Kelly Cavanagh

Another Story

Chapter 13 to 24

Fly Thai
up and away and a war breaks out

Rock Star for a Day
how to dress for excess

Geaux NOLA
where every day is as different as the next

Ferry Dock Shock
beware the stranger who calls you friend

Live House of the Rising Sun
how to properly say ja ne be good

Green Green Jeans of Home
the right hand does the left hand knows

Shasta Trestle
what would make someone who seems perfectly sane run headlong as fast as he can at a train

Very Electric Mandolin
how I nearly died in prison without ever doing anything wrong

Go Go Kart
how I nearly got a grilling

Freaky Tiki Hut
how to holiday without going anywhere

Fiery Cortina
how I nearly set a city on fire

Rock the Old School
how to get them dancing in the aisles

Copyright Kelly Cavanagh

All Rights Reserved

Fly Thai

up and away and a war breaks out

    Every time I left Japan I'd have to endure, I mean enjoy, a sayonara party. Friends gathered to wish me goodbye and got me so wasted. Some brought gifts, very thoughtful but it meant I'd have to open my spring loaded luggage to find a spot to pack the stuff in. One time my room mate Nadine took a photo of me packing to leave. Crying, sitting on my suitcase to try for the tenth time to get it closed. Hilarious! Anyway, the next morning after the sayonara party I would have to navigate subways, trains, airports, and mind and limb numbingly long trans oceanic flights in my debilitated state. Almost like they didn't want you to leave. Once I survived three sayonara parties in the same day, and still made my flight. But that's another story.
    No sayonara party this time though. Only a brief trip outside the country so I could return and get another ninety day "tourist" visa. Every visitor had to have one, so all the many foreign workers went through this rigamarole every three months, usually spending one night in Korea and returning the next day. I had bought a ticket with an airline that had just been bombed out of the sky, and had some great deals trying to drum up some new business. My ticket went from Seattle to Los Angeles to Tokyo to Seoul to Hong Kong to Bangkok and all the way back through all those places, with stopovers anywhere I wanted for as long as I wanted, all for six hundred bucks.
    First stop Tokyo in the fall, my third visit, and my ninety day visa would expire around New Year's. This being the first time I would spend more than three months in Japan, and with everything else going on, I of course left the visa issue to the last minute and then began to panic. My boss frantically managed to book me a return flight to Korea around the end of December, but I Kelly Cavalierly decided I wanted to go to Thailand on my own ticket for a two week holiday instead, thereby missing out on the Korea reservation. Just one thing. I soon discovered no seats would be available for my flight to Bangkok till the third week of January.
    Now I would have to attempt to extend my ninety day visa. Illegal, not possible under any circumstances, never been done they all said. I went to a drab little government immigration office of some sort, found someone who could speak English, and explained my situation. Not long after I walked out with an extended tourist visa, probably the first one ever in the history of Japan!
    Three weeks or so later, on the eve of my holiday and no sayonara party in sight, I stayed up all night by myself drinking after work anyway. I took an early train home to Nishikoyama where I stayed at "Maggie's Mansion", maybe even the first train, and had about an hour long nap before I had to get up and go to Narita airport. The subway, train ride, and plane flight a complete blur, I landed in Korea to discover Seoul locked in the grip of winter, ten degrees below freezing. The freaking Han River frozen solid. With a sinking feeling, I realized I had no plan for this leg of my journey. I had only brought clothes for tropical Thailand. I would die of cold here before I could get there.
    The airport had no tourist information, no English, and I ended up spending many hours there simply not knowing what to do. Like I always say, when in doubt do nothing. At least they had heat in the airport. But this couldn't last. I had to make my move. I finally boarded a bus which I hoped would take me to downtown.
    Really really not prepared for this, I began by looking for a hostel I'd heard about. And I began freezing. I didn't want to spend big bucks on a place for one night in Seoul, I preferred to spend my hard earned yen in Thailand, so I wanted to diligently search for the cheapest accomodation I could find. This area reminded me of a mini Roppongi, and under different circumstances I would probably quite like it. After some fruitless searching I found myself in front of a huge map. The street I looked for appeared to be on a sidestreet nearby. After more walking and more searching, and now becoming uncomfortably numb from the cold, I found myself in front of the map again. And I had a revelation, of sorts.
    I had by this point learned to speak some Japanese, and even invented words, jokes, and puns in their language. But I found the writing extremely difficult, especially the Chinese symbols, known as kanji in Japanese. I learned maybe fifty of the thousands of symbols, mostly some very basic and simple ones. Korean, and of course Chinese, use the same symbols for the same meanings, though the words and sounds would be completely different in each language. Looking at the big map again I recognized the Chinese symbol for west. Just one thing. The symbol appeared on the right hand side of the map. North at the bottom. THE MAP WAS UPSIDE DOWN!
