you don't have any idea how rich,
how deep
this place is.
you can't.
i do not and maybe never will,
though i watch it hawkeyed,
dredging my guts up off the floor,
calling up everything i've ever felt ever
in an effort
to understand.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Culture + Place = Home
Back after the Federal Flood of 2005, when I was still in Seattle,
when New Orleans was too obvious to be ignored and too far away to be real,
I heard a lotta people askin,
"Why do Those People stay when they know the potential consequences?
"Just move!
"Just leave!
"Just find somewhere Else,
"somewhere New,
"somewhere Safe.
"Secure."
And they
They don't get it,
those lovely, young, volcano-enclosed people.
Don't get the thick history in the blood of every child.
Don't get the breathing of the streets.
Don't understand that
Culture
is cumulative and that,
when it has built itself sturdy and
rooted down dirty,
that Culture
Is
Everything.
Everything.
It's not just a street number or a gathering of buildings or parades or parties.
It's a Breath and a Scent and something
so unnameable, so irreplaceable,
tied so implacably to the very personal nostalgic heart of a thing,
that to sever one's physical ties with that Culture would be to cut out one's own heart and place it,
still beating,
gently on the windowsill for the birds' last supper.
when New Orleans was too obvious to be ignored and too far away to be real,
I heard a lotta people askin,
"Why do Those People stay when they know the potential consequences?
"Just move!
"Just leave!
"Just find somewhere Else,
"somewhere New,
"somewhere Safe.
"Secure."
And they
They don't get it,
those lovely, young, volcano-enclosed people.
Don't get the thick history in the blood of every child.
Don't get the breathing of the streets.
Don't understand that
Culture
is cumulative and that,
when it has built itself sturdy and
rooted down dirty,
that Culture
Is
Everything.
Everything.
It's not just a street number or a gathering of buildings or parades or parties.
It's a Breath and a Scent and something
so unnameable, so irreplaceable,
tied so implacably to the very personal nostalgic heart of a thing,
that to sever one's physical ties with that Culture would be to cut out one's own heart and place it,
still beating,
gently on the windowsill for the birds' last supper.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Bull Cook Homemade Caviar
If you can possibly find a copy, grab "Bull Cook and Authentic Historical Recipes and Practices" (Herter, 1960*) off the shelves and dig right the hell in. It's a brilliant collection of old-fashioned everything, including photographs, restaurant reviews, and local information about Seattle, New Orleans, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, and god help us, Disneyland.
To give some indication how totally cool this book is, just to let you know just what kinds of antiquated, obscure, and dubious information are to be gained within its eroding covers, behold the very first subheading of the very first chapter of the book: MEATS. How to Make Real Corned Venison, Antelope, Moose, Bear, and Beef. Yuh-huh. Bear. The book also contains instructions for Jefferson Davis' Southern Chicken ("a man who liked food well prepared and saw to it himself that his cooks knew how to cook"), a brilliant method of pressure-cooking raw chicken, then lightly breading and pan-frying it in butter. The Herters instruct, "Save money any way you can, but do not try to save it by using margarine or cooking oils or fats to pan fry chicken. Chicken can only be fried in butter." (italics mine)
"Doves Wyatt Earp," a recipe developed by the real man, is listed after a comparatively lengthy and unquestionably sympathetic history of Earp's gunslinger days. According to Herter, Earp was an "outstanding cook," and "his Wyatt Earp breakfast consisting of a half inch thick slice of beef or buffalo, eye of a rib steak with thinly sliced onions on top put between two slices of buttered bread with the butter well sprinkled with salt and served with two fried eggs on both sides was very popular and justly so." The brief biography ends with Herter's assertion that "(W)e need men today like Wyatt to put law and order in today's Hollywood and New York's television area more than we ever needed him in Dodge City or Tombstone." One shudders to think of that much belligerent firepower loose among such misunderstood heathens.
Within this invaluable and endlessly fascinating tome are also offered descriptions of Catherine de Medici's fabulous legs and her subsequent invention of ladies' panties (so she could ride and show off her gams) as well as recipes for "Birds Saint Thomas Aquinas," "Prairie Dog Bat Masterson," and "Swedish Muskrat." A subchapter is entitled "How to Make Liverwurst of Duck, Goose, Deer, Rabbit, Squirrel, Pheasant, Moose, or Calf's or Pork Liver by Johannes Kepler."
