Chi Chi’s Venice

This article originally appeared on Viceland.com

Journalists covering the Gulf Coat oil spill in Venice, Louisiana, like to wax poetic about how the short, patchy strip of oil refineries, fishing marinas, and houses on stilts is at “the end of the world.” These reporters, tapping out their stories from the lobby of the hotel at the Cypress Grove Marina, where the community coffee flows like crude and you can hear voices in a dozen tongues complain about what a craphole this place is, have apparently never been out beyond “the edge,” where Chi Chi Grillo lives.

Chi Chi’s house sits at the far end of a grass-lined wetland waterway in a collection of cobbled-together edifices called “Camp Canal,” population: two. Another dozen or so people use the place as a fishing camp—it’s accessible only by boat—and as one unfortunate BassMasters Classic participant found out, the canal’s strict speed limits are enforced by shotgun.

Chi Chi emigrated from Cuba and settled in Camp Canal after traveling the world for a while. That was 14 years ago. He told us he will never leave, even if his canal fills with oil and everything dies. This is his home. The fact that Hurricane Katrina demolished his previous house and he built another by hand in roughly the same spot without a penny in aid from the government (fed or otherwise) suggests he’s probably serious.

“I would die and burn in hell for this country,” he said, “but it is getting to be a tough place to live.”

Chi Chi’s dogs

When we came upon Chi Chi, he was fooling around with something on one of his boats while his girlfriend watched him from the porch with a beer. A couple of swamp hounds sat in cages at the end of his janky dock and periodic egrets swooped around the property. Chi Chi swung his white-rubber-bootied foot up on the edge of his craft, cocked his weathered face at an indirect angle from the sun, and asked what he could do for us.

Captain Boola

We’d found Chi Chi with the assistance of his friend Captain Boola. “Boola,” whether first, last, or nickname, is the only one he or Chi Chi would give us.

“It’s like Madonna,” he said. “What’s her last name?”

“Ciccone,” I replied. He pretended not to hear me.

Boola was a charter fishing guide until his spring docket was suddenly wiped clean with news of the oil spill. Now he scrapes by giving journalists rides into the wetlands for $400 a trip. Me and my photographer friend had a total of $33, six oranges, and a can of oatmeal between us. Luckily, though, we had an ace in the hole—a charming French foreign correspondent in the hole, to be more precise.

My girlfriend Akasha, our friend Mike, and I had actually taken the trip from New Orleans without the intention of trying to make a story out of it, but when the Washington, DC, bureau chief for Le Figaro pulls up in front of you on a remote stretch of road and asks if you are journalists, it’s hard to reply with anything other than: “Yes, we are journalists.”

Laure Mandeville covered Russia for nearly a decade, including the Second Chechen War. Like many journalists working in Russia, she experienced a healthy dose of intimidation from officials, having to go so far as to store her interview tapes in the French embassy for fear that they’d be stolen or tampered with. Her most controversial reporting dealt with allegations from members of the government that Russian security agents had staged false-flag terror attacks to look as if they were by Chechen rebels in order to give Russia a pretense to attack the rebels inside Chechnya. She also heard Putin’s friend tell her that Putin would have the Chechen president, whom Putin installed, killed if he ever acted up.

When we met her, Laure was hopping out of a dorky gold rental sedan with Tennessee plates asking us if we had seen any oil yet. We, alternatively, were dorking it up in the big white van that once served as the touring vehicle for infamous Salt Lake City punk band Fuck The Informer, parked conveniently in the edge of a marsh. We were taking photos like tourists, but after convincing Laure that we were all on the same mission, we took off in a news caravan to get the scoop from some locals.

What we found was a whole lot of nothing going on. The Coast Guard had shut down the fishing waters, and the sea was too choppy for any but the biggest boats to go out. Fishermen and oil hands sulked around the docks worrying about their livelihoods, all telling us that the “booms” that BP and the federal government had been putting in place to block the oil weren’t working, and were a waste of time and money to boot. Crews of television reporters from around the world scuffled about the parking lot setting up lights and cameras at various dramatic angles, complaining about the fact that the oil hadn’t reached shore yet to give them the doomsday storyline they’d come out to grab.

