New Orleans -- Apr. 25th

I'll see if I can remember the whole day, as it is now the 26th, I didn't blog last night. I find it hard to remember everything I do in a day in detail if I don't blog everyday. I found out why the hotel was so much. Evidently Jazzfest, one of the largest concerts held in New Orleans all year, was in town, so everything was sky high.
I woke up and headed down to the French Quarter! How insane! The whole drive there I noticed that a lot of the city is still hurting from Katrina, and it is a very old city. A lot of the buildings and streets are falling apart. But the city has so much character and culture, and it is unlike any of the cities I have been to. I love it there! I got down and found a parking space and started walking around the French Quarter. My GPS led me to a "visitor center" that was just a little booth on the side of the road that just wanted to sell tours and cruises and stuff, luckily the actual one was only like 3 blocks away. I got some great information, and I had done a ton of research in my hotel before I left, so I didn't even leave until about 130. So I had a good list of stuff, and basically just had the guy help me map out where everything was so I could make a good line. Oh yeah, on the way to the vc, I stopped in the square where there was a show put on by four black guys, they were doing breakdancing and acrobatics stuff and there were really personable, funny and entertaining. I needed some food, so I went to another DDD place called Mother's who's special is a po boy sandwich which features "debris" which I guess is a mix of all different kinds of scrap meat, and they put it on top of your sandwich. It was amazing! I also had some seafood gumbo, it was only ok, and a bit overpriced. I met a couple of young, good-looking girls, both married unfortunately, but they invited me to eat at their table with them. They were in town for the Hornets playoff game, but they were from Raceland, LA, about an hour South of New Orleans. They were really cool, and gave me some other ideas of things to do. I left there, got on a street car for $1.25, and went to the Garden District. This is an area with rich, famous peoples' houses, and even though it was that, the streets were still in pretty crappy shape. I asked a person or two about it and they said that everything is just old. I don't know why they can't resurface something like that. Maybe they want it to retain a certain quality. I walked through the district, saw Archie Manning's house, where Peyton and Eli grew up, and I also saw Trent Reznor's house. I have met him once before at a show in Lincoln, and I think he is great, so that was cool. He is known for hard rock with kinda goth-y type fans, so I was surprised to see a yellow VW bug in the driveway, and he had a lab and a cocker spaniel. I walked to the end of the street where an old cemetery was, to try and get some pics, but it was closed for the day. Their cemeteries are really cool because everything is above ground mausoleums (sp?) and some of them are from the 16 and 1700s. I got back on the street car after stopping inMcD's for a bottle of water and some quarters for the fare. I got off at Tulane University and walked the campus and got some good shots. It was almost sundown by this point, and the white, gothic architecture of a lot of the buildings looked great. For actual sundown, I walked across the street from the school, to Audubon Park. This is a cool, large park where there were a lot of runners and dog walkers and other people enjoying the sunset. There were cool bridges and the best part was a clump of trees in the park where, probably 200+ egrets were all hanging out in the trees. I waited for the streetcar again to take me back down to the French Quarter, where I unloaded some stuff at my car, changed my shirt, and walked over to One Eyed Jack's, the music venue where Dax Riggs and Terry Reid were performing. I have been a fan of Dax Riggs for awhile now, and had gotten tickets online a few days before. Dax was standing right in the foyer when I got there, so I met him and got a picture with him, grabbed a beer and found a place to stand by the bar to wait for the show to begin. I struck up a conversation with a guy named Douglas, a 38 year old who was probably 6'2" and 250+ lbs. He lived in New Orleans his whole life, and knew just about everything about music. I bought him a shot, and we talked for a good hour nonstop. He told me that the owner of the bar was there, and when that happened, you knew it was going to be a good show. The owner, Rio Hackford, is the son of Taylor Hackford, who directed Ray, and Devil's Advocate, as well as produced a bunch of big name films. Rio himself, according to Douglas, is good friends with Vince Vaughn, and has acted small roles in Swingers and Fred Claus, and about a dozen other movies. I met both of them as well and just talked to him for a couple seconds. One Eyed Jacks is a really awesome venue, dimly lit, gothic wallpaper with dim, Victorian type lamps and just a nice, classy place that caters to a lot of good, smaller, lesser known bands like indie rock and metal and stuff like that. Douglas noticed that the female bassist from White Zombie, Sean Yseult, and Pepper Keenan from the band Down were also in attendance, two bands I love as well, so I met them and got another picture!! I was also noticing a young lady for awhile, but I didn't know if she was with this guy that kept hanging around her. She didn't seem very happy, so I went and talked to her, and bought her a shot. Her name was Liz, and she was absolutely gorgeous. She had that piercing, tattoo vibe that I'm drawn to, and we ended up hanging out for the rest of the show, as the guy she was with was a dbag, she had seen him a couple of times, and this was probably the end of it from the sound of it. She ahd to find a new ride home, it was almost me, but one of her friends ended up coming to get her. :( Oh well. I had a great night, though, and the show was awesome. Dax, of course was good, and Terry Reid actually was the headliner. He was a 60 something Brit rocker, who blew the doors off the place. Totally worth my 30 bucks. I walked to my car after that, paid 20 bucks for all day parking and went to hotel and crashed immediately. The show had started late, and they serve alcohol 24 hours a day there, so it was about 3 am before I got back. Also, you are allowed to carry any sort of container of alcohol anywhere in the city, anytime. Pretty nuts. I saw a lot of shitfaced people, evn at like 4 in the afternoon.