In the Herter's instructions for making caviar, carp is listed as having the finest-tasting caviar, though its flesh constitutes some "very poor eating" and is, indeed, poisonous, according to them. I'd never seen instructions for making caviar before this book and thought the method worth reproducing, though I am unconvinced of its end results:
"Here is the original and best caviar recipe:
"Take one gallon of water. Add 2-1/2 cups of salt. See if an egg will float in the solution. If it will not, add more salt until the egg will float. Add 1/6 of an ounce of sodium nitrate. Add 1/32 of an ounce of sodium nitrite. (Get both from your druggist, it costs practically nothing)
"Add one level teaspoon of powdered ginger. Add one level teaspoon of dry mustard. Wet mustard will do if you do not have dry. Stir well. Then take the carp egg sack and cut it open and squeeze out the eggs into the solution. Leave stand at room temperature for five days. Then strain out the carp eggs and place them in glass jars and keep them under refrigeration or frozen until used. If you have no refrigeration put the eggs in mason jars and put on mason caps. Sterilize them as described elsewhere in this book and store in a dark place until used."
I'll be posting more from Bull Cook, as well as myriad other antiquated cookbooks, at later dates. This information, colloquial or otherwise, is too good, too woefully obscure, to exist solely between these fading covers. It should be shared and loved, if not outright canonized.
And if anyone tries out the caviar recipe? For the love of Food, lemme know how it comes out and whether or not anyone dies of it.
*"Bull Cook and Authentic Historical Recipes and Practices," written by George Leonard Herter and Berthe L. Herter. Published by Herter's, Inc., Waseca, MN, 1960.
To give some indication how totally cool this book is, just to let you know just what kinds of antiquated, obscure, and dubious information are to be gained within its eroding covers, behold the very first subheading of the very first chapter of the book: MEATS. How to Make Real Corned Venison, Antelope, Moose, Bear, and Beef. Yuh-huh. Bear. The book also contains instructions for Jefferson Davis' Southern Chicken ("a man who liked food well prepared and saw to it himself that his cooks knew how to cook"), a brilliant method of pressure-cooking raw chicken, then lightly breading and pan-frying it in butter. The Herters instruct, "Save money any way you can, but do not try to save it by using margarine or cooking oils or fats to pan fry chicken. Chicken can only be fried in butter." (italics mine)
"Doves Wyatt Earp," a recipe developed by the real man, is listed after a comparatively lengthy and unquestionably sympathetic history of Earp's gunslinger days. According to Herter, Earp was an "outstanding cook," and "his Wyatt Earp breakfast consisting of a half inch thick slice of beef or buffalo, eye of a rib steak with thinly sliced onions on top put between two slices of buttered bread with the butter well sprinkled with salt and served with two fried eggs on both sides was very popular and justly so." The brief biography ends with Herter's assertion that "(W)e need men today like Wyatt to put law and order in today's Hollywood and New York's television area more than we ever needed him in Dodge City or Tombstone." One shudders to think of that much belligerent firepower loose among such misunderstood heathens.
Within this invaluable and endlessly fascinating tome are also offered descriptions of Catherine de Medici's fabulous legs and her subsequent invention of ladies' panties (so she could ride and show off her gams) as well as recipes for "Birds Saint Thomas Aquinas," "Prairie Dog Bat Masterson," and "Swedish Muskrat." A subchapter is entitled "How to Make Liverwurst of Duck, Goose, Deer, Rabbit, Squirrel, Pheasant, Moose, or Calf's or Pork Liver by Johannes Kepler."
In the Herter's instructions for making caviar, carp is listed as having the finest-tasting caviar, though its flesh constitutes some "very poor eating" and is, indeed, poisonous, according to them. I'd never seen instructions for making caviar before this book and thought the method worth reproducing, though I am unconvinced of its end results:
"Here is the original and best caviar recipe:
"Take one gallon of water. Add 2-1/2 cups of salt. See if an egg will float in the solution. If it will not, add more salt until the egg will float. Add 1/6 of an ounce of sodium nitrate. Add 1/32 of an ounce of sodium nitrite. (Get both from your druggist, it costs practically nothing)
"Add one level teaspoon of powdered ginger. Add one level teaspoon of dry mustard. Wet mustard will do if you do not have dry. Stir well. Then take the carp egg sack and cut it open and squeeze out the eggs into the solution. Leave stand at room temperature for five days. Then strain out the carp eggs and place them in glass jars and keep them under refrigeration or frozen until used. If you have no refrigeration put the eggs in mason jars and put on mason caps. Sterilize them as described elsewhere in this book and store in a dark place until used."
I'll be posting more from Bull Cook, as well as myriad other antiquated cookbooks, at later dates. This information, colloquial or otherwise, is too good, too woefully obscure, to exist solely between these fading covers. It should be shared and loved, if not outright canonized.
And if anyone tries out the caviar recipe? For the love of Food, lemme know how it comes out and whether or not anyone dies of it.