    Now completely disoriented (disoccidented?), I wearily began searching for the elusive hostel again, now in the exact opposite direction from the area I searched before. Did I mention the cold? My knees now seizing up, I walked slower and slower, probably visibly shaking, and likely about to faint. I heard a voice talking to me in English, seemingly from far away. This young Korean man walked beside me asking me questions and I mumblingly told him my situation. He invited me to join him and his friends. We entered a bar and I began to thaw out.
    The two young girls with him seemed put out by the fact I had tagged along. He looked to be some kind of big shot, and I had gone and wrecked their time alone with him, as he showed much more interest in me than in them. I couldn't worry about that, I desperately needed a place to sleep, and asked him if he could help me find somewhere. Sure, no problem, but first he wanted to show me something. Now coming back to life after some warmth and a couple of drinks, I even felt ready to face the blistering cold again.
    He said goodbye to the grumpy girls, and after a short walk we entered his company workshop. Big shot indeed. A large room filled with many large computer modules, all chugging away around the clock creating movie animations. I'd heard the Koreans had cornered the market on that kind of stuff. Wow. Proof positive. Two young girls there attended to the machines overnight. They decided a Rock Star had come to visit (me), and did nothing but giggle the whole time. Duly impressed with his operation, we next set off to find me a place to sleep.
    I'm not entirely sure, but I think he took me to a flophouse. After much discussion with the lady in charge at the front, maybe about the fact that I only wanted to sleep alone, I said goodbye and thank you to him, and she showed me to a dingy little room. So very grateful to get into and lie down in any kind of bed, and even happier to stay in the bed once I saw a rat the size of a small kangaroo race across the concrete floor.
    Did I mention I had an early flight next morning? After a fitful sleep I sprang upright in bed and, first checking for the kanga rat, I quickly put on all the clothes I had with me. And did I mention how cold last night had been? Well, overnight the temperature had dropped even further. The importance of catching this bus to the airport could not be overemphasized. Possibly life or death. Somehow finding the bus terminal in the dimmest of mornings, when my bus arrived I literally jumped up and down, waving frantically, begging the driver to not leave without me. I did it! Now on my way to Hong Kong and Bangkok. Just one thing. While airborne between Seoul and Hong Kong a war broke out.
    Without any real announcement at all of this on the plane, we only found out on arrival at Kai Tak airport in Hong Kong. Already I had been most concerned about this connection in my flight plan, as I had no desire for a stopover in Hong Kong. I would only have fifty minutes to get to the connecting flight with Thai Airways to Bangkok. But first we had to land.
    Flying over Hong Kong amazed me, the sheer size and density of it, the number of ships in the harbor, many lashed together almost like log booms. And the airport, like a floating tabletop. Our pilot maybe missed the first part of the runway? He ran out of runway and hit the brakes. This giant plane skidded sideways and narrowly missed toppling over into the water. After all the screaming subsided, the captain cheerfully announced that we had landed safely, only twenty minutes late.
    What! Now down to thirty minutes to make my connecting flight? Oh, and by the way, meanwhile the Gulf War had just broken out. Many flights cancelled, general pandemonium, and a giant lineup of people with cancelled flights in front of me at the counter where I had to check in. At the front of the lineup two guys with cancelled tickets to Dubai argued loudly with the ticket agent in Englitch. Seemed like they needed her to know just how badly they needed to be in Dubai that very day. Not going to happen. Still they berated her endlessly as if that would get them to Dubai. Between them and me dozens of people agitated nervously.
    I grew an extra set of balls, left the lineup and walked up to the counter where no agents stood. In a loud yet polite voice I announced I had a ticket for a flight leaving in ten minutes, could anybody help me. One agent quickly came over, likely glad to get away from the Dubai brothers, and contacted Thai Airways to tell them about me. Someone would come up to fetch me, and the plane would not leave until I had boarded.
    Still angsty, I surveyed this airport chaos, where now an even larger formless mass was forming, and realized had I not made that move I might still be living in Hong Kong today. Then a tall, beautiful, slender lady appeared in a Thai Airways uniform, and graciously asked me to follow her to my departure gate on the lower level. She set off with a calm, measured pace, not in any hurry, and I had trouble following her. I wanted to be there now. At one point, sensing my stress, she turned to me and smilingly said, "The plane will not leave without you". Right there, in Kai Tak before I ever got to Thailand, I felt for once anyway I headed in the right direction. Soon to be in the phantasmagorical city of Bangkok, klonging the canals, poolside at the Oriental hotel, disappearing in Phuket. But that's another story, Thai Landing.

