2/1/05
MY NIGHT ON BOURBON STREET
5 PAGES

My night down on Bourbon Street is yet another thing I've been meaning to write about for awhile. I was down in New Orleans for work at the end of May. It was one of the easiest on-site jobs I'd ever done. I got there on a Sunday afternoon and had everything set up within about four hours. Ironically, it was one of our more intricate setups that included networking and all that which always adds dozens of extra variables that can go wrong. Usually a setup like that takes a couple days because inevitably, something doesn't work on the first try and you have to figure out what it is and correct it. Of course, by the time you correct one problem, something else suddenly stops working. But amazingly on this job, it was one of the rare occasions when everything worked on the first try. So four hours after I'd arrived on site, I was done. And I still had two days left before I went home.

I was back at the hotel by five or six o'clock and I decided, "Well, I'm in New Orleans, I might as well head on down to Bourbon Street and party." So I took a shower, got changed and headed out. Bourbon Street was maybe a half mile or so from the hotel so I just walked there. I'd been to New Orleans once before on a road trip and I remember parking and traffic had been a commodity down that way. Plus, I knew realistically that I probably wouldn't be in any shape to drive by the end of the night anyway. So I walked.

The evening was warm and humid the way it always is in New Orleans. Come to think of it, the last time I had been down here was this exact same time of year. I had been here with my ex on her birthday, which was the end of May. I made it to Bourbon Street and already the place was teeming with people. That seemed odd. I figured Sunday night would be a relatively dead night for this place. But I reasoned, this is New Orleans. People come here to party. It didn't occur to me until later that the next day was actually Memorial Day so it was essentially like a Saturday night here.

I decided I would walk the street once before I decided on a place. I found myself in the middle of some kind of parade or something. There was a band playing some kind of Dixie music marching down the street and there was a line of people behind them that seemed to be marching along to the music. They were just tourists like me. They were dancing and waving beads at the people up in the balconies. I decided to just join the crowd. Honestly, I did it because I wanted to see if the women in the balconies were going to show their boobs for the people with the beads. Something I'll talk more about later. I was also curious just where this "parade" was going. It seemed like this group knew something I didn't. But when the band finished their song, the whole group just dispersed. I guess everybody had just done what I did and joined the crowd thinking THEY knew something they didn't.

I finally went into a bar that had a live band playing. They were doing what a lot of bars on Bourbon Street do. They were offering one hell of a happy hour deal. Three beers for the price of one. I remembered this from the last time I was here. So I went in and ordered three MGD's. I was lucky and managed to snag myself a stool, another hot commodity around here, and watched the band play. It was a cover band and they were decent and funny and I tapped my foot along.

I was enjoying myself, just watching the band play. Nobody was really dancing, but there were a bunch of college-aged guys at a front table that were being rowdy and having a good time, trying to hit on girls and getting rejected but not letting it get to them. They were shouting things to the band, requesting songs and yelling when they liked something.

I felt so at ease. I remember the last time I had been here I really tried to enjoy myself but I was too worried about looking cool and picking up girls. Just to remind you, the girls I was here with at the time was my EX girlfriend. I was so worried about what I was missing out on by not coming here with a group of guy friends or with another girl who I was really into. I worried that I could be having more fun without her there. But this time, I just didn't worry about any of that. Again, I felt like Simon in the movie "Go." I was just having a good time, having fun by myself and not worrying about anything.

It was pretty hot, but it still took me over an hour to get through all my beers. I guess I just don't have the drinker stomach anymore. There were waitresses walking around selling test tubes with some kind of colorful alcohol in them. After she came by three or four times - and as I was about half-way through my last beer - I finally gave in. I didn't realize it was supposed to be a sexy shot. I was just going to pick up the test tube and drink it. But instead, she put one end of the test tube in her mouth and I took the other end in my mouth and we did that Lady and the Tramp move as I did the shot. At the end of the shot, she spit the test tube straight up into the air and caught it, said "Thank You" and moved on.

After I finished my third beer, I was feeling hungry and decided to go find some food. I hadn't eaten much of anything today and the last time I'd eaten had probably been over 4 hours ago. I figured it was probably a good idea to have SOMETHING in my stomach if I was going to keep this up. So I went into a little restaurant where they had a Cajun band playing and ordered up some Jambalaya.