*"Bull Cook and Authentic Historical Recipes and Practices," written by George Leonard Herter and Berthe L. Herter. Published by Herter's, Inc., Waseca, MN, 1960.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Tales of the Extemporaneous Luncheon
Had Key West bartender friends in town this week for Tales of the Cocktail.
After an entire week of missed connections, we finally managed to get Dave, Al, and Terry over to the house for our own Southern-style Lazy Sunday Afternoon Suckerpunch-to-the-Duodenum. Afterward, we popped off to Tujague's and the Spotted Cat for drinkies and abbreviated lessons in New Orleans' history.
However.
We worked up to those history lessons with this lesson in Why You Should Come to Our House Hongry:
(...and smokin a bowl first couldn't hurt...)
Cornmeal-Tempura Fried Green Tomatoes with Horseradishy Remoulade Butter.
Dirty Rice with Locally Farmed Vegetables, Cajun Cow Sausage, and Melty Brie.
Smothered Local Sweet Corn, Onions, and Creole Tomatoes.
Blackberry-Mustard Barbecued Chicken Gams.
Butter-Fried Bread Pudding with Steen's Cane Syrup.
...'Cause we secretly can't stand these guys.
Thanks for lettin us feed y'all.
Come back and see us sometime.
After an entire week of missed connections, we finally managed to get Dave, Al, and Terry over to the house for our own Southern-style Lazy Sunday Afternoon Suckerpunch-to-the-Duodenum. Afterward, we popped off to Tujague's and the Spotted Cat for drinkies and abbreviated lessons in New Orleans' history.
However.
We worked up to those history lessons with this lesson in Why You Should Come to Our House Hongry:
(...and smokin a bowl first couldn't hurt...)
Cornmeal-Tempura Fried Green Tomatoes with Horseradishy Remoulade Butter.
Dirty Rice with Locally Farmed Vegetables, Cajun Cow Sausage, and Melty Brie.
Smothered Local Sweet Corn, Onions, and Creole Tomatoes.
Blackberry-Mustard Barbecued Chicken Gams.
Butter-Fried Bread Pudding with Steen's Cane Syrup.
...'Cause we secretly can't stand these guys.
Thanks for lettin us feed y'all.
Come back and see us sometime.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Heat Ghosts
New Orleans mid-July?
It's 84 degrees at 6:30 in the mornin.
How'd people ever survive these summers in layers of petticoats, whalebones, and wool?
In hats and bonnets and 30-eye boots?
In dockworker muslin and loose-virtue satin?
I mean, at least their bloomers didn't fill the bend, makin easy peein,
allowin a little breathin.
Long bfore electric fans and air conditionin, fore summer ice, fore sno-balls were a glimmer in anybody's eye, those heavy, torrid ghosts started pilin up, started pushin their gossamer elbows into heavy draped corners, makin it so stuffy y'could hardly breathe. Not sure when their voices gained such body. Grew corpulent. Insistent. Not real sure when they figured out they were more 'ghost' than most ghosts.
They thick out here, too. Ain't just a few of 'em,
mutterin outta boredom or feelin sorry for themselves or even grumblin vengeance (though those kind are t'be found everwhere). Ghosts round here, most of em been watchin the livin so long it seems like they forget they're on th'other side. Chattin you up while you're tryin to mind y'own business down by the river at sunrise. Y'think maybe it's a coupla people behind j'yuh, talkin soft and slow, but then realize they answerin the thoughts inside y'own head.
Think maybe it's just people behind j'yuh.
And it is.
Sorta.
If y'look at it a certain kinda way.
______________
Heat used't piss me off when I was a kid, made me angry.
Angry!
Still does a lot of people, I guess.
I figured out a while ago idn't anybody to get mad at. Can't up and punch anybody and make y'self feel better, make the heat stop. Best to just start workin nights if y'can, stay outta the sun, stay outta groups of other hot bodies. Stay in the cool where the cool is. Stay outta them dead people's air. Most people think ghosts just mostly come out at night, but I dunno. I dunno that at all. I think mebbe, in the summer, mebbe those ghosts talkin more than uzhul. Mebbe that's why it feels like walkin int' somebody's mouth when y'go outside.
Mebbe.
Can't hardly hear the cathedrul bells in this weather, either.
Sound tiny.
Far away.
Like they tryin t'find y'underwater.
Or in a bubble.
Or across a Divide.
Like mebbe you the one slipped over.
Sometimes it's hard t'tell.
