Day 2

Rett’s original dream was to stay in the French Quarter, but even if price was no object, the few places available felt like they’d be bait-and-switches. So we ended up in the Garden District (technically Irish Channel), on the opposite side of the Central Business District (but still less than three miles from the French Quarter). It turned out to not feel at all like a consolation prize; among other benefits, it encouraged us to see a wider swath of the city than we otherwise would have.

This day we walked a winding path through the residential blocks of the Garden District. The volume of high-end historic mansions here was a surprise to me, and comparing it to Mobile (or even Savannah, or Charleston) is like comparing Manhattan to downtown Syracuse.

Though the sidewalks in New Orleans compete with Mobile for their uselessness (or even outright antagonism) toward perambulation. Maybe it’s good that apparently even the rich homeowners in this district have failed to capture public services to respond specifically to them? A more pleasing bit of cross-class unity was to see that the mansions were just as decorated for Mardi Gras as the tiny shotgun houses in lower-income neighborhoods were. My assumption would have been that Maj. and Mrs. Jonathan Armbruster IV find Mardi Gras tackiness beneath them and wouldn’t allow such low-class revelries to deface their abode, so it was hopeful to learn that Mardi Gras is one thing that crosses the still-obvious lines of segregation in this city. And again, it’s simply cool that this major holiday exists along the Gulf Coast but nowhere else in the United States.

As evening fell, we headed east for dinner at nearly-empty Lula Distillery. It’s right on the parade route, and has a huge elevated bleacher structure built on the sidewalk in front of it, but I guess on this no-parade night, everyone takes a breather? It was a theme that would continue throughout our stay in New Orleans: wherever we walked at night, the streets would be almost completely empty. Few pedestrians, and sometimes we could walk a mile without seeing a car go by. There weren’t even enough people around that the emptiness felt dangerous at all, it was just…odd. Maybe some of it is because New Orleans still has only about 80% of the population it had pre-Katrina (and 60% of its 1960s peak), but the parts of the city we were walking through had no abandoned houses or other signs of depopulation. I guess people just go to bed early?

A part of New Orleans culture that is still going strong (and up late) is the music scene. Rett and Josh and I are all fans of live music, and even though I rarely see performances these days, being here reminded me that despite metal being my primary genre, at the climax of my concertgoing (50+ shows/year), “New Orleans”-style music (brass, funk, jazz-adjacent improv) had actually become one of my biggest interests. I knew we would likely see “professional” bands later on (bands playing their nightly gigs in bars/restaurants to fulfill tourists’ expectations of “live music” in New Orleans), so I was quite pleased with myself (and New Orleans!) for finding something a bit different (and was glad that Josh and Rett enjoyed my find nearly as much as I did).

A club called The Rabbit Hole has a new Monday-night series (imported from LA) called Very Good Mondays. It assembles a different cast of local musicians every week, and they play a couple sets of completely-improvised jams. But these aren’t old jazz cats, and the club is outside the tourist French Quarter, so the musicians tend to come more from a rock/jam-band/funk background, weaving together music that you can equally dance to, rock to, or stand and inspect to try to understand how it all comes together so well.

For a $10 ticket, us and the 20 other people in attendance felt almost like we were stealing, though these are the type of musicians who would have played even if no one turned up, purely for the joy of discovering songs on-the-fly with people as talented as themselves. It also felt like half the people in the “audience” could be the ones performing in the next week or two. At one point a guy walked up to the stage to record a quick video of the performance for Instagram, and that guy turned out to be Ian Neville, son Art Neville (and nephew of Aaron) of The Neville Brothers! The drummer, Nikki Glaspie, did a world-tour with Beyoncé as part of her all-woman band. In their second set, the guitar/bass/keyboard/drums lineup was joined by a brass 3-piece and a very white girl with a flute. I pre-cringed at how awkwardly the rigid instrument would fit in all the funk, but her solo totally slayed. It turns out that she’s in Stephen Marley’s band, so, of course. And 100% of this name-dropping came from my own research the next day, the musicians did zero hyping of themselves. I was just thrilled to simultaneously experience incredible (and literally “unique”) music and get a window into the true music culture of New Orleans. And obviously it proves that the punches-far-above-its-weight strength of the New Orleans scene is no mere fable; as Josh complained, there’s no way this series is expanding to Phoenix anytime soon, despite a population five times the size!

Day 3

Today we would get to compare New Orleans Mardi Gras parades to Mobile’s. And it was actually due to a double silver-lining found in a literal dark cloud: Sunday’s daytime parades had been postponed by the rain (making our ride through the city that day much easier that it would have been with closed streets and crowds), and moved to tonight (when we would actually be able to see them!)

Like Mobile, our place was within easy walking distance to the parade route (approximately the middle of the route). Josh actually has another friend living (for just a short time longer) in New Orleans, so we went to meet up with her at the spot she had staked out on the route. At initial meeting, I think Brielle (reasonably) assumed that “these friends of Josh’s who ride their bikes around the world are just random old-people Mardi Gras tourists”, so I imagine she was pleasantly surprised when she learned that Rett was someone who matched her childlike love of wearing costumes and all things shiny and colorful (and, the feeling was obviously mutual).

The Mystic Krewe of Femme Fatale was right up that alley, an all-female group of black women, already bringing something we didn’t see in Mobile. I loved the clarity of their theme: each float represented a different profession, from librarians to hairdressers to accountants, and presumably the ladies riding each float were associated with that profession. They also felt like the most well-organized group we’ve seen before (or since): each float had awesome unique headdresses that every member wore, really unifying the theme. It felt like reflection of politics: who is the group best at seeing through bullshit and trying to keep things on track? Black women! And even though one of their floats had the quadratic equation on the side, they were a ton of fun too!

Next was the Krewe of Carrollton, celebrating their 101st year. As a white male group, they felt more “conventional” again, as if guys dressed like kings and colorful Klansmen, throwing decorated shrimp boots out into the crowd can be considered “conventional”. Presumably due to the change in schedule, there were no marching bands between the floats like there had been in Mobile, but we were still out there a couple hours.

Last up was the Krewe of King Arthur, a pleasantly-integrated (and apparently quite wealthy!) group who had the best floats we’ve seen so far, with their slightly-cartoon-y Arthurian theme being what Rett didn’t even know she’d been missing (Brielle, a very-experienced parade-goer, knew exactly what to expect!) Between the two of them, they collected several of their signature throws, hand-decorated Holy Grails (each unique and made by a member; Rett bequeathed her space/astronaut-themed one to Josh), and Rett also came away with a King Arthur coloring book!