The Cajun band was awesome. It's so weird to see guys my age, guys who look like they're pretty cool and hip and with it, playing instruments like the accordion or the washboard. I just don't know what makes a red-blooded American boy wake up one day and decide to play the accordion. Walking past another bar later in the night I saw a black guy with muscles pumping out of his arms and an open leather vest, looking a lot like Taye Diggs, also playing accordion in a Cajun band. I just had to smile. It just seemed so mismatched.

After my meal, I decided I wanted to sing some karaoke. So I made my way down to "The Cat's Meow." The last time I was here, we'd gone in and I had sung "Funky Cold Medina" a song that had always gotten me a big response. But I guess it was only funny when I sang it in front of a group of people who knew me and recognized that I was making fun of my own whiteness. The crowd of southerners and tourists just didn't get it. I've realized since then what I needed to do to redeem myself and tonight I planned on doing just that.

On the way to The Cat's Meow, I pulled out my cell phone and made my obligatory drunken phone calls. I don't know what it is about being intoxicated that makes people want to call others and let them know about it. I called some friends from LA and from Boston and let them know where I was and what I was doing. They all basically said the same thing: "You suck, that's awesome. Drink one for me."

I got to the Cat's Meow and made my way over to the chick in charge of the karaoke. I got a list of their songs and looked for "Sold" by John Michael Montgomery. This is my standard whenever I sing karaoke. It's a real down home, wicked fast, make you yell, Yee-Haw song. Even if you don't like country, you can't help but cheer when somebody sings this song well. And I do a kickass rendition of it. It's a fast song and the dude sings REALLY fast. I TALK really fast so I keep up with it just fine. But also, at the end of the chorus after he's been singing really fast, he holds the last note for a long time and it just impresses the hell out of people when you hold that last note. I had sung that song at at least three different karaoke bars and brought the house down with it every single time.

Unfortunately, The Cat's Meow didn't have that song. The thing is, Cat's Meow really isn't a very good karaoke bar. They don't have a very big selection of songs and they stop the karaoke too often so that the two hosts on stage can sing songs and pump the crowd up. But it's apparently an institution down on Bourbon Street and everybody has to go there. And like I said, I had a score to settle.

I found another song that was similar to "Sold" that I knew I could sing really well. The song was "Pour Me" by Trick Pony. It's another knee slapping, jump up and down yee-haw song. A girl sings the song, but I would just change the "gendered" lyrics so it didn't seem like I was gay and singing about a man who'd left me. To be honest, I had practiced singing this song in my car many times in preparation for the next time I went out to karaoke. Since the two hosts take up so much time for themselves it took them over an hour to get to me. But when I got up there, man I tell you the crowd went nuts. I mean, girls weren't throwing their panties at me or anything, but some dude in a Hawaiian shirt in the front row reached out to give me five. As I made my way off the stage, I heard one host say to the other over the microphone, "Hey, I'm impressed."

I had redeemed myself. I finished my beer and left the bar.

I walked back up the street into a couple other bars that had bands playing. The good thing about Bourbon Street is none of the places except for the strip clubs have cover charges. I would just walk into a place and listen to a band until I got bored or they took a break. This one band was particularly awesome. They were a deep southern rock band. They did a lot of covers of the Allman Brothers, Stevie Ray Vaughn and any number of other bands that use that electric guitar to its full purpose. I stayed and watched them for a good half-hour before they took a break and then I moved on.

It was getting on past midnight and I decided I should probably start making my way back to the hotel. I did have to do some work tomorrow - or so I thought.

On my way back, something else held me up for another hour or so. What does everybody think about when they think of New Orleans? Mardi Gras right? And what do you think about when you think of Mardi Gras? Let me rephrase. What does every GUY think about when he thinks of Mardi Gras? Of course, girls gone wild showing their boobs for beads. I always assumed that this was something that only happened during Mardi Gras. Apparently I was wrong. Though not by much.

As I was walking back, I saw a big group of guys standing in the middle of the street looking up at one of the many balconies. Several of the guys had beads in their hands and were waving them around. Other guys were just standing next to the guys with the beads and looking in the same direction. I joined these guys in the throng and looked up at the balcony.