________________
I never been wunna those people knew f'sure I was always alive. Got labelled "bipolar" cause of a lotta things stemmin from that. Like when I know I'm alive, when I can feel all my fingers and toes and feel m'blood movin the right way, that's kind of a rush, feelin Alive down t'the cells and feelin each an evry one uh them cells, too. I got that certainty that I'm one place or thuther. They say that's the "manic." But when it's sure I'm dead, or should be, but my body's still here, stiff and forrin, I feel like a damn criminal. Feel like I done somethin bad and m'gonna get caught any second and gonna be in a worlda pain like my daddy never dreamed of showin me. Can't trust anybody when y'hidin from Death herself. Even if y'don't know why y' hidin, or whether y'care to keep at it.
Nice little label, though, innit?
7 letters and an image of both our planet poles, penguins and polar bears, for explainin away this weird doorway to somethin we suspect but don't understand.
A door our bones believe but our prayers say ain't so.
Well I say it's so,
even if I do say it kinda quiet 'cause I don't always like feelin like Cardinal Richelieu caught me eatin pussy while hostin the Heretic's Hen Party. It's funny how somethin so simple and true can get so many people mad. Like tellin em their dad gives shitty blow jobs.
Even if it really is true.
I figure science is about a thousand generations away from catchin up with any single part of our intrinsic knowledge, the stuff we know without knowin how we know it. I mean, there's the backwater reptilian stuff, the fight or flight thing that's kept us alive for long enough to kill most everything else on earth, but that ain't knowledge at all; it's instinct, despite what the tv's been tellin y'. I reckon there's lotsa people in lab coats wanna check into how we connect with ghosts and th like, but most people seem too scared to really let 'em have a go at it, includin other people in lab coats. Mebbe mostly those people.
Eitha way, those things the Real Smart People say don't exist?
Well, those things seem to like it just fine down here.
This town.
When the air gets all thick, when y'can't hear god's bells a block away, y'can hear a few more voices than there're people on the street. If y'gotch y'ears rilaxed. Pretty much all y'gotta do t'do that is just turn off that ninny in y'head that's got her fingers in her squeakyclean ears, glazey wide-eyed, scream-singin "jesus loves me this i knoooow!" or some other igneurnt, off-key shit like that. Sounds like a small thing, turnin her off. Like turnin down a volume knob or somethin. But that little bitch got some lungs and she gets freaked the fuck out if you try to lookit things she don't wanna see.
I'm just sayin.
Might be more trouble n y'think is all.
But, mercy! is it worth it.
I been led to honeybees when I'uz losin hope I'd see any ever again.
Been told to stay way or to leave where I was and'm still livin b'cause of it.
Been brought to pain I cud help in healin so's to ease another's sufferin.
Been shown wondrous things I couldn't ever share cause ain't nobody'd see it or undestand it if they did.
Had a hand put on my shouldr, stoppin m'mouth when somebody else needed t'talk bfore he went batshithomicidalcrazy and hurt more'n just my ears.
Been comfutted more often than I mebbe deserve, balm f'my heart when my body was ailin and torn.
Met long-dead grandmamas that seem now, in retr'spect, to've been leadin me to New Orleans, leadin me twhere I mebbe meet mself.
Yeh that heat's suh'm else.
Gets miragey out there and if y'din know bettuh, yd swear yjust heard yr own voice callin from cross the Square.
An mebbe y'did.
Or mebbe that granma ynever met akshally sound a lot like you.
_________________
Those doors?
Those doors to th'other sides?
They got well-oiled hinges in this town.
This town built so high on dreams, the dreams become the city and the city become its dreams.
Sometimes I think we all ghosts.
You get down here to the Bottom, and we all down here.
We all down here.
It's 84 degrees at 6:30 in the mornin.
How'd people ever survive these summers in layers of petticoats, whalebones, and wool?
In hats and bonnets and 30-eye boots?
In dockworker muslin and loose-virtue satin?
I mean, at least their bloomers didn't fill the bend, makin easy peein,
allowin a little breathin.
Long bfore electric fans and air conditionin, fore summer ice, fore sno-balls were a glimmer in anybody's eye, those heavy, torrid ghosts started pilin up, started pushin their gossamer elbows into heavy draped corners, makin it so stuffy y'could hardly breathe. Not sure when their voices gained such body. Grew corpulent. Insistent. Not real sure when they figured out they were more 'ghost' than most ghosts.
They thick out here, too. Ain't just a few of 'em,
mutterin outta boredom or feelin sorry for themselves or even grumblin vengeance (though those kind are t'be found everwhere). Ghosts round here, most of em been watchin the livin so long it seems like they forget they're on th'other side. Chattin you up while you're tryin to mind y'own business down by the river at sunrise. Y'think maybe it's a coupla people behind j'yuh, talkin soft and slow, but then realize they answerin the thoughts inside y'own head.
Think maybe it's just people behind j'yuh.
And it is.
Sorta.
