Hilary and Theresa's Road to Nowhere: December 2010

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Elysian Fields

No matter where we went in New Orleans, we seemed to end up on Elysian Fields Avenue. In Roman mythology, the Elysian Fields were the final resting place of the souls of the heroic and virtuous. It was also the name given to Dantes’s Limbo in The Divine Comedy, a place of light enclosed in darkness, where souls sensed their greatness and their insufficiency at the same time. These themes of lightness and darkness and heaven and hell pulsed through the very arteries of this city called the Big Easy.

At first, the darkness overshadowed everything else. We felt the impact of Hurricane Katrina immediately. Our motel was in the Gentilly neighborhood, a five minute drive from the infamous Lower Ninth Ward. “Impressive” said the owner of a shop in the French Quarter, “Y’all are right in the thick of it.” We could see that - the buildings next door to our Motel 6 were still badly damaged and boarded up. So were structures on almost every block in the area. According to the clerk who checked us in, things hadn’t changed much in five years. She would know. She lived with relatives in the country, but in August of 2005, she lived around the corner from our motel, and her home was one of Katrina’s 204,000 casualties. Without flood insurance, the money from FEMA wasn’t enough to make the repairs. She took the money and left the area, one of 800,000 residents displaced by the costliest disaster in the history of the United States. Her story wasn’t unusual. We hadn’t even finished checking in, and I was totally depressed. Then she asked, “Do y’all like Cajun food?”

Just like that, she turned spirited and enthusiastic as she told us about where we should eat dinner. “Sure my house was destroyed, but you have to try the barbequed shrimp at Mulate’s.” We would see this over and over again. The food and the music of the Crescent City were like magic potions that eased the pain and made everything tolerable. We continued to feel the hellish impact of Katrina every time we left the motel, but we would find heaven in the food and the music of New Orleans.

Mulate’s is the original Cajun restaurant in “Nawlins”, famous for preserving the food and music and culture of the bayou. The barbequed shrimp were to die for. So was the music, but we didn’t have the nerve to two-step with the pros. But I immediately googled “Cajun dance lessons” and decided that we were going to learn zydaco dancing once and for all. We even bought a tape of the house band - Lee Benoit and the Bayou Stompers - so we could practice at the Motel 6.

We decided to check out Bourbon Street in the French Quarter after dinner. There was a 20 piece brass band jamming on the corner of Canal Street and a tap dancer on the corner of Royal Street. Blues, Jazz and Jimmy Buffet blared from the dozens of bars. It was only 9 pm and everyone was already pretty wasted. I didn’t mind the drunks until one of them pulled out his unimpressive penis and started following me down the street. We returned to the French Quarter many times during our stay, but I tried to steer clear of Bourbon Street.

On our way to The Ruby Slipper Cafe, we checked out Mid-City, a diverse neighborhood comprised of “shotgun shacks” (also called “singles” or “doubles”) and close to City Park, which houses the NOMA and 1300 acres of magnificent oaks dripping with that delicious Spanish Moss. We were told that, like our neighborhood, Mid-City sat under 6 feet of water for three weeks after Katrina. I sensed resentment about all of the attention given to the Lower Ninth Ward. “It wasn’t the only neighborhood devastated by the floods, you know” said one woman we stopped to chat with. But some neighborhoods had more resources than others. Mid-City is one of the fastest-recovering neighborhoods in the city due to the efforts of community action groups like the Mid-City Neighborhood Organization (MCNO) and since the storm, more than 50% of residents and businesses have returned to the area.

The shrimp and grits at Ruby Slipper were great. But the tips from Brett the waiter were even better. Brett’s advise: 1) Avoid the Cajun music scene – it’s not authentic to New Orleans. Oops. 2) Avoid Bourbon St. – it’s full of tourists and the music isn’t what it used to be (Thank God.) 3) Head straight for Frenchman St.– that’s where the real music scene is happening. And on Thursday night, go see Kermit Ruffins, the trumpet player with a role on HBO’s Treme. 4) Avoid K-Pauls, Emerils and all of the other places in the guidebooks and eat at Elizabeth’s, Dante’s Kitchen and Green Goddess. There wasn’t one bad tip in the batch. We probably should have sent him a gift basket.

