Man, I wrote this long-ass draft about my Jazz Fest trip (end of April) a month ago and never published it. I will now even though it cuts off abruptly. It’s not a full recap but I didn’t want to waste all them keystrokes, so up it goes. . . you won’t get a lot out of reading this but it will allow you to put off whatever you should be doing for a few minutes.
About a month ago was the 2nd annual Tony Goes To Jazz Fest With a Bunch of Lawyers weekend. It was a lot more fun than it sounds, let me tell you.
I started the weekend off right by pulling an all-nighter. You see, Thursday night is kickball night, which means that it’s bar night. Despite the fact that Ballsagna has the best team name in the league, we have the worst turnout at the bar for some reason, but no matter; the members who showed up had a hell of a time. Even Johnny Dragons showed up despite having a pool league game that made him miss kickball. I knew that I had a 6 am flight in the morning, but at a certain point I began thinking that I wouldn’t have time to sleep, and when someone suggested I do just that, the decision was made. So Erin and I hung out until about 1:30 with Stephanie. I had spent the last hour or so drinking water and caffeine, which is what allowed me to stay awake and pack once I got home.
I was off to the airport by 4:15, and as it turns out there is not much traffic at that hour, so I got to RDU mighty fast. Air travel was uneventful but I was unable to sleep, which is unusual for me, as sitting in an airline seat usually works like a tranquilizer dart on me.
A cab ride took me downtown and by 9:30 I was killing time on the streets of New Orleans. The weather was terrific. Dayo was arriving a couple hours later so I just walked around and took photos, including some with the ITECS Catbert, which is the new “traveling gnome” thing for our office.
Eventually Dayo arrived, we met Bo and James (our benefactor for the weekend), met up with Josh, and it was off to Jazz Fest. We saw some good bands that day: Started off with the Zydepunks, which would be indescribable except for the description they themselves provided – “New Orleans’ Favorite Cajun Irish Jewish Punk band.”
Then we saw an all-star cast with members of the Meters, P-Funk, and Living Colour. The keyboardist and guitarist in particular put on a great performance. After that, we went to see Buckwheat Zydeco, who we knew would be good and turned out to be about 10 times better than that. The dude is a hell of a showman.
Everyone in the place was dancing, except Josh, who kept falling asleep next to a woman who we suspect took his hand and placed it on her thigh while he was asleep.
That was the last show of the day, and it was time to go. Problem is, the fairgrounds are far from anywhere that a fest-goer stays, so everyone needed a cab. There was probably a 1/4 mile long line for a cab, and though cabs were lined up for blocks, the line hardly moved.
The five of us decided we’d try to hop the line. Not by skipping to the front or cutting in, but rather walking down the street to the back of the line of cabs. We thought this an ironclad idea. I mean, why would a cab driver wait in that long-ass line for half an hour to pick up a fare when we were willing to hop in and get going?
Well, turns out we don’t think like cab drivers. No one would pick us up. Clearly we weren’t the first to think of that idea, because even though no one around us was doing this, there seemed to be rules against it. Cab drivers wouldn’t give us the time of day. I think that we all had a feeling that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, since some of us were making comments like “maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”
Finally James got a cab to stop and engaged him in negotiation, but things weren’t going well, and I think the driver was actually just explaining that he wouldn’t take us, when just then a lady sitting on a porch with about seven other people yelled at us “I’ll take y’all! How much you payin?” Josh ventured a not unreasonable “25?” and this lady, despite protests like “you crazy” from her friends, jumped off the porch like it was on fire and directed us to her minivan.
The cab driver did not like this. He started yelling “she’s unlicensed! You can’t do that!” We were like ’sure buddy, we’d have paid you if you’d been willing, but now Tawndra is driving us. Enjoy sitting in line, douchebag.’ As far as I know, you don’t need to be a licensed cabbie to meet some strangers and give them a ride.
Tawndra is a nice lady from New Orleans who has 7 kids and one apparently ugly grandson (by her description, “he looks like a bulldog — no, what are those things called — a pug”). She lost her husband in “the storm” as they call it, and moved to Atlanta for a while and didn’t like it one bit, so she came back when she could. She was a very entertaining and pleasant driver to be sure, and as it turned out our gamble paid off.
Eventually we arrived at Franky and Johnny’s, where we killed 4 pounds of crawfish, some poboys, some beer, some pie, and some coffee. Stanner showed up eventually and had him a gravy poboy. After that is was back to the French Quarter for some more beers and good times, and eventually glorious sleep. Dayo, Josh and I all had pulled all-nighters featuring bars beforehand, and that sleep came none too soon.
Man, this is long. I am sick of writing.
Uh, Saturday we saw Mahogany Brass band and it started drizzling, It rained all day but thanks to our tent passes we stayed mostly dry and completely well-beered. We “saw” Billy Joel, by which I mean we stood about 100 yards away watching the monsoon, and sang along a little. Seriously, it was like a hurricane without the wind. Just freaking rain and lots of it.
Tags: General Thoughts by Tony
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