Rock Star for a Day

how to dress for excess

    My friend Jeff and I had a folk trio in Toronto, together with another guy Rob, and also a "manager", first David, then Barry. We drove out to Vancouver one summer and had adventure upon adventure, and a couple of us even got to Long Beach on Vancouver Island before it became a park. But that's another story, Sleeping in the Ocean.
    Back in Toronto, one fine day Jeff and I began to concoct an evil plan. We would impersonate visiting British Rock Stars and make a reservation at a swanky restaurant. Once there we would order the cheapest meal on the menu and spend the rest of our money on as much wine as possible. What could go wrong? We proposed our basic plan to our girlfriends. They squealed with delight. Game on!
    First off, clothes. We would need the clothes to pull this off. I had just scored a tuxedo with tails suit for five dollars at the big bazaar. It was two sizes too large, so I tried to put on some weight but that proved difficult in such a short timeframe. I already had a somewhat ill fitting top hat. The inspiration for this whole plot came from these items coupled with the fact that I counted myself a huge fan of a certain British Rock Star who sported a top hat and tails on stage and in his photos. I wanted to be him! If only for a day.
    Jeff rented himself a crushed blue velvet tuxedo jacket. Spiff. My girlfriend Rosemary wore her great granny's black lace evening gown from the nineteenth century. Gorgeous. Jeff's girlfriend Michele wore a pink satin bridal gown with a six foot trail. Stunning. Clothes we had.
    Next I had to muster up my best fake British accent and call the restaurant, impersonating a British Rock Star the best I could. I managed to make a reservation for a table of four for six pm the next Saturday. Now we actually had to go through with this thing!
    Come Saturday and we gathered at Rosemary's place and got ourselves all gussied up. Quite a sight! Jeff had rented a limousine, making sure to mention my British Rock Star name, and we got the guy who had driven every Rock Star that ever visited Toronto. And he had to let us know about it. All the way. Non stop. At one point in bumper to bumper traffic, we caused an accident. This guy in the lane beside us stared slack jawed at us long enough that he plowed into the car ahead of him.
    Arriving finally at the entrance, we thanked the driver and made sure he would remember my British Rock Star name, so we would become a part of his litany of Rock Stars I Have Driven. And now, time for our grand entrance!
    And what an entrance. Only missing paparazzi popping flash bulbs and taking photos (I wish!). Together with Rosemary we entered first, me all swagger and near unintelligible accent, loudly proclaiming who I was (I think they'd figured it out already). Next, Jeff entered behind Michele carrying the trail of the bridal gown. With her waist length blonde hair spilling all over she gave a wee curtsy. Mister Manager and all his staff gave us over the top Rock Star treatment and quickly ushered us to our table. That's when the real fun began.
    I had not thought about requesting a particular table or spot, private or otherwise, I'd never even been in the place. They gave us a table right near the entrance, probably thinking that to show off the British Rock Stars to their other patrons would be a grand idea. It worked fine. For a while. Meanwhile every staff member schemed how to get our autographs. I'm not sure they'd ever had Rock Stars at this place before.
        We scoured the menu looking for the cheapest meal, and all ordered a five dollar  plate of curried chicken rice. Phew. That would leave us plenty of money for wine. We selected the cheapest white wine and started in on the first two bottles. At one point the ladies went to the washroom together and got swarmed by staff asking for their autographs. But soon, as we scarfed down our curry, a kind of ripple in reality began forming, with the waiters starting to look at us askance. Like, are these guys for real? We didn't care, the wine kept coming and we merrily continued to have the time of our lives. At some point my British  Rock Star accent began wearing off. Someone said so and we began giggling. How utterly absurd! We had pulled it off. The giggling became fits of uncontrollable laughter.
           Enough thought Mister Manager. He now realized he had impostors on his hands, attacked us with the bill and told us to pay up and get out. Now we howled with laughter. We took the bill and managed to scrape up enough to cover it, but without a tip. Mister Manager unceremoniously showed us the door.
           Now standing on busy Yonge street like extras from a bad movie, we suddenly realized that our meticulous plan said nothing about what happened next. We now had a total of about five dollars between us, enough for a pitcher of beer. We decided to walk to the nearest bar.
          I had never been in this place either, but for different reasons. It had a reputation as the roughest bar downtown. The locked up front door meant you had to go round the back. A working class, no holds barred kind of bar. We paused in the doorway and took a deep breath. Then sauntered in as nonchalantly as possible and struck a pose, all four standing abreast about twenty feet in.
         What a dive! WHAT A DIN! A full house of about two hundred gnarly looking drunks yelling and partying and carrying on. Until we showed up. Very quickly a deafening silence fell over the entire room, as all turned to look at us. Speechless. Struck dumb. We kept mum, maybe more like numb, as we had no idea what would happen next, except that we may have just made a terrible mistake.
        After the longest and quietest ten seconds ever, somewhere someone started clapping. Then another. And another, then spontaneously the whole crowd leapt to their feet and gave us a standing ovation, cheering, applauding, stomping their feet and banging their glasses on the tables. They proceeded to invite us to every table one after another, buying us beer after beer after beer, passing us around till we knew everyone in the room. I don't remember getting home, but I guess we did, cause I'm here today.