Laure had told us she had a line on a boat, which seemed like the only real chance for action. She had gotten Captain Boola’s number and was waiting to hear back from him. We stopped into a shrimp wholesale compound to see if we could find anyone to talk to in the meantime.

Tuan’s prize-winning roosters

The guy running the place was named Tuan Nguyen, a 51-year-old Vietnamese immigrant. His wood-paneled office was festooned with painted portraits of his prize-winning roosters, which were tethered to small lean-tos out front. Akasha and Mike tried to photograph the birds while Laure and I talked to Nguyen, but a lady in a golf cart shooed them off because a Chevron facility was in the background, and evidently taking photos of it is “prohibited.”

Nguyen hadn’t done any business in three days, and the coming months were not looking good. He didn’t express the vehemence against BP that I had expected though: “It was an accident,” he shrugged about the spill.

Nguyen’s financial assets—the wholesale business, a house in New Orleans—make him seem a less pitiful character than the hardscrabble shrimp boat crewmen with no GEDs nor a Wal-Mart nearby to go work at, but in fact he might be worse off. He doesn’t have the skills to go work on a rig or a boat, and no one’s going to want a seafood business surrounded by a sea of 10-W30. Halfway through his lament about his lack of a future, Laure’s phone rang: It was Boola. His boat was set to go, and we could board it for $400. I told Laure we didn’t have any budget, and she said not to worry about it.

Oil cleanup ships

By this time, I guess Laure had gathered that we were not “real journalists”—this was not her first rodeo, after all. But we kept her good company, and I provided a helpful service: While her English vocabulary, pronunciation and diction were near perfect, she had a tough time understanding the gumbo’d accents and Waterworld slang of these parts. I speak both the local dialect and the articulate English she’s used to in DC, and thus served as a good translator.

Gator in the wetlands

We boarded the boat with Boola, and he took us around the wetlands. I’m no stranger to postcard nature, having grown up in Wyoming, but the marshes and bayous of the Mississippi Delta are among the most vibrant and beautiful places I’ve explored. Boola took us to talk to Chi Chi, and after a while the conversation turned to a hate-fest against oil companies and the government.

“Obama is a bit better than Bush,” Chi Chi said. “Bush should have been hanged next to Saddam Hussein.”

“Joining a political party is like joining a mafia,” Boola said. “And oil companies take and take, and they never give anything back.”

“They drive up oil prices for ‘lack of supply,’ but can then dump $2 million dollars a day of oil into the Gulf,” Chi Chi concurred.

Boola and Chi Chi put bitchass Idaho libertarians, East Coast Tea Baggers, and trust-fund anarchist squatters to shame. Chi Chi will probably figure out how to strain oil out of fish flesh with a crab net and feed himself, his daughters, his girlfriend and his dogs even if the sea turns black. Boola knows the wetlands so well, he’s probably got a secret cove where he herded enough speckled trout to last a year. These people want nothing to do with government, and have no use for big business. When the revolution comes, I’m sticking with them.

After our trip with Boola, which included a detour to see some gators, we headed back to the marina, ate the last Louisiana shrimp we may for a decade, parted ways with Laure and took the van into town. We found a bar full of hicks and fisherman and some nervous British reporters in the corner. We downed some one-dollar Jell-O shots and Budweiser and listened to Lil’ Wayne blast from the jukebox. We drove back to the marina parking lot, where Akasha went to sleep in the van and Mike and I climbed into the crow’s nest of an unexpecting yacht at the dock. Mike was upset about philosophy or his ex-girlfriend or something, and after convincing him not to jump into the water, and not to steal a broken charcoal grill from another boat, we both bedded down in our mobile news unit and went to sleep. In the morning we cooked oatmeal in the parking lot on a propane stove to the confusion of everyone around us, then decided to drive “to the end of the road.” Though it made for good photos, the water covering the highway caused us some anxiety, so we decided to go back to the marina hotel for some coffee. The turnoff was blocked, though, for Obama’s motorcade, which the president had taken from New Orleans so he could “survey the damage” (though no oil was yet anywhere near Venice). Even after the menacing and stately row of vehicles had flown by, the cops still wouldn’t let us through. We took this as an indicator that it was a good time to go home, so we did.