If y'look at it a certain kinda way.
______________
Heat used't piss me off when I was a kid, made me angry.
Angry!
Still does a lot of people, I guess.
I figured out a while ago idn't anybody to get mad at. Can't up and punch anybody and make y'self feel better, make the heat stop. Best to just start workin nights if y'can, stay outta the sun, stay outta groups of other hot bodies. Stay in the cool where the cool is. Stay outta them dead people's air. Most people think ghosts just mostly come out at night, but I dunno. I dunno that at all. I think mebbe, in the summer, mebbe those ghosts talkin more than uzhul. Mebbe that's why it feels like walkin int' somebody's mouth when y'go outside.
Mebbe.
Can't hardly hear the cathedrul bells in this weather, either.
Sound tiny.
Far away.
Like they tryin t'find y'underwater.
Or in a bubble.
Or across a Divide.
Like mebbe you the one slipped over.
Sometimes it's hard t'tell.
________________
I never been wunna those people knew f'sure I was always alive. Got labelled "bipolar" cause of a lotta things stemmin from that. Like when I know I'm alive, when I can feel all my fingers and toes and feel m'blood movin the right way, that's kind of a rush, feelin Alive down t'the cells and feelin each an evry one uh them cells, too. I got that certainty that I'm one place or thuther. They say that's the "manic." But when it's sure I'm dead, or should be, but my body's still here, stiff and forrin, I feel like a damn criminal. Feel like I done somethin bad and m'gonna get caught any second and gonna be in a worlda pain like my daddy never dreamed of showin me. Can't trust anybody when y'hidin from Death herself. Even if y'don't know why y' hidin, or whether y'care to keep at it.
Nice little label, though, innit?
7 letters and an image of both our planet poles, penguins and polar bears, for explainin away this weird doorway to somethin we suspect but don't understand.
A door our bones believe but our prayers say ain't so.
Well I say it's so,
even if I do say it kinda quiet 'cause I don't always like feelin like Cardinal Richelieu caught me eatin pussy while hostin the Heretic's Hen Party. It's funny how somethin so simple and true can get so many people mad. Like tellin em their dad gives shitty blow jobs.
Even if it really is true.
I figure science is about a thousand generations away from catchin up with any single part of our intrinsic knowledge, the stuff we know without knowin how we know it. I mean, there's the backwater reptilian stuff, the fight or flight thing that's kept us alive for long enough to kill most everything else on earth, but that ain't knowledge at all; it's instinct, despite what the tv's been tellin y'. I reckon there's lotsa people in lab coats wanna check into how we connect with ghosts and th like, but most people seem too scared to really let 'em have a go at it, includin other people in lab coats. Mebbe mostly those people.
Eitha way, those things the Real Smart People say don't exist?
Well, those things seem to like it just fine down here.
This town.
When the air gets all thick, when y'can't hear god's bells a block away, y'can hear a few more voices than there're people on the street. If y'gotch y'ears rilaxed. Pretty much all y'gotta do t'do that is just turn off that ninny in y'head that's got her fingers in her squeakyclean ears, glazey wide-eyed, scream-singin "jesus loves me this i knoooow!" or some other igneurnt, off-key shit like that. Sounds like a small thing, turnin her off. Like turnin down a volume knob or somethin. But that little bitch got some lungs and she gets freaked the fuck out if you try to lookit things she don't wanna see.
I'm just sayin.
Might be more trouble n y'think is all.
But, mercy! is it worth it.
I been led to honeybees when I'uz losin hope I'd see any ever again.
Been told to stay way or to leave where I was and'm still livin b'cause of it.
Been brought to pain I cud help in healin so's to ease another's sufferin.
Been shown wondrous things I couldn't ever share cause ain't nobody'd see it or undestand it if they did.
Had a hand put on my shouldr, stoppin m'mouth when somebody else needed t'talk bfore he went batshithomicidalcrazy and hurt more'n just my ears.
Been comfutted more often than I mebbe deserve, balm f'my heart when my body was ailin and torn.
Met long-dead grandmamas that seem now, in retr'spect, to've been leadin me to New Orleans, leadin me twhere I mebbe meet mself.
Yeh that heat's suh'm else.
Gets miragey out there and if y'din know bettuh, yd swear yjust heard yr own voice callin from cross the Square.
An mebbe y'did.
Or mebbe that granma ynever met akshally sound a lot like you.
_________________
Those doors?
Those doors to th'other sides?
They got well-oiled hinges in this town.
This town built so high on dreams, the dreams become the city and the city become its dreams.
Sometimes I think we all ghosts.
You get down here to the Bottom, and we all down here.
We all down here.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
First Second Line
Seen a lotta Death in the last few years.