Geaux NOLA

where every day
is as different as the next

    Woke up Christmas morning to slurry in the bayou. At my sister Clare's in beautiful Beaufort (be-YOO-furt), South Carolina. I had flown with my mum and her wheelchair from the dead of winter in Toronto and we brought the weather with us. We had come for a holiday family gathering and to deliver My Mother's Forks, but that's another story.
    It didn't snow here, but the mercury had dropped below freezing overnight. As the day warmed up, eventually the conversation turned to what would Kelly do next? We'd had a giant whole family reunion the past September in Georgian Bay, Ontario. At the time my mum's health was failing badly, especially her eyesight. After the reunion I visited her in her apartment in Toronto. The place was filthy, she couldn't see the dirt! She would not allow me to do any cleaning, so I had to wait till she went out somewhere. One day I attacked the bathroom (grosssss) and barely finished before she returned. She never noticed, but that was OK. I resolved to return to Toronto to be by her, especially after she set the stove on fire one day when i sat at the kitchen table and she also. didn't. notice.
    Fast forward to two months later and I arrived back in Toronto just in time for the bitter onset of winter. In the interim, my mother had successful cataract surgery, her health had rebounded and she felt just fine thank you very much. She asked why I had come to Toronto. Indeed, I thought. Indeed.
    I found a place to stay and tried to make a go of it, but found Toronto too harsh for my delicate sensibilities. So I jumped at the chance to go south with mum for Christmas to my sister Clare's in Carolina, even if only for a few days. After two months of weather like I hadn't experienced in many years, a break would be wonderful. I dreaded the thought of ever returning to the undead of winter in Toronto.
    Now in sunny Carolina, my family wanted to know what did Kelly really want to do next with his errant life? New Orleans I said. Never been yet. Thought I'd be able to make a go of it there, playing music on the street. Brother Patrick and brother in law Bernie offered me some pocket money, sister Clare said she'd try to change my return flight's plane ticket, and mum even chipped in, giving me her stash of American bills she had saved up over the years. It totalled forty one dollars, mostly in one dollar bills. Mum also said she'd be fine returning to Toronto alone. Crescent City here I come!
    Off I flew to Baton Rouge, the only available flight even close to New Orleans, then on to the Greyhound bus for the last leg to the Big Easy. WOW! LouIsiAna. I made it. I landed in eighty plus degree heat and immediately began sweltering. Took a cab to the bus depot and piled all my stuff by a bench, then had to wait five hours. I still had my good to fifty below zero winter coat, and I felt like giving it away that day to somebody, anybody. Good thing I didn't.
    LOUISIANA! Spread out before me, all around me, almost felt like I had finally arrived in the promised land. I met a couple of girls on the bus going to the same backpacker's hostel, so we split the cab fare from the bus depot. On the way the driver took a wrong turn into a bad neighborhood. I felt a chill. Maybe he just wanted to spook us. Streets devoid of people, windows all barred or even boarded up, this didn't look friendly at all. Finally he turned onto our street. Like night and day.
    This important early lesson came up again many times later. You can cross the street in New Orleans and find yourself in a different world. And if you don't know those boundaries, well..... let's just say it's best to know. While driving his car late one night, a friend took a turn onto the wrong street and just had to keep going. Both sides of the street lined with rusting hulks of stripped down cars, leaving one lane for driving and nowhere to turn around. Slowly moving forward, he could soon see up ahead a gang of young men dancing wildly around barrels of fire to ear splitting hip hop rap, some waving guns in the air. Out went his headlights, quick shift into reverse, and back up and out to freedom. Carefully.

