Party Party

So Thursday. It began with a phone call at noon. A phone call that woke me up. It went something like this: "Hello Zac? This is Amanda's grandmother. I'm going to be over at your house in 10 minutes to pick you up. See you soon!" It was to be a long, grueling day of yard work under the hot New Orleanian sun. I was getting paid to do this and Amanda told me not to expect anything less than slave driving from her kin. I didn't have time to eat and was dreading the yard that would receive my blood and tears within the next 20 minutes. My expectations were faulty however. We started off with a trip to a local record store and then sight seeing up on the coast of Lake Pontchartrain. When we finally got to the house Barbara ("grandma" to Amanda) made me lunch. The last time I had seen her she was talking of pulling weeds and moving stones. The first task she had me do was put a list of cellphone numbers into her phone... And I was still getting paid for this. Afterward I set up the BlueTooth headset on her phone; the one she later decided she didn't like and would never use. From there it went to editing photos in iPhoto to a trip to BestBuy for an external hard drive and a lesson on that. By the time we finished it was 8pm. I scored 60 bucks, a bag of groceries, and a promise for at least 1 more call the next week. What a good job!
So after work I immidiately bike over the this birthday party/Zine release party that Otto invited me to:


Otto's actually the one who drew the invite as well. Well it was full of home brew, readings of works, and lots of people I had never met. I talked with some guy named Nick for awhile and 2 British couch surfers. They have all left the city by now... Just my luck. But the house that the party was in was really amazing. There is no security deposit, no lease. It's just passed on between friends and the land lord is totally cool with it. All the walls painted nauseatingly wonderful colors. When the railing on the front porch just fell off Otto just shouts "It's ok! We don't have a security deposit!" After about an hour Otto offers to cut my hair. Here are the results from the side:





It's not really a mohawk, more of a ph(f)at hawk. It's really nice and I can't stop rubbing the sides of my head in public.

Ketchup

It's been awhile since my last update. What to cover?...
Well Monday I spent the day exploring around Uptown again. Just wandered by myself, tried on clothes at vintage stores and AmAppy, and ate pizza. On my way home I ran into that really nice traveler girl again. Her name is Takiaya. Since she was about to go out biking she said when she was back in the area she would stop by my house to hang out. She showed up around 9 and at the same time Otto called me to hang out as well. So Takiaya took Amanda, Otto, and myself "on a date." Which consisted of us playing music with a homeless man, trying to go to a bar called The John (all their chairs are old toilets), watching the beginning of the NeverEnding Story, and coloring. Eventually they left and Amanda and I strolled to Flanagan's where we met another bartender, who works at Mimi's (and used to work for our housemate, Willy, at the Dragon's Den) named Neptune. Him and I bonded over our favorite authors, creative writing, and being general book nerds. Amanda and him bonded over the fact that they both worked in the same national park; only 8 years apart.

On Tuesday my friend Madi flew into town with some friends as a spur of the moment trip induced by the location of dirt cheap airline tickets. But before that we had to go make lunch for Amanda's grandmother. Having heard all kinds of stories about her before hand and entered her house with my head full of preconceived notions. She appeared to be a charming lady but there were signs of a somewhat more crazy personality underneath. Not necessarily in a bad way, but there was obviously more to her than her "nice, little old lady" act. Either way I enjoyed my time there and she even offered to pay me to help her out around the house while Amanda was at work. Afterward, we met up with Madi and her friends and had coffee together, split up (Amanda and I met up with Taylor so we could hang out/give Amanda boy advice, which resulted in some scalding but well deserved text messages), and met up again in the evening so we could show them around Frenchmen St. It was good to catch up with Madi but based on first impressions I didn't seem to have much in common with the others. They wanted to go bar hopping, which I was not interested in on a dead Tuesday night, so we parted ways after a few drinks. Amanda and I proceeded to make the most delicious drunken dinner of veggie-filled omelets, toast, and black beans, while listening to Lil' Wayne and attempting to freestyle rap. It did not go well:

I don't wanna check emails.
I just want to make weed sales.
So let's break out them big scales.

The "famous" corn fence.

A street lamp on the Mardi Gra parade route.

