Tag Archives: New Orleans

Considerin’ Slitherin’

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EbeneezerSqueezer1919

If snakes were people this one would be a combination of Leon Redbone and Tom Waits. Cool, but in a mean, slick kind of way. Somebody you’d like to watch do his thing, but from way across the bar. And the waitresses, the ones that will serve him anyway, they all call him Tongue. Just because. This guy exudes menace like a cheap cologne.

If snakes wore shirts he’d have a straight razor hanging down inside his collar, and you’d want to watch close if he put his hand up to the back of his neck. He isn’t scratching, he’s reaching. Somebody’s going to get cut.

Here in New Orleans, just outside the 9th ward, there’s a bar, the one just off St Claude Ave. The one with the sign that hasn’t had working neon since 1946. The one with the broken juke box they don’t need to fix because there’s a kid there that will sing every blues tune you know for a quarter a throw. The one where if anyone got bit or squeezed real bad no one would say a word, because no one saw a thing. It has a spot at the end of the mahogany that no one will sit at whether he’s there or not. Even the most foolhardy tourist instinctively knows that’s no man’s land. That’s his bar and everybody is ok with that. They don’t go there if they aren’t, it’s bad joss and he can smell that on you.

Lots of snakes have chosen garish multi-colored skins, neon colored, they’d flash Vegas style if they could. But Big Billy Coils, that’s his given name, William Coils, but everyone who knew him by that is pretty much gone now. Victims of fights, booze, unpaid debts, horse, neglect and poor judgment. He’s found the colors that work for him. He’s leaving all the rainbow stuff to the wannabees, this look gets done whatever he wants done. He just stopped in tonight to check out the crowd. He hasn’t eaten in about 3½ weeks and he’s hungry. He’s off towards Algiers to see what might be hanging around the docks so he’s considerin’ slitherin’. I’d put off any late night strolls along the river tonight. Best you stick to the brightly lit streets.

Steppin’ Out

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SteppinOut1332

Everyone has got a favorite city. Some vote for LA, others for San Francisco or Seattle. Some of the poor misguided even think New York city is the place. Mine was always New Orleans. Then I went to San Antonio and now I have to say oh yeah, that is a cool city. Some of you are going to say “What the hell, that’s in Texas!” and I have to say “I know, but you have to go there.”

What makes a city cool, besides how it looks and what you can do there, is the people. Just like New Orleans people can’t help but be cool in San Antonio. They’re friendly, they don’t spit on the sidewalk, well, OK I did see one girl do that, but she cleaned it up. She chewed and she said she was just tired of swallowing that stuff. She felt bad about it. The folks there like to gather in cool places and watch each other and they do it all with a coolness that’s just, well, cool.

One of the best places to go to see and be seen with the cool people is San Antonio’s Riverwalk. I know it’s considered touristy but that doesn’t make it any less cool. Sitting alongside the river with a Texas girl with big hair, seeing the sparkly stuff in her mascara come alive as the light hits it, sipping something cool and full of Tequila, listening to her say “Y’all” a bunch, is time well spent and I highly recommend it. You can people watch and see the lights come on at sunset, watch the boats go up and down the river full of people laughing and asking the guide how deep the river is (5′) and just revel in the feel of the quiet evening as the sun goes down.

It’s a place where you put on your best threads and strut your stuff. The guy above is a yellow-crowned Night Heron and you can see by his name, night is when he comes alive. By day he’s a mild-mannered carton stacking specialist down at the UPS terminal, wearing his brown outfit with the brown baseball cap, bill facing forward as per the company dress code, but at night, watch out. That’s when he shines. It takes a lot of confidence to put on his yellow feathers and his stripey pimp coat, but he pulls it off as if he were born to it. Many, many ladies were checking this bad boy out as he struts up the birdwalk.

If you’re thinking, you know I’m kind of sick of my favorite city. I’m bored and I need someplace new. Someplace fresh and alive. Then you’d best get on down here to San Antonio as people who talk Texan say. You’re missing the good times.