Lotta Death.
And suddenly,
I find myself in a town that understands how that is.
Got invited, a couple weeks ago, to participate in the second line of a jazz funeral for someone I'd never met. I was concerned about participating in what was such a personal event without prior knowledge of the deceased. Didn't want to intrude where the heart is so tender.
I'd been told, within my first night or two in New Orleans, that one of the bartenders at Harry's Corner was sick, hospitalized shortly before I moved to town. Three weeks later, one of the other bartenders, with that dazed look I now recognize a mile off, told me,
"Well, you heard about Freak, that he's been in the hospital."
"Yeah, of course! How's he doin?"
"He's dead."
"Oh jeezus.
"...Oh, jeezus, darlin, I'm so sorry."
"Yeah, y'know...
"I'm just tired of this shit.
"After Katrina, with all the death there, afterwards seemed like people just kept dyin. Had a friend...y'know, we couldn't get the things we needed, things were still so fucked up with the city. Had a friend who had a seizure one night. Had a seizure and died cause the ambulance couldn't get there for 30 minutes. Thirty minutes and she was dead. Of a seizure.
(and in a small, tired voice:)
"...I'm just sicka people dyin...
(*...sigh...*)
"So, look, we're gonna try and get together a second line for him this Sunday.
"Y'all should really come.
"Come down for it. Really."
Now, I'd bowed out of a lotta goings-on since I'd been in town; just didn't feel like bein in-the-swing-a-things social. But, I wasn't about to miss this. Not when the grieving, red-eyed and exhausted, had personally asked me to attend. Not when an hour of my time, an hour's worth of participation might provide a little comfort, put a tiny bit of fill in the gaping hole of Loss. I know how much those little things mean, even if you can't always remember 'em later.
Sunday, I dressed up purty, grabbed a parasol to combat the sun, and a nearly transparent hanky belonging to my dead father-in-law. Wasn't quite sure what to do with the hanky, but Otter told me, "You'll want it." Went down to the bar where people were gathering, where the Treme Brass Band was warming up, where heavy hearts and love were beginning to swell. I felt an emotional break coming soon; the air was thick with its impending eruption. One of the other bartenders from Harry's, squinty unaccustomed to the midday sun, spied me and came over to hug me. I was still a little unsure. My own experiences with Death in the Public Eye had not exactly been pleasant.
"Are you sure it's okay if I'm here? I mean, I never even met the guy."
"No, no, sweetheart, it's good you're here. You'll see.
"...You got an extra parasol upstairs?"
The band started playing on Chartres and Dumaine, right in front of the bar, and began to walk slowly down the street. The dirges with which they began, though written slow and heavy, did not weigh on us as much as elegies are wont to do. Notes deep slow sad respectful mournful, but somehow not feelin sorry for themselves. From the first bass drum shuffles, the first sousa-brass-bottom, it was obvious that this crowd understood to the bone how intractably Life goes on, with or withoutcha.
I stayed back as far as I could, bringing up the end of the line, mostly outta respect for the grieving, partly cause I wanted to see and hear as much as possible. The procession wound through the Vieux Carre, motorcycle cops on either end, and made its way slowly to the home of the deceased. People held hankies in the air, half-steppin to the beat. Soft. Comforting each other. When we reached the front door of the house, Freak's sweetheart took his ashes inside for a last tour, and then brought them back out. The crowd stilled while the bandleader, the diminutive bass drum player, began to sing in a faded, beautiful tenor,
"Just
a closer
wawk with theee..."
Some heads bowed. Most looked up and around, as if greeting the new ghost while bidding his body farewell. As the sweet threnody came to and end, the briefest of silences hung over around among us. Brief and pregnant. Like the pause at a rollercoaster's apex.
And when we began again to move?
Oh, that's when it became...
That's when I began to understand how Death lives in New Orleans: differently from any other place in this country, fer damn sure. The bass drum kicked up the tempo. The Sousaphone, improbably, became light on its feet, bouncing fat notes to the heavens and, progressively, every booty within ear shot right along with it. People clappin on those downbeats. Wavin hankies and twirlin parasols. Sweet dancin the second line, twirlin little circles, laughin mouths open to the sky.
As we wound through the tight neighborhood streets, we stopped at every bar the late lamented had worked in his many years here in the Quarter. At every bar, we stopped and payed respects. Former coworkers stepped out onto balconies and banquettes, grieving and glad they had had a chance to spend some of this man's life with him. One of the tavern owners brought out glasses of cold beer for the band and mourners, and lord was it welcome in that heat! We headed down Decatur for a few blocks; tourists staring, locals waving and grinning and dancing on the sidewalks as we passed. They knew we carried the dead, and so they danced. And danced!