After breakfast, we were running late, as usual, and we missed the Ghosts of the Garden District walking tour that had promised both “architectural splendor” and “eerie tales of ghostly manifestations”. We were supposed to show up 15 minutes early for a 2:30 pm tour and it was almost 3:00 pm. But we could see the group standing in front of the cemetery, so we caught up and tried hovering around the fringe and eavesdropping. But the Guide gave us the skank-eye, so we slunk off and looked at the damn houses on our own. We think we saw Anne Rice’s house, but without the fucking guide, we couldn’t be sure.

We got lost on our way to Elizabeth’s for dinner. It was a good way to get to know Bywater, the neighborhood along the Mississippi River where the Mardi Gras parade begins every year. Traditionally a lower income artist colony, after Katrina, many survivors flocked to the area as it was less affected by the storm, due to the slightly higher elevation. Bywater became part of what is now known as "the sliver by the river", meaning neighborhoods that saw no flooding, including Marigny, the French Quarter, Irish Channel Area, and the Garden District along St. Charles Avenue.

We ended up eating at Elizabeth’s twice during our visit. I had to go back again for more Praline Bacon, their signature dish made with bacon, dredged in butter, coated in crushed pralines and baked until crisp and orgasmic. Our waitress, a transplant from San Francisco, was optimistic about the city’s recovery. “There’s a lot of life in New Orleans”, she said. Like many people we talked to, she felt that crime was a problem before Katrina, and that some of the statistics showing increases afterwards were overblown. She told us she was more concerned about the police force, described by some as the worst in the nation. During our stay, several police officers were convicted in a high profile case involving the fatal shooting of an unarmed man in the aftermath of Katrina; most seemed to feel that the verdict was overdue. “But the nicest thing about crime in New Orleans”, she continued, “is that there are hardly any rapes or abductions here; we don’t do rapes and abductions in New Orleans.” Silver linings indeed.

After dinner, we wandered around Frenchman St. in Marigny, a hip east-village kind of a neighborhood, and watched the filming of Treme in the Spotted Cat Music Club. We heard that extras were picked from the streets and we thought about sticking around and trying our luck, but it was Thursday night and we had a date with Kermit Ruffins at Vaughns on Dauphine Street. Kermit has been a New Orleans institution for years. Raised in the Lower Ninth Ward and Treme, he is a jazz trumpeter, singer and composer and he co-founded the Rebirth Brass Band. He had become even more famous because of his role on HBO’s Treme.

Dressed in pajamas and a Santa’s hat, he had just started playing when we arrived. No one was dancing yet, which meant there was room for us right in front of the band. The joint was jumping within minutes and later we congrautlated ourselves on jumpstarting the dancing. Kermit plays a fusion of blues, jazz, and funk, as he was very entertaining. There were lots of jazzy call and responses, lots of “who dats” back and forth and the drummer did an amazing Katrina- infused Sly Stone medley. We danced for hours and might have gone all night but for the large, obnoxious, drunk chick who totally interfered with my dance and practically pushed me into the drummer. Who dat bitch, I said to myself. She was finally asked to leave when she tried to dry-hump Kermit, but I’d totally lost my mojo by then and we decided to call it a night. But it was all good; we had burned off dinner at Elizabeth’s and we knew that Kermit would be playing at Tiptina’s on Sunday.

We were told if we ate in the Treme district, arguably the first African American neighborhood in the USA, we should park our car where we could see it. We did see obvious drug dealing on the street corners and I wouldn’t have wandered around Treme alone, but Lil Dizzy’s was supposed to be one of the most authentic “southern soul” food restaurants in the city, and it seemed worth the risk. “It’s only a car”, I said to Hilary. “She’s only a dog” he said to me. The sausages and red beans and rice were amazing and, as luck would have it, there was a parking space right in front of the restaurant. While we ate, we looked out the window and watched Layla assume her position behind the wheel.

