May 2012 / Festin' and Glory in the Land of Boudin

Yours Truly in a Swamp

by Leonard Earl Johnson

May 2012

* * *

Festin' and Glory,

in the Land of Boudin

by Leonard Earl Johnson





Amtrak's train number one, Sunset Limited, pulled into Lafayette -- "Hub City" of Cajun Louisiana -- about two hours late.  We would have happily stayed on board another two hours.  For the company. 

We could have been the cast of a Fellini and Woody Allen movie. We were our own parade!  We were returning from meeting L. A. Norma in New Orleans for the God blessed French Quarter Festival -- the big news from which is that Cyril Neville is back.  He had been in Austin since Hurricane Katrina.  His Royal Southern Brotherhood, formed recently with Devon Allman, took stage in Woldenberg Park overlooking the River.   They wow-ed the Gods.

His talented niece, Charmaine Neville, did her great act the day before in Jackson Square.  Full voiced and with enormous presence -- though thin and sometimes using a cane -- she held the Neville family banner high. Alas, she did not do, "Right Key Wrong Keyhole," her all-time best number.  But she did an homage to garbage men that set a young man behind us yelling that his uncle was a garbage man.  People parted to allow him a front stage spot.  Charmaine touched his hand.  Later, from a happy lady in the crowd, she borrowed a blue straw hat easily recognizable as one by New Orleans renowned milliner, Tracy Thompson.  That lady can strut!

Good times on the River, in the Quarter, strolling, drinking, under shade trees, having a Cuban cigar, then POW, The River!  "It don't get any better," L. A. Norma said. "French Quarter Festival is tops!"  

One afternoon we rode our bikes over to House of Blues, where Missy Meatlocker entertained in the carriage way.  She is a practitioner of the ukulele and boiler of the best bagels this side of Brooklyn at Cake Cafe and Bakery, Faubourg Marigny.  She said she did not know what Will Rogers said of Calvin Coolidge.  "He said, Calvin's Presidency was like 'a man playing a ukulele'," L. A. Norma informed,  "You could not be sure if he was really doing it or just fooling around."

Next week, we met the American Queen, the first passenger paddle wheel steamboat between Memphis and New Orleans. . . "Since America was in the First World,"  L. A. Norma told a man who did not seem to care.  The man was dressed like Mark Twain.  We were at a press party amply feeding at Houmas House Plantation's public dining hall.  We were waiting on the levee.  Waiting for the Gothic American Queen to hove round the bend. 

Houmas House owner, Kevin Kelly, was presented with a piece of ship's rope and paddle wheel by the man dressed like Mark Twain.

A few days later,  we are having lunch on the Sunset Limited with a lady from California who had been a passenger on that voyage.  Our other table mates were from Alabama and the Carolinas.  They liked sailing and riding trains.  One of them was short, and had hands that made you think his Mother might have taken Thalidomide.  When the others had gone back to their cabins he told me he was seventy-three and that his auburn hair was "Chemically dependent."

Boarding the train in New Orleans were a couple dozen or so young and not-so-young folks with Tourette's Syndrome.  Every traveler's dream.  They were as full of joy as humans ever are.  We walked past them looking at the epic mural fresco painting around Union Station by Conrad A. Albrizio.  They popped off randomly with words and sounds, it seems, that may have been directed at the art.  On the train they would have filled the front half of my coach if they had not spent their time in the observation-car.  Everyone walking through to the dining-car smiled.  The happy folks responded to things that may or may not have been directed at them.  Everyone had a good time.

Back in my car, a young French couple whom I had seen on this train before, sat in front of me.  They were going to Alpine, Texas, a place on the railroad they claimed was "Not Texas," but the Chihuahua Desert.  

"Mexico," L. A. Norma suggested they meant.  They didn't understand, but assured her it was in Texas but to them it was not Texas but refreshing desert.  They lived in Paris.

The sounding-offers de-trained in New Iberia and we pulled into Lafayette tired but drawn to the Downtown Alive Friday concert nearby on the International Stage for a cover-band to top all cover-bands, Nik-L. Beer.  Hear them when you can.