    Something else to get used to, the Mississippi river flows north past the French Quarter. You are actually on the east bank, and looking east across the river you see Algiers, which is the west bank. Got it? Once the river curls around Algiers it starts flowing south again. Also, any other waterfront city I've been to, as you walk away from the water you are climbing up. Walk away from the water in the Quarter and you are going downhill once you go under the expressway. So the area known as Uptown is NOT in the typical direction, it is upriver from the Quarter to the south. Then there's the American pronunciations of all the French names..... Oh and the fact it is illegal to drink in the street in New Orleans! With everyone doing it the enforcement of this law looks somewhat lax, unless you are drinking out of a glass or bottle, not a plastic cup. Then you're really in trouble. Louisiana originally had the Napoleonic Code, where you are guilty until proven innocent. Now and then the police would bring in a paddywagon and fill it up with whoever they felt like busting, and haul them off to the drunk tank. I thankfully escaped this fate.
    After paying for a week at the hostel, cab fares and bus fare, now almost out of money already. I'd have to get to work. And it damn well better work, I had no alternative. The next day, with my steel guitar and some CDs I took the trolley to the French Quarter and reconnoitered. I eventually chose a spot on Royal street and made about twenty dollars. Next day New Year's Eve and I went back to the same spot, then chose another spot in the evening and made about sixty dollars! Not bad for starters. New Year's day was crazy busy, and I made over a hundred dollars!! This would be a cakewalk.
    All fired up now for Sunday, but the throngs of people came from Georgia and Alabama, here for the Sugar Bowl. They did not know from tipping, no sirree. I met Grandpa, but we did not get off on a good footing, though he warmed up to me later after I'd been around a while. After playing a very long set I called it a day after clearing about twenty dollars.
    Well, maybe this wouldn't be as smooth as I thought. The weeks between New Year's and Mardi Gras turned into a deep valley of little money, nasty freezing weather, and on top of that the hostel now threatened to kick out residents like me who paid by the week. They wanted to rent the place out for Mardi Gras weekend for double the daily rate. Life getting gritty. Homeless for Mardi Gras? Really??
    I played and played and played some more. No rules to this game, wild west. I played almost every day and nights as well. Nobody legally "owned" a spot, but certain ones were tacitly reserved for certain performers. I had to find the holes. Every day traffic barriers would go up on Royal street about midday and it became a pedestrian mall. That's when the fun began. Musicians, puppeteers, statues, jugglers, magic shows. I had some serious competition. I picked my spots, respected all others best I could, made some allies, tried not to get grudgemental, and moved up the chain, getting better and better at scoring a good spot at the right time. It took balls.
    Early on I met Mark, and Troy, an excellent slide player, both also street performers. They liked what I did. One guy Dave could play three instruments at once. An electric guitar playing solos with one hand, another electric guitar playing chords with the other hand behind his back, and also playing electric bass on the ground with his bare feet. I don't know how he did it, but he played bass better with his toes than many bass players who played with their hands! You know, like normal. Overall a motley crew of entertainers of all sorts, competition fierce, talent level high. I saw many others show up in New Orleans and try to play the street, but all of them quickly faded. Not me.
    For a break I'd go beyond the Quarter to Frenchman Street, where the real New Orleanians partied. No throngs of tourists here, just locals jamming the clubs with four bands playing till closing time, whenever that might be. I never got to play a gig there, and no one played the street here, but probably my fave place to hang.
    Just when I started hitting my stride, the hostel again threatened to kick me out if I didn't pay double the nightly rate for Mardi Gras week, effectively almost tripling my rent. Aussie Man Kevin to the rescue. Another hosteller, this wild man from the backwoods of southern Australia somehow convinced the hostel manager to allow us long term guests to continue to pay our regular weekly rate. Just one thing. By midnight I needed to come up with a hundred and twenty five dollars and I had like forty four. I hadn't made near a hundred since New Year's, but I sure needed to now. After playing three sets that day in different spots for a grand total of six dollars, I collapsed on a bench by the river and fell into a deep deep funk.
