Old Orleans and Anthotime

My good friend Anthony recently moved to New Orleans for a retina fellowship. Being the awesome friend that I am I went along for the road trip (with Jon) to assist in the move. I’d been to NO before, most recently in ’04 to interview for a residency spot, but this was the first I’d been there since Katrina. Immediately noticeable was the collection of homeless (unless you count the tents) vagrants huddled beneath the highway. It was like the scene in Dune where Paul Atreides discovers the desert wanderers.

While in NO, I did everything from eat etouffee, gamble and even see some entertainers of the exotic school of dance (strippers). One of the more salient qualities of NO is the extremes. It’s like the line the alien says to Jodie Foster in Contact, “…capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares” at the same time. That said here’s my brief review of “The Big Easy”, focusing on the positives.

1.It’s very warm and has a tropical feel to boot. This can mean heavy rain throughout the day but comfortably temperate at the same time. As much as I like watching the Bears play November football in the snow, it royally sucks driving to the sports bar in a blizzard.

2.Lots of neat French and Creole restaurants, also plenty of quality seafood given the close proximity to the gulf. I ate at Mr. B’s, Emerils and many others. As fantastic as these places are, I bet it’s tough to get a satisfying pizza in NO. Or good Thai food. How about White Castles? You feel like a gyro? My point is that the food there is excellent but the genre is too narrow in scope. And I could never live in a place without decent pizza for very long (like my 3 yrs in Texas).

3.Lots of great entertainment, particularly live music and jazz. My friends and I found a cover band that could’ve been called, “Rupert’s iPod Playlist”. It was mostly 80’s rock, stuff like Journey and Boston. The lead guitarist was Hendrix reincarnated as a stubble-chinned, white guy with a potbelly; which was awesome. And the $0 cover charge made it even sweeter.

4.There’s a surfeit of strip clubs on Bourbon St. Initially I wasn’t sure if this was really a plus, but after some thought I decided to leave it this way. It’s not that I like strippers so much, but it’s oddly comforting to know that there’s such variety of skank within walking distance of the hotel. Maybe I’m just a perv.

5.Cheap alcohol. No real explanation is required.

6.Legalized gambling at Harrah’s. Again, I’m not a big gambler but it’s kinda cool to have access to a casino that’s not on a riverboat or located on a reservation in the middle of Arizona. Note that this mixed with #5 and #4 can be a potentially lethal combo.

I won’t describe in detail the garbage in the French Quarter, massive mosquitoes and consistently racist graffiti scrawled on the bathroom walls. And I know this was a very narrow assessment of such a big city, but I was only there for a few days. Anthony is there for at least a year. I’m clearly biased as his friend but I think he’ll be great at exploiting these bright spots and avoiding the dark ones. He gets a one-year break from the cold, the traffic and all things that make Chicago an occasionally tough place to love. And in one year he’ll appreciate the pizza that much more.