Festival International de Louisiane opened the following week in Lafayette.  This is the largest, and many say, best of Acadiana festivals.  Some say even greater things.  It is without question a festival as you dream of them.  Huge crowds, but easily navigated.  Happy faces of all ages spread among outdoor stages, Downtown.  There is a Bazaar of goods from near and far, far away.  And the food!  I loved the alligator sauce piquante by Mark Rotolo of Jambalaya by "Shake," from Baton Rouge.

* * *

The train from New Orleans to Lafayette leaves always on time at 11:55 am (THIS TIME HAS CHANGED check with Amtrak) three times a week, and returns three times a week.  It is possible to go from either Town to the other for only an overnight stay.  But why?  Both Lafayette and New Orleans are worth a few days.  It is true people come here -- both Towns -- and sometimes do not go home.

"Getting there is half the fun," some airline used to advertise.  The train still is half the fun.  You can have lunch in either direction, though the weary crew from the West is likely to run out of food.  A good packed lunch is always a good idea.  But the diner is cheap and "so-so" good, and there you might meet your fellow travelers.  Think of it as a cruise in an old rust-bucket of a leaky ship with a frayed system and an exhausted staff.  Fun!

Following Monday in New Orleans.  In Congo Square, inside Louis Armstrong Park, Herbie Hancock, Ellis Marsalis, Terence Blanchard and Kermit Ruffins, with singer Stephanie Jordan kicked off International Jazz Day with a sunrise concert that included ritual drumming and more. Hancock performed his standard, Watermelon Man, with students from around the world via an Internet link. Then he flew off to New York City for their sunset concert.  And our God-fest, the great Jazz Fest in New Orleans, begins.

Amtrak.com

New Orleans Jazz Fest

Festival International de Lafayette, Louisiane

French Quarter Festival

Conrad A. Albrizio, muralist

Nik-L. Beer, cover band

----------------------------------------------

Copyright, 2012, Leonard Earl Johnson

All Rights Reserved

Click here To see or 0rder: T-Shirts, Koozies, LEJ.org icebox magnets

April 2012 / Easter on The River of Bourbon Street

Yours Truly in a Swamp

by Leonard Earl Johnson

* * *

Reprinted from Les Amis de Marigny, New Orleans March 2005

The Fight Between Carnival and Lent, 1559, Oil-on-panel, Pieter Bruegel (Dutch).

* * *
"A Short Carnival, then Hunter S. Thompson dies!"
~ Overheard, Easter 2003, leaving Saint Louis Cathedral

Easter on the River of Bourbon Street

by Leonard Earl Johnson

After Mass, L. A. Norma and I left the witch-hat towers of Saint Louis Cathedral and headed for the soaring balconies along Bourbon Street two blocks away. There we were lifted on the wings of whiskey poured from the chalice of the Bourbon Pub and Club Oz, two large dance halls flanking the intersection of Bourbon and rue Saint Ann. They stand guard as signals of demarcation between Reader's Digest tourists ebbing back towards Canal Street, and those who might read the National Geographic and venture on freely towards Faubourg Marigny, Faubourg Bywater and Faubourg Treme.

We took a balcony table above the Pub's swinging shingle and watched masses with arms upraised on the street below. In jubilation of Christ's resurrection. Or beads.

Touched by Easter or the elfin Mr. Booze, we saw Jesus walking down this infamous street wearing a crown of thorns over His long black hair. He wore sandals, too, and was naked save for a loincloth cut like the one in the paintings. He was thin and looked like He might be Filipino, but mostly He looked like Jesus. Everyone on the balcony saw Him.

True to The Book, He was slumming with the local rabble and reveling in their Easter experience.

"Well, a damn sight better'n His experience," L. A. Norma pointed out.

Every one simply glowed in the clear and righteous wonder of it all.

Earlier, Chris Owens, an elderly Bourbon Street dancer, conducted her annual Easter Parade. Her finely feathered flock consisted of David Duke, a brass band made up of midgets, elder ladies of the snatched-bodies cult, and a half dozen or so young bunnies in pastel furs. The bunnies threw underpants to the crowd. Among this human eddy, none gave any notice whatsoever to the walking Jesus.

A tourist family stood against the downstream wall of Pete Fountain's former club (now Oz). The father was wide-eyed. The girl, about seventeen, waved up to us. The pubescent son giggled and hugged his mother. Then along came Jesus straight towards them. There He was, Jesus, strolling along sin's busy thoroughfare.

