way too funky to die

It was a great Mardi Gras yesterday because it simply couldn’t be otherwises.  Not

even Hurrican Katrina’s aftermath could stop the party.  The Big Blow wasn’t even

able to stop a Bourbon Street bar from closing.  And that’s the grit of New Orleans:

it’s way too funky to die.

If you pay attention, you can feel the funk ooze into your bones when you’re there.

It hides in the humidity, which is sometimes thick enough to sit on.  It sneaks into

the rain that can fall so hard it looks like it’s exploding from the pavement.  If you

dare look at the searing sun, you’ll see it poised to land.

This funk is water-based.  Most of the year you’ll bust a sweat as soon as you go

outside.  In cooler months you’re likely to get drenched in a downp0ur.  Sweat

and rain are the great equalizers in the Crescent City.  Sooner or later, even the

richest folks there have to venture out and risk it.

You can ignore it at your peril.  But if you stay there long enough — for purposes

of mental health — you have to give the city its due.  There is no other place in the

planet like it.  Not even Amsterdam is as funky.  I think that’s because the Dutch

have that bizarre belief that sex and moderate use of psychedelics is healthy.

I can prove my point for $2.50.  Go to the corner of Canal Street and St. Charles

Avenue in downtown New Orleans.  Have $1.25 in exact change for the streetcar.

It goes from the commercial district past Audubon Park, Tulane University and

stunning mansions in the Garden District.  It turns around in a residential area

and starts its 5-mile trek back.  Exact change again, please.

It’s great fun to go faster than the cars beside you, and the conductor can change

the lights to keep going.  But it’s leisurely, too.  On one of my rides, the conductor

stopped in the median and said to the passengers, “I’ll be right back.  I have to make

a phone call.”

St. Charles Avenue is a main cross strand of the city’s spider web street design.  It

symbolizes the grand extremes of the Big Easy.  Some of the most grinding poverty

in town is just a few blocks from the mansions.  I had a delivery route in the area

that kept me interweaving through the two worlds all day.  One day I saw a wedding

party and a funeral procession to accentuate the contradicti0n.

New Orleans is a Tennessee Williams character.  Like the women in “A Streetcar

Named Desire”, it’s resilient like Stella and fragile like Blanche.  It’s like your aunt

Gwen, who drinks too much but has the best stories of all your relatives.  This city

has more secrets than any other city I know.

Watching Katrina’s fatal sweep through town was like losing a member of the family

to me.  Watching the contortions of BP’s Tony Heyward to avoid responsibility for

the oil spill was just as painful.  But yesterday, watching the streets jammed with

frolickers renewed my faith in the old girl.  Stella/Blanche/Gwen, keep the good

times rolling.