New Orleans Is Sinking [part II - fin]
Continued from part I, with the following caveat: It may seem disrespectful of me to publish picayune prose in light of what's happening right now in the places I've described, but this story, named after the Tragically Hip song, was not meant to foreshadow Hurricane Katrina, which yesterday destroyed Biloxi and today is flooding New Orleans. I wrote this story in my hotel room in Biloxi last Tuesday night. And I flew home from New Orleans last Wednesday, four days before the order to evacuate the city was given, five days before Hurricane Katrina hit. Exactly one week ago I slept for two nights in one of the casino hotels on the Biloxi shore, hotels which may not be there next time I visit Mississippi. The Sun Herald has posted a casino watch on its home page. They report that the Beau Rivage is still standing, but the Grand Casino has washed away.
Though it has a grandiose name, the Imperial Palace suffers from delusions of grandeur.
The hotel made a splendid spectacle as I approached it late Monday night, looming above the darkness of highway 15 like a fat blue lightsabre, dwarfing the Beau Rivage, which sits modestly on the beach another block south. Ah, the Beau Rivage. One of my top five favourite hotels. I would have been there, instead of here at the faux palace had it not been three times the rate.
The Imperial Palace can't hold a canteloupe to the Beau Rivage. I tried its breakfast buffet on Tuesday morning, and learned that there is such a thing as bad corned beef hash. I drank bad coffee whitened with 10% real cream from tiny plastic containers — I had asked for milk, and am greatly peeved when waitresses fail to make the distinction between it and any other white liquid. I don't want to know what makes up the other 90% of the liquid in the container. I listened to too-loud bad 70s music being piped into the dingy room. I found that the assortment of bread at the buffet consisted of two packages of Wonder Bread, still in the plastic bags.
Bread comes in two varieties in the South: waaaat, and weeeet.
The Beau Rivage, on the other hand, is a gorgeous hotel. It's owned by the same company that owns The Bellagio in Las Vegas, where Jack has promised to take me one day. His game is baccarat. I already have the dress, an amazing eBay find from last summer. Vintage pink chiffon, with draping scarves. A shill dress if ever you saw one.
* * *
I don't know if the Jackson Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood sing about is the one that's the capital of Mississippi — every state seems to have one in its collection of dead president towns, along with a Springfield and a Salem — but every time I see a sign pointing to Jackson, I hear Nancy.
You see a lot of those signs in Mississippi, because Jackson is the state capital, and it's located smack dab in the geographic centre. So all roads lead there, and you see a lot of signs. And I hear a lot of Nancy.
Which is why I always bring my Nancy Sinatra CD with me to Mississippi, as driving music. I know all her songs, and can sing along at the top of my lungs. Makes the trip go by faster, plus it's good karaoke practice. I've driven all over this state, from Tupelo in the northeast corner, to Memphis in the northwest; I've driven back and forth on the I-10 from Mobile to New Orleans, the full length of the Mississippi handle. I've been to Jackson and to Meridian; to Greenfield and Biloxi, and to every dot that connects them all.
They seem to like me down there, and I imagine I'll be back again one day.
I spend more time driving than doing what it is I go there to do, which is to give an hour and a half presentation on the ins and outs of marketing your small business online. I've been doing these sorts of presentations for ten years now, and we're getting down to the last few states that are still relative newcomers to the Internet. Last year I was invited to New Mexico, but that's another story.
At the conference on Tuesday my presentation was well received, and afterwards a small group gathered to quiz me further on how they might proceed with their online businesses. I met a man who looked just like Jimmy Carter, who was in charge of selling repossessed merchandise for a bank. (In the United States there are 8,000 banks, so many of them operate like small businesses.) There was an ebullient woman with dark, curly hair who proudly handed me her bright yellow business card as she told me about her ostrich farm. There was a family who makes goat's milk soap and other goat-related potions, and sells them online. But my favourite was the woman who makes bows. Just bows. Bows for hair, bows for decorating packages, bows for strewing the pews at a wedding. She and her two children make each one by hand.
