April 10, 2003

Highlights from New Orleans Trip

Okay, I promised a few highlights from my recent trip.

(Please read no further or avert your eyes if you're allergic to vacation snaps or slides or prattlings ... !)

If you read either Melusine’s or the Marquis’s LiveJournals, you can often read of the various events and club nights they both speak of and attend (or, in the Marquis’s case, sometimes work at), so for the two weeks I was there, I was usually somewhere in the backdrop of any that they mention during that period.

But here are a few of the more notable bits.

The ”I, Claudius Drinking Game” nights were especially amusing. You can see the Marquis’ mention of it for more of an explanation of what that was all about as well as Jonno’s, (whom I had the pleasure of meeting as the event had been moved from the Shim Sham to Jonno's.) So, the event at Jonno’s was attended by a more intimate group, about 10-20 enthusiasts, many of whom were theatre people then involved in a stage presentation of a play called "I Suddenly Know What You Did Last Summer" that the Shim Sham Club was running for a few weeks in wacky homage to Tennessee Williams' week. (I got to see this play one of the nights I was there -- funny funny! Triumphant overacting.)

Playing the "I, Claudius Drinking Game" with a bunch of twisted theatre people was most fun, and as the two Tuesdays I was there spanned the Caligula and Messalina episodes -- definitely the most rambunctious of episodes -- it was especially delicious. Everyone roared and drank up at the infamous "Not My Head" scene! Then we reversed it to the beginning of that scene and savored it again.

Punk Rock Karaoke at the Shim Sham Club, which I went to both Wednesdays I was there, was adorable, just adorable.

Oh, yeah, mustn’t forget to mention the night the Marquis, bartending at Lounge Lizards, got us (me, Melusine, Sonya, and Lucy) drunk, and we decided then to meander off and all go get tattoos like we were drunken sailors. Yup.

Thus, my new tattoo (and permanent souvenir of the trip)

Unfortunately, the day before my last full day there, we had one major trauma of a day when upon waking up one morning, we discovered that Melusine’s 18-year-old cat Sophie had died in the night. She hadn’t been sick so apparently she had just arranged herself in the middle of the floor and died peaceably of old age. Still, it was understandably very upsetting -- for Melusine especially. A toast to you, dear Soph.

Saturday, early morning, I needed to leave for the airport at 6 am. So, as the bar downstairs from Melusine’s closes at 6 am, we told a few people to meet us there around 4 or 5 for my sendoff party. I actually was sensible (for once) and took a few hour nap from being out the evening before until 4:30 am when the Marquis called us from downstairs to say “Where are you? What are you doing sleeping? Come down here now.”

This we did.

They insisted on wanting to take a picture of me right after I’d just woken up and my hair was still wet. Digital cameras can be a menace. I protested, so here’s the Marquis trying to help by covering up my damp bangs.

Also from that morning, a picture of Melusine at the bar’s jukebox: