{"id":1214,"date":"2010-11-17T06:55:37","date_gmt":"2010-11-17T11:55:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/?p=1214"},"modified":"2019-10-27T06:56:12","modified_gmt":"2019-10-27T10:56:12","slug":"new-orleans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/2010\/11\/17\/new-orleans\/","title":{"rendered":"New Orleans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Landed in New Orleans yesterday, around 3pm. Took a cab to my posh hotel<\/a>, just outside the French quarter. My cab driver opened up after I asked how old his daughter was (photo taped to the dash, she\u2019s 2 and 8 months). He\u2019s produced an independent film about drunk driving, and is halfway through his pilot certification. Didn\u2019t get his name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After checking in, I took my constitutional stroll \u2013 straight up Bourbon street. Ungh. Do NOT look at Bourbon street in the plain and unblinking light of day. Turn down the lights. No no, ALL the lights. I got pretty frankly pissed off at the organizers for dragging me to this titty bar, alcoholic, pickpocket laden hellhole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walked to the far side of the French Quarter and turned towards the water. Along the way, I walked past a dude in his 50s, sitting in front of his chess table. $5 a game. Walked a little further, to Cafe du Monde<\/a>. Stopped and had the beignets and a cafe au lait. Tipped the street gospel singer, and went back with $5 in hand. Sat down and got game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We played \u2013 and for the first 5 moves or so he kept emphasizing, \u201ctake all the time you need.\u201d After about 10 moves I was rewarded with a grunt. 15 moves in, he might have actually paused to consider. At around move 20 he looked at my position and said \u201cbummer, let\u2019s go get that king.\u201d Around 25 moves \u2013 I conceded. Didn\u2019t get his name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At that point, he glanced up at me through his dense, coke bottle glasses and said \u201cwanna go meet the club? You have POTENTIAL.\u201d With that, he was off \u2013 already across the street by the time I bounced up to follow. Across a block, into a fancy restaurant, and into the back \u2013 where servers from a variety of the local restaurants were hanging out \u2013 playing chess. He introduced me around, and then dashed back to his table. I had to go to the conference, but man \u2013 I was no longer as irritated with the organizers. This town has personality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Made my way to the conference<\/a>, checked in, and attended the opening gala. Met up with a friend from high school<\/a>, who pointed out later in the evening that we\u2019re also friends from elementary school. Then went to catch Greg, who works in the NOC and helps to build the supercomputing network every year. We wound up at the Howlin\u2019 Wolf<\/a>, sitting around swapping stories about cariaso<\/a> until late in the evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shook off a distinctly P. Diddy<\/a> feeling this morning and went to the conference. Excellent keynote \u2013 about which I hope to write later. Spent about three hours making it through four out of 48 aisles of exhibitors. Summary: I\u2019m way behind the times. Also attended a few technical talks. Summary \u2013 I\u2019m pretty much current. Drank a lot of coffee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of 6pm, declared myself brain-fried and got a free beer (courtesy of Univa<\/a>) at La Boca<\/a>. As you might infer from the URL, there wasn\u2019t much there for my vegetarian tastes. Moved on \u2013 dropped my backpack at the hotel, and braved Bourbon Street again. Tried to go to the acme oyster house<\/a>, but was dissuaded by the line \u2013 so I wound up at Storyville \u2013 who make a fine gumbo and serve Dixie beer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fed, continued straight down the street from hell (pausing to get a cigar from the hand roll guy) to Frenchman street. Walked farther. Past the hookers. Past the dealers. Into the darkness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of a sudden \u2013 I was somewhere else. I was \u2013 for lack of a better term \u2013 in Dixie. Delta. New Orleans \u2026 but I\u2019m not sure what year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think I was on Frenchman street when I walked past a group of homeless kids huddled in a doorway. Realized that I had walked too far and there wasn\u2019t enough light, so I turned back. The kids had reconstituted themselves into a little band. Banjo, bass, fiddler with the fiddle on his hip. The best damn bluegrass I\u2019ve ever heard. Songs about moonshine and missing North Carolina. Hung out for a few songs before moving on. Didn\u2019t get their names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I heard delta blues coming out of a place called Checkpoint Charlie\u2019s \u2013 and went in. Settled in at the bar. There was a man with a remarkable beard, playing guitar and singing, low and filled with soul. He was bothering the locals to get on stage with him \u2013 and they did. A clean cut man with too much moustache took the lead guitar for a while, and then passed it to an older vietnam-vet type. He finally managed to get a bass playing woman to sing lead. Then they began to rock. I felt like I was at somebody\u2019s house \u2026 for the low key jam session that happens every night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the locals were at the bar. Swear to god a guy did a massive bong hit right on the copper bar next to me. The guitarist was calling friends in between songs to see who he could stay with. At one point the bartender tapped me on the shoulder. \u201cShot?\u201d I glanced up and saw that drinks were lined up for all of us at the bar. So we clinked glasses and hoisted them. And the band played. \u201cWent to the corner store \/ for a $3 bottle of gin \/ three, six, nine, twelve \/ don\u2019t talk back.\u201d \u201cHam and eggs, ham and eggs, can\u2019t you hear me callin\u2019 you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, the bar had a laundry room in the back. It\u2019s that place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I need to start asking people\u2019s names.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Landed in New Orleans yesterday, around 3pm. Took a cab to my posh hotel, just outside the French quarter. My cab driver opened up after I asked how old his daughter was (photo taped to the dash, she\u2019s 2 and 8 months). He\u2019s produced an…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-speaking","category-real-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1214"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1215,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214\/revisions\/1215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}