The tourist mother looked offended. She gathered her brood and paddled them off down the street. Jesus did not seem bothered by their departure. After all, He wrote the book on forgiveness.

The other sinners, noting nothing of this drama, went on about their sinning.

Then the Pope appeared on the Oz balcony. He stood directly above where the tourist family had been, dressed head-to-toe in yellow and white satin. He blessed all who passed beneath him. He looked across the River of Bourbon and blessed us, too. We waved, and he motioned us over.We crossed the street and took our seats at the Pope's table.

We looked back at the Bourbon Pub balcony. The Pope, ever wise, said, "You can not see yourself on the balcony you have just left." We had all had a lot to drink. The Pope handed out Wild Turkey and water. "Holy Water, from The Holy River," he said.

Three real nuns, in old-fashioned black-and-white habits, came trotting along rue Saint Ann, returning from a later mass. They passed the intersection with Bourbon, heading towards Cathedral School. The sea of sinners parted.

"What would they think of seeing Jesus?" L. A. Norma asked of no one in particular. She leaned over the balcony rail and yelled to the crowd below for Carnival beads. A photographer looked up and took her picture. I yelled down asking if he had seen Jesus. "No," he shouted back. Would he like to? "Yes, of course, yes!"

The Pope lay his hands on my shoulders, and said, "Watch that woman, and do not let her fall over the communion rail." Green Carnival beads landed on the Pope's pointy hat. They looked interesting, but he took them off and tossed them to two college boys on the street below. Norma told him the two boys should have opened their pants. He frowned and sternly said, "This is not Carnival!"

I said, "It is not Lafayette either," but the Pope did not hear me -- he was gone to find Jesus.

Norma looked at me, then past my forehead, and talked of far-ranging things.

The Pope returned without Jesus. He was balancing fresh drinks that he distributed round the table."He can not be found in this wicked den," he said handing us Wild Turkey and water.

When we looked up from our drinks we saw Him again. He was at our old table across the street. He was waving from the Bourbon Pub's balcony. We waved back. His naked arms were lifted heavenward. His loincloth flapped in the whiskey-flavored air. The man with the camera jumped and shouted, "Your cross, your cross, show your cross!"

Jesus looked down and bellowed: "Don't you know what holiday this is?

"This is Easter, I have no cross!"

The Pope, assorted communion-rail leaners, and followers passing on the street below shouted, "Is it Carnival?" It wasn't, it was Easter on the River of Bourbon Street.

Editor's note: A story titled Again Down to The Sea by LEJ is in Country Roads Magazine, April 2012 This link is free.

----------------------------------------------
Copyright, 2010, Leonard Earl Johnson

All Rights Reserved

Click here To see or 0rder: T-Shirts, Koozies, LEJ.org icebox magnets

March 2012./ Forty Days of Lent

L. E. J. as the late Ernie K-Doe

Yours Truly in a Swamp

by

Leonard Earl Johnson

Reprinted from Les Amis de Marigny, New Orleans

April 2010

"Ain't nothing in the world time and money won't cure." ~ Ernie K-Doe, New Orleans Musician and Emperor of The World

* * *

Forty Days of Lent

by Leonard Earl Johnson

On Ash Wednesday, all over Louisiana, Carnival lifted its joyous mantle, leaving Lent's ashen smudge in its place. At New Orleans Saint Louis Cathedral, business suits stood cheek-by-jowl with crimson capes and smeared-lipstick ladies awaiting priests dressed in the vestments of Sorrow putting The Sign of The Cross on their foreheads, with thumbs dipped in the ashes of last year's Palm Sunday palms. Outside, a soft rain washed The City. I have many doubts about theological things, but none whatsoever about this ceremony. To ashes we shall return.

Lent is the strangest holiday in all the Christian calendar. Also the longest. Should you need reason to be suspicious of any religion's political powers, consider this fact: Carnival's pleasurable length shortens. Lent's, by Canon Law, never does.

* * *

Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) is the last day of Carnival's ever-changing season of joy. Next day, Ash Wednesday, is the first day of Lent's never-changing season of suffering.
The Catholic Calendar, by which we measure all this, is not too accurate, what with the date of Easter changing with the moon!