I hate rules (Goodbye Mike Abu)

I received the following in an email from Mike Abu, who took the R Bar up on its weekly Monday night special of a shot and a haircut for ten bucks last night. Before he left for the bar, we discussed which terms he should use to describe to the bartender/stylist exactly what kind of haircut he wanted. We decided on “rock ‘n’ roll.” Apparently, this was the wrong adjective.

Sadly, in news unrelated to his haircut, Mike will no longer be sleeping on our floor after tomorrow. He is off on an adventure to Marfa, Texas, to find ghost lights and lithium hot springs, and then down the road to points further West.

From the email:

I hate rules

Rule 1. When you ask for a rock n roll haircut, you should first consider if you’re in a rock n roll town. That makes a difference (or so I’d like to believe).

Rule 2. Never accept some bullshit you don’t want, especially if you’re going for rock ‘n’ roll.

Rule 3. When your stylist tells you to just cut it yourself then, explain to her that you already did but promised you’d let her cut your hair before leaving town, and since you’re about to get in a van with some weird Australian medical student and some emotionally abused early twenties girl from Wyoming, you felt you might as well fulfill your promise, and by the way, where’s that shot?

Rule 4. Do not accept a haircut just cause you look cute—that’s not what you were going for.

Rule 5. Never give a fuck about anyone.

Rule 6. Give a fuck about somethings. Let your stylist know that parts of your head need to be shaven, that you need to look more radical, that you want cops to pull you over and immediately become suspicious.

Rule 7. Don’t seem so unhappy with your haircut that you get kicked out of the chair.

Rule 8. Do not give a fuck how long it’s gonna take, sit there pissed off and despondent in the corner until she has the time to fix your fucking hair.

Rule 9. Clean it up enough where you’re at least happy, then let the stylist buy you a drink and ask you questions. In other words, let her try again and give her a chance to know exactly why you’re so awesome.*

Rule 10. Allow her to go home with her boyfriend as you walk up the road and go through a clothing bin with a homeless guy.

Rule 11. Wear that shirt.

Rule 12. Email some girl you love even though you shouldn’t.

Rule 13. Never tell the truth, most people can’t seem to handle it.

Rule 14. Make some tea, take a shower, and pray to a god you don’t believe that the person looking back in the mirror doesn’t have as dumb as a haircut as you’re pretty sure you have.

*applicable only if you’re so awesome.

The South rises again (and embarrasses itself)

Last weekend we were walking downtown from the Alternative Media Expo and came upon a group of Tulane students “re-enacting a Confederate wedding,” or so they said. Apparently, in the antebellum South, weddings consisted of a bunch of frat boys dressed in either officer regalia—or, short a costume, white t-shirts with things like “Did I mention I played football in high school” written on them in Sharpie—and girls in big hoop dresses drinking champagne, eating Popeye’s chicken by the boxful, growing woozy from the heat and vomiting. Several of the young men had climbed giant planters to roost above the milieu and watch their brethren run and jump repeatedly in the ornate rose bushes, bloodying themselves on the thorns. Some of these bruisers noticed us among them after a while and informed us that the public space was at present their private domain, going so far to as let Mike know that he was a “fag-tard” and would be known as such unless he jumped into the rose bushes.

We left and got lunch at Back to the Garden, and upon our return there were some cops milling around the premises. They seemed rather unconcerned, but said they had gone so far as to ask the gentlemen to remove themselves from the planters. They took a slight bit more interested when I told them the kids were smashing champagne bottles all over the place, but now I realize I should have asked them to perform a simple mental exercise: Look at these kids breaking bottles, drinking copiously and underage, vomiting on the monument, wreaking havoc with the foliage, generally disturbing the peace … and now imagine that instead of white college kids dressed in goofy historical outfits, the group consisted of a bunch of black kids dressed in hood attire. Would you still be standing down here “making sure things don’t get out of hand”?

Amusingly enough, there was a two-man crew filming this whole ordeal, and I later learned that they were making a documentary about Black Islam in America. They couldn’t have picked a better date and spot to shoot.