The Louis Armstrong Park sits on the border of Treme and the French Quarter and I was disappointed when I found out it was closed for repairs. Treme was yet another neighborhood that sustained serious damage at the hands of Katrina and Armstrong Park was yet another casualty. Fortunately, police corruption worked in our favor that day and we were directed by two different police officers to a gap in the fence where we could break into the park. New Orleans was the birthplace of jazz and it seemed only fitting to pay our respects to Satchmo in the park erected in his honor. He was still standing, but barely, and only because he was anchored by supporting ropes and beams. We took some pictures and then lined danced our way to Congo Square, the sacred space where slaves would meet on Sundays to sing and dance and play music. Their African melodies and call and response patterns are said to be the original influences of jazz. We were able to view a very cool new Congo Square monument that hadn’t even been unveiled to the public yet and then we made our way back to the hole in the fence. We high-fived ourselves for once again being in the right place at the right time.

We couldn’t resist a visit to the New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum in the French Quarter. We were greeted by “Dr. John” (not the musician), a self proclaimed Druid, Wicken, Priest and something else that I can’t remember. He was pretty strange. He would pause for emphasis every time he said something really weird. He paused frequently. He told us that he used voodoo dolls for protection and that if anyone tried to harm him, they would suffer terrible nightmares and then go insane. He paused for several seconds. He went on to tell us that he fed his voodoo dolls raw meat once a week. He always fed them at night and the meat would be gone in the morning. He paused even longer after that one. Later, I overheard Dr. John mention his three snakes to someone. Excuse me Dr. John, I wanted to ask, don’t snakes eat raw meat? Actually, we learned quite a bit at the Voodoo Museum. We learned that gris-gris are both the act and the object of a magical supernatural power. And we learned all about zombies. Apparently there are several kinds of zombies. One is a type in which a person’s soul is promised in return for favors. New Orleans native son Jelly Roll Morton, said by some to have invented jazz, claimed to have had such a curse placed on him by his own godmother, the Voodoo Queen Eulalie. Let’s all take a long pause…

Dr. John, the musician, was in town while we were visiting and we were lucky enough to catch him at Tipitina’s on Tchoupatoulis. I loved saying “Tipitina’s on Tchoupatoulis” and tried to say it several times a day. Dr. John looked really old and he needed a walking stick (a very cool one, at least, with lots of gris-gris looking things on it.) A true New Orleans legend, his piano playing sounded great and that unique voice sounded the same as it did in 1974.

It seemed necessary to see the Lower Ninth Ward. After all, it was literally just around the corner from where we were staying. We’d seen the pictures and, like everyone else, we’d heard more about this neighborhood than any other. But it was still shocking to actually see it. There was an apocalyptic feel to the Lower Ninth. Of the 5300 homes in the Ninth, every single one of them had been flooded and rendered uninhabitable. Entire blocks of unoccupied houses stood in various states of disrepair. Some lots were razed. But most of the damaged houses were still there. Some were boarded up, with or without roofs and windows. Some were almost hidden by grasses that had grown high in the five years since the Industrial Canal collapsed in two different places. It was so quiet; like a ghost town. A few houses seemed intact and I was embarrassed as we drove by, especially when Hilary smiled and waved. Jesus, I thought, they are going to think we’re looking at them like animals in a zoo. Was that what we were doing, I worried. But most of them acknowledged us and waved back. I hoped they understood that we were there because we had to be there.

There was rebuilding going on. Brad Pitt’s group, “Make it Right”, and other similar organizations were making a dent and 1200 new homes had been built so far. But there was a different kind of renewal happening in neighborhoods like Lakeview, the upscale and predominantly white middle class neighborhood that took just as much of a hit when the 17^th Street Canal collapsed. In Lakeview, the damaged houses had all been razed and the lots appeared tended to. Construction was underway on every single block. Detours were set up around the roads with damaged asphalt. It was noisy and full of life. I didn’t notice any of that in the Lower Ninth. Was it about race? Or was it more complicated?