I always thought it seemed odd that women would be SO eager to get these beads that they would just show their boobs with very little provocation. Turns out that was apparently a fair assessment. Several of the guys with beads were trying to persuade this one particularly hot girl on the balcony to lift up her shirt. She kept giving them a "come here" gesture with her fingers as if to say, "Throw the beads up first." Every now and then a guy would throw his beads up. She would take them and put them around her neck and then make that same "come here" gesture again. The guys started getting wise to her freeloading and kept trying to coax her. Finally after about five minutes, she did lift up her shirt and give the guys what they were looking for. The guys threw up their beads and then kept trying to convince her to do it again, but by that point she was done. That didn't stop the guys from continuing to yell up to her and try and convince her. And the other guys who were just standing around, they just kept looking up because they figured she was more likely to do it than the other women up there.

Elsewhere, other guys were trying to get other girls to do the same thing. They'd wave their beads. The girls would say throw them up. The guys would throw them up and the girls would just put them on their neck and not give payback. Other guys would try to convince the girls to lift up their shirts and they would, but they would only lift up their SHIRT, only showing their bras. The guys would be like, "Oh come on," and hang onto their beads.

At one point, a group of girls on the balcony yelled down to these two teenaged guys and said, "We want to see something too." After about five minutes of back and forth, the kid finally yanked down his shorts and showed of his property, at which point all the girls on the balcony laughed and made the universal hand signal that means "very tiny penis". And still they didn't show their boobs.

I spent maybe an hour like this, going back and forth along the balcony with different crowds of guys, trying to gauge which women were likely to lift up their shirts and which ones were going to waste another ten minutes of our time.

At some point, the guys up on the balcony also joined in the game and they called down to girls walking by on the street to show their boobs. This is what makes me laugh even to this day when I think about it. The big group of guys on the street was like a flock of birds. Have you ever seen birds when they're flying in flocks? They all manage to change directions at the exact same time so that they fly and turn as a group. It's almost like they're controlled by some kind of ESP that lets them know to all turn together. The guys hoping to catch a glimpse of girls' boobs seemed to possess that quality. I guess, they WERE all of a like mind down there.

So when they saw a guy on the ground trying to convince a girl on the balcony to show her boobs, their eyes were all fixed upward on that girl. When they suddenly realized that a guy on the balcony was trying to convince a girl on the ground to show her boobs, they all looked at her. The instant it seemed as though the girl might actually be considering the offer, the entire group as a whole moved. They shifted from a position that gave them the best view of the balcony and as a unit moved over and around so they were now UNDER the balcony giving themselves a view of the girl on the ground. Once they realized that the girl wasn't in fact going to do what they wanted, they again, as a flock moved back to their previous position and looked up at the balcony. This happened several times and for the most part on this night, it did them no good. I don't know if it's just because it wasn't Mardi Gras or if this is how it is all the time, but for the most part the girls weren't "cooperating."

After that first girl on the balcony, I and everybody else must have stood around for at least and hour, moving back and forth like a flock of birds with nothing to show for it. Until the girl in the pink dress came by. The guys on the balcony saw her coming from about a hundred feet away and started calling to her and waving beads immediately. The group of guys on the ground all turned their heads and looked. Usually the girls that the guys called to would just walk by without stopping, occasionally giving a smile and waving up to the balcony like "Yeah, okay whatever guys." But when we saw the girl in the pink dress slow down and stop, en masse we swung our flock around under the balcony to watch.

The girl in the pink dress slid down her spaghetti string straps and pulled the dress down to reveal that she wasn't wearing a bra underneath. Several beads came flying down from above us. She put them around her neck and was about to walk away when the yelling from above stopped her again. She turned around, her back to the balcony and lifted up her dress revealing that she wasn't wearing any panties either. More beads came down. She put them on, gave a quick bow and continued walking. At which point our little flock of birds swung back around and the guys on the ground waved their beads as though their life depended on it, hoping the girls on the balcony would take a cue from the girl in the pink dress.

After another agonizing ten minutes I realized this whole negotiation process had made me exhausted. I started back for my hotel, casting one last glance back to see if any more girls on the balcony were taking the bait.

As it turned out, nobody at the company I was doing tech for wanted to come in on Memorial Day, so I spent the entire day reading. I considered going back to Bourbon Street again that night, but I had spent quite a bit of money the night before and I decided it was better to just spend the night in. I'd had such a good time the night before. I wanted that to be what stuck in my head as my memory of Bourbon Street.