Pervs and hustlers rattle the newcomers

Mike and Akasha wanted to explore our new neighborhood, so we headed down to the Lost Love Lounge. The bar glowed red except for the green shirt on the sober blonde bartender, who poured our bourbons deep. Two men argued around the pool table—one with a goatee and an obvious mean streak, the other with a stutter. We made acquaintances and Mike shot his way onto the table while Akasha talked on her phone. Dwayne, the stutterer, sat down next to her and I went to watch the game.

The man with the goatee was called V—short for an Italian name I can’t recall. He likened lots of things to fucking and for this and his continence and salt and pepper hair he made me think of Frank Booth. He lost to Mike and insisted I play. He sat drinkless next to us and we listened to the things one hears while making friends with dangerous men—three owners of this bar ago he’d shot a man inside of it. Three rules now permitted his entrance to it:

1) No guns
2) No selling dope
3) No hustling pool

“Well why the fuck should I drink at your bar then!?!” he had allegedly told the owner. I asked him why, indeed, and he said everyone needs a place to feel serenity sometimes.

Onward into the game, he said he’d shot two men during Gustav and that early in his life he’d spent ten years in Angola. Akasha had been talking to Dwayne at the bar, who told her we should be careful with V. When I walked over to them he was in the middle of trying to make her understand “bonding” by repeating the word, pointing at Mike and V, and then saying, “Close!” Yes, we were getting a bit close to V.

V borrowed two quarters from Mike and V and I shot a game. I was down lots of balls at the offset since V had run five of his—bank shots, cuts, all effortless. He seemed to fall apart after that and my game picked up and I won. At the time I was blind to the hustle but still had the sense not to shoot a man for money who had just borrowed fifty cents. He wanted the next game to be “I show you my 20 and you show me yours.” I cordially declined and kept myself from being 20 dollars poorer.

V didn’t want to play for fun and Mike was done, so I went to Akasha. Mike remained on the wall bantering with V. Dwayne squeezed my hand and looked at Mike and V with wide eyes above his mustache, below his black leather cap. “Go home!” he said. “Go home!” I poured my bourbon in a plastic cup, grabbed Mike and left. We watched for V but he didn’t follow.

Back at the house we drank beers on the stoop. Mike played guitar and climbed a bulldozer in the street. A man rode his bike past and stopped to talk. He wanted to sell it for six dollars. Mike, Akasha and I were one steed short of a fleet, so I took him up on it. After a test ride I talked him down to five-fifty.

I can’t remember this man’s name but he had a bottle of white lightning. He had dark, dark brown skin with thin, straight wrinkles that betrayed his otherwise boyish face. He was 45 and said he still got carded for smokes. He started to tell us about a threesome he once had—asking first if it was okay to talk dirty in front of a lady—but he couldn’t finish the story because the memory seemed to baffle him so. Each time he mentioned cunnilingus he punctuated it with flicks of his tongue.

I took my new bike around to our back yard and parked it. The man didn’t live far from our place, but it was still a bit of a hike. We asked him how he planned to get home, and he said he would manage. In the morning I looked out into the yard and the bike was gone. I guess that’s what he meant.

Oftentimes when you have something stolen, the sense of violation trumps the material loss. In the case of the worst bike I’ve ever ridden, this was certainly true. I shrugged the thing off as a learning experience—it’s funny how at this age I’m still adding items to my “Things Not to Do When Dealing with Crackheads” list—but the whole thing has shaken Akasha. She called the landlord and got locks on the windows and security lights in the back. I suppose those aren’t bad things, but our street is pretty safe, and I doubt the guy would have gone into our yard had his mode of transportation not been there.

Now our first house rule is “NO inviting sketchy men to hang out on the stoop.” Akasha lobbied for a law forbidding games of pool with murderers, but that’s one to which I’m not sure I’ll be able to abide.

PEASANTS does Treme

A few weeks ago at the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival, five of the six writers responsible for the new HBO series Treme convened in the Royal Sonesta Hotel Ballroom for a panel discussion. David Simon and Eric Overmyer—the show’s co-creators, and for whose collaboration on The Wire the hype surrounding Treme can be attributed—sat down along with David Mills, best known for his work writing for E.R. and NYPD Blue, as well as two New Orleans writers who had never before their contributions to Treme worked in television: Lolis Eric Elie and Tom Piazza. (Writer George Pelecanos, who worked with Simon and Overmyer on The Wire as well as Treme, did not attend.)