    I had finally cured myself of my thirty years of depression some ten years previous, but I could still get seriously bummed out, if only for a while. Many times in the Quarter I found myself feeling down, cranky pants about how damn tough my life, and a little voice inside would pipe up and say, "Look up. Look around. Take a deep breath. Look where you are". Really. And it always worked. But this time no voice piped up. I slipped deeper and deeper, beyond thought, going numb. I don't know how long I spent in that state, no time exists there, but finally came a flicker inside. As it grew I felt the life return to my limbs, the light return to my mind. I CAN DO THIS I shouted inside. I grabbed my guitar and stomped off to claim my evening spot with a foot long sandwich and a bottle of water.
    Did I mention no pee breaks? I had been playing in the blazing sun by the water's edge in a tourist town for many summers. Hydration, and therefore lots of  urination, could be a life saver there. In New Orleans, if you left your spot for any reason it didn't belong to you anymore. With a duo or band someone could sneak off to wee up an alley somewhere, but even then at night the Quarter had NO PUBLIC TOILETS anywhere. Bladder control (mine excellent) became very important, especially for those who drank alcohol on the job (I did not). One guy who drank a case every day had trained himself to pee into an empty beer bottle under his coveralls, and..... oh, let's just move on, nothing to see here.
    So I rationed myself to one bottle of water, and drank just enough to keep my throat from getting dry. But what did I eat? In this land of culinary delights I could only afford a takeout foot long sub and a giant Brazilian dark chocolate bar for ninety nine cents from Walgreen's. Chocolate I am still enamored of, but I still can't walk past the sandwich shops without the smell of the bread making me want to hurl.
    And how safe to play on the darkened streets of the French Quarter at night? My heavy steel guitar (actually made of brass and nickel plated) had a big dent in the bottom edge from when I dropped it. Guys from the projects would sometimes come cruising through the quarter, looking for anything not nailed down, hear me playing, walk by real slow, see the (few) dollars I had in my guitar case, then look back at the guitar. Most times the guy would quickly decide that somewhere, some other guy walking around (or not?) had a dent in his head that matched the dent in my guitar, and hurry off. Truth to tell, years earlier when I played my one man band, sometimes in really rough bars, I had perfected a defensive move. It involved quickly unplugging my electric guitar and unhooking the strap, then grasping the neck with both hands to brandish my "axe" like Paul Bunyan, ready to take someone's head clean off their body. If necessary. In two seconds flat. Nobody ever messed with me on stage. Ever. It's all about how one presents themself, right? No fear makes for a good starting point.
    I played that night for seven and a half hours straight. I received many tips, sold some CDs, it WAS the beginning of Mardi Gras week, but I never felt I'd make it, that it would be enough to cover the rent. At one point a guy I knew came by and proceeded to fall asleep on the sidewalk beside me. How do you kick a guy off the street? I did. Not good for business. I kept playing and playing till delirium finally set in and my bladder about to explode. Exhausted now, I counted up the tips. I had seventy eight dollars, three dollars more than I needed. Not homeless for Mardi Gras! I wearily dragged my ass back to the hostel, paid the rent, and fell into bed.
    MARDI GRAS TIME! I cannot describe it, you have to go. Parades. Music. Tens of thousands of people partying drunk in the street. And no trouble. No fighting. Everybody happy. I called it mass euphoria. Wrote a song about it. One night early on I staked out my spot in front of the jewelry store on Royal street. People began arriving by the dozens, blocking up the sidewalk and the street. I tried playing a little bit, but it seemed obvious they had come for something else. Soon enough, along Royal at a good clip came Krewe de Vieux (KROO-duh-VOO), a horse drawn carriage parade with severe political overtones. Transported to some gnarly realm which had little to do with George W Bush's America.
      I played and played, then played some more, and did pretty well. No one else played steel guitar like me except for one guy who played two instrumental tunes over and over. His gig relied on a little dog which would grab your dollar in its mouth and run it over to the donation basket. And get a treat. Eventually the dog would be full to bursting with treats and I'd get to take over the block.