* * *
My presentation done, I'm driving back down to Biloxi. I'll arrive sometime between 7:00 and 8:00, just in time to relax for a couple of hours, watch CSI on cable (It's always on, have you noticed?), and have a Beck's or two. I fly out late tomorrow morning, and there's nothing to do until then.
I stop at a Walmart half way. I love Walmarts on rural highways. Their recognizable beacon of a sign means there'll be lots of easy parking, a ladies' room just inside the door, some sort of grab-and-eat food and six packs of beer, all of which I can pay for with a credit card.
So that's what I do.
As I drive away from the Walmart I remember I don't have a bottle opener with me. Though I keep one in every suitcase, this trip I only brought an overnight bag. But I'll have to get gas before Biloxi; there's not enough to get me to New Orleans tomorrow. I make a mental note to choose a gas station with a convenience store. Then I listen to some more Nancy Sinatra.
Another fifty miles down highway 49 I'm coasting on fumes, so it's time to fill up. I pull into a gas station, fill the tank, then go into the convenience store. I make a quick trip up and down its three aisles, looking for hardware, find none, and ask the cashier,
"I'm looking for a bottle opener."
"A bottle opener?" the young woman behind the counter, whose name I like to think was Tammy, asks as she makes her way around to my side, apparently hoping to be helpful. "What do you need one of those for?"
"Uh, to open a bottle?"
"You got a rootbeer?" she asks, as she fingers some items dangling at the end of one of the aisles.
"No, beer bottles. You know..." I am at a loss to explain what a beer bottle is, and why I need a bottle opener. I mean, if she doesn't know what I mean, where can I even begin to begin?
"Well, here's a Coors opener," she offers.
It is indeed a Coors bottle opener, with a rubber handle and a Coors logo emblazened on it. It costs $3.50.
"I was hoping to find one of those plain metal ones," I say. "You know the kind; they have a can opener on one end and a bottle opener on the other? They cost about 50¢"
"Oh!" she laughs, suddenly understanding. "You don't need a bottle opener!" She returns to her side of the counter. "You just go like this." She demonstrates how to bang the cap off a bottle by holding it at a 45° angle on the edge of the counter.
Growing up in Beamsville I had a friend who lived in the trailer park, but I never did get the hang of opening bottles that way. I always manage to break the glass. And if I were to try this trick on the granite countertop of my bathroom in the Imperial Palace, that's almost a sure thing.
* * *
I had been watching David Letterman. It was Dave's mom's birthday, and he was speaking to her via live remote from her home in Indiana. She was standing in her kitchen, and looking damned fine for 84 years. She looks just just just like Letterman — only with blonde hair and bigger glasses. And I love the way she talks to him. Motherly. Patiently. Long-sufferingly. Sometimes she's funnier than he is.
"Happy birthday, mom," Letterman began. "Sorry I couldn't be there today, but you know I have this little show I have to do."
"Yes, David, I know," his mother replied, smiling.
"So who all is there? Did the whole family come down?"
"Well, your sister Gretchen is here with her husband and her son."
"How old is my nephew now?"
"He's eleven, David."
"Eleven! Holy gee willikers! Did you hear that, Paul? My nephew's eleven! And how old is my sister, mom?"
"She's fifty, David."
"Fifty! My little sister is fifty! You're kidding me! Are you kidding me, mom?"
"No, David."
"I was out in Montana a couple of weeks ago, mom," Letterman continued, "They call it Big Sky Country out there, did you know that? Have you ever been to Montana, Mom?"
"Now, David, you know I have."
He teases her, but he sure loves his mom.
When Jack called I had just turned out the lights.
"Hey, you," he said, and I've told you the rest.
Then I asked how he was doing, and he told me a story about Beauty.
"How are you, though, after what happened on Friday?" I asked Jack when he was done.
"I keep thinking about it," he replied. "How downtown San Francisco turned into the land of crazy people that morning. How I could have just as easily been standing another block farther along Kearny Street."
"But you weren't," I said.
"I wasn't."
"And you called me. That's something."
"I'm not used to having anyone care about me," said Jack.
"You thought it was September 11 all over again, didn't you?"
"It all came rushing back to me. The world was coming to an end, I was certain of it. And I had an image of them presenting you with the folded flag."