Treme (“treh-MAY”) is named after a historic black neighborhood in New Orleans that is and always has been home to many of the city’s preeminent musicians. The show begins three months after Hurricane Katrina and follows a variety of story lines in which the city’s inhabitants—many of whom are based on real New Orleans personalities—try to put the city and their lives back together.

Nola.com television critic David Walker moderated a discussion that largely focused on the dynamic of the “writers’ room” and how the highly individual act of writing is translated into group form in the process of coming up with plots for TV shows. Afterwards, he opened up the floor to questions for the audience, and yours truly leveled one at the panelists that inspired the following sequence. Lolis Eric Elie and Tom Piazza are locally famous for their championship of New Orleans, but have never produced much that reached a national or international audience, as Treme undoubtedly will.

Sadly, less than a week after this panel, writer David Mills succumbed to a brain aneurism on the show’s set and died. The photo that accompanies this obituary was taken after the panel in question.

PEASANTS: For Lolis and Tom—What was the mental process like when you were approached to do the show, in terms of knowing that you would perhaps have the opportunity to present your hometown to a wider audience than you’ve had previously? What were some things about New Orleans that you knew you wanted to express?

Lolis Eric Elie: The thing that local folks say to me most often is, “Thank God they got you to keep them honest.” Well, these guys [David Simon and Eric Overmeyer] are doing this show because they’re attracted to the city as-is, not because they like the location and have taken the plot from somewhere else. So in that sense, they’re interested in the same kind of things that I’m interested in. I believe that the culture is the key to this place, and no matter how many corporations the mayor and the governor try to get to move here, no matter how many neighborhoods they destroy to build a new Charity Hospital instead of rebuilding the old Charity Hospital, no matter how many people’s houses they tear down to put up some stuff that’s of inferior quality—the real thing that makes this city and its people who we are is the culture. And so, in that sense, it was like joining the team that you want to join. I didn’t feel like I had to come in and say, “Yes, well, Eric, David, the thing y’all got wrong is …” And like a friend of mine says, what you really want to do is put yourself in a position where, when somebody’s critiquing your work, they’re making you sound more like yourself. So when we’re talking about this show, in some ways my hope is to not change it at all, but to make it more of what it already is.

Tom Piazza: Lolis and I, by virtue of living here—Lolis was bred and born in this briar patch and I came here of my own free will fifteen years ago—probably have a sense of certain little micronuances that have helped in some way, but mostly you just want to express the sense of life—that there’s no place else like this, there really isn’t. You want to express as much as possible the many ways in which the New Orleans sense of life plays itself out kaleidoscopically through all the people who live here. Many efforts have foundered to depict New Orleans in dramatic form because it’s a very easy place to caricature, because there are a number of specific things that you could say—[affecting announcer’s voice]:“New Orleans! Mardi Gras parade! Mardi Gras Indians! Jazz funerals! Muffulletas!”—that by themselves sort of signal “New Orleans,” but they don’t really embody New Orleans. What embodies New Orleans is the dialog among all these different elements. Our hope is that the show expresses all these different things in combination with each other, and because Treme casts its net so wide it has, I think, probably the best shot at getting at some of that essence of New Orleans.

David Mills: Could I add something to that? That specificity that Tom talks about is—ironically, when we intellectualize the show as a product—problematic. Because, when you talk about The Wire, it is very, very specific to Baltimore, yet, if it wasn’t about Baltimore, it would still exist as it is—it would be about Cleveland, for instance. Somewhere along the line I asked myself, “Well, what’s this all about?” And then I’ll say, “Well, if it wasn’t about New Orleans, what would it be about?” And it’s hard to put into words. But, specificity: That’s one of the reasons I’m very eager to see what the feedback will be, because I honestly don’t know whether it will work or not.

David Simon: There’s a lot of lines that only people here will get. And there are a lot of lines that will have a double-meaning for people here that won’t play elsewhere. Hopefully they’ll play generically elsewhere and they won’t bump anybody out of the show. It’s hard to write specifically for New Orleans and have everything translate perfectly. You guys are just not living in the same world.

Treme premiered last night on HBO. Check back for a complete transcript of the panel discussion on PEASANTS.