The Kraken

Friday night was a blast! Or I guess by the time the fun started it was Saturday morning. It had been a normal day of waking up late, wandering, and grocery shopping. Around 1am, while I was locked out of the house and waiting for Amanda to get off of work, I met up with Otto. Otto is a krust punk who is probably one of the nicest people I've met so far. He sells prints of his art and his screen printed comic books on the street about a block from our house. We chatted with Old English while we waited for Amanda to come back. At this time I also met several other wonderful people. One was a girl (her name started with a T, but I can't quite remember) who was from Texas but now just traveled about. She got so excited when I told her that I was from Asheville that I gave her my number and said she had my couch to crash on if she was ever in the area. Eventually Amanda appeared but not alone. She was wielding The Kraken. A 96 proof, caramel rum that our friend Courtney had given her the week before for helping her move. I'm not sure who it was but the idea to go swimming was proposed and Otto, knowing a place about a block away, led our expedition. With a quick fence hop, resulting in our shot glass crashing into Otto's face and breaking on the ground, we had arrived. The pool was tiny but sported an adjoining hot tub. Honestly it was the coldest hot tub (or hottest cold tub?) I had ever been in. We splashed about with the Kraken for about 2 hours. It was now almost 5 in the morning. We got dressed and hopped back over the fence. Amanda, having battled the Kraken the most, was too worn out from the battle to bring anything more than a leg over the fence. So she, being the clever one, walked past the front desk and out the door.

Not willing to call it a night Amanda offered to buy us all breakfast at the greasy bar known as Déjà Vu. Our trek was a joyous one and we grew more content with the increasing rose color of the sky as the sun fought to join us. Our breakfast was slimy and we all had a drawing contest which involved much giggling. We entered that dark hole of a bar in the night and when we returned to the world the sun was in full force above our heads. By the time we made it back home and I lied down it was almost 8am.

Nothing New

Not anything new and exciting to report on today. I've been doing the same old same old; coffee shops, walking about, waiting to hear back from jobs. I've realized my money is going faster than I thought so I'm trying to conserve some till I hear about my possible employment so I'm taking a short break from eating out and other expensive activities. Tomorrow night Of Montreal is playing here so I may go to that and they always put on a good show. Amanda had a date last night and it went well. They brought me back sushi and we all watched Totoro on the couch together:


That's about all the updates I have.
Here are a couple of pictures of strange looking things I took yesterday:

A haloed, golden warrior riding a golden horse.


Disco balls.

Relax, My Friend

Tuesday was such a slow day. But I mean that in the best way possible. I started out with the intention of spending the day exploring Uptown. According to the weatherman it was the perfect day to walk around outside, in an unfamiliar place, without a map.
I was there for 2 hours before it started pouring rain. Riding the streetcar back to canal street I bought an ordinary, black umbrella at a nearby Walgreens. The weather immediately proceeded to stab me in the back and clear up for the rest of the day. Not wanting to pay for more back and forth rides on the trolley I decided I'd conquer that part of town another day. The rest of the evening was spent at Envie writing letters, reading short stories, and chatting with a Spanish woman and Rob (the barista on duty who also has a hot date with Amanda today :].)

Wednesday was not much more trying but incredibly more productive. It was my job hunting day. After printing out some résumés I trekked up and down Esplanade Ave and throughout the French Quarter passing them out and filling in applications. It was terribly hot and I was rather smelly by the end of my journey. Despite my smell I feel like I made some rather good impressions. I applied to 1 restaurant, 3 coffee shops, and 1 hip, trendy clothing store. 2 of the coffee shops and the clothing store told me on the spot that they'd contact me by the end of the week to set up interviews.
The next few hours were spent in celebration, on the couch, watching short documentaries with Amanda about various backwoods folk of the US. Once I worked up more traveling energy we went shoe shopping at the local Urban Outfitters to better equip Amanda for her date with Rob and the grocery store to get supplies for our delicious dinner of black bean burgers. The only other odyssey of significance that evening was much later on, when we were hungry again. Amanda told me of a Burger King in Uptown that after midnight makes everything fresh to order because of the inefficiency of keeping cooked meat around with a lack of customer flow. We ventured out and had surprisingly wonderful double cheeseburgers in our bellies before bed.

