There is a House in New Orleans, Not the One You Heard About I'm Talkin' 'bout Another One OR Journeys to the Crescent City

For my money, the 3 best cities in America are New Orleans, San Francisco, and Washington D.C., in that order. I like them all for different reasons, and I'll be explaining that as I review them all in this blog in the coming months (San Fran will be last since my wife and I are going back in May). Now, I'm not going to tell you how to see it. No, I'm going to show 30 pictures from my trip and list 12 positives and 12 issues with the city as well a soundtrack that reflected the trip. Oh, and I'll tell you my 12 favorite parts of my trip and 12 more I'd like to see.

It's up to you to make your own fun with them and the links I provide you. The key is to investigate the Web using pictures and video to establish an itinerary based on your interests, not the overwhelming lists of guide books.

If I went again, I would do a Friday to the following Sunday. Of the things that I'd want to see that I didn't, I would do the following.

1) See a show at Preservation Hall.
2) See the Battle of New Orleans site.
3) Spend an entire day at the cemeteries of Metairie
4) See the other half of Lafayette Cemetery
5) Try a hand grenade (drink)
6) See the levees properly
7) See the other half of the WW2 Museum
8) More time in the French Quarter to include riding in a horse drawn carriage
9) Visit more plantations
10) See a New Orleans Saints game
11) Spend more time at Congo Square
12) Spend time in a place named after Louis Armstrong

My favorites...
1) The cemeteries were awesome. St. Louis Cemetery #1 is the big one with Marie Laveau
2) The houses of the Garden District
3) The balconies of the French Quarter
4) Lafayette Cemetery and Anne Rice stuff
5) Trying on Mardis Gras costumes at the costume museum.
6) Singing "Paper Planes" in a chicken place with Heather while doing the gun and cash register sound effects. Despite being the biggest "honky" around, "no one on the corner has swagger like" me.

7) The haunted tours
8) The nonhaunted tours
9) Seeing how the Mardis Gras floats were made
10) Houmas House
11) The live oaks. Everyone has their redwoods cool on, but the live oaks are incredibly shaped and huge, too
12) Riding in a steamboat down the Mississippi

Thus, for me, New Orleans has:

1) American, French, Spanish, and Caribbean history
2) Cajun culture / Mardis Gras
3) Distinct architecture
4) Music everywhere, especially jazz
5) Lots of entertainment in all varieties to include a strong sports presence
6) Those graveyards and the undead, ghostly world
7) The mighty Mississippi and its huge cargo vessels
8) The remnants of plantation days with attention paid to slaves' lives as well
9) A certain "cool" seediness that permeates outward from its core
10) The surrounding swamps and gators
11) The shadow of Jesus on St. Louis Cathedral
12) A healthy respect for its ability to bring people in with all of these things for dining, hotels, nightlife, daytime experiences, and so much more.

It's downfalls:
1) Expensive parking around Bourbon Street and the French Quarter (up to $40 a day)
2) A lot of crime / opportunist thieves
3) A lot of drunks / drinking problems
4) That isn't water in those potholes
5) A lot of trash on the streets, especially at Mardis Gras time
6) Having your friends invited into orgies that are only spectatorial - not participatorial.
7) Having your friend expose your nipple to a drunk guy for tweaking purposes so that his wife isn't accosted instead as he asked her to show hers first.
8) A difficult time finding bathrooms without paying big prices for drinks.
9) Watered down, overpriced drinks
10) Souvenir statues of women fornicating with alligators - who thinks of this?
11) No pictures or videos allowed in voodoo shops - we can't let Baphomet's hermaphroditic Satanic goat self be exposed to the sun
12) Summers are sweltering hot and humid as the Mississippi adjusts accordingly.

To me, the pluses beat the minuses every time, though I think I should be allowed to take photos of Baphomet to mock him ridiculously because, well, he's a frickin' idiot half goat / half sidekick of Satan, but that could just be me.

Then again, look at that mug! That's not even a face that a mother could love!