Crappy photos like this one that appear on PEASANTS are the doings of Nate, not the real photographer here, and will appear as infrequently as possible.

This way to police harmony

This sign is situated in the median between the up- and down-river lanes of St. Claude Ave., just around the corner from my house. It intends to direct citizens to the temporary station the New Orleans Police Department set up inside an old furniture store post-Katrina. The parking lot behind the cop shop shares my street, and when I moved in I thought the abundance of cruisers and in- and outgoing officers might make the street safer. My neighbor informed me upon our first encounter, however, that the police were by far the worst neighbors on the block—loud and boisterous during their shift changes in the middle of the night, perhaps enthralling each other with tales of people’s asses they’d kicked on their shifts—and he was happy that they’re soon moving out. Apparently, after the police are gone the building is going to be turned into a “wellness center,” which will include a yoga studio and a badly needed food co-op.

It took me a couple of passes before I figured out exactly what this sign was—I tend not to associate childlike cheerfulness with law enforcement. I imagine it was an art project delegated to some unwitting fifth-grade class at the neighborhood charter school, or, even better, its creation was a twisted punishment meted to some young no-goodnick at a juvenile detention facility by a cruel and demented warden. Maybe the cops at the station painted it themselves during some down time for kicks.

The New Orleans Police Department needs all the help it can get, image-wise, especially since the recent confession of an officer who finally spilled the beans about the brutal assault and murder of several New Orleans residents at the hands of police just after Katrina. Also, two days ago, the FBI confirmed that it has opened its eighth separate civil-rights investigation of the NOPD—this time in regard to an incident during which cops allegedly assaulted and falsely arrested some transit workers during Mardi Gras 2008. I always said that, in Chicago, a city of tough and dangerous gangs, the C.P.D. was by far the scariest. The N.O.P.D. doesn’t seem to be much less menacing, but at least there are fewer of them.

The eeriest aspect of this sign is that none of the people, except maybe the grandma in the lower left corner, have faces. Was this the result of its artist not yet having developed the motor skills to draw something as intricate as a nose and cheekbones? Was it a purposeful statement implicating that any member of the community has the potential to get along with any police officer in sunny harmony? I doubt it. My theory is that, in a bought of brilliant foresight, the building owners anticipated the eventual transition of their property into a wellness center and ordered the sign made so that it would be easy to alter so that a yogi stood atop the arrow with the little girl, and the N.O.P.D. logo transformed into the logo for the Green Lotus Peace Studios, or whatever.

This is exactly how I want my adulthood to start

I’m by myself at a kitchen table finishing a bottle of delicious red wine in a nice—but not too nice—rented half-double shotgun in New Orleans. I’m reading Blood Meridian and listening to a lone trumpeter practice out my screen door. I have to go to work at the university tomorrow.

This is exactly how I want my adulthood to start.

Crown

I left the kitchen window open all night and in the morning I had a cockroach in my sink—a big, brown ogre of a bug crouched and ready to scuttle out. He had been eating soggy onion chunks stuck in the drain trap and couldn’t climb up the slick walls. I chased him with a lettuce box and he fell into it. He shook his antennae at me and I stuck him in the pantry.

I won’t lie—it’s lonely to move. My apartment is empty apart from a table and four chairs, standard stove and fridge, far less than a closetful of clothes, a mess of books and an air mattress that lets me down each night. I thought having a roach in a box might spruce things up a bit—somewhere between a plant and a pet. I gave him an apple core and glued a gold bead to his head. He runs back and forth, leading with his crown as if trying to teach me a game.

My roach isn’t housebroken, though, and I don’t intend to train him. His box is filling up to a point unsanitary even for vermin. I thought about tossing him over the neighbors’ fence since they have a vegetable garden, but I try to keep more friends than enemies and the former number’s looking low. I’ll take him to the far back corner of my yard and let him out by the tree. He probably won’t make it back inside the house at least until Akasha gets here, and when that happens I’ll have to act like I’m upset to see him.

My Friend Lauren

I should have recorded the Mahler. We talked about this for a long time later, though I can’t remember what we said. She currently prefers to sing in German, so there was that, but there were other reasons—some things about love and sadness and poetry, I think.