    One night after a tough day of playing I stopped in at the Twenty Four Hour Bar and Laundromat on the corner of my block. Downstairs full, I made my way upstairs and went to collapse into my chair. As I did so, my head collided with a weird outcropping of the wall, splitting my forehead wide open and gushing blood everywhere. No one else up there and I didn't tell anyone, just went to the washroom to get plenty toilet paper. And then some more. I had an angry red scar for some time. I still have it, my Mardi Gras scar.

    Garbage piled up so bad they shut down the trolley and I had to walk back and forth to the quarter the last few days. Not initially a parade fan, by the end I stood along the routes begging them to throw me beads. On Fat Tuesday morning the Zulu parade would be passing by on Jackson, half a block from where I lived. Sleeping in, I awoke to hear the parade already going by. Leaping out of bed I raced to the corner without even putting on my shoes, and stood on a stone fence in my socks screaming for a Zulu coconut. I did manage to catch a throw, some kind of pendant, OK cool, but then I noticed the date on it. Last year. I asked the guy standing next to me if he wanted it. His eyes lit up yeah for sure he said, but when he also noticed the date he handed it to his thrilled little boy, who didn't care about years yet. I never did get a coconut.
    After it all finally ended I took a couple days off, but I couldn't afford more than that, I had to get right back to work. Staying at the hostel now getting pretty old, Aussie Man Kevin told me he had rented a flat above the Twenty Four Hour Bar and Laundromat, and if I wanted to crash on the floor and pay ten dollars a night I could get out of the hostel too.
    The first time I went to go to the Twenty Four Hour Bar and Laundromat on New Year's Day I thought maybe they'd have some kind of breakfast special. But the New Year's Eve party had carried on through the whole night and showed no signs of abating at nine in the morning, so I moved along to the next place on St. Charles which actually served breakfast. The Twenty Four Hour Bar and Laundromat did serve free red beans and rice once a week, I'd go for that and sometimes for one beer at the end of the day. But moving in right above took it to another level. Every night two old black guys who must have come with the place would stand outside right under my window and talk mercilessly about everyone and everything, all the while thinking no one could hear them. Hilarious! Around five in the morning the crack whores would show up downstairs for a couple hours. Around and around the clock it never stopped. The store on the corner had all food in tin cans, I learned to walk down Jackson street and shop at Walmart on Tchopitoulas. Sometimes in the middle of the night. I'd pass this house on Jackson with a big hedge and an old guy on the porch who'd growl at me from the shadows. I can still hear him now.
    I still took the trolley to and from the quarter though I sometimes walked back. Business as usual, and I only had to be stronger than a local with no motive. I went back to playing my two night spots on Royal street. One in front of an antique store across from the POlice station (not a misprint). I figured if they wanted to bust me I wouldn't have far to go. One night a carload of cops pulled up in front of me playing and rolled down the window. I tensed up, expecting the worst, then noticed they were snapping their fingers and grooving, and they waved at me as they drove off. One time early on, a guy came running down from his office above the POlice station to hear me. Pat told me about Neutral Ground, a very cool folk club uptown without a liquor licence (!) where I later played a number of times. One night a guy walked up to me and asked if I knew of a club where they could hear this kind of music! After a few seconds I told him you're looking at it. I had made my Mardi Gras rent at the other spot, in front of a jewelry store. The owner liked me and gave me his business card with a handwritten note on the back for the police, giving his permission for me to play there, should I ever need it. This kind of thing could be important, the guy who governed the Quarter had a ruthless reputation, we called him Napoleon. I never needed my permit. But I still have it.
    Selling my CDs made it worth my while, I'd never have made it on tips alone. I ran out of my instrumental CD early on, and I embarked on making my own copies. Renting time at an internet cafe to burn them, buying J boxes, and copying the covers then cut cut cutting them and assembling. I'd make a few at a time and always stay just ahead of being out of stock. As I didn't have my own computer yet, this new emailing on the web thing relied on me finding free internet and really helped me plan for my future. Such as it is.
    During the day I'd play in front of the Supreme Court building or at one of the traffic barricades on Royal street. People took so many photos, of all of them I have one. Well a public figure such as I could expect this, but at first I had a rough time with also  being treated like an information kiosk. People would walk up to me while I played and ask questions and directions as if that was my entire purpose for being there, even while in the middle of singing. Talk about rude. Chorus interruptus! Now, whenever I get seriously annoyed I try to turn it into something humorous instead. And so I did. When asked a question, I would stop singing, but continue to play the guitar and reply with how much the answer would cost. Where is Bourbon street? That's a one dollar question sir. Where is Preservation Hall? That's a five dollar question ma'am. A specific restaurant? Ten Dollar question. And so on ad infinauseam. They would laugh, and more often than not leave a tip to acknowledge my brazen attitude. More importantly, it became highly amusing to me. Even wrote a song about it. I tried to pass this method on to other performers, but they didn't think it would work for them, so it didn't.
    If I couldn't get a spot on the street I had another on the river near where the Natchez steamboat docks. I didn't make money there, but I always like to have a place to play just for the sake of playing. Sitting on the banks of the Mississippi river. Wrote a song about it. I did play one night at Fritzel's on Bourbon street, but they wouldn't have me back, I wasn't jazzy enough or something. All this didn't add up to enough. I had to move up the chain somehow. So I started showing up in Jackson Square and Royal street on days when the "regulars" would take time off. I got on with Moose, the unofficial security guy who patrolled two blocks of Royal. He liked me, and found me much easier to deal with than some of the other performers. With a higher profile, I began to get noticed. I even got on the Weather Channel! Then one day I got invited to do a live radio show on WWOZ, the amazing local radio station.
    On a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon I ventured into Louis Armstrong park to the little building that housed the radio station. This park next to the projects was known as a place to get anything you want. Dashing through the park ignoring all the taunting best I could, I arrived so stoked for the show. Strangely, Dimitri the DJ seemed despondent about something, and first off asked me if I knew any songs about death. Slightly taken aback I said no, but I could try to play the most morbid songs I could think of. Turns out the Pope had just died, and being a very religious man this had choked him up pretty bad. Later he told me a listener called in and commented that my songs had been the most cheerful of the whole show.
    At a later time I ventured into the park again. This time I just wanted to get away from the streets and cars and be somewhere green. I sat on a bench near the big statue of Louis Armstrong in the Dixie sunshine and breathed deep. This spot had once been a part of Congo Square before it got landscaped over and largely forgotten. I soon gathered a group of brothers, including an older gentleman who the others seemed to have some respect for. He asked me why I had come. I said to pay my respects to Mister Armstrong. He said I see you have a guitar, are you any good? I said I'm better than good. They decided to like me.
    I also got a gig at a club on Bourbon street. Fred saw me playing on the street, he owned the Tricou House on Bourbon. I played Sunday afternoons at first, then on Friday and Saturdays two till six o'clock in the morning I played solo. I followed a four piece band, just me and my steel guitar. A carnival every night right through till daylight, above my bar a dance club with a balcony thumped away. From the stage I could see through the open doors into the street, where every few minutes some girl would flash her boobs at the partiers on the balcony, whereupon they would throw down beads. When the gig ended and the sun began to rise I still had to wait for the trolleys to start running. I asked Freek the bartender if he knew of an after hours club still open at six am that I could go to. I went once. Hardcore!
    My last weekend in the Big Easy. French Quarter Fest had live local music all over the Quarter and down on the river. Fantastic! I played down on the Moon Walk and made some serious coin and also did my gig at Tricou House. But mostly ran around checking out the different bands and stages. Bittersweet because I knew I'd be leaving, then more so when it became apparent much later that New Orleans would never be the same again. I had planned to return to my new hometown in the fall. Just one thing. A hurricane.