I'm sorry but I've only taken 1 picture in the past 2 days so I leave you with this:

BIKES BIKES BIKES

Things are looking up after 2 straight days of humidity and rain. The skies are clear and the grease is greasy. By that I mean I started building a bike today! Three blocks from here, in a busted up warehouse, they have a radical lending library called The Iron Rail (which I didn't get a chance to go in today) and the local community bike project: Plan B.


Everyone that was there was super nice. Some cute volunteer named Amy helped me out since I didn't know what the hell I was doing and I got all kinds of tips from other friendly people who were there fixing up their bikes. I even got to give a pointer or two of my own. Since it's only ever open from 2 to 6 I didn't get to work on it long but here is my bad ass mountain bike, the ROADMASTER, before I started working on it:



The thing about New Orleans is that it's completely flat but because the streets are so fucked up trendy little road bikes don't fair too well around town. I'm estimating another 2 visits before I can finish her up. That's my goal at least.

I'm worn out now and may take a nap. But my housemate Andy is bar tending at the Dragon's Den tonight, which means free drinks! What a good day this is turning out to be :D

Pictures of Injury

These are some pictures I took around town of a few different modern ways people have tried to keep people off of their property. And I threw in a picture of a boat for good measure.


This is a ferry on the waterfront at night. This was where I watched a homeless man serenade a really sketched out couple for money.


When people don't want to mess around they jump straight to razor wire. A great way to keep out burglars. And Mardi Gras goers?



I've seen this method used all over the world. And I guess the US in no exception. Broken glass set in cement. The colored glass shone brilliantly in the sunlight, in a hostile kind of way..


This one doesn't even give the trespassers any warning. If you jumped over their front wall at night you'd land straight into their net of rusty barbed wire.

Pictures of Death

These are photos of my second visit to the St. Louise Cemetery.


This is the grave of Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen. The entire grave is covered in these X's for when people ask her to grant their wishes.


Some of her offerings include: Taaka vodka, tea, eggs, hairbrushes, Newport cigarettes, candles, flowers, teddy bears, and lots of pennies.


This is the future tomb of Nicholas Cage. Why a pyramid? Was National Treasure really that great of an accomplishment?


This is the tomb of the Italian club. All the drawers on the side are for your body to decay in for a year before they stuff your remains in a bag, stamp on them, and throw you into the vault with all the rest. This is where they shot part of the movie Easy Rider. It is rumored that Dennis Hopper took acid on set, jumped up on those statues, and lobbed their heads off. Since then no movie has been allowed to be filmed in this cemetery.


This is what happens when your family doesn't take care of your grave and it falls into disrepair.

Surrealism

Yesterday for me was mostly spent wandering aimlessly around the French Quarter and Canal st. by myself. It was hot and I was bored and without a house key. Most of the people I ran into were drunken tourists and sparked no interest in conversation for me. In the evening though I did get to watch a homeless man sing to a very sketched out couple of the waterfront. It was really amusing.

Back closer to the house I tried to make friends with some anarchist kids who were selling art on the street corner. They both knew Amanda. I talked with them for a bit but no conversation got going and we ended up sitting in an awkward silence for awhile. Eventually Amanda came back from work, gave me the keys, and left again to go out with some friends from work. Not yet tired and determined to make one last loop around Frenchman ave. in the hopes of meeting people I did just that. When I was about to give up I passed an slightly bearded guy who was not much older than I. His name was Dylan and him and his friend Jeff were biking from DC to Northern California. They were hanging out with a bunch of French kids, a Spanish girl, and a British girl they met at their hostel. They were all incredibly friendly and Dylan bought me a drink in celebration of our meeting. Being a lover of Reggae they were all hanging out/dancing in the Bob Marley themed bar across the street. Eventually though this got old. Dylan stayed, a few went to listen to Jazz at The Spotted Cat but I was intrigued by the others talk of a "tree house party." Hearing about this from these two guys that someone had met we (Jeff, I, the French kids, the Spanish girl, and these 2 newcomers) set off about 8 blocks down one of the main roads. I soon realized what they meant by "tree house." The colossus resided in the backyard of what is known as the NOLA Art House, which is some kind of communal living art collective. One of there projects, which has slowly been added onto over the years, is a tree house in their back yard the size of a 3 story house. It sports long rope walkways, a pool, slides and other pieces hat seem to have come from a McDonald's children playground, and xmas lights wrapped about the entire thing.





