Hurricane Katrina was a demented misfit spreading 'roid rage to every corner of the Gulf coast. This was still evident along the roughly 100 miles of the I-90 corridor between Mobile, AL and Lafayette, LA .
Once we had passed through the gaudy and ostentatious rebuilding of Biloxi
Ha! Whadda Douche!!!
(think Hard Rock Cafe on every corner, trucked in sand and awful bronze statues of sea birds) we could still see Katrina's path of devastation all along the bayou. The remnants of what once were homes pepper the north side of the road. The swamp is slowly laying claim to all the concrete pads that once hosted stilt houses. Boats flung over the highway are sinking into the mire where they will be become fiberglass fossils for future generations to unearth and wonder just what the fuck was going on way back when. On the south side...commercial fishing marinas reduced to skeletal remains, like the ribcage of some giant carcass. Salvage and scrap yards and a profusion of new home construction.
Sarah remarked, in less than polite terms, that it seemed an ill-conceived idea to rebuild in such a vulnerable place. Is not the definition of insanity to repeat an action while expecting a different outcome? Listen up!!! Mother Nature thinks your real estate is stupid and she's going crush your shit again!! Anyway, we've all seen pictures of the devastation...I don't need to post any pics for that. The rednecks, on the other hand...Man. We think we know rednecks in Maine. How about these swamp rats with their scrap trailer scavenging the turnouts and inlets for wasted equipment and trash that can be pawned for whatever. This crew of savages from the truck behind us was milling around as we waited for a drawbridge. I didn't take any pictures 'cuz I figured we'd end up in the stew pot by the evening if they caught me. I'll just say there was a congenital issue with eye spacing as well as consistency of leg length and a paucity of teeth. Documentary material for sure.
Despite Sarah's protestations, I insisted we follow 90 through New Orleans. Having never been, I wanted to see what all the hoopla was about. Of course, this happened to be one day after the ritual hosing down of the streets that serves double-duty to clean the drunkards and piss away and as closing ceremonies for Mardi Gras.
I wasn't really looking for that party anyway. And...as predicted by the lovely and intelligent Sarah, to whom I should always listen, we got lost trying to stay on 90. Not trying to find a destination, just trying to stay on one road. Evidently all the street signs in New Orleans got trashed by Katrina as well, because you can't drive for shit around this place. I think whoever designed the city must have been deep in the throes of an hypnotic voodoo trance. Or maybe just asleep at the wheel. So we get lost.
...and we wind up in the 9th ward. The cops don't even go to the 9th ward. Place looks like AP photos of downtown Beirut that I remember from my youth. What's gonna happen when some druglord amasses enough weaponry and zombie-like followers to install himself (or herself, hopefully. That would make a better story.) as the undisputed ruler of everything south of St. Charles? Free from fear of embargo, she'd use the strength of her river frontage to get whatever she wanted, threatening to dam the Mississippi, or pollute it with toxins or copies of "The Anarchists Cookbook" that will be carried to Mexico, inciting first quiet and illicit unrest until, after enough pipe-bombs and failed bridge demolitions, full scale rioting would break out. The Mexican drug cartels, seeing this, would immediately understand her nascent power and seek to join forces. Soon, having acquired Cuba in a game of wits with Castro, her empire will achieve near Nation status and one of two things would happen; Southern Louisiana would be reclaimed by the sea after another devastating hurricane, or the Saints would win the Superbowl mere weeks before Mardi-Gras. But I digress.
We finally got clear of The Big Easy To Get Lost In and headed...hold up, hey, listen. Did you know that in Louisiana, you can go to a "Margarita Stand" and, without getting out of your car (the drive up window is, after all, on the driver's side), purchase and receive two, 98oz. alcoholic daiquiris despite the fact that only two people occupy said car? One of those being the driver. It is legal for the passenger to drink that brain-freeze inducing concoction while on the roadway and evidently, in Louisiana, they don't give a Fat Tuesday fuck if the driver does too. And then the speed limit is goddamn 75. On the secondary and tertiary roads. And on these really spooky cloverleaf highway overpasses nestled real deep in real honest to fuckin'-little-baby-Jesus-said-so swampland where if you went over the Jersey barrier for reason, you may as well be over the side of an oil tanker in the ocean. You ain't climbin' back up, you ain't hollerin' for help, that anyone can hear, and you ain't swimmin' nowhere meaningful before your sorry ass is 'et and shat. I didn't know any of that, and now you do too.
We rocked and rolled our way to Lake Charles for visits with Morgan and Mike, Chris and Taylor at their swell house on the Calcasieu river. I've previously said we were between the River and Lake Charles proper. This is wrong. The Google map of the Caslcasieu River looks like a crude rendering of a portion of the human organ glob area containing the stomach, complete with surface area-increasing rugae, and some other gloppy inside meats. Where we were was between the stomach and the pancreas, (anterior view of course). Glad to clear that up.
What really matters though, is how much these folks like to Party. Capital P-arty.
Well, not all of them. And actually all they do is drink a lot and smoke many cigarettes and play guitars and sing songs until dawn.
And while there is not the kind of Capital P-arty that features a nightly orgy of blood, sex, glitter and drug fueled STD transfer, you had better be prepared to do it again, consecutively for a number of nights, that number remaining TBA. Sorry guys, but you all drink shitty beer. Shiner Bock is the best around and that does not say much. Also, it's ok for a 17 year old to run the door at the music venue/bar and let all his under-age friends in
Morgan and the boys
Call the waah-mbulance for the poor lonely banjo player
who also come to the after party carrying cases of beer and microdots of Ritalin. It's also ok to play old-versus-young Flipcup featuring such classic match-ups as The Diapers vs Depends.
It's also ok to get your wallet stolen out of your car by some drunk 17 year old because the only thing of real value in it at the time is your AAA card. It's also ok to go to Texas.
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