Subject: My trip to New Orleans
Date: Thu, 06 May 93 13:36:36 EDT
From: Jim.Rees@umich.edu

For this year's trip to the Jazz Fest in New Orleans I needed to bring a
little work along, and I needed a phone line for my computer.  So instead of
the $15 a night Hummingbird Hotel, where I stayed last year and which has no
phones, I decided to go first class and stay at the Bayou Plaza.

Imagine a $200 a night luxury hotel with three swimming pools, tennis
courts, a first-class restaurant, barber shop, fancy boutiques, a large
ballroom, and an eight story tower with sweeping views of the New Orleans
skyline.  Something like the hotel where Goldfinger painted up Jill
Masterson.  Built as the Fountainbleu, our cab driver claimed it was the
scene of some kind of conspiratorial meeting involving Lee Harvey Oswald.

Now imagine the same hotel after 20 years of complete neglect, with weeds
growing on the tennis courts and so much algae choking the swimming pools
that you can't see the surface of the water.  One entire wing has apparently
been sealed off, and the place looks so forlorn that we had a panic attack
as the train went by on our way into town because the place looks closed and
deserted.  In spite of this, it was really quite pleasant.  Staying there
had something of the feel of exploring abandoned buildings in Detroit.

We arrived too late to go to the fest the first night, but we made it to the
Maple Leaf, where Rockin' Dopsie was playing.  Buckwheat Zydeco was at the
Muddy Waters bar across the street, but we skipped that since we had just
seen him when he played Sully's for Mardi Gras, and the line was around the
block anyway.  We did however walk up to Jimmy's to take in part of Marcia
Ball's set from the sidewalk.  Bars in New Orleans, like those in Texas,
tend to provide a view of the stage, plenty of music, and beer sales to
those who want to stand outside and not pay the cover charge.  At the Maple
Leaf there is a door behind the stage that opens up onto the sidewalk, and
Dopsie would sometimes whirl around and sing through the door to the
sidewalk audience.

The next day we went to the Clover Grill for breakfast.  Someone had dropped
a couple of bucks in the jukebox and punched up an all-disco set consisting
mostly of the Village People.  The cook was singing along to "YMCA" as he
fixed our pecan waffles.  The Clover is always entertaining, perhaps partly
due to its location on Bourbon Street at the border between the T-shirt
tourist district and the gay district.

Next we set off for the Fest on the Clover's free shuttle bus.  It rained
most of the afternoon but the music was good.  That night we had dinner
(blackened catfish and Abita beer) at the Cajun Cabin while it poured rain
outside.  Then we went to the Mid-City Lanes bowling alley, across the
street from our hotel, to hear the Iguanas.

The next day we went to the fest and heard Santana and the Neville Brothers.
It wasn't raining but the mud had been churned up to roughly ankle depth.
Many people just took their shoes off, others squished around in sneakers,
while I stayed dry inside my Red Wings.  That night we walked through the
leather clothing part of the quarter to the Cafe Brasil, where some samba
band from Martinique was playing.  We had dinner at Coop's, fried calamari
and rabbit jambalaya.

After that we headed for Benny's, with a stop along the way at Tipitina's to
take in part of the Radiator's set.  The cabbie didn't know where Benny's
was but we eventually found it, at the corner of Valence and Camp.  Benny's
is an after-hours place, in an old house, with the plaster taken down and
just wall studs everywhere.  The place had been remodeled since the last
time I was there, with three bare light bulbs instead of one over the bar,
and a pool table in the back room.  Sadly, it was the next to last night for
Benny's, which is shutting down.  Now I'll have to get PJ to tell me where
the next hot spot will be.

The next morning we hit Thrift City, where I pawed through an entire carton
of 8-track tapes and came up with some gems, like a Sonny & Cher tape with a
live version of "I Got You Babe."  On the way back to Ann Arbor we had a six
hour stop in Chicago, where we took in the Magritte and Chagall exhibits at
the Art Institute and ate pizza.  Then it was back to Ann Arbor.