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To be nitpicky, she's my new half sister and just the cutest thing you ever did see. YES, INDEED!
I just spent two weeks in New Orleans and environs.
To my shock: It is not 'like Mogadishu'. Even though the neighbourhood we lived in, Algiers, is right up against the levee (the tiny, ridiculous, wet-fart could tumble it looking levee) in the 'Bad Part' of town.
White people still live in New Orleans. Heavily armed, somewhat racist white people, but very nice. Black people also live there, also somewhat racist but very nice.
I was surprised how many 'code words' that the different tribes use to warn each other, there were stores we couldn't go to, neighbourhoods a 5 minute walk away that we were absolutely forbidden from even in the day, it was just like TV!
And of course the food...the food....no wonder there are so many fat people in NO! Hell if I lived there I'd be 300 lbs too!
-Soft-shelled crab. Oh my ping-pong-tiddily they make it good.
-Catfish in pecan sauce. (I caused a scene when my waitress roundly declared 'We ain't got no PEE-CANS here'. Apparently they are peCANS at this latitude.
-Fried oysters in the hottest sweetest sauce..mmm....
The Bayou was very cool. Giant snapping turtles, sleepy gators (IN the city). I was surprised how much more LA extends south of NO, I thought it just ended in the sea.
I tried to get a bunch of hunters (or whatever they were, guys with guns our group had some connection to and we met up with them in the bayou for mayhem purposes) to speak proper English and pledge allegiance to the Queen, but they weren't having none of it and pushed me over (while drunk). But they let me use their 'Airboat' thing after, for free ($150 for tourists!!). The local beer kinda sucked, but it sure is cheap compared to Canada! The Bayou is GLOP pure green. No leeches that I saw. Tonnes of gators sleeping everywhere. They don't do much of anything during the day so it was as safe as anything.
Bourbon Street was pretty wild, but seemed a little tame to me after Thailand and Cambodia. We did all the tourist stuff, Handgrenades, that wretched imitation absinthe, the live sex show('Cabaret' apparently means something totally different then what I thought it did, Christ I thought it was some kind of dinner-theatre thing!! Really!), the jazz clubs.
I passed on the huge US national WWII museum, but I loved the little tiny Civil War museum. Very lovingly maintained and with lots of 'intimate' exhibits from NO days as a city under military occupation. An old couple seems to run the whole deal.
The Algiers neighbourhood was fascinating to me. They really do shoot guns into the air at night, and there are all sorts of 'forbidden places' for whites. But during the day they get together (segregated of course) and have these cool impromtu street music parties where they just block of the street with a pick-up and start it up.
The 4th of July, where americans celebrate the success of their separatist movement, was very impressive on the mississippi with rockets being launched from barges and the casino boats looked very nice.
LESS nice was the way back through the 'rough' neighbourhood while everyone in the city was drunk. Local tradition, it seems, is for kids to horizontally launch fireworks down the street.
We made it back. Very nice evenings there, especially the moon. The little old lady next door (4 handguns she knows of, 2 lost somewhere in the house) made us snacks. Our other neighbour from across the street (AK-47, 2 shotguns, 2 handguns) came across and entertained us with local lore and conspiracy theories about every which thing.
The streets are full of fresh figs, tropical flowers, and all. Spanish moss like a Gothic novel is everywhere.
We learned that 'decent' folk lived in 'Uptown', and that the little enclave we were in was full of a proud people, without means to escape the encrouching ghetto and its constant crime (what I first thought were firecrackers were REAL AUTHENTIC AMERICAN GUNSHOTS. It was so cool like on safari!. Although, oddly, the people who shoot up the neighbourhood surrounding Algiers seemed to stop for the 4th of July. Everybody loves a party I guess) but unwilling to where the poor white people go. I had three different people tell me the old line about 'better to be judged by 12 then...' as if they'd thought of it the first time.
We had our Black Friend take us to the Soul Food Cafe in Algiers and saw the Louis Armstrong memorial. The man looked exactly like a human bullfrog.
I was impressed by the Aquarium, it was quite interesting, although one section had some surly government work project employees.
And the fishing! Great fishing in LA, although the Giant Catfish seem to be gone these days, overfishing or something. I've never actually caught that many fish.
We also found ourselves a GENUINE DECAYING SOUTHERN MANSION!! Right in the middle of New Orleans, its legal status was in limbo and it was really just a shell of a building, but quite interesting to explore. Maximum quaintness factor. The inside was moldy beyond belief and inhabited by the scourge of the bayou, the Nutria!! Forget the gators, the nutria are much more annoying. GIANT FRICKIN' WATER RATS. But the verandah was gigantic and in a nice spot so we made it our base for a day and sipped cocktails and failed miserably at looking aristocratic and threw things at passing Nutria.
But then I remembered something. My poor little (half) sisters mum is from NO. She has a 'business voice' but when she comes home and sits out on the porch she becomes barely intelligible.
Could it be that my own little sister could one day be cursed with this sun-addled corruption of english they all seem to speak down there!!???
I must take steps and write to her as soon as she can read:
-it's PEE-can.
-Never ever add 'yes, indeed' onto the end of a sentence.
-If you must use 'y'all', use it sparingly.
-The 'a' sound in the middle of words. It's short. It's 'a' and 'aaaa'.