Alas, as I said, my wife and I went to New Orleans in December. It was my 5th time and her first. I never saw as much before as I did on this trip.

Yes, it was that good. 

Normally when I travel, I make CDs for the trip ahead of time. They're geared around music that can be associated with that place, music I love, music my wife digs, and other upbeat things that could reflect the mood of the trip.

This time, I let things grow organically and become real after the trip. 

As we wandered around the streets, I took in all of the songs and started compiling a list. When I was done, I mixed it with Louisiana musicians, voodoo, New Orleans, and songs that reflected the pneumonia I got right after I got home. 

Yes, I really did get pneumonia.

It's important to have a sense of humor.

Anyway... here's the soundtrack of New Orleans at Christmastime 2017.

1) Joy to the World by 3 Dog Night

2) Beyond the Sea by Bobby Darin

3) Marshmallow World by Johnny Mathis

4) All I Want for Christmas is You by Mariah Carey

5) Last Christmas by Taylor Swift

6) There, Right There by Laura Bell Bundy

7) When the Saints Go Marching in by Louis Armstrong

8) Havana by Camilla Cabello with Young Thug

9) Toxic by Britney Spears

10) Paper Planes by MIA

11) Hot and Cold by Katy Perry

12) Mr. Heatmiser by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy

13) Chills and Fever by Tom Jones

14) 24K Magic by Bruno Mars

15) California Love by 2Pac

16) Brass Monkey by The Beastie Boys

17) Alabama Song by The Doors

18) Low Rider by War

19) Give It Away by Red Hot Chilipeppers

20)  All Star by Smashmouth

21) Jump, Jive, and Wail by Brian Setzer Orchestra

22) I Still Get Jealous by Louis Armstrong

23) Nothing's Too Good for My Baby by Keely Smith

24) Kyrie Eleison / Mardis Gras by The Electric Prunes

25) Iko Iko (live) by Grateful Dead

26) Next of Kin by Alvvays

27) Kate by Ben Folds Five

28) Zydeco Christmas by CJ Chenier and the Red Hot Louisiana Band

29) Born on the Bayou by Credence Clearwater Revival

30) Mustang Sally by Sam and Dave

31) Voodoo Cadillac by Southern Culture on the Skids

32) Life Sucking Voodoo Woman by The Flametrick Subs

33) Voodoo Child (Slight Return) by Jimi Hendrix

34) Sympathy for the Devil

35) Love Me 2 Times by The Doors

36) Spend a Night in the Box by Reverend Horton Heat

37) Niteclub by Old 97s

38) Santeria by Sublime

39) Witchy Woman by The Eagles

40) No Woman No Cry by Bob Marley

41) I Belong to the Band / Hallelujah by Reverend Gary Davis

42) Marie Laveau by Bobby Bare

43) The House of the Rising Sun by The Animals

44) New Orleans by Silver Jews

45) Voodoo by Godsmack

46) I Put a Spell on You by Screaming Jay Hawkins

47) Miles Runs the Voodoo Down by Miles Davis

48) Voodoo by King Diamond

49) Voodoo by Yngwie Malmsteen

50) Voodoo Child (Slight Return) Live by Stevie Ray Vaughn

51) Tower of Song by Nick Cave

52) Voodoo Candle by Jay Farrar

53) Hoodoo Voodoo by Billy Bragg and Wilco

54) City of New Orleans by Willie Nelson

55) Still the One by Orleans

So with that, it looks like I owe you 17 more photos... better make 'em good!

You can find MANY albums of NOLA (and more) pictures HERE!

The Meaning of Life as Told through Ghost Stories, New Orleans Cemeteries, the 3 Types of Mexican Death, and American Literature

            In Mexico, there are 3 types of deaths. The first is when the body stops living. The second is when the body is lowered into the ground. The final type of death is when the person is forgotten about. If we go back in their history, the picture above (at Chichen Itza) is a representation of people that the architecturally awesome, but brutally murderous Mayas killed... just because that's what they did.

