To Live or to
Leave
I live in New Orleans. Sometimes, mostly while I’m riding the bus or can’t take another moment of being in line at the grocery store, I wonder what the hell I’m doing in this city. Not a week goes by when I don’t wish, yearn or fantasize about living in another city, or even another country. I especially think of the wide open spaces of Australia and it’s wonderfully kind and funny people. Then I have a week like this. Sunday afternoon we found ourselves in a tiny little bar on Frenchmen Street. Although it is the middle of September, with the open doors and the many industrial antique ceiling fans going, it is actually quite comfortable sitting in the rattan arrangement by the front window, watching the interesting passers going by, and feeling like you could almost be at home. Then onto this little stage starts a band made up of un-amplified guitar, trumpet and an old black man with thimbles on his fingers scratching out rhythms on a washboard. Almost magically, everything around you comes together in comical harmony; the small glass window panes in their old wooden frames with faulty white Christmas lights running around the frame, the Spotted Cat who seems to know everything that has gone on around here, the many layers of worn paint on the walls which you still can’t call one color, the tired but rehabilitated old houses lining the row, each with their own story to tell. And tonight, after grabbing a beer at Lenny’s Piccadilly Lounge, I walked into the Orpheum Theater on University Place across from the old Roosevelt Hotel and sat, score in hand, free of charge, right in front of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra performing none other than Stravinsky’s Petruschka. Back at Lenny’s for another draught and to wait for my cab, the clientele is priceless. The bartender remembers me from last season. An old black woman cook who’s been working there for twenty-three years is sitting at the bar singing Al Green along with the juke box and clowning around with the nelliest black queen who has an answer for everything and who will not settle with anything less than the center of attention. And after I quit holding my stomach from laughing, I ask myself why the hell would you want to leave here?
I live in New Orleans. Sometimes, mostly while I’m riding the bus or can’t take another moment of being in line at the grocery store, I wonder what the hell I’m doing in this city. Not a week goes by when I don’t wish, yearn or fantasize about living in another city, or even another country. I especially think of the wide open spaces of Australia and it’s wonderfully kind and funny people. Then I have a week like this. Sunday afternoon we found ourselves in a tiny little bar on Frenchmen Street. Although it is the middle of September, with the open doors and the many industrial antique ceiling fans going, it is actually quite comfortable sitting in the rattan arrangement by the front window, watching the interesting passers going by, and feeling like you could almost be at home. Then onto this little stage starts a band made up of un-amplified guitar, trumpet and an old black man with thimbles on his fingers scratching out rhythms on a washboard. Almost magically, everything around you comes together in comical harmony; the small glass window panes in their old wooden frames with faulty white Christmas lights running around the frame, the Spotted Cat who seems to know everything that has gone on around here, the many layers of worn paint on the walls which you still can’t call one color, the tired but rehabilitated old houses lining the row, each with their own story to tell. And tonight, after grabbing a beer at Lenny’s Piccadilly Lounge, I walked into the Orpheum Theater on University Place across from the old Roosevelt Hotel and sat, score in hand, free of charge, right in front of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra performing none other than Stravinsky’s Petruschka. Back at Lenny’s for another draught and to wait for my cab, the clientele is priceless. The bartender remembers me from last season. An old black woman cook who’s been working there for twenty-three years is sitting at the bar singing Al Green along with the juke box and clowning around with the nelliest black queen who has an answer for everything and who will not settle with anything less than the center of attention. And after I quit holding my stomach from laughing, I ask myself why the hell would you want to leave here?
