Back in the Big Easy, Pt. 2

It’s wonderful when conference planners choose a beautiful city like New Orleans as the place to hold their conference. There's all kinds of amazing stuff here! It’s beautiful! The food is fantastic! And they need our dollars! So let’s keep you shacked up ALL DAY inside the goddamn CONVENTION CENTER which seems to SMELL LIKE PEE no matter WHERE YOU ARE and only CERTAIN PLACES get air conditioning and your place is NOT ONE OF THEM!

I don’t mind meetings like this so much if I’m a participant, moving from room to room and listening in on panels and whatnot. It’s infinitely harder to be an exhibitor. Standing in a booth trying to get the attention of passerby is not something I do well when I’m sober. I learned I am a master at it when I’m drunk and throwing beads from a balcony, but we’ll get to that.

I was in New Orleans for a meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), where hundreds of elected state officials from across the country convene to talk about best practices, good governance, and fiscal responsibility, all while being wined and dined at the expense of organizations like mine. As I mentioned, we had a booth, one of hundreds, in the massive exhibit hall. There are many different methods of getting the legislators' attention as they walk through. For example, the Beer Institute gives away samples of – you guessed it - urinal cakes. Ha. In actuality they set up a beer tasting each day of the convention. They were much more popular than the International Bottled Water Association. Larger organizations with key issues, such as PayPal, set up massive booths that look like something from the Jetsons, with crazy multimedia presentations on huge flat-panel TVs. Other groups with issues that are, let's face it, extremely dull, such as the American Dental Hygienists Association, add spark to their booth with truly exciting giveaways such as stress balls shaped like teeth. Wow! Other groups simply hire attractive young women to staff the booth, a crude maneuver but one that never fails to work on your average aging state legislator.

The truly smart groups, however, such as both NRAs, use a combination of all of these techniques. The National Rifle Association had three HOT young blonde women giving out hats, t-shirts, and backpacks. I tried to engage them in conversation about the recent overturning of the DC handgun ban, but it was a bit like talking to the Mona Lisa – a blank stare and a vapid smile. The other NRA, the National Restaurant Association, hired chefs to work their booth, a brilliant strategy given the unbelievably horrible convention center food. You’d think of all places New Orleans could get convention center food right, but when you find yourself thinking that the best option is the Starbucks across the street, you know you’ve hit rock bottom.

After working my booth from 9-4 on Wednesday, I was happy when it was time to adjourn to the conference’s networking event at the Superdome. Last year, NCSL was held in Boston, and we were given access to pretty much everything in Fenway Park – the locker room, dugout, press boxes, even the underground batting cages. The only place we couldn’t go was on the field. I thought we’d get this same level of freedom at the Superdome. Imagine my chagrin when, ironically, the only place we were allowed was…the field. No locker room, no press box, not even the stands. Just the turf. I’ll grant you that being on the field in any major sports facility makes me go a big wet one, but we were really hoping to see not only where hundreds suffered and several died during Katrina, but also where Drew Brees puts on his jockstrap. Interesting footnote, four days after our event, the Arena Bowl was held at the Superdome. Two teams played and one of them won. Since Arena Football reminds me watching my five year-old’s soccer team (Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal! Goal!) I don’t really follow it.

After the Superdome I was invited to an event held by the National Beer Wholesalers Association (whose booth was, ironically, not too far from Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which was almost as funny as the Ringling Brothers' booth being close to the Humane Society’s, who were only there to protest Ringling Brothers). If there’s anyone who knows how to throw a party, it’s Beer Wholesalers. The event was held at a prime location on Bourbon Street with a huge balcony, replete with hundreds of strings of beads to throw, and, most importantly, all the free booze you could drink. An open bar on Bourbon Street is like a sundae station at a Weight Watchers meeting; it’s a miscalculation of almost dangerous proportions. Fortunately, the attending business professionals, association executives, and legislators were able to imbibe and socialize in an orderly fashion, ladies and gentlemen all, and a quiet evening of cards, baccarat, and good conversation was enjoyed by the attendees. Or, everyone got Preakness infield drunk and the affair rapidly degenerated to the maturity level of a fraternity party, only