           As a person who reckons himself an armchair philosopher (i.e. I don’t get paid by some academic think tank to philosophize / I don’t hold a degree in it / still, I freely share my opinions on it, contemplate it, and read up on it when I get the chance), I think this makes a lot more sense than the American types of dying / death.

dying is fine)but Death

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baby

i

wouldn’t like

Death if death were

were

good:for

when(instead of stopping to think)you

begin to feel of it, dying

 ‘s miraculous

why?be

cause dying is

perfectly natural;perfectly

putting

it mildly lively(but

Death

is strictly

scientific

& artificial &

evil & legal)

we thank thee

god

almighty for dying

 (forgive us, o life!the sin of Death

            I’d like to think that  the words of the poet e.e. cummings above (punctuation “errors,” to include lack of capitalization in his name, are the author’s) had it right. Americans often view death as something to be feared, though other authors avoided this with a more eastern philosophical view of life as energy for life (recycled into Transcendentalism). This is shown “well” (if you’re an aspiring literary type) in William Cullen Bryant’s “Thanatopsis.” 

            Otherwise, death is a monster movie where our bodies are food for the worms. Here, we end up like skeletons in a horror story, except our cob-webbed forms are unable to spring back to life in order to chase terrified teenagers to their untimely deaths. Death is portrayed in nihilistic terms like a suicidal body that can't be thrown off a bridge anymore (since a town like Ithaca, below, installs nets on bridges to stop this - for good reason - though, it is aesthetically unpleasing) or a homicidal fetish done by serial killers. Other times, it’s purely random rage of gangland murders to kill someone “like it ain’t no thang.” When we aren’t doing that, we live in fear that we will be forever separated from those we love by a wall of alive / deceased, more out of selfishness for our togetherness than the hope that their existence will offer more to others if it gets to keep on doing what it does.  

What’s wrong with this interpretation? What’s right about it? If death is natural and every life is a journey to it, what happens when we get there? We contemplate Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, floating clouds, ghosts, angels, demons, God, the devil, and absolute nothingness (as well as multiple variations of each) when we shuffle off of this mortal coil, but what happens first? What about the living? Why so much focus on the dark parts of death?

If you want to read a very long series of interconnected ideas that I have about the meaning of life, that’s HERE. Long story short, thoughts like this and the combined feeling of a loss of my 2-year old great niece to Alper’s disease, my “Gram’s” Alzheimer’s disease, and my diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease (September 27, 2016, for all intent and purposes - you can read my story beginning HERE, which is what most of my blog is about - other than living life to the fullest, travel, and random thoughts on life), say that we need to choose to live life to make our lives memorable so we’re not forgotten after death. 

Even if it’s only by 1 person or random people reading our stories, looking at our creations, spreading our advice, staring at pictures on our work desk, then there is a permanent memory being created.

Yet, in my opinion, we mistake death for the need for gore, and gore for horror, when real horror is a sense of fear of many different things (to include the failure of our bodies - a particular concern with people with Parkinson's). When we live life as a challenge to overcome hardships, to adventure to greatness, and to overcome evil, we have a lot of chances to test ourselves at a high level. Why get caught up in the train wreck of failure or the chance we might not succeed?

Salem Witch Trials Memorial

We mistake villains for the protagonist, when they are the antagonist. In life, they may stand triumphant against our heroes, but shouldn’t we celebrate those who vanquish hatred, evil, corruption, murder, and enslavement (in all their forms)? Shouldn’t we celebrate that effort, even in failure, as opposed to the knife that kills them or the bullet that “pops a cap” in them?

Rise of the Jack O' Lanterns - Long Island, New York

We demand the visualization of death in its most extreme form, but we forget the feelings Aristotle spoke of when he expressed how the spectacle should never take over the emotion of the scene (in Poetics, if you’re interested in reading it). Why gross people out when we can simply reflect on the effects of the action? Isn’t this what characterization and author’s purpose are about?

Shepherdstown, West Virginia, ghost hunt

For me, I believe in Jack London’s credo ("I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time."). I believe that I may have Parkinson’s, but it doesn’t have me. I believe that there’s a lot of people to love (in varying ways) with the rest of my life (46-?). I won’t stop doing the things I can do in the ways I can do them, with people who enjoy them (unless to do them puts myself and others at an unnecessary risk).