Ferry Dock Shock

beware the stranger
who calls you friend

    Before I moved to Salt Spring Island, I lived on another of the Gulf Islands, Gabriola. Much smaller, with few amenities back then. Nearly everything had to be done in Nanaimo, the town a ferry ride away. One day I drove to town in Ronald, our white Chevy Nova station wagon. Ronald made living on the island doable, a necessity really. The first time I lived on Gabriola I had no car, but that's another story, Stump Farm Hippies.
    All done with my errands in town, I drove down to the ferry dock to catch the boat back to the island, just in time to miss it. Number one pole position at the very front of the lineup for the next sailing an hour later. While it's true I'm very patient, I'm not good at waiting. Anyway I resigned myself to sitting it out in the car. Other cars soon began lining up behind me, but I didn’t see anyone I knew so I sat tight. That’s when the fun began.
    From a distance I heard what sounded like firecrackers or gunshots at first, which  soon became the unmistakeable roar of a car backfiring. The instant I heard it, with a sickening feeling I somehow knew it came my way. With maybe two or three cylinders still working, closer and closer it came till, sure enough, buddy pulled screeching around the corner and into the ferry landing. In my rear view side mirror I watched as this maniac steered into the out lane of the ferry terminal, and put pedal to the metal aiming right for the ferry ramp! He blew by me, smashed through the wooden barrier sending it splintering into the sky, and continued on down till he got to the uplifted ramp. The car bottomed out, lurched upward, cleared the ramp and did a nose dive into the ocean, disappearing with a great splash.
    In the silent moment that followed I looked in my side mirror again. The line of cars curved in a way that I could see every driver in my line. Never forget the image of all those people, jaws dropped to their chests from what we’d all just seen. Then I moved.
    I ran down to the end of the ferry ramp, the first on the scene. Once there I realized I had no idea what to do next. Jump in that freezing water? To save a maniac?? Just then his head popped out of the water and buddy swam to the ladder and pulled himself up. And me still the only one at the scene. His first words to me, “Friend. That felt GREAT!”
    I stared at him, speechless. Dripping with sea water and covered in blood, he bellowed “MAN THAT FELT SO GOOD!” Finding my tongue, I said to him “Do you know what you just did?” That gave him pause, but by now the police had already arrived. They asked me some questions but let me go back to my car soon enough and concentrated on buddy. They made a big fuss about putting him in the squad car, bleeding so badly. Everything seemed under control, but at the last minute buddy tried to convince the police that somehow this had been all my fault! That his friend and accomplice (me) should not be allowed to get away!! Of course the police had to do due diligence, and they came and questioned me again. They quickly figured out who to believe and hauled buddy off. I experienced a great sense of karmic relief.
    That left all of us to wait for the ferry to come and take us away from all this. But not so fast. Not over yet. When the boat arrived, it wouldn’t dock. No way. Not with that car down there. So now we had to wait for them to take soundings and possibly dredge before we could go. It took a while, but we finally boarded and headed back to the island.
    I never missed a ferry for a long time after that.