People had so many opinions. There was controversy about whether new homes should be built on any land 8 feet below sea level. There were attitudes about whether the Lower Ninth should be allowed to exist period. “The Ninth should have been razed before Katrina” said one resident of Lakeview, “most of the houses in the Ninth were either owned by slum-lords or inherited from grandparents; either way, they were not being taken care of”. “Puleeese” said a man from the French Quarter, “A strong breath could have knocked over some of those places.” Many seemed irritated that the Lower Ninth received so much attention from the media. “The Lower Ninth has become a cause célèbre; there was just as much damage in Lake View and no one’s even heard of it” said another resident.

A relief worker that I spoke with explained that it was complicated. The residents of the Lower Ninth weren’t as organized or as savvy and their upscale neighbors. They didn’t have the same education and resources and were less able to organize and advocate for themselves and among themselves. So they accepted inadequate settlements and they took FEMA’s one way tickets to the four corners of the earth. Over 100,000 haven’t returned because the housing simply isn’t there. Additional problems exist for the people who are there because of the lack of basic services - no fire department, no hospital, no grocery stores and only one elementary school. I was pretty sure that food and music weren’t going to solve the problems of the Lower Ninth Ward.

On Sunday morning, however, the Lower Nine and Big Nine Steppers were parading through the streets of New Orleans, many in full Mardi Gras regalia. The King and the Queen were on floats, there were several brass bands and lots of drums and feathers and dancing. The call and response of “we’ve been through the water, we’ve been through the water” was contagious and people on the sidewalks would join the parade for a while and then return to their lives recharged. It was just like a scene on Treme and it seemed like the very “culture” that people come from all over the world to experience in New Orleans. If the Lower Ninth fails to recover, it’s hard to imagine the city not suffering another irreparable blow.

As we got ready to leave the Big Easy, I kept thinking about the Elysian Fields. And also about the lyrics to the Grateful Dead’s Hell in a Bucket: “I may be going to hell in a bucket, but at least I’m enjoying the ride.” That was it, I thought. That was what I loved most about New Orleans. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the ride. Despite the circumstances, they were enjoying the ride. That was greatness in the midst of insufficiency. That was light in the midst of darkness. If the Lower Ninth Steppers could find joy in the Elysian Fields, it was time for me to crank it up a notch. To quote the Dead again, “it seemed like the least I could do”.

New Orleans was very colorful: Indian at Jackson Square

Bourbon Street, French Quarter

Royal Street, French Quarter

Characters in Treme were modeled after these two

This street group in Jackson Square was one of the best

Hilary's new friend Arron who has been shining shoes in the

French Quarter since he was six years old

The Garden District was beautiful during the day

And at night

Our favorite restaurant in Bywater

Filming Treme on Frenchmen Street

Who dat in the Voodoo Museum?

Kermit Ruffins at Vaughns

Lil' Dizzy's in Treme

Dr. John at Tipitina's

Louis Armstrong Park was closed for repairs due to damage by Katrina

But we found our way to Satchmo, in need of a little support

We were the first to see the new Congo Square Monument

We didn't have to go to the Lower Ninth Ward to see the impact of Katrina

This building was our next door neighbor

The Lower Ninth Ward's damage was more extensive though

There were entire blocks of abandoned houses in the Ninth

A few houses seemed to have survived

And there were new housing developments in some areas

But there was a different feeling in Lakeview, a neighborhood that suffered just as much flooding;

all of the damaged houses had been razed

The vacant lots were tended and there was active construction on every block

But there is still some spirit in the Ninth:

Parade of the Lower Nine Steppers

And a committment to keeping the culture of New Orleans alive

The Big Easy wants the world to know that is open for business

Y'all should come check it out

Friday, December 10, 2010

River Of Grass

It was time to switch gears, tune back in to the National Geographic channel, and head for Everglades National Park. We didn’t have to wait long to see some serious action. The Everglades hit us with one of its best shots at Royal Palm, about 5 miles into the park. We took the Anhinga Trail, a ½ mile loop that offered one of the best opportunities to view the wildlife up close and personal. We immediately began to see the alligators, lounging in the sun, lying on top of each other, some with their mouths wide open. Part of the trail consisted of an elevated boardwalk and I felt pretty safe looking down at the alligators from above. But some of them were only 6 feet away from us as we walked along the portion of the trail that wasn’t elevated. The biggest alligators were 10 feet long and with no wall or fence or canal between us, my heart would skip a beat when I’d turn the corner and see one face to face. Yet they didn’t seem particularly interested in me; sometimes they’d open an eye, but then they’d just shut it again. We were told by a ranger that stories of alligators chasing people across parking lots at 35 miles/hour were just stories. Still, we did see an alligator move 3 feet out of the water, in about 2 seconds flat, to grab an unsuspecting bird from a branch above the water. So I tried to make sure there was someone (usually someone named Hilary) between me and the alligators when I walked past the closest ones.

We returned to the Anhinga Trail many times during our visit to the Everglades. It was the closest thing to a zoo that the Everglades had to offer and many of the birds we came to see were right there. The usual suspects along the Anhinga Trail were, of course, the anhingas, cormorant-like birds with beautiful striped patterns running down their feathers and iridescent blue rings around their eyes, They would stand on the branches of the trees and the fences along the trail and flap their wings like little capes. The other regulars were great blue herons, little blue herons, tri-colored herons, and the beautiful green herons. There were hundreds of ibises, easy to spot with their distinctive hook shaped bills. And there were so many great white herons and snowy egrets that we practically ignored them by the time we left the park.

The biggest stars in the Everglades are probably the wood storks. Put on the federal Endangered Species list in 1984 when their numbers dropped from 5000 nesting birds to only 500, they are the face of the Everglades and an indicator species whose numbers measure the success of conservation efforts. They were also regulars along the Anhinga Trail. It was fascinating to watch them wading in the shallow waters, sweeping their submerged bills from side to side. They’d sense the small fish by stirring up the mud with one foot and they’d balance themselves with grand flourishes of one wing and then the other. Photographers from all over the world were in the Everglades just to capture this show.

But the most beautiful birds we spotted on this trail were a pair of purple gallinules, gorgeous creatures full of iridescent purples and blues and greens. We only saw them once, but they performed for over an hour, and watching them move in and out of the grasses and dance across the water lilies was the highlight of my visit to the Everglades.

We couldn’t find everything we were looking for along the Anhinga Trail. Besides, it was a little on the crowded side. We were told that if we really wanted to experience the Everglades we needed to drive another 40 miles to Flamingo, at the very tip of the park and right on the shores of Florida Bay. There used to be a lodge in Flamingo, but it was beat up by Hurricane Katrina and then destroyed by Hurricane Wilma in 2005. So we would be camping again, this time in sites described as “primitive,” meaning no hot showers. That hardly fazed us at this point. But it was pretty isolated out there at the end of the continent. It was just us and the mosquitoes.

We hoped that a cold spell (which hardly seemed like a cold spell with temperatures in the 70s during the day), would mean fewer mosquitoes. And I’m sure they would have been much worse during the rainy season (May through October), when they are described in the literature as “unbearable.” Unfortunately, the ones that were there managed to find us no matter how much DEET we sprayed on ourselves. But the mosquitoes at the campground were nothing compared to the ones on some of the trails that ran along the shallow, muddy waters of the Everglades. Still, we didn’t want to miss anything…

The name of the trail - Snake Bite - should have warned us that nothing good would come from following this one. But a ranger told us that we might find flamingos on Snake Bite. He failed to mention that this trail was infamous for having more mosquitoes than anywhere else in the park. Since we were in the Everglades, this meant there were more mosquitoes on this trail than anywhere else in the world. We wore long pants, long sleeved shirts, had headaches from the DEET on our faces, necks and hands, and we were still eaten alive. Right before we turned around and bailed, there were at least 50 mosquitoes hovering around Hilary’s shirt. “Fuck the flamingos,” I said as we ran back to the car, “they’re really stupid looking birds anyway.” “Yeah,” said Hilary, “and they are not even indigenous to this fucking park.”