Then I was quiet for a long time.
It's a romantic image, isn't it? A sombre military funeral. A woman in black in the front row, being presented with a flag by an officer in dress uniform.
Only the woman in black would be Jack's mother.
New Orleans is sinking, man, but I know how to swim.
* * *
The song's full refrain is, "My memory is muddy, what's this river that I'm in? New Orleans is sinking, man, and I don't wanna swim."
Though it has a grandiose name, the Imperial Palace suffers from delusions of grandeur.
The hotel made a splendid spectacle as I approached it late Monday night, looming above the darkness of highway 15 like a fat blue lightsabre, dwarfing the Beau Rivage, which sits modestly on the beach another block south. Ah, the Beau Rivage. One of my top five favourite hotels. I would have been there, instead of here at the faux palace had it not been three times the rate.
The Imperial Palace can't hold a canteloupe to the Beau Rivage. I tried its breakfast buffet on Tuesday morning, and learned that there is such a thing as bad corned beef hash. I drank bad coffee whitened with 10% real cream from tiny plastic containers — I had asked for milk, and am greatly peeved when waitresses fail to make the distinction between it and any other white liquid. I don't want to know what makes up the other 90% of the liquid in the container. I listened to too-loud bad 70s music being piped into the dingy room. I found that the assortment of bread at the buffet consisted of two packages of Wonder Bread, still in the plastic bags.
Bread comes in two varieties in the South: waaaat, and weeeet.
The Beau Rivage, on the other hand, is a gorgeous hotel. It's owned by the same company that owns The Bellagio in Las Vegas, where Jack has promised to take me one day. His game is baccarat. I already have the dress, an amazing eBay find from last summer. Vintage pink chiffon, with draping scarves. A shill dress if ever you saw one.
I don't know if the Jackson Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood sing about is the one that's the capital of Mississippi — every state seems to have one in its collection of dead president towns, along with a Springfield and a Salem — but every time I see a sign pointing to Jackson, I hear Nancy.
You see a lot of those signs in Mississippi, because Jackson is the state capital, and it's located smack dab in the geographic centre. So all roads lead there, and you see a lot of signs. And I hear a lot of Nancy.
Which is why I always bring my Nancy Sinatra CD with me to Mississippi, as driving music. I know all her songs, and can sing along at the top of my lungs. Makes the trip go by faster, plus it's good karaoke practice. I've driven all over this state, from Tupelo in the northeast corner, to Memphis in the northwest; I've driven back and forth on the I-10 from Mobile to New Orleans, the full length of the Mississippi handle. I've been to Jackson and to Meridian; to Greenfield and Biloxi, and to every dot that connects them all.
They seem to like me down there, and I imagine I'll be back again one day.
I spend more time driving than doing what it is I go there to do, which is to give an hour and a half presentation on the ins and outs of marketing your small business online. I've been doing these sorts of presentations for ten years now, and we're getting down to the last few states that are still relative newcomers to the Internet. Last year I was invited to New Mexico, but that's another story.
At the conference on Tuesday my presentation was well received, and afterwards a small group gathered to quiz me further on how they might proceed with their online businesses. I met a man who looked just like Jimmy Carter, who was in charge of selling repossessed merchandise for a bank. (In the United States there are 8,000 banks, so many of them operate like small businesses.) There was an ebullient woman with dark, curly hair who proudly handed me her bright yellow business card as she told me about her ostrich farm. There was a family who makes goat's milk soap and other goat-related potions, and sells them online. But my favourite was the woman who makes bows. Just bows. Bows for hair, bows for decorating packages, bows for strewing the pews at a wedding. She and her two children make each one by hand.
My presentation done, I'm driving back down to Biloxi. I'll arrive sometime between 7:00 and 8:00, just in time to relax for a couple of hours, watch CSI on cable (It's always on, have you noticed?), and have a Beck's or two. I fly out late tomorrow morning, and there's nothing to do until then.
I stop at a Walmart half way. I love Walmarts on rural highways. Their recognizable beacon of a sign means there'll be lots of easy parking, a ladies' room just inside the door, some sort of grab-and-eat food and six packs of beer, all of which I can pay for with a credit card.
