I should get this out of the way. There is a new Substack newsletter in New Orleans. It is called Newbie Orleans. This is not a paid endorsement. It is not even an endorsement, really, so much as a tip of the fedora to a fellow traveller.
There are many, many strata in New Orleans society. I have run a gantlet of them today, none of them in unfamiliar terrain but all of them in places I rarely visit. In each instance I have had an interlocutor. I have not needed one, but, happiness loves company.
I would not say that I am an old hand on the New Orleans front, but I am experienced, shall we say. I am sometimes mistaken for a native, which is the highest compliment of all. Much of that is due to my accent, as well as my penchant for idleness.
I have lived in New Orleans for twelve years, the longest I have ever lived anywhere as an adult. I remember what it was like to be new in New Orleans. Can I say I was a newbie? I do not want to, but, for the sake of search engine optimization, I will.
One’s first year in New Orleans is like being Dorothy in a decrepit Oz. My first year in New Orleans was both confounding and enchanting, as most foreign cultures are before we become accustomed to them. Now, I am as bad as everyone else.
What is unproductive, “bad,” in the rest of the world, is how New Orleans moves through the rest of the world, letting the good times roll as they will.
I should take a moment to tell you about another Substack newsletter that you might find interesting. It is called Newbie Orleans. I keep it my peripheral vision. I found the latest essay interesting. I do not know where the author lives, but I will bet you $5.00 that I know the bar he is talking about. I am catching a whiff of Bywater. It may be in Marigny, but that would only be a differentiation of degrees.
I stick to my knitting. I let other people investigate parts of New Orleans that do not concern me personally. They tell me if I need to know anything and they tell me if I need to make a personal intervention. My beat is Mid-City, mostly.
If you want to learn about what it is like to move to New Orleans, what it is like to make a home in this wonderful city we call home, check out this Newbie Orleans. Subscribe. I do not. I check on it occasionally, but, I already live here. I know what it is like to get swept up in the slowly moving currents of inertia that suck everything into a creolized vortex so that, when you finally come out of the wormhole, you are a newly minted native.
Never flatter yourself.
I am already an honorary New Orleanian. I do not need to remember how I got to be the man that I am today. If you want to know what to expect if you move here, you can do a lot worse than hearing first-hand experience as it unfolds. Newbie Orleans. Check it out. Tell him Mr. King sent you.
I am sure this is going to be a giant boost to his subscriber base. All in a day’s work.
Onto other matters…