* * *

Easter is the end of Lent. It is also a ceremony about Spring. Borrowed from religions that came before Christianity. It may be the oldest human celebration, and it is calculated (or miscalculated), again by Canon Law, with instruments created with faith in suffering and suspicion of pleasure.

Suffering is not to be monkeyed with in theological calculations. Carnival's pleasures, however, are reducible, by God (or His agents with their inaccurate stopwatches).

Lenten fasting repairs Winter's damage and Carnival's excess, and prepares us for Spring's rebirth. Like the jazz man, and the bean-sprout say,

"Blow the roof off the sucker ..."

It has been a good Lent this year, with sunny mornings and a warm place in the kitchen to read Internet newspapers and sip coffee. The live oaks outside our dormer windows are a soft young green. Live oaks don't dump their leaves till Spring's new buds arrive (as followers of JFK conspiracies know). Then they change from old dark green to young soft green almost overnight. Today soft-green rules Big Swamp City, and we old alligators lie on the banks in whatever sun we can find dreaming of Easter baskets and Spring.

(A version of this story first appeared in 2004)
-----------
Copyright, 2010, Leonard Earl Johnson

For more L. E. J.'s Yours Truly in a Swamp go to
w w w . L E J . o r g
Click here To see or 0rder: LEJ.org icebox magnets

* * *

For The Lady at Sea

T-Shirt inscription:
"My Parents Went to New Orleans and All I Got Is This Lousy I. Q."

Available in New Orleans

at Faubourg Marigny Books, corner of Frenchmen and Chartres

* * *

For an old view of Louisiana Lent go to

Yours Truly in a Swamp 2008

____________________________________

© 2012, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved

January 2012, Bonne Année

Yours Truly in a Swamp

by

Leonard Earl Johnson

January 2012

* * *

www. LEJ. org

Bonne Année

(Happy New Year)

2012

You can not tell it all! That is the great pain of writers everywhere. Not being able to douse the fire that drives them to set it down.

"There lies writer's block, too," L. A. Norma said.

Forgive me for being late. I seldom miss deadlines, nor experience much writer's block not alcohol-related. But this month I sit indolently watching the morning window-garden shaking off last night's cold snap.

'Tis the season for falling off ladders and setting fire to one's house," L. A. Norma said, blowing Camel Cigarette smoke out the window.

And so January's story sat unwritten inside my computer alight with expectation.

"Write about the Sunset Limited," Norma suggested, navigating the sugar bowl across the table. "The Sunset Limited as 'Le Train Sans Souci' (The Train Without Concerns)."

Alas, no Amtrak train is without concerns. Ask anyone who has ridden one. And soon the dark clouds in Washington will gather to make it worse. You remember the recent solution to the post office budget woes? Make-it-worse will surely bring in the customers, they cried. And make it worse they did. A similar fate awaits poor limping Amtrak.

All that said, there is still something about a train that is cheap, comforting transportation. Less like driving and more like a land-cruise. On the train, like on a ship, you are with time enough to look out the Dining Car window while conversing with strangers. I once lunched with the King of Okeanos, sang with a woman who did studio work in Los Angeles with Elvis Presley, and described the scenery to a blind lady who bought my lunch just to hear me describe passing scenery.

We put Norma on an earlier train so she could be in New Orleans for the Second Line for Coco Robicheaux, who died 25 November 2011, on his day off, at the Apple Barrel on Frenchmen Street. He was 64.

Coco Robicheaux was a New Orleans musician we first met at a Voodoo Party with some lady Voodoo Priest from Haiti. As you know, he is now wooing the Hoo-Dooers in the clouds. He was in TREME, the great HBO show about New Orleans and Life therein. The night his segment aired, L. A. Norma and I were at a dinner party from where the host took the guests by taxi to Buffa's bar on Esplanade to watch (there was no TV at the host's house). There we chatted with Coco about post K. things.

The last time I saw him was in the Walgreen's parking lot on Saint Claude and Elysian Fields, Gateway to the Upper Ninth Ward. I wonder how he is dealing with the great FEMA in the Sky?