So that's what I do.
As I drive away from the Walmart I remember I don't have a bottle opener with me. Though I keep one in every suitcase, this trip I only brought an overnight bag. But I'll have to get gas before Biloxi; there's not enough to get me to New Orleans tomorrow. I make a mental note to choose a gas station with a convenience store. Then I listen to some more Nancy Sinatra.
Another fifty miles down highway 49 I'm coasting on fumes, so it's time to fill up. I pull into a gas station, fill the tank, then go into the convenience store. I make a quick trip up and down its three aisles, looking for hardware, find none, and ask the cashier,
"I'm looking for a bottle opener."
"A bottle opener?" the young woman behind the counter, whose name I like to think was Tammy, asks as she makes her way around to my side, apparently hoping to be helpful. "What do you need one of those for?"
"Uh, to open a bottle?"
"You got a rootbeer?" she asks, as she fingers some items dangling at the end of one of the aisles.
"No, beer bottles. You know..." I am at a loss to explain what a beer bottle is, and why I need a bottle opener. I mean, if she doesn't know what I mean, where can I even begin to begin?
"Well, here's a Coors opener," she offers.
It is indeed a Coors bottle opener, with a rubber handle and a Coors logo emblazened on it. It costs $3.50.
"I was hoping to find one of those plain metal ones," I say. "You know the kind; they have a can opener on one end and a bottle opener on the other? They cost about 50¢"
"Oh!" she laughs, suddenly understanding. "You don't need a bottle opener!" She returns to her side of the counter. "You just go like this." She demonstrates how to bang the cap off a bottle by holding it at a 45° angle on the edge of the counter.
Growing up in Beamsville I had a friend who lived in the trailer park, but I never did get the hang of opening bottles that way. I always manage to break the glass. And if I were to try this trick on the granite countertop of my bathroom in the Imperial Palace, that's almost a sure thing.
I had been watching David Letterman. It was Dave's mom's birthday, and he was speaking to her via live remote from her home in Indiana. She was standing in her kitchen, and looking damned fine for 84 years. She looks just just just like Letterman — only with blonde hair and bigger glasses. And I love the way she talks to him. Motherly. Patiently. Long-sufferingly. Sometimes she's funnier than he is.
"Happy birthday, mom," Letterman began. "Sorry I couldn't be there today, but you know I have this little show I have to do."
"Yes, David, I know," his mother replied, smiling.
"So who all is there? Did the whole family come down?"
"Well, your sister Gretchen is here with her husband and her son."
"How old is my nephew now?"
"He's eleven, David."
"Eleven! Holy gee willikers! Did you hear that, Paul? My nephew's eleven! And how old is my sister, mom?"
"She's fifty, David."
"Fifty! My little sister is fifty! You're kidding me! Are you kidding me, mom?"
"No, David."
"I was out in Montana a couple of weeks ago, mom," Letterman continued, "They call it Big Sky Country out there, did you know that? Have you ever been to Montana, Mom?"
"Now, David, you know I have."
He teases her, but he sure loves his mom.
When Jack called I had just turned out the lights.
"Hey, you," he said, and I've told you the rest.
Then I asked how he was doing, and he told me a story about Beauty.
"How are you, though, after what happened on Friday?" I asked Jack when he was done.
"I keep thinking about it," he replied. "How downtown San Francisco turned into the land of crazy people that morning. How I could have just as easily been standing another block farther along Kearny Street."
"But you weren't," I said.
"I wasn't."
"And you called me. That's something."
"I'm not used to having anyone care about me," said Jack.
"You thought it was September 11 all over again, didn't you?"
"It all came rushing back to me. The world was coming to an end, I was certain of it. And I had an image of them presenting you with the folded flag."
Then I was quiet for a long time.
It's a romantic image, isn't it? A sombre military funeral. A woman in black in the front row, being presented with a flag by an officer in dress uniform.
Only the woman in black would be Jack's mother.
New Orleans is sinking, man, but I know how to swim.
The song's full refrain is, "My memory is muddy, what's this river that I'm in? New Orleans is sinking, man, and I don't wanna swim."
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