October 01, 2004
WHAT I THINK I KNOW
ABOUT NEW ORLEANS
AFTER 48 HOURS, VOL. 1
* Paddlewheel riverboats are to New Orleans what fake trolleycar buses are to Tampa. Neither of them are all that authentic.
* Every person on earth once before they die should hear Mavis Staples sing "God Is Not Sleeping." Preferably in person.
* If New Orleans didn't have drinking and sex and the party-all-the-time attitude and year-round warm weather, it would be the Baltimore of the Deep South. The cemeteries are almost identical in their grandeur and the accents of both cities residents are equally undecipherable.
* When the lieutenant governor speaks to a convention of reporters and editors on the morning that one of his judges has been indicted and has the giant, jumbo, elephantine coconut balls to hold up the paper and say, "This is not today's Louisiana, this case is 5 years old. We've turned the corner. This is a new Louisiana. Don't read the paper," it makes me want to move here immediately. Especially when he looks at the editor of that paper directly in the eyes while making that statement and then goes on a 25 minute praisefest of his state's virtuies.
* When you see a former co-worker and you make polite chit-chat by asking about how things are at the former place of employment, the phrase, "Well, I had my appendix taken out," provides a less than satisfying update on the working environment.
* The last words I expected to hear in a professional capacity while attending a journalism convention: bl**jobs, fingering, anal sex, analingus and the phrases "I'm the urine drinking expert," "e-mail photos of sores on penises and vulvas," and "fist f***ing when I'm 50." Then again, it was a panel with sex advice columnist Dan Savage, so the sky was the limit.
* Watching slightly lubricated middle-age white office workers dance to hardcore delta blues has to be one of the most enjoyable spectator sports known to mankind. I have so much fun doing so, I feel as if I should offer to pay them for all the mockery going on in my head.
* The concept of the open bar should be enshrined and honored in a museum somewhere.
* Offering an open bar to a room full of journalists is like offering bad sitcom ideas to Tony Danza. Neither can refuse the opportunity.
* The fervor displayed by journalists lining up at a free bar is surpassed in degrees of greed only by the offer of free food.
* Journalists would take bribes of free turkey tettrazini over money.
* Only booze will get journalists to ignore free turkey tettrazini, but only for a limited time span.
* Offering an open bar to journalists twice in two days in New Orleans is just downright reckless.
Posted by Jeff at October 1, 2004 08:16 AM | TrackBack
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