Pyscho Chicken Crosses the Road
Created | Updated Sep 22, 2003
Spit and Sawdust - Bourbon Street by Day
Of all the places in America that bear a legendary status, surely New Orleans is at once the most exciting, and also the most mysterious. Long known as a party capital of the world, it is also the spiritual home of blues and jazz, and also has a rich history and heritage to explore. I've wanted to check this city out for a very long time, so faced with some time off work, decided that the time had come to do just that.
Crashing at 3am and getting up at noon comes naturally when you've travelled from the UK, as your body clock is so knackered that it'll take whatever sleeping times it can get. This convenient arrangement means that not only do you not suffer jet lag on the way there, you're pretty well ready for the slightly skewed French Quarter day already.
Bourbon Street never really sleeps. It does however, pull up an easy chair and hit whisky instead of beer and drink until the sun comes up. Before noon, though, it is pretty quiet, and the only people out are tourists who haven't quite got the idea yet, or people who didn't make it home last night.
It's by day that you see Bourbon Street for what it really is. It's a bomb site. The plastic 'go' cups which allow you to carry your beer around are strewn everywhere, paper litter and bits of carry out food fill the gutters, and pizzas of the pavement variety are pretty plentiful in doorways. The stench is nauseating. In order to get the place ready to do it all again on Saturday, the owners of the bars and clubs simply turn a hose on the whole thing and wash the street clean. Where it all goes I simply do not want to know.
I wandered down Bourbon at around 12:30 – ostensibly looking for somewhere to eat brunch, but I was also looking around the street in the daylight. The t-shirt shops were already blasting the street with loud music, despite there being nobody in them - I passed a really rough looking bar, with boarded up windows and a strangely familiar woman with a face like a bulldog sweeping sawdust out of the door. Above the door hung a rickety sign which read La Strada. I'd spent most of last night there.
I also saw Tropical Isle, which at lunchtime had all the appeal of the Saracen's Head on Old Firm match day; only O'Brien's maintained any sort of welcoming impression, but even at that it was a plastic, Disney store welcome.
Breakfast at Petunia's
Lunch today was actually already chosen – Petunia's restaurant apparently serves the World's largest and best crepes, with tempting fillings like chicken, cheese and spinach, and even sweet ones if you look like actually finishing your main course. Petunia's is somewhat famous amongst locals and visitors alike. When I arrived there was a queue out the door.
People were coming out looking very stuffed and very happy, muttering things about it being 'worth the wait' and that the 'St. Marie is to die for!'. I wondered if they got a reduction on the bill if they said encouraging things to the poor people waiting outside as they left.
When I eventually got in, Petunia's was actually the living room and dining area of a very large, very old house. The kitchen is, well, the kitchen, albeit with a slight extension to allow its use as a restaurant. Apparently the ceiling fans (which really could have done with being on) were among the first to be installed in the city. The history of the building on the back of the menu was fascinating, but unfortunately they brought me my food before I'd finished reading it, and I was hungry.
The crepes were indeed huge, and indeed wonderful. I'd imagine the biggest crepes in the world would probably defeat me though, and these didn't. I did however leave feeling very stuffed and very happy, telling the people waiting outside that it was worth the wait and that the St Marie was to die for.
Woke up this afternoon...
Wandering back hotel-wards, Bourbon Street was waking up again. The unlikely strains of Van Halen's 'Jump' being brutally murdered came from one bar, whilst someone desperately tried to sing India Arie's 'Video' in the style of Celine Dion without the talent of either in La Strada. Further along, though, I heard for the first time what I had actually come here for – the blues.
The club was the Funky Pirate, apparently a sister club to Tropical Isle. The lead singer was blasting away on the blues harp (otherwise known as the harmonica) whilst dressed in dungarees. He looked like an extra from the Beverley Hillbillies, but he could sing the blues.
When the hillbillies finished their set, I tipped the bartender and the band and moved on – this being the thing to do whilst on Bourbon Street. A couple of doors down was more blues – but this time it was a blistering guitar solo that drew me in to Tricou House. I hadn't intended doing a tour of blues bars this afternoon, but that was rapidly what it was becoming.
The hillbillies were passable, but these guys were good. Their repertoire went right back to Son House and Robert Johnson (for whom the singer/guitarist seemed to have a particular affection) to audience requests, and some 'little numbers I wrote maself'. At one point a member of the audience asked to sing one of her favourite numbers. A quick conference with the band and she was invited up on stage to sing. I have to say I've heard a lot worse. In between sets, St Louis Slim (the main man) mingled in the bar, and chatted to the punters. I explained that I'd been looking for some good blues and had come in after hearing him play. Slim was appreciative, and sympathetic to my problem.
'There's no real music down here no more' he said. 'You gotta go somewhere like Donna's – or out to Frenchmen Street for that. You been out to Frenchmen Street?' I confessed that I hadn't, but if that's where the real music was, then I'd jump a cab and go. 'You want some real blues, huh?' he said. 'Then come back tomorrow – I'm doing a solo set – REAL delta blues stuff….'
I had other plans for the evening, so had to leave before the main evening event, but I made a mental note to return the following day to hear St Louis Slim solo. Apparently he's from a small town in Illinois, but Illinois Slim didn't have the same ring to it...
When Anthropologists Party
The previous evening, Kate and her anthropologists had invited me to their end of conference party in the hotel. I had accepted and having drank rather a large quantity of Blackened Voodoo (local brew) in 711 Bourbon, I was in need of sobering up rapidly. This was done with a very large plate of jambalaya, and iced tea. A quick shower and change back at the hotel completed my transformation from someone who'd just spent the afternoon drinking beer and listening to the blues into someone who could spend the evening at a civilised party.
The party, as it turned out was pretty tame. It was someone who had been fortunate enough to bag a suite at the hotel and just invited the conference along for drinks. Talk was strictly anthropology, and the neighbours were already complaining. Kate, a couple of her friends and I decided a quiet bar was in order, Kate and I not having had a chance to catch up since I'd arrived. I knew of a nice looking Oirish bar on Ducator Street (the main street along the river front) so we headed for that. We never quite made it though, dipping instead into the Stationhouse Bar and Grill on the way – attracted by the massive wooden bar, apparently large beer selection, and tasteful jazz quartet in the corner. They also turned out to have cheese fries to die for.
There we chatted, caught up on the gossip, sunk a large quantity of local Abita beer (and a strange wheat beer called 'Purple Haze') and were even joined by some other people from the conference who just happened to be there (they also just happened to be drunk). I got fed up being asked if I was an anthropologist too, and started telling people that I was in fact Kate's lab rat, and that I was here as an experiment to see how a rural Scot would react to New Orleans nightlife for her next paper. Apparently the experiment was an unmitigated success so far.