We missed Coco's Second Line to play Santa Claus at Buck and Johnny's Pizzaria in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. A little girl asked about Twelfth Night. "It is when the Kings came to the Baby Jesus, and the day the Phunny Phorty Phellows ride the Saint Charles Streetcar in New Orleans to open Carnival Season," Santa told the little girl. The Mother beamed. _______________________________________________________________________________________ © 2011, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved

Your comments are welcome,
post them in the Blog.
Click here for LEJ.org icebox magnets, Kozies and T-shirts

December 2011 / A New Christmas

Yours Truly in a Swamp
by
Leonard Earl Johnson
December 2011

* * *
A New Christmas
by Leonard Earl Johnson

www. LEJ. org

The train toLafayette left New Orleans on-time and was sold-out! Lafayette is the first smoke-stop out of New Orleans, and L. A. Norma was ready for it.

We arrived in time for the Downtown Boudin Cook-off in Parc San Souci on Vermilion Street, two blocks from the train station. Norma kept us on the platform smoking with the other outcast smokers waiting beside the idling train.

"They don't let you smoke around food in Louisiana," she told a man-and-wife pair of chimneys from Los Angeles.

"They don't let you smoke around anything in L. A.," the woman said. "You can freely smoke in your car only. For Christ's sake. Your car!"

"That's a pure-air cure," Norma snorted through a smoke ring, "safely smoking while spewing car fumes." The train's whistle blew and the Los Angeles couple scrambled aboard and looked down at us from the observation car. The Conductor waved and we trudged off to Parc San Souci, which is French for "Park Without Concerns."

* * *

"How many times have you heard politicians and other preachers speak of our Judeo / Christian traditions?" Norma asked.
　
Tradition, the thing that passes our values from one generation to the next, and the next, and so on. We Christmas-celebrating Christians follow Gospel teachings about a Jewish Rabbi we have come to call Christ The King. He was born in the little town of Bethlehem two-thousand-eleven years ago this December twenty-fifth, according to tradition.
　
"Tra-di-tion!" The very thing Tevye sang and danced about in Fiddler on the Roof – the English script of which was taken from a story in Yiddish by Russian-American immigrant Sholem Aleichem. It is about events leading towards immigration and change. A story as American as apple strudel, and later told larger than life on Broadway and in the 1971 film by the same name.

Tevye’s lament was for Jewish traditions threatened by something new. Immigration. Change. For Christians, Jewish traditions became just that.
　
The Word. Those New Christian traditions were brought by the Romans to the Germanic tribes of Northern Europe. There was added Saint Nicholas, a. k. a., Santa Claus. The Germans had Santa Claus long before they had the Romans or The New Word of Christ. For the full skinny on this hefty subject see A NEW CHRISTMAS TRADITION in December's Country Roads Magazine.

In Memoriam: Raise it high for Coco Robicheaux who died in New Orleans, 25 November 2011, on his day off, at the Apple Barrel on Frenchmen Street, in Faubourg Marigny. He was 64. You now march for him, too.
_____________________________________________________________________________ © 2011, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved.Your comments are welcome, post them in the Blog.
click here for LEJ.org icebox magnets and Kozies

November 2011 / New Orleans Film Festival

Yours Truly in a Swampby
Leonard Earl Johnson

November 2011

* * *

New Orleans Film Festival

by Leonard Earl Johnson

www. LEJ. org

The Sunset Limited from Los Angeles was six hours late arriving in New Orleans on the first day of the 2011 New Orleans Film Festival. Passengers and on-board staff were flummoxed. The Festival films presumably had gone on an earlier train.

“They don’t send film on reels anymore, or by train,” L. A. Norma pointed out. “Everything is on those little plastic disks now.”

The hungry man who boarded at Shriver, Louisiana offered her a bite of his Baby Ruth candy bar and added, “Or sent over the Internet.” He was an elderly man with weak legs, a loudly proclaimed hunger, and a face sunburned from waiting by the tracks since eight that morning. Shriver is a flag-stop an hour or so outside of New Orleans.

“My ride could only drop me off then,” he told the Train Assistant. “There was no shade and nobody could tell me anything.” The T. A. found the man some things to eat from the dining car’s nearly empty pantry. He eagerly joined our car’s chorus of complaints.

The other passengers had all been given little packets of dried fruit, crackers, yogurt, cheese and a small bottle of water. These items were picked up in Lafayette, along with L. A. Norma and yours truly. We got them, too. “For free, to ease your trip,” said the beleaguered Train Assistant. “This train is plumb out’a food.”