After watching a Key West sunset in Flamingo, we turned in for the night. I awoke at 3 a.m. to the sounds of Hilary ripping duct tape, never a good sign. Sure enough, a zipper had broken and it was now impossible to close the tent. “This is not happening. You did not just break out tent in the Everglades,” I screamed, starting to hyperventilate. We had learned earlier in the day that there were 26 kinds of snakes in the Everglades, 4 that were poisonous, and that if we walked around the campground at night we’d be able to count hundreds of pairs of eyes in the dark. We had also learned that Flamingo held the distinction of being the only place on the planet where both fresh-water alligators and salt-water crocodiles lived side by side. “No. No. No. This not happening,” I knew I was repeating myself. And I knew I was behaving like a child. But I couldn’t help it. Even in San Francisco, I hated spiders and bugs and anything that crawled. I knew I had no business camping in the Everglades. What is the world was I thinking?

As cold air started blowing through the tent, I thought about getting in the car and leaving. It would serve Hilary right for breaking the tent, I thought. But I was afraid to go alone. I’ll take Layla with me, I thought. But what if the snakes got her first? Ultimately, it was the fear of fending off snakes and mosquitoes and alligators that kept me paralyzed in the drafty tent. I took some deep breaths and my nervous breakdown began to subside. Then I started ripping pieces of duct tape and handing them to Hilary.

The next morning, we gave the ranger an earful when he made the mistake of asking us about our night. But as luck would have it, he offered us a tent that someone had left behind (probably someone who’d had a night like ours and sworn off camping forever). Not only was it bigger than our tent and in better condition, it actually had a walk in closet. There was some sort of a lesson here that did not go unnoticed. One zipper breaks and another door opens. Or something like that.

The upside to making the trek to Flamingo was, of course, the birds. They migrate to the mudflats along Florida Bay during the dry season and, at low tide, thousands were visible from the campgrounds. They were mostly egrets and herons and white pelicans. We’d hear the thunder and turn to see fifty or more taking off or landing at the same time. And we’d never seen so many ospreys. Sometimes they flew as close as 10 feet over our heads and when they carried fish in their talons, they looked like small water planes. More exciting though, were the flocks of roseate spoonbills that we regularly saw in the trees along Mrazek Pond, about a ¼ mile up the road. Not quite as long a flamingos, but bright pink and with spoon-billed beaks, these birds were very entertaining as they flapped their beautiful wings, preened themselves, and gracefully moved from branch to branch. The trauma of the previous night was behind us, our marriage was still intact and we were already planning our next trip to the Everglades.

I had fallen in love again, this time with a “River of Grass,” the name given this landscape by conservationist Marjory Stoneman Douglas. Composed of more than 1.5 million acres, the Everglades are the largest wetlands in the United States. Water is everything here in the Everglades and problems with the quality, quantity, timing and distribution of water continue to ripple throughout the park. Everglades was the first national park created to protect a threatened ecological system. The most obvious remaining threat to the wetlands is, of course, the human population explosion (according to one statistic, 800 people a day move to Florida) with its competing demands for water. Pollutants from agriculture and other human activities only add to the problems.

The impact on the wildlife is heartbreaking, with the numbers of wading birds nesting in the Everglades declining 93% since the 1930s. But efforts to save the remaining Glades and restore a semblance of their original function are underway. Congress recently authorized the world’s largest environmental restoration project. Over a period of 30 years, the goal is to return the waters to a more natural and balanced state. One of the rangers told us he was “guardedly optimistic.” I hope his optimism is founded because there is something very special about this giant swamp. Marjorie Stoneman Douglas said it simply and perfectly: "There are no other Everglades in the world. They are, they have always been, one of the unique regions of the earth; remote, never wholly known. Nothing anywhere else is like them..." Amen.