On the sidewalk, I see a group of kids, aged maybe 10 to 15, hands full of shiny music, watching us and talking rapidly amongst themselves. They quickly come to a concensus and run, horns and drums in hand, to the front of the line, exchange a couple words with the bandleader, and then join the musicians, playing bright and joyful and fulla love. A block down, from the opposite side of the street, yet another band of kids joins the procession. The music has tripled, quadrupled in volume, and people are really startin to get involved.
Wellwishers and friends drift in and out of the cortege to hug each other and swap favorite stories about this beloved human. There is laughter everywhere. Two lovely girls on tallbikes ride close past us, moving air against my body, and shout joyous "Yeaaa! We love yoooou! We loooove yooou!" A young couple joins the end of the promenade, taps me and asks,
"Hey, what's going on?"
I am ebullient; I am full of greasy, bubblin goodwill. "It's a second line for a longtime bartender here in the Quarter. Come on in and dance with us fo'while, darlin!"
Christ, there is music everywhere! I have never seen a life so supremely celebrated! Never seen so many people get it, that we are so damned fortunate to be able to count among our living blessings Friendship, Laughter, Love, and a hell of a lot of good Food and Dancin. As we make our way back to Harry's, back to where we started, folks are flatout cheerin!, whoopin and hollerin and shakin bootys to beat the devil. A couple of obviously-local guys step in line directly behind me and put their hands on my shoulder, nod & grin, grills all shinin, and start singin with the band, shoutin themselves bloody and loved. "Yeh!Yeh! When I layhay...mah burden dowowown!" The crowd's Joy is palpable, is a natural Force beside within between around us, and,
and I have not been in a nexus of Love like this in a very, very long time.
While I watch my new friends carry their compatriot's ashes down the street, dancing and pumping parasol points toward the sky, while I watch these people who've buried so many, who have more cause to grieve than most anybody in this country, I am so very, very humbled by their strength, by their staggering Love. I can't help but think of the last people I helped lay to rest, and today, today! I finally feel like I am bidding farewell to them in proper style.
Oh, you who call yourselves America, you UStians! Take a lesson from the beautiful people of New Orleans: Death is an ending. Not The End, mind you, for Life goes on and on and on, with or withoutcha.
With or withoutcha.
Come
join the Caaaab-aaaaa-raaaaaaaaay!
Lotta Death.
And suddenly,
I find myself in a town that understands how that is.
Got invited, a couple weeks ago, to participate in the second line of a jazz funeral for someone I'd never met. I was concerned about participating in what was such a personal event without prior knowledge of the deceased. Didn't want to intrude where the heart is so tender.
I'd been told, within my first night or two in New Orleans, that one of the bartenders at Harry's Corner was sick, hospitalized shortly before I moved to town. Three weeks later, one of the other bartenders, with that dazed look I now recognize a mile off, told me,
"Well, you heard about Freak, that he's been in the hospital."
"Yeah, of course! How's he doin?"
"He's dead."
"Oh jeezus.
"...Oh, jeezus, darlin, I'm so sorry."
"Yeah, y'know...
"I'm just tired of this shit.
"After Katrina, with all the death there, afterwards seemed like people just kept dyin. Had a friend...y'know, we couldn't get the things we needed, things were still so fucked up with the city. Had a friend who had a seizure one night. Had a seizure and died cause the ambulance couldn't get there for 30 minutes. Thirty minutes and she was dead. Of a seizure.
(and in a small, tired voice:)
"...I'm just sicka people dyin...
(*...sigh...*)
"So, look, we're gonna try and get together a second line for him this Sunday.
"Y'all should really come.
"Come down for it. Really."
Now, I'd bowed out of a lotta goings-on since I'd been in town; just didn't feel like bein in-the-swing-a-things social. But, I wasn't about to miss this. Not when the grieving, red-eyed and exhausted, had personally asked me to attend. Not when an hour of my time, an hour's worth of participation might provide a little comfort, put a tiny bit of fill in the gaping hole of Loss. I know how much those little things mean, even if you can't always remember 'em later.
Sunday, I dressed up purty, grabbed a parasol to combat the sun, and a nearly transparent hanky belonging to my dead father-in-law. Wasn't quite sure what to do with the hanky, but Otter told me, "You'll want it." Went down to the bar where people were gathering, where the Treme Brass Band was warming up, where heavy hearts and love were beginning to swell. I felt an emotional break coming soon; the air was thick with its impending eruption. One of the other bartenders from Harry's, squinty unaccustomed to the midday sun, spied me and came over to hug me. I was still a little unsure. My own experiences with Death in the Public Eye had not exactly been pleasant.
