Reflections on New Orleans, Savannah, and Voodoo Fest

A few notes about Voodoo Fest and the south from Hoosier:

-People really like Jesus along the I-10 corrior between New Orleans and Jacksonville, and this is a bad thing when your car breaks down in Alabama at about seven a.m. on a Sunday morning because everyone is in church, even truckers (they have churches at truck stops)

-Rage rocked, as to be expected, but my two favorite acts were probably Tiesto (thanks, mep), and a jam band from Jacksonville named Mofro. Tiesto may not be to everyone's taste, as he's techno, although I would recommend at least giving him a try, but Mofro is a pretty good band and are especially worthwhile to see live

-When going to an all day concert, I would advise not driving thirteen hours through the night to get there. That is, unless, of course you enjoy not sleeping for 45 hours straight and falling asleep while standing up during the middle of Kings of Leon...and not being able to go out the one full night you have in New Orleans because someone, cough*Rock*cough, thinks it would be a good idea to just "lay down for like thirty minutes then head down to Bourbon Street." You never just lay down for thirty minutes after having been awake for 45 hours; you sleep for 12 hours straight.

-Savannah, if you have not been, is maybe my favorite city in the contiguous United State (I've been to every city on the eastern sea board, most of the mid-western ones, and LA). It's a beautiful, charming place that feels more like a big town than a city. It's worth visiting for a few days, and just walking. Check out the eerie cemetaries, sample the food, admire the architecture and the Spanish moss, sit for a while in one of the many city squares- just go to Savannah. Trust me on this, and don't let Pinks tell you otherwise.

Lastly, I want to write about New Orleans. I'm not quite sure how to go about it. I feel like me writing about New Orleans would be like me writing about someone I've met twice in my life: sure, I've met them, and I might have a broadly superficial view of who they are, what has shaped them, but for me to pretend, for even a moment, to know their character would be a gross miscalculation. That's how I feel about New Orleans. It would be unfair for me to write with any kind of certainty about a city I've spent a mere 44 hours in.

Still, I think it's something to address. Since Katrina, I've heard a similar refrain: New Orleans used to be a great American city, right up there with New York, San Francisco, etc. It used to be a town with a unique, a bit off kilter character. It was like no place you'd ever been or would be again. After Katrina, although it's never been overtly said, the implication has always been that, well, it's lost something. It's like that uncle a lot of people have, the one who was a lot of fun in his youth but hasn't been the same since the divorce and the dui, but no one wants to acknowledge the fact he's different.

Of course, something has been lost. A large portion of the population, mostly black, has not returned to the city they once called home. And what makes a place but the people who inhabit it? That said, by all accounts, New Orleans, and its citizens, have doggedly attempted to return to "normalcy" after Katrina...whatever that might be. It was this, then- the desire to see New Orleans with my own eyes, to walk through its streets, to sample the creole cuisine, smell the briny air- that drew me to this trip. I honestly had little to no desire to go to the concert; I just wanted to see New Orleans.

So what did I see? A lot, I suppose, although I'm not sure what to make of it. Downtown, the commercial sector and the French Quarter, the areas most tourists will see, is mostly rehabbed. There are still a few bordered up buildings downtown, but the French Quarter- by all accounts one of the least damaged areas in Katrina- looks as if nothing ever happened. It's a beautiful place, full of 18th Century, Spanish and Victorian themed architecture, and a whole lot of steel lace balconies. While Bourbon Street is the main draw, I recommend visiting during the afternoon, when the crowds are at a minimum, and walking through the entire neighborhood. A lot of the side streets are peaceful and languidly beautiful; there's a considerable amount of options for good food (try a Po Boy sandwich); and you might run into one of the many, surprisingly entertaining street artists (we spent a good twenty minutes watching a magician/comedian). While it's still a touristy experience, you get the sense it's more genuine than most.

