So hopefully you've read our previous posts about your trip to New Orleans and Voodoo Fest 2007. Hoosier's pre-trip outlook can be read here and pictures from the trip also up. So now, months later, it's time for my full recap and a few thoughts.
The way I see it the trip can be split into three chapters: The drive, the festival, and the city. Im going to do a post for each.
The drive was a long one, riddled with stupidity and stuttering from the start, which I take full responsibility for. We left my place heading the wrong direction, literally. I had to show Roc the bridge over the Savannah river. Besides being the source of a few good stories, it has traditionally marked the beginning or end of many a long drive. Also, on a nice foggy morning, I love driving up the bridge, as it rises into the nothingness, its the best way to begin a trip, but more on that later. After seeing the bridge, I put us back on course heading south, but not for long.
Only an hour or so later I was taking us on another detour, this time to see a friend in Brunswick. Alex, is one those people whose charm and childlike humility can only be found south of the Mason Dixon, and despite his bushy red beard and extensive tattoo collection, you instantly feel at ease and free to speak as if you've known each-other for several years. Add a few bowls,and you will end up babbling back and forth. I hadn't seen him much since he moved south of Savannah, so why not stop along the way?
So it was about 9, 10 at night now and Alex was busy convincing us how insane we were for planning on driving all the way to New Orleans that night, and I was still locked in a state of denial, saying "No. It won't be to bad. We'll pull over and sleep for a few hours on the side of the road and we'll be fine." Either way, it was time to get back on the road. And after popping our Whataburger cherries, and seeing proof that they like things bigger in Texas, we were back on 95 south. I would now like to say that there was no really good way to do this trip that would accommodate our schoolwork, wallets, and schedule. We had to be in New Orleans by Friday afternoonish and is at-least a 10+ hour drive from Savannah. Rather then waking at the earliest hours of the night and driving direct, I decided to take a more leisurely pace
Soon after, it was time to head west, and that means the Bible Beltway, I-10. For many young, liberal northerners, this would be the time to shit on the local Christians responsible for the billboards reminding us that their is only one white male God, whose politics seem to fall inline with American fascists like Curt Weldon. But these signs really don't bother me, because as fucked as they are, and as evil as the frauds are who promote and profit from spewing this bile, at-least their is a sort of honesty in them. Which is more then you can say for most, if not all, conglomerates who use their sock piles of reserve cash to create giant eye-sores of lies, false-promises, and general phonyism. This why I cant wait to drive across Montana and North Dakota, because I have this idea in my head of an open highway drive, where you can see the horizon in any direction, and no billboards for a hundred miles. Now that I have that out of my system, we'll get back to the trip.
Next stop was Tallahassee, to see another lost friend. Like Alex, Rush has those extra hospitality and easy going genes that don't seem to like cold temperatures. So, we chatted about this, that, and the third over a few beers, and not very slowly or subtly, sleep crept upon all of us. I think we got to his place around 1:45 or 2, and we planned on sleeping until 4. We were still about 6 hours from New Orleans, and about 8 into the trip. After we awoke and thanked our generous host, we were off, again. 6 AM stop at Waffle House (A Waffle House along a major highway, has to be one of the safest places ever. At the right times, its a though looking crowd in there. You'd have to be batshitcrazy to start trouble in a Waffle house.). Two hour nap at the road stop before the Louisiana boarder. Short controlled burst, think of the Halo 3 Battle rifle. Shot people in the head, take cover. Drive a few hundred miles, take a nap.
The coolest part of the drive is certainly driving along the causeways of Alabama/Mississippi/Louisiana. As I said before, theirs something bizarrely powerful about driving on a near transparent structure in the air over water; ... simply its like flying. At least it is to me. And with a low thick fog, you plunge into the clouds and you find yourself in a unfamiliar context. The last miles into New Orleans couldn't be more unnerving , and upsetting. Communities one after another in ruin, deserted, empty. But that is were I will pick up in the next part of this Voodoo 07 Recap.
Next, my time in New Orleans.
Showing posts with label Voodoo Fest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Voodoo Fest. Show all posts
10.12.07
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.
-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.
5.12.07
My NOLA Photos
Here is a slideshow of the photos I took during our trip to Voodoo Fest '07. Basically all the photos (unedited) so there are some crapy ones. I might end up going back and deleting some, as we need to free up disk space on our Picasa account. There is a really awesome feature on Picasa that lets you look at map of were you photos were taken. It requires a bit of extra time to add locations to your photos but for us it should be worth it. I have a link to our account in the sidebar, or yo can go right to the map of my photos here.
(Since the trip I've got a new camera which isn't 4 years old, and thus has better stabilization when not using the flash, as that aspect of my old Camera, was terrible.)
A quick not on the setup (setting up) of this blog. Being the tech guy of the group most of the setup rests on my shoulders, which I am more then happy with, however I also can be a bit picky and want the page to look better then nice. As you may or may not know, with wed design, as with many other computer arts fields, setting up the workflow can be tricky, and should not be overlooked or rushed. Making things editable and accessible to multiple contributors makes things more complex, and trying to do it all without spending a dime is even harder. Hopefully by the end of the year I will have worked out the kinks and have developed a smooth system that allows all of us to post entries, add pictures and stay updated while being in separate cities.
(Since the trip I've got a new camera which isn't 4 years old, and thus has better stabilization when not using the flash, as that aspect of my old Camera, was terrible.)
A quick not on the setup (setting up) of this blog. Being the tech guy of the group most of the setup rests on my shoulders, which I am more then happy with, however I also can be a bit picky and want the page to look better then nice. As you may or may not know, with wed design, as with many other computer arts fields, setting up the workflow can be tricky, and should not be overlooked or rushed. Making things editable and accessible to multiple contributors makes things more complex, and trying to do it all without spending a dime is even harder. Hopefully by the end of the year I will have worked out the kinks and have developed a smooth system that allows all of us to post entries, add pictures and stay updated while being in separate cities.
4.12.07
Thoughts
I am so sleep-deprived, malnourished, and stoned that I can barely see straight. My stomach is making fucking weird noises and my brain feels like pudding. Ah, so is finals week at Bates College. As I sit in my Medieval Art class, a Tuesday night 7:30-10:30 tradition, barely able to understand the words that are coming out of my professors mouth, I decide to just phase them out and take a nice trip down memory lane. Pictures that initially make me smile and give me an adrenaline rush to recall eventually bring frowns as I compare my current dismal situation to the whimsical, dare I say, swashbuckling? adventure that was our glorious trip to New Orleans. The only thing that sustains me during these dark times and preserves my will to live is the crystal clear image inside my head of stepping into a car (or van, or whatever, yet to be decided) on a beautiful Swarthmore summer afternoon and just going. I know there is a deeper, more profound purpose to our Odyssey, but fuck it, I'd be happy just driving around, crossing borders, smoking joints and camping out. Anyway, I posted the following pictures in no logical order. I guess it was because food is on my mind, which is drifting. I can't wait to get out of this dungeon, eat a pot brownie, watch Tin Man and pass out cold after being up for about thirty hours straight. I will have more to say when I am in a saner state of mind. Until then...peace.
Et Toufe... Our first meal in New Orleans
The Three getting their picture taken by a couple of really friendly southern ladies (who totally had a boner for me)
Stoop boys
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