Go To the Mardi Gras.
I was talking to a 15-year-old young man. We were sitting listening to “Go To the Mardi Gras,” by Professor Longhair. This young man is a recent transplant, less than a year, I think, from the Show-Me State. I asked him is he has ever lived anywhere else that people write songs about. He said no.
Me, neither, except for when I lived in Bella Napoli, and New York, and, I guess there is always “Charlie on the MTA.” I am not going to talk about how New Orleans reminds me of Naples. I hate to repeat myself.
It is all Carnival music everywhere we go. I am not talking about the usual Dixieland background music about which no one ever complains. If it is not 1970’s pop rock on the radio, it is Dixieland. It would be churlish to complain about Dixieland jazz.
There is a shift in the city’s soundtrack. It is still raggedly-timed, seemingly simple but technically complex songs. These songs are not about St. James Infirmary. The songs this time of year are all about Carnival. Like king cake, Carnival music is something that only comes out between January 6 and Mardi Gras Day.
I will probably hear Go To the Mardi Gras thee more times today as I make my usual rounds.
You should hear the calliope on top of the Steamboat Natchez when the lady plays Go To the Mardi Gras. It is that time of year.
Calliope is not pronounced the same as Calliope Street. It gives me a headache to read this sentence three times fast. It is a mental tongue-twister, made more so because the first word is capitalized. Just say it the way you want to. Everyone else does.
Mrs. King and I had dinner the other night in a restaurant that was like a David Lynch movie. All the world is a stage. Everything was off at this place. A strange malaise infused the air. It smelled like bleach.
The Mardi Gras string lights flickered in the gloom as the sullen waitstaff huddled in the far corner, their sullen faces lit by their cell phones. Mrs. King and I were the only customers.
The gumbo is fine but it is nothing to wax rapturous over. The atmosphere of listless mystery was overwhelming. Mrs. King was getting the creeps.
Carnival music was piped in softly overhead, adding an off-putting festive note to a room otherwise filled with as much gloomy ennui as an Edward Gorey story. Not even Go To the Mardi Gras could lighten the mood to any appreciable degree.
A man in a pink seersucker suit and a red bowtie, in January, walked in to confirm that he had a reservation for 8:00PM. He is an elderly man with fine, pink features and white hair slicked back. It will be a party of six.
“I’m bringing my mother,” the old man told the hostess. This old man did not look like Joe Biden but he was about as spry as Joe Biden. His mother must be a frail crone.
After we settled the tab, Mrs. King and I left this uncanny restaurant. We walked out the front door to the moonscape that surrounds this restaurant. I am telling you, it was like a scene out of Eraserhead.
Roadwork in the New Orleans sense, means there is not much of a road left and there is no work being done. This is, of course, City Hall’s doing.
While the streets have not been closed for the past year of road deconstruction, no one but a fool or a motorscooterist would brave the mud, not to mention the pipes protruding out of the ruts and the sinkholes. This state of affairs has got to be bad for business, which explains the turn of mood at this restaurant I am talking about. It has been going for a year.
Welcome to New Orleans. You cannot fight City Hall. It is like punching a bag of soggy oatmeal.
I hope that old man’s mother doesn’t break a hip navigating the terrain to get her bowl of okay gumbo. The nearest hospital is University Medical Center, unless she is a veteran. The VA Hospital is across the street from UMC.
How far is that? A little less than a mile from here.
At her age, if she is the frail crone I imagine her to be, it will take at least six months, probably longer, for that hip fracture to heal. She will not be able to go to the Mardi Gras. I would not wish that on anybody.
In other news, Roman Candy is at Canseco’s on Esplanade Avenue!
What is Roman candy? I will tell you all about it behind the paywall.