There were plenty of other strange sculptures and structures but this was obviously the most captivating. The house itself was bizarre too. I'm not sure how many people actually live there but I met 4 of them last night. Every wall has something painted on it, some of the door knobs have been replaced by mannequin hands, one living room wall had drum cymbals bolted all over it, and there were crazy pieces of art lying everywhere. Not to mention a few cockroaches. The whole experience was incredibly surreal, and at first I was a little uneasy, but everyone that I met was nice, if not strange, and I was quickly put at ease.
I exchanged emails and phone numbers with a few of the people, making tentative plans to see each other again before we went out separate ways.

Pretty Pretty Picture

So I finally got around to finding a digital camera I could use to supplement my terribly long entries with pictures for your enjoyment. Here's a few things I snapped today. Sorry about the weird formatting. I'm not really used to using this thing yet.

This is a photo of the house I'm staying in some random family hanging out in front of it.

This my friend Taylor's art gallery. Or at least the sign hanging out front.

This is Envie; a cool little coffee shop about 3 blocks from where I'm staying. I've been here at least once every day since my arrival.

This is one of the last 3 French buildings in the French Quarter. The rest of them burnt down in the 1700's.

This is an example of Spanish architecture that populates most of the quarter now. Notice the balconies that everyone associates with this area.

Bone White Marble and Bible Bedtime Stories

Yesterday was a very slow day. Originally we were supposed to go to the zoo but we woke up late and Amanda had lost her friends phone number. At 1 we were supposed to meet at Taylor's gallery so his business partner, Mike, could give us a free tour around the French Quarter. Amanda was trying to help them get advertisements into that Hilton. We arrived exactly at 1 and Taylor was nowhere to be seen; undoubtedly hungover in his art-filled, wood-paneled apartment.

We left the gallery as soon as we arrived. Mike's 15 year old daughter was also there to accompany us on the tour. Every few blocks he would stop and talk about architecture or termites or people dying. Our final destination was the St. Louis cemetery on the northern border of the quarter. It covered about 9 sq. city blocks and was surrounded by a plain white rock wall. I expected to see lots of scattered grave stones with a mausoleum of two thrown in for the more wealthy Catholics. Instead, what I saw appeared to be a small city of the dead. Over the first decades of New Orleans' existence it's inhabitants quickly learned that burying people in swampy ground was the not the best way to never see them again. Marble and stone mausoleums were cramped together so closely that the stone walking paths between them had to be maneuvered in single file. Built before the days where Catholicism allowed cremation, the surrounding walls were full of man sized holes that were rented out for a year and a day. Baking inside rock under the Louisiana sun acted as their equivalent of cremation. When your time in the wall was up your remains were placed inside a bag, stamped into a finer dust, and thrown into the family tomb with everyone else.

There were two particualarly interesting tombs that I would like to comment on. The first being that of Marie Laveau, otherwise known as the "voodoo queen." It is said to be the third most visited grave in the world. Her resting place consists of a small, marble crypt covered in "XXX"'s and adorned with everything from flowers to empty alcohol bottles. There is some kind of superstition that if you spin around, toss pennies on the ground and draw three X's on her tomb she will grant you a wish. If it comes true you are supposed to return to her grave and cross your out your X's. Whether it is because she has lost her magic or the possibility of being arrested for further defilement of a grave not many of the X's were crossed out.
The other notable tomb is relatively new and not yet occupied. Near the center of the cemetary is are newly paved sidewalks that lead to a freshly white washed pyramid. This is the future tomb of famous, mediocre actor Nicolas Cage.

The rest of the day and night held no more extremely exciting events. Amanda and I watched movies and made grilled cheese sandwiches. We tried to go out dancing in the evening but couldn't find anything of particular interest. Not wanting to go to sleep we stayed up till at least 4 in the morning watching YouTube videos, laughing at Look At This Fucking Hipster, and reading/making fun of our favorite stories from the Bible.

