afghanistan from Iraq.  This guy was a hardcore dysfunction junky like myself, having tended bar, bounced doors and hustled at some of the most twisted drinking establishments in New Orleans. He's seen so much of what would cause a middle America to need therapy over after witnessing, it's just wallpaper to him.  I'm not totally green. For five years I drove cab on the Jersey shore.



I got so I could tell what the drunk college girl had to drink that night by the smell of her vomit on my backseat. I've had Belmar PD bounce the head of a drunken Guido off of the hood of my cab while cuffing him, leaving a greasy face print of a grimace on the hood.  I've heard a good friend and coworker scream on the dispatch radio that he had been cut during a robbery. I've driven up on lawns at 3 in the morning to avoid a head on collision with some drunk swerving into my lane because "he could make it home ok." 




Abusive and belligerent drunks picking fights, threatening and pissing me off to the point where I spun the Crown Vic around and gunned the engine aiming for them after I kicked them out onto the street. When my dispatcher said they called him saying I tried to run them over I responded calmly "Who are you going to believe? Some drunk asshole that I had to kick out of my cab or your loyal driver who comes in every night and makes you money?"





 "I have a seat belt and airbag, it's not my car and I hate this job, go ahead, start shit."

Some of my favorite moments were the times I literally threw tip money into the face of customers and telling them to go fuck themselves. I once dragged a drunk from my backseat onto a side walk and rummaged through his pockets taking out my fare plus a very generous tip. I rolled him over face down so he wouldn't choke to death on his own vomit. That was the responsible thing to do. Yea, ok I kicked him in the ass once as I returned to my cab. Once you work in the service industry catering to the likes of the French Quarter or the Jersey Shore, every other profession seems boring.

Canal Street Ferry

I've written in this blog several times about how much I love to take the Algiers ferry from the West Bank to the French Quarter.  A simple craft that could hold a couple of dozen vehicles and perhaps a couple hundred passengers makes the short trip across the river dozens of time a day.  The ferry has been in operation since 1827,  and was featured in the 2006 film "Deja Vu."

All pedestrians ride free, cars only $1, runs every half hour 6 am to 12 am.

How'd Halloween weekend go?

It was a madhouse. Locals said it was as insane as Mardi Gras. Between the holiday and the Steelers getting their asses kicked the adrenaline was making the streets slippery. As much as I praise this city, make no mistake, it's hardcore gangster land.  The touristy French Quarter draws in predators like a beach filled with Sea Lions attracts sharks.

Shortly before 7 p.m., two men, both visitors from Arizona, were slashed on St. Peter Street near the Mississippi River in the French Quarter. The pair became embroiled in an argument with a group consisting of two men and two women. One suspect cut one victim on the arm with an unknown object. The second victim was hit in the eye with a brick, according to police.


Two men were wounded by gunfire in Mid-City on Saturday night. The shooting occurred shortly before 9 in the 3000 block of Bienville Street. The men, both 24, were sitting in front of a house when gunshots rang out. One man was shot in the foot; the other received a graze wound to the left arm. They were later listed in stable condition.


A 23-year-old Marine who lived in Metairie was fatally stabbed following an argument with a man who defamed the Marine's wife. The suspect yelled derogatory comments at Ryan Lekosky's wife as the couple walked about 3:30 a.m. near the intersection of Dauphine and Iberville streets in the French Quarter, police said. Lekosky tried to intervene in the altercation between his wife and the suspect. The suspect turned on Lekosky, stabbing him several times. The suspect then returned to his vehicle and drove away on Dauphine Street, toward Canal Street. Lekosky died from his wounds.


Shortly after 1 a.m. Monday, a 20-year-old man was shot in the 100 block of Bourbon Street. New Orleans police Monday night identified a teenager who they believe was involved in the shooting. A warrant for attempted second-degree murder has been issued for 19-year-old Latrell Coleman. Eighth District officers were in the 100 block of Bourbon Street breaking up a fight when they heard shots fired within the block. Officers then located the victim lying in the street with a gunshot wound to the head.


Brendan McCarthy, The Times-Picayune 

Saints beat the Steelers 20 - 10.

I'll sit this one out...

Halloween is a big deal down here. Everything is as long as they can dress up and drink heavily to it. Look how fun New Orleans can make a funeral.  The city is recent years with the help of Blaine Kern's float den has been promoting NOLA for the pagan ritual. The infrastructure is here, the coolest cemeteries, the most haunted houses, vampires, voodoo rituals and bars.

I always dug Halloween driving cab.  It broke up the monotony, naughty little girls in Catholic school girl uniforms flashing you at 2 am because they need a cab. Tonight I was invited to hang with Waffle. Remember Waffle? He's the one who talked me into moving to New Orleans. I'm feeling under the weather lately. As much as I would love to enjoy the city wide freak out between Halloween and the Steelers being in town, I am not up for it.




I'm old, I need to pace myself in this town, or I won't make it to see my first Mardi Gras.

Don't you want to be in that number.....

A little background work is starting to come in. The film industry slows down every year from August to about late October. Hurricane season. No producer wants to get half way through filming a project and then have to evacuate. His set might be gone when he returns. Tonight I did a "REVEL" down at the Roosevelt Hotel.

A convention was being held and to make it in true New Orleans style, a brass jazz band marches into the room and a parade starts. The band played loud and sharp as we reveled in behind them in our costumes. We met the guests at the end of cocktail hour and paraded them through the grand lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel to dinner.

THE ROOSEVELT

Great fun for everyone. Colorful costumes flinging beads at drunk optometrists. We paraded the party downstairs and thru a magnificent grand lobby and back upstairs to the dinning room. In the lobby were two of my friends wearing big heads. Sweating their asses off to pose for hundreds of cell phone pictures.

Yep, it's considered a job down here. It was the first Revel for my friend Bobby from Philadelphia. He did great, he has a Mummer background.

 I just can't get "When the Saints go marching in" out of my head now.

Street performing ain't easy....

I keep saying that I am going to get back over to the Quarter on a regular basis to juggle. Hats off to those guys, it takes balls to do this everyday for a living. A lot of the musicians hawk DVDs for $10 and play clubs at night. Get hassled by asshole drunken tourists. Just like driving a cab at night on the Jersey Shore.

Only one time did I ever have a problem with another performer. A balloon bender claimed I was on HIS corner. I replied "AND?...) Even I'm not afraid of a guy with a balloon poodle on his head.

For the record I AM NOT A MIME, I am a juggler.

Someday....

My goal is once I get settled with steady income and a few bucks ahead, is to move to the French Quarter.  There is something supernatural about it. I'm not one given into new agey paranormal feelings.  This town has such a rich history of both positive and negative energy that almost trips you on the sidewalk. Royal Street is fantastic, art galleries and street performers populate the street with the ghosts of pirates.

Recently a few residents have squawked about the street musicians who make their living from performing on Royal. It's like the people who move next to the airport and try to get the airplanes to "come in from the other direction."  I can think of worst sounds to wake up with a hangover to.  Erika Lewis is one of my favorites to catch singing on the corner.

Hey, Waffle....

Have any suggestions for Halloween? What are your plans?

New Orleans Commission Of Tourism Presents....