"Are you sure it's okay if I'm here? I mean, I never even met the guy."
"No, no, sweetheart, it's good you're here. You'll see.
"...You got an extra parasol upstairs?"
The band started playing on Chartres and Dumaine, right in front of the bar, and began to walk slowly down the street. The dirges with which they began, though written slow and heavy, did not weigh on us as much as elegies are wont to do. Notes deep slow sad respectful mournful, but somehow not feelin sorry for themselves. From the first bass drum shuffles, the first sousa-brass-bottom, it was obvious that this crowd understood to the bone how intractably Life goes on, with or withoutcha.
I stayed back as far as I could, bringing up the end of the line, mostly outta respect for the grieving, partly cause I wanted to see and hear as much as possible. The procession wound through the Vieux Carre, motorcycle cops on either end, and made its way slowly to the home of the deceased. People held hankies in the air, half-steppin to the beat. Soft. Comforting each other. When we reached the front door of the house, Freak's sweetheart took his ashes inside for a last tour, and then brought them back out. The crowd stilled while the bandleader, the diminutive bass drum player, began to sing in a faded, beautiful tenor,
"Just
a closer
wawk with theee..."
Some heads bowed. Most looked up and around, as if greeting the new ghost while bidding his body farewell. As the sweet threnody came to and end, the briefest of silences hung over around among us. Brief and pregnant. Like the pause at a rollercoaster's apex.
And when we began again to move?
Oh, that's when it became...
That's when I began to understand how Death lives in New Orleans: differently from any other place in this country, fer damn sure. The bass drum kicked up the tempo. The Sousaphone, improbably, became light on its feet, bouncing fat notes to the heavens and, progressively, every booty within ear shot right along with it. People clappin on those downbeats. Wavin hankies and twirlin parasols. Sweet dancin the second line, twirlin little circles, laughin mouths open to the sky.
As we wound through the tight neighborhood streets, we stopped at every bar the late lamented had worked in his many years here in the Quarter. At every bar, we stopped and payed respects. Former coworkers stepped out onto balconies and banquettes, grieving and glad they had had a chance to spend some of this man's life with him. One of the tavern owners brought out glasses of cold beer for the band and mourners, and lord was it welcome in that heat! We headed down Decatur for a few blocks; tourists staring, locals waving and grinning and dancing on the sidewalks as we passed. They knew we carried the dead, and so they danced. And danced!
On the sidewalk, I see a group of kids, aged maybe 10 to 15, hands full of shiny music, watching us and talking rapidly amongst themselves. They quickly come to a concensus and run, horns and drums in hand, to the front of the line, exchange a couple words with the bandleader, and then join the musicians, playing bright and joyful and fulla love. A block down, from the opposite side of the street, yet another band of kids joins the procession. The music has tripled, quadrupled in volume, and people are really startin to get involved.
Wellwishers and friends drift in and out of the cortege to hug each other and swap favorite stories about this beloved human. There is laughter everywhere. Two lovely girls on tallbikes ride close past us, moving air against my body, and shout joyous "Yeaaa! We love yoooou! We loooove yooou!" A young couple joins the end of the promenade, taps me and asks,
"Hey, what's going on?"
I am ebullient; I am full of greasy, bubblin goodwill. "It's a second line for a longtime bartender here in the Quarter. Come on in and dance with us fo'while, darlin!"
Christ, there is music everywhere! I have never seen a life so supremely celebrated! Never seen so many people get it, that we are so damned fortunate to be able to count among our living blessings Friendship, Laughter, Love, and a hell of a lot of good Food and Dancin. As we make our way back to Harry's, back to where we started, folks are flatout cheerin!, whoopin and hollerin and shakin bootys to beat the devil. A couple of obviously-local guys step in line directly behind me and put their hands on my shoulder, nod & grin, grills all shinin, and start singin with the band, shoutin themselves bloody and loved. "Yeh!Yeh! When I layhay...mah burden dowowown!" The crowd's Joy is palpable, is a natural Force beside within between around us, and,
and I have not been in a nexus of Love like this in a very, very long time.
While I watch my new friends carry their compatriot's ashes down the street, dancing and pumping parasol points toward the sky, while I watch these people who've buried so many, who have more cause to grieve than most anybody in this country, I am so very, very humbled by their strength, by their staggering Love. I can't help but think of the last people I helped lay to rest, and today, today! I finally feel like I am bidding farewell to them in proper style.
Oh, you who call yourselves America, you UStians! Take a lesson from the beautiful people of New Orleans: Death is an ending. Not The End, mind you, for Life goes on and on and on, with or withoutcha.
With or withoutcha.
Come
join the Caaaab-aaaaa-raaaaaaaaay!
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