Crescent City

Yesterday I alternated between singing Moon Over Bourbon St by Sting and some song I don't know the name of by Lucinda Williams about Lake Pontchartrain. I eventually did finally make it out of the hotel and I road the street car on the St. Charles line out to a local hang out called Delachaise (?)that was on the way to Tippetina's, which is a bar that Tom Waite's talks about in Down by Law. Along the way I ascertained that Tippetina's does not open til 10 pm and given the fact that I had been up since six, after killing a couple hours in a bar with the tourist magazine from the hotel and then the New Yorker I hung it up and went back to the hotel. But I had a good andouille pizza sausage pizza and some excellently drawn Hoegaarden.

I haven't seen much of the city, but the fact that the city relies overwhelmingly on tourism for its industry seems to have a big impact on how everyone interacts with you. The cab driver coming in from the aiport asked me where I was from and when I said I was from New York, he said, "Oh you are from the United States! This is not the United States, this is hell. It is a great place to visit and an awful place to live." He was an electric engineer in his own country, but works as a cabdriver here, and said that in the summer there is no one here and no work because it is so hot. It is true right now that there are tourists everywhere you go and there isn't even a big thing going on.

The best thing about being here after spending the last two months in New York, is that when you walk outside, it's warm. When you walk inside it feels pretty much like it did in New York, its not even 80 F and the air conditioning in on full steam. But it's just lovely to be able to walk around without a jacket.

"Go on back to Greenville...just go on back to Greenville..."