Not a baseball town

As I was sitting in Envie, writing the last entry, I was next to young woman who looked vaguely familiar. We had pleasant “pass the hot sauce” kind of conversation, and then as I left I saw that she had placed a flyer on the bulletin board. She is Shawn Wiiliams, a country-rock performer who I have seen a couple of times on Frenchmen Street. Now I will have to seek her shows out. Gotta love New Orleans!

I had a nice afternoon of yard work after walking up to Mary’s to buy a machete. It would make a great cutlass for a pirate costume but I’m guessing I might get arrested if i carry it into the bar. It was nice to have a sharp one instead of the dull and rusted version that had been living in the courtyard. One slice through a 10 inch banana tree. it felt like Kill Bill. It was too bad that the tree that broke in the storm was the one bearing fruit. I was looking forward to the experiment, but glad to get the fallen bananas out of the yard before the critters figured it out. The neighborhood cat patrols the back fence but does not have much intimidation value for the squirrels and possums.

I sat at the bar at dba just prior to the John Boutte show and ordered a drink. John came down from the performer’s lounge above the stage to shake my hand. It is good to be recognized. dba is a magical place, a small room with great music. It is probably a function of going deaf, but I really appreciate being able to feel the live stand up bass and piano played by world class musicians in the intimate setting. I saw several people I recognized, and there were some clearly local folks singing with the correct responses to some of the more obscure songs, and reminding John from the audience that his birthday was coming up. He was in good voice, and started out with softer ballads ramping up to more up-tempo songs as the set built. The show reminded me, if I needed it, why New Orleans is the place to be. it was so much better that trying to decide what to watch on Netflix.

I walked Frenchmen, and tipped a couple of guys playing a parlor guitar and accordion. As I got close I could see the guitar player had badly burned lips from a meth or crack pipe. he flashed the “white power” upside down “OK” sign, and asked if I knew what it meant. I told him no, and he said ominously “You will.” I really don’t think of Frenchmen Street as a redoubt of white nationalism so this was a little disconcerting, but I guess street people are odd everywhere.

We had a condo association meeting, hosted in our place because the courtyard was a little wet. The change in Airbnb regulations has put a lot of things in flux, with several of the units changing hands and others going on the market soon. The paperwork is a mess, with the last president of the association beginning to formalize the association and stopping in the middle when he sold his unit. I’m hoping the current president has her stuff together enough to jump through the required hurdles for banking and insurance. The termite situation is scary, with our regular termite contract lapsing for non-payment last month, but being renewed, and still no action on tenting and fumigating for the carpenter termites. Theoretically it is going forward soon, but I thought it was going to be done in April or May. I’m colossally ignorant about termites as only a Uber-yankee can be, but am afraid that there may be a lot of damage that we will find on inspection, and not a lot of interest among the current owners group in dealing with it. I understood we were buying location, and that there might be structural problems that decreased the value of our place as an investment, but it is harder to stare it in the face. I never have thought much like a businessman and sometimes romanticism costs. We will see how it plays out, with a big bug bomb soon and the status quo being a good outcome.

I got sucked into the baseball vortex, watching the Nats win the next to last game of the World Series at the Great American Sports Saloon, known among the Touro crowd as the Ass bar, or the Great Ass bar, if you’re not into the whole brevity thing. New Orleans is not a baseball town, with just a couple of out of town Houstonians interested in the frigging World Series at a sports bar. This is the place where no businesses are open during LSU or Saints football unless they are hosting a football party. I was the only Nats supporter in the room, and the Houston fans were surprisingly polite and good baseball fans, meaning they were knowledagle about the game and their team, and actually paid attention to the important parts of the game.

I walked back through Frenchmen Street through the rain, and it was hard to walk by those swinging doors with brass bands playing, but it is probably better to plan for a late night. Next week, but first Game 7!