A Day With Myself/A Night With Friends pt.2

So, I'm back. And after a bite to eat Amanda and I were back at Flanagan's. Sitting at the bar was the 33 year old, crippled, art gallery owner named Taylor I had been briefly introduced to the day before and we joined him for a drink; gin and tonics. Taylor introduced us (introducing Amanda as Batman; a nickname he was proud to have been so clever to devise) to a scrub-wearing man in his mid 20's named Lee who was seated next to him at the bar. Lee had just opened a vet with his father a few store fronts down from Taylor's art gallery in the quarter. (I still think the french quarter is a strange, and rather small, place to open up a full service animal hospital.) We began talking about art, records, different bars I needed to visit on my trip, whether Taylor should next move his art gallery to Seattle or Brooklyn, etc etc, and even though I was the quite one sitting at the end of the line Taylor couldn't help but comment on how he thought I seemed like a great guy (he had also started drinking several hours before us). By this time I was on my first beer and Taylor ordered everyone to take a shot of Jameson and join him afterward for more drinks at his place before our next stop that evening. (He really just had to do laundry before it got too late.) So after we were all done we set off towards his living space that resided right between the bar and Amanda's house.

I'm not sure whether to call Taylor's place a house or an apartment because it fell into the category of a lavish example between the two definitions. We entered his building down and alleyway and through a beautifully decorated courtyard that was the center of several of these different living spaces. His was located on the bottom floor of one of the brick building on our left. Through huge wooden doors we entered, essentially what is my dream apartment. The entire place was paneled with the same dark wood and lighter trim as the doors; a feature Taylor claims the previous owner, a retired boat captain, had put in. Cluttered about the living room were all different kinds of books, records, and expensive pieces of artwork. He was modest enough to point out his original Salvador Dali print. In front of us was a narrow spiral staircase that led to a small second floor landing, which consisted of shelves of the same wood lined with more books, records, and CD's. By this point I was salivating all over the room. He poured the three of us (Amanda abstained) another shot of Jameson and put on his favorite album by The Magnetic Fields, 69 Love Songs; cranking it up to full volume during his favorite ones. After he threw in his laundry and a short explanation of the huge 3-paneled painting he had covering an entire wall we decided to go out to a bar called Yuki for some saké. Amanda had never tried it before and Lee claimed to be a self-taught connoisseur of the drink. The bar was at the same intersection as Amanda's house and had a 4-piece string band playing at the entrance. We chose a large enough table in the back surrounded by bamboo poles and prints of Japanese artwork. Lee was nice enough to pick out and pay for 2 bottles of very nice, dry, filtered saké. It reminded me nothing of rice and actually had a warm, buttery aftertaste. We eventually got around to the subject of me trying to find work while I was here but they laughed when I told them I would only be in town for the month. They promised to let me know if they could find someone to dump me on and Taylor also mentioned that he knew some people in Portland that might need help while I was there.
Our plan next was to go to Our Bar for more drinks but Lee, who had yet to mop the vet floors, said he had to leave and we decided to call it a night. Before we parted ways Taylor, Amanda, and I had a quick stop for $2 tacos at a bar across the street that had loud brass music blaring from the front entrance. As we parted Taylor gave me his number saying that sometime soon him, his brother, his business partner, and I were all going to go out for a boys night on the town so he could show me around some of the places he had been telling me about throughout the evening.

A Day With Myself/A Night With Friends

The way yesterday worked out makes it feel like 2 separate days; one quite, warm, and cloudy, the other loud, dark, full of laughter.