Despite downtown's resurgence, considerable portions of the area are still damaged- and I say this without having spent much time outside of the downtown sector. The drive into New Orleans, on route 10, is sobering. Many of the neighborhoods along the highway are still in shambles: one story ranch homes are still gutted, roofs still have holes in them, windows are still boarded up. Some blocks seem rehabbed, and then out of nowhere, an entire house will just be a pile of rubble.

In the city proper, many of the poorer parishes are supposedly still severely dilapitated and damaged. Unfortunately, the three of us didn't spend much time on the outskirts of town. I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but we chose to get drunk on Bourbon Street in the middle of the afternoon as opposed to driving through the lower Ninth Ward, or other poverty stricken parts of the city. The honest truth is, the thought of driving through the poorer parts of the city never even entered our minds.

That said, on our first morning in New Orleans, fresh off of our 13 hour drive from Savannah, we did drive through some of the poorer sections. Using a book called Road Food as our guide, we searched the city for a variety of restaurants. The first one we tried was in a neighborhood not terribly far from downtown, just under an overpass for Route 10. An old brick, steepled church marked the entrance to the area, and the street, even though it was nearly noon, was completely empty. Many of the homes were either boarded up or clearly uninhabited. Most still bore spray paint inscriptions from the immediate aftermath of the hurricane. The restauraunt we were looking for, sitting on a corner, had been described in the book as lively and always packed on weekday afteroons (it was a Friday). It was closed, and looked to have been that way for quite sometime. Disappointed, and considerably somber, we chose another restaurant, and drove a few minutes across town, past more boarded up homes, down streets that felt more suitable for ghost towns of the Wild West than a major American city. This restaurant, too, was closed. It had closed during Katrina, and had simply never reopened.

Our third choice worked out; not only was it open, but it was a thriving, upscale cafe a few blocks from the French Quarter. And, after this, our experiences limited to the downtown portion of the city, it was easy to forget we were in a city that, for so many, represented a home town lost. Saturday night, before beginning our long haul back to Savannah, the three of us went down to Bourbon Street, figuring it was an integral part of the New Orleans experience. It was overwhelming, to be honest, and not really in a good way. The street was jammed for blocks on end, drunk college kids, many in costume for halloween, pouring out of bars and strip clubs. In a lot of ways, its a cess pool of debauchery and young people looking to fuck, and not a whole lot more. I mean, sure, it was vibrant, and I saw a few pairs of boobs, and Ron Jeremy walking out of one strip club and into another, but I couldn't help but wonder if this is what New Orleans had become. Sure, it's always been known as a place for debauchery and partying, and that lack of depth and structure and consequences has a strong American appeal (see Las Vegas), but in a city where so many people lost their lives, and their homes, is it really ok for a bunch of kids- most of them not actually from New Orleans- to come and mindlessly get drunk? Is that part of the healing process? Is the ability to party, without heeding the incredible tragedy all around you, a part of moving forward? Or does it represent a certain callousness that I fear pervades our world these days, a me first selfishness that puts personal pleasure above public good?

I honestly don't know. I can't say what New Orleans was like before Katrina- I'll never be able to know how the city was then. Nor can I even begin to think I know what is healthy for it in the long, slow process of rebuilding. I don't want to espouse on the spirit of the city, or its people, because really, I'm not qualified to. Still, I can say that in a place many of us left for dead, most of its residents consciously decided to come back and rebuild, knowing full well that another hurricane, another ruin, might lurk just around the bend. That speaks to a basic human attribute: our incredible ability to suffer pain, and loss, and to keep living. That, or our incredible stupidity in the face of overwhelming empircal evidence. But I'm feeling romantic today, so I'll classify it as the former- we don't know how, or when, to give up, not just as Americans or citizens of New Orleans, but as humans. We persevere, and that's an admirable thing.

So I guess that's how I'll end. I will say this: do visit New Orleans. Even if it's only to get drunk and see boobs on Bourbon Street. But I would hope you would go for more than that. Go to experience an integral part of our country and our history. Go to help with the rehabilitation. Mostly, go to think, go to reflect, and go to admire the persistence that is our human mark on this world.