Hawk Mountain - boulder loop with hand over hand ascents - last summer, solo.

I want to follow Dylan Thomas’s words (“Rage, rage against the dying of the light!”) or at least Thorton Mellon’s interpretation of them (“I don’t take shit from nobody!”). I want to overcome my negativity like Robert Frost did (“The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.”).

And yes, even though I write ghost stories that feature monsters, demons, and things that go bump in the night, I feel that in creating this world, it’s all about facing up to evil with positive energy. To be honest, the hardest thing I had to do was to create a really violent murder in the book Dead Mouths (available here). Sure, it was done, but it was more from the perspective of having found the body afterward. What was done was stated. It was gruesome, and it took a lot out of me. It took so much out of me, in fact, I couldn’t write the book again for a month after that. What’s more, it was one evil person killing another person, who was also evil, though not as dark and deadly. This created the sense that said murderer was heinous, and I would do it again, but at the same point, it was hard to do.

Even eliminating good characters isn’t easy. If they die in the right way, I feel it is necessary (and better than creating invincible characters that leave no suspense), but it’s not easy to just write a life and then to lose that person. When written well, characters can be just as alive as people. I guess that’s why I love the message of Luigi Pirandello’s 6 Characters in Search of an Author.

In the end, a character or a life should be memorable. We should write things to have them inhaled. Even at over 600 pages, all actions in my last and current should be memorable (or Anne Rice’s 950+ pages that are about 1.5 times in the Mayfair Witches, which are as filled as 1 of my pages!).

For me, this is a direct correlation to why I like cemeteries. Even before Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology (a collection of epitaphs written to reflect the lives buried in an Illinois cemetery), I found certain graves magnetic. Maybe they were those of a hero. Maybe they were just architecturally wonderful.

In order, Emerson, Hawthorne, Alcott graves in Concord, Massachusetts.

These 2 pictures were taken in Nottingham, England

For that, I loved the graves of New Orleans, Louisiana. Whether they are the future resting place of Nicholas Cage (well, not his - that looks goofy) or the pretend and real resting places of voodoo queen Marie Laveau, there is something that draws people to the mausoleums of the Crescent City. Depending on where you are in the city, some stones are haunting, but some are well-kept. All of them tell stories. They mark the lives of beautifully imperfect people whose lives were lived for something that they wanted to be remembered and never lost to time. Rather than to go into the ground anonymously, they left behind a statue that tells that they lived.
As William Faulkner said, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."

First 5 pictures Metairie Cemetery

Next 3 pictures Lafayette Cemetery

Final 6 pictures St. Louis Cemetery #1

Of these, #2 Marie Laveau's "fake" grave

#3 her real grave (unmarked - has X marks though)

#6 Nicholas Cage's grave to be

All pictures, color and black and white can be found in albums HERE - scroll down.

Sure, Thoreau said, “Nations are possessed by an insane ambition to perpetuate themselves by the amount of hammered stone they leave.” However, for all the minimal living he did, he left a hammered stone, too. I guess he knew something... even if it was only a small stone on the family plot.

Thoreau's grave is in the same cemetery in Concord as the above 3 authors

This brings us back to the beginning. If the first type of death is the body, then it’s going to happen. Things go kaput. So it goes. Why prolong the inevitable to live off of machines to age 120?!! Live out loud as Emile Zola said. Then, we should accept that we’ll go into the ground and so will our loved ones. Sure, there will be tears, but for me, I want a jazz band funeral. I think they can play the part of Bob Marley’s “No Woman, No Cry,” where he repeats “Everything is gonna be all right, everything is gonna be OK” over and over. Then he can go into any Louis Armstrong they want since that’s what jazz bands do. After that, everyone can just tell stories about how awesome / goofy / weird / deep / annoying I was. I’ll be OK, and so will they.

After all, I’ll be batting third for the Cosmic All Stars and playing first base.