“Free” helped, but not much. Most simply wanted the journey to end. No one takes the train for speed, but six hours hurts one's sense of achievement. The man who boarded at Shriver wanted revenge, but no one could think of anything that would not further delay the train.

We were just starting our journey and were still fresh. We fished two beers from our carry-on bag and headed for the Observation Car. We had spirted four Abita Ambers on board to lessen costs and, now, the disappointment that it would be too dark to see the Mississippi River. Anyway, the train’s bar had closed at Shriver. “So the bartender can count the bottles,” L. A. Norma reckoned.

Explanations were proffered as to why we were running six hours late. I bet on the one about a derailed freighter outside San Antonio. Norma chose the belligerence of passing oil tankers and freighters.

Unlike other Earthlings, Americans have but one track for all trains. “The magic of deregulation,” Norma snorted. When Amtrak meets a freighter the freighter has right-of-way, and Am-trickle whimpers off the line and waits for it to pass. Between Los Angeles and New Orleans this can happen a lot.

A derailment, on the other hand, stops everyone. “More democratic,” I said to Norma.

Norma said, “Screw equality.” Smoking is not allowed on Amtrak, and Norma, a chimney, is never in too amiable a mood when on the train. As far as our time was concerned, we would not be traveling any longer than usual, just at night.

“Welcome to The New Third World,” she said to the T. A., who handed her a free bottle of water and wrote “NOL” on the little tickets she placed over our seats.

We pulled into Union Station hours after our ride had given up on us, and taken himself off to the Film Festival’s opening-night Gala at the Columns Hotel on Saint Charles Avenue. There Louisiana red beans and rice were being served to celebrants while we hailed a taxi.

“We have been the week in Acadiana and we’re not in need of any red beans and rice,” Norma told the taxi driver, who did not care. He wore a T-shirt that read: “My Parents went to New Orleans, and all I got was this Lousy I. Q." He told Norma to put her cigarette out and drove us to Squalor Heights.

Next morning we awoke early, for the grand boudin breakfast at Cake Café and Bakery on Spain and Charters. Connie Castille, who, with Allison Bohl, won the 2007 Louisiana Film Maker Award for their masterful 25-minute documentary / drama / comedy / tragedy, I Always Do My Collars First, sat next to us and said hello. Another of Castille's films, King Crawfish, played as part of the 2011 New Orleans Film Festival.

“If you have not seen their film, put down your boudin and bagel and go get it from the library right now, ” Norma told our waitress – who, fortunately for us, did not.

“Forgive his modesty,” Norma said, when I suggested they catch Zachary Godshall and Ross Brupbacher’s feature film, Lord Byron, at Canal Place Cinema. I have a five-second flash on-screen playing a lump in a swampy hobo camp outside of Lafayette. “He is such a good actor Godshall said he didn’t need to wear make up,” Norma informed the ladies.

Not that I had more than those five-seconds to do with it, but Lord Byron was also screened and well received earlier this year at Sundance.

The best film at the Festival that we almost did-not-see was Flood Streets. “Who wants to see another Katrina story,” Norma grumped in the taxi ride up to The Prytania, on Prytania.

“Who, indeed,” we laughed on the way home. What a great work! Flood Streets is less a Katrina story than a well told story about New Orleans esprit showcased against a post-Katrina daze. Just the kind of film to thrill those who worship at New Orleans altar. And further perplex those dryland-ers who do not understand why.

Flood Streets executive producer and script writer was Michelle Benoit. Other producers were Glen Pitre (best known in these swamps for directing Belizaire the Cajun – 1986), and Harry Shearer, whose feature The Big Uneasy (where have we heard that before) is ready for release, but was not at the Festival. He makes a cameo appearance as a teaching dentist in Flood. The original story was written by Helen Krieger, and directed by Joseph Meissner, who also plays the film’s male lead.

A sweet back story: Krieger and Meissner sold their home to finance this great film of their very own post-K. story – the story of any number of us.
Flood Streets clip _____________________________________________________________________________ © 2011, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved.
Your comments are welcome, post them in the Blog.
click here for LEJ.org icebox magnets and Koozies