I ended up rousing myself around 10am but because of her awful night scheduling Amanda would not be joining the realm of the living for another 5 hours. I figured I should acclimate myself to the surroundings, since I this would not be my only time by myself, and what better way to do that than to get lost. With nothing more than a crudely drawn map on a napkin, some cash, and my camera I set off into the heart of the neighboring French Quarter. The day was hot and humid, like all the others, but an overcast of dark storm clouds helped to slow my perspiration. I found the people I saw on the street much more interesting than the hodge-podge of colorful and cluttered building and sought to make them the focus of my pictures that day. I used almost a whole roll of film but I'm still not exactly sure who or what I shot. During my mid-exploration coffee break I sat at a table next to a terribly thin old man who sported a gigantic white beard, no sleeves, and a top hat covered in eyes. Despite the sunny weather his uncovered skin was bleach white and his tiny eyes shone an intense blue between his white facial hair and the black brim of his hat. He was obviously some kind of street performer and looked like he had crawled right out of the bayou; a look I'm sure he was going for. I wanted to take a picture of him but, like all the others, I was too shy to ask his permission and didn't think myself stealthy enough to sneak a shot that would probably turn out overexposed or out of focus.
I made a big circle around the distract, picked up some shaving cream and razors, and on my way back home overshot the house and proceeded to get lost in the Marigny, an area that my map did not cover. My sense of direction would not be dishonored by asking directions though. This was a much more exciting way to map the city out in my head anyways. The neighborhood was nice enough, with every other house painted a new neon or fluorescent color. Had I been an epileptic in a car I may have had a seizure. They should really put up some caution signs about that.

Back at the house I hung out with Willy some more until 2:30; the predetermined time to kick Amanda's ass out of bed. Eventually, after she used the computer, got ready, made food, we were off for the evening. But first a stop at the Verizon store to buy Amanda a new phone. Then a terrifying drive back across town as I had to assume the role of back seat drivers as Amanda excitedly played with her new phone. While living in NC most of the terrible drivers I had to deal with were from SC but I had no idea about New Orleans. I think it would actually be more dangerous to be a good driver here as most people from the area "learn to drive with a beer between their legs." At least if you fuck up everyone else does too so it balances things out. Several times I've seen the number of lanes on a road be determined only by how daring the people on it are.

This is where the real fun of the evening began but I have to leave for a business meeting and will let you all hang on the edge of your seat, as I'm sure you are, until I return.

Mailing Letters, Trinkets and Magical Objects

I've already promised many of you that I'll be sending you letters and postcards and all kinds of things but if anyone wants to send me something my address till June 15 will be:

2105 CHARTRES ST
NEW ORLEANS, LA 70116-2029

A Warm Reception

Today I began my 2 month summer trek to New Orleans and Portland, OR with any other cities in between that I deem necessary of visitation. After nonstop moving, other than being cramped on airplanes, all day I have compiled a general overview of what has happened in the last 7 hours.

I arrived in New Orleans today around 2:30pm and Amanda got straight to the point of showing me a good time. After running a few errands that is. But first coffee, catch up, and plenty of "I'm so glad you're/I'm here"'s at a place called Envie.
Having no food in her house we stopped a market in the French Quarter and picked up the typical staple foods, returning eventually to her wonderfully pinkish colored house just outside the Quarter. Her room is on the back of the house that she shares with 3 other guys (only one of which I have met and only for a second (a tattooed, shirtless law student named Willy)).
The walls of her slightly messy bedroom are adorned with not much more than a broken mirror and her artwork. It's very cozy and warm. The only other door in the room leads to the backyard, which after we test for lead will hopefully become our garden. And possible moonshine still? We made plenty of grandiose plans today so we'll see what we can actually getting around to accomplishing.

For dinner a pub a few blocks away, named Flanagan's, was serving all you can eat crawdads and BBQ for $5 with the added bonus of $2 beers. Sweat, seafood, and High Life gave me no doubt I was in the Cajun capital. I was wonderfully fat and happy in that smoke filled hole in the wall with Amanda and some of her friends from Seattle.

Then more coffee at a cooperatively owned coffee shop called Neutral Ground. Public drinking seems to be no problem here. I've seen countless people drinking on the street and one of her friends at the non-alcohol serving coffee shop was just sitting at the bar drinking a 40. But as the hour grew later I became more worn out and she was working the night shift.
She just left for work and will be there till 7am X(
So I'm holding down the fort till she can eventually collapse back here.
With her next 2 days off work the beginning of this 2 month saga shall prove to be interesting.

Now I'm off to bed so the drunken brass band on the corner can lull me to sleep.