How can I save an innocent child from the corrupting influence of this sun-soaked and mold-streaked latitude?!
I just spent two weeks in New Orleans and environs.
To my shock: It is not 'like Mogadishu'. Even though the neighbourhood we lived in, Algiers, is right up against the levee (the tiny, ridiculous, wet-fart could tumble it looking levee) in the 'Bad Part' of town.
White people still live in New Orleans. Heavily armed, somewhat racist white people, but very nice. Black people also live there, also somewhat racist but very nice.
I was surprised how many 'code words' that the different tribes use to warn each other, there were stores we couldn't go to, neighbourhoods a 5 minute walk away that we were absolutely forbidden from even in the day, it was just like TV!
And of course the food...the food....no wonder there are so many fat people in NO! Hell if I lived there I'd be 300 lbs too!
-Soft-shelled crab. Oh my ping-pong-tiddily they make it good.
-Catfish in pecan sauce. (I caused a scene when my waitress roundly declared 'We ain't got no PEE-CANS here'. Apparently they are peCANS at this latitude.
-Fried oysters in the hottest sweetest sauce..mmm....
The Bayou was very cool. Giant snapping turtles, sleepy gators (IN the city). I was surprised how much more LA extends south of NO, I thought it just ended in the sea.
I tried to get a bunch of hunters (or whatever they were, guys with guns our group had some connection to and we met up with them in the bayou for mayhem purposes) to speak proper English and pledge allegiance to the Queen, but they weren't having none of it and pushed me over (while drunk). But they let me use their 'Airboat' thing after, for free ($150 for tourists!!). The local beer kinda sucked, but it sure is cheap compared to Canada! The Bayou is GLOP pure green. No leeches that I saw. Tonnes of gators sleeping everywhere. They don't do much of anything during the day so it was as safe as anything.
Bourbon Street was pretty wild, but seemed a little tame to me after Thailand and Cambodia. We did all the tourist stuff, Handgrenades, that wretched imitation absinthe, the live sex show('Cabaret' apparently means something totally different then what I thought it did, Christ I thought it was some kind of dinner-theatre thing!! Really!), the jazz clubs.
I passed on the huge US national WWII museum, but I loved the little tiny Civil War museum. Very lovingly maintained and with lots of 'intimate' exhibits from NO days as a city under military occupation. An old couple seems to run the whole deal.
The Algiers neighbourhood was fascinating to me. They really do shoot guns into the air at night, and there are all sorts of 'forbidden places' for whites. But during the day they get together (segregated of course) and have these cool impromtu street music parties where they just block of the street with a pick-up and start it up.
The 4th of July, where americans celebrate the success of their separatist movement, was very impressive on the mississippi with rockets being launched from barges and the casino boats looked very nice.
LESS nice was the way back through the 'rough' neighbourhood while everyone in the city was drunk. Local tradition, it seems, is for kids to horizontally launch fireworks down the street.
We made it back. Very nice evenings there, especially the moon. The little old lady next door (4 handguns she knows of, 2 lost somewhere in the house) made us snacks. Our other neighbour from across the street (AK-47, 2 shotguns, 2 handguns) came across and entertained us with local lore and conspiracy theories about every which thing.
The streets are full of fresh figs, tropical flowers, and all. Spanish moss like a Gothic novel is everywhere.
We learned that 'decent' folk lived in 'Uptown', and that the little enclave we were in was full of a proud people, without means to escape the encrouching ghetto and its constant crime (what I first thought were firecrackers were REAL AUTHENTIC AMERICAN GUNSHOTS. It was so cool like on safari!. Although, oddly, the people who shoot up the neighbourhood surrounding Algiers seemed to stop for the 4th of July. Everybody loves a party I guess) but unwilling to where the poor white people go. I had three different people tell me the old line about 'better to be judged by 12 then...' as if they'd thought of it the first time.
We had our Black Friend take us to the Soul Food Cafe in Algiers and saw the Louis Armstrong memorial. The man looked exactly like a human bullfrog.
I was impressed by the Aquarium, it was quite interesting, although one section had some surly government work project employees.
And the fishing! Great fishing in LA, although the Giant Catfish seem to be gone these days, overfishing or something. I've never actually caught that many fish.
We also found ourselves a GENUINE DECAYING SOUTHERN MANSION!! Right in the middle of New Orleans, its legal status was in limbo and it was really just a shell of a building, but quite interesting to explore. Maximum quaintness factor. The inside was moldy beyond belief and inhabited by the scourge of the bayou, the Nutria!! Forget the gators, the nutria are much more annoying. GIANT FRICKIN' WATER RATS. But the verandah was gigantic and in a nice spot so we made it our base for a day and sipped cocktails and failed miserably at looking aristocratic and threw things at passing Nutria.
But then I remembered something. My poor little (half) sisters mum is from NO. She has a 'business voice' but when she comes home and sits out on the porch she becomes barely intelligible.
Could it be that my own little sister could one day be cursed with this sun-addled corruption of english they all seem to speak down there!!???
I must take steps and write to her as soon as she can read:
-it's PEE-can.
-Never ever add 'yes, indeed' onto the end of a sentence.
-If you must use 'y'all', use it sparingly.
-The 'a' sound in the middle of words. It's short. It's 'a' and 'aaaa'.
How can I save an innocent child from the corrupting influence of this sun-soaked and mold-streaked latitude?!
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