I had driven after work from New Orleans to Baton Rouge to see my old friend Lauren sing her Master’s opera recital at Louisiana State University, with the intention of recording it. I got stuck in traffic and missed half the performance, ducked in at intermission and realized I only had enough battery to record one of the two songs she had left. Knowing nothing about either of them, I picked on the basis of language: Italian won over German. A mistake.

I picked Italian because Lauren had spent two summers in Italy studying opera, and as far as I can tell they were some of the happiest times of her life. She knows the language, or can speak some of it, but I really made the decision based upon a photograph—Lauren on the back of a scooter driven by a handsome Italian man. She’s smiling and waving a flag. Someone seems to be offering them pizza. This is what I think of when I think of Lauren in Italy.

Upon listening, the Mahler piece she sang was far superior, but how could I have known? Who knows anything about opera! We agreed that I had chosen poorly, and when I told her about the photo, about why I had picked the Italian piece over the German one, she said that the man on the scooter had been her boyfriend, and that before Italy had won the World Cup—cause for the celebration—and he offered to give her a ride around the square, he had not spoken to her for a week. After her ride, he made the same offer to ten other obliging women.

Lauren spent much of the night after her recital crying, but that was because of a different man.

This is the song I recorded, the Italian one:

Giacomo Puccini — Quando M’en Vo, with the Septet that follows

Now I’m in New Orleans

I got stood up for a job interview on the coldest day of the year in Chicago. I’d printed my resume and ironed my dapper shirt — I bundled up tight and took the train downtown. I arrived too early by nearly an hour. The river steamed, trying to freeze. I ducked into Walgreens, picked up a basket and pretended to shop. A copy of that morning’s commuter daily, at which I was about to try to get a job as a reporter, sat spread upon a stocking cart. I brushed up on the day’s events — mostly the CTA. A clerk asked me if I planned on paying for the paper, since I was reading it. I reminded her that it was free.

I wandered past a weather anchor outside in a scarf and mittens chattering into a camera, and entered the appropriate skyscraper. The security desk guard called my would-be interviewer, left a message. Ten minutes of chewed toothpicks later, he tried a general number. She hadn’t come in that day. Later I learned she’d spaced our appointment.

I had only been unemployed for a couple weeks, but already it was not looking good. A week prior I had an interview I’d lined up through a friend, but upon my arrival my interviewer informed me that she essentially had the position already filled by someone with 25 years of experience — she had wanted to meet me anyway, because my friend had spoken of me so highly. Thanks for coming down.

I bussed dejectedly from the skyscraper to meet my girlfriend, Akasha, at a Guatemalan restaurant. We ordered a bottle of red wine, watched the wind whip dry snow crazily through the bright, cold street. What a disgusting sight. I poured my second glass and said, Lets move to New Orleans.

I’m not sure why that town came out of my mouth instead of someplace else warm. (See the previous post for an attempt to explain that one). Three months later I’m sitting in the Mojo Cafe on Magazine Street in the Lower Garden District of the Crescent City (geographic cataloging helps dispel the sense of vertigo induced by moving to a new place). I’m listening to blues on the radio and drinking strong coffee. I have a job and have applied for a place to live. I sleep on my friend Juan’s big couch and drink with the tourists at night on Frenchmen Street. I ride the streetcar when I can but have to drive to work, and I’m afraid the rough roads are going to shake my car apart.

When I do find an apartment, its will be the 14th mailing address I’ve had in eight years. When I moved to Chicago in 2008 I had every intention of staying awhile, but things work out as they do. I’m tired of moving around. My friends are scattered throughout the world, and since I stopped partying so much it’s tougher to make new ones. Akasha will arrive in a couple of weeks, and I look forward to that. My brother inherited a bed from our grandparents that he no longer has room for, so he’s sending to me. We’re going to set it up in a guest bedroom, so if you’re a friend, come visit.

New Orleans is a city that you don’t dive into — you ease on in. People say that the longer you live here, the less fit you are to live anywhere else. I guess we’ll see about that. I started this blog to chronicle what I envisioned would be some sort of adventure — and, without a doubt, moving to a new place always is — but maybe it will turn out to be more of a document of my puddling into a new slow, Southern life, which should be just as interesting.

I thank you for reading my inaugural dispatch. I hope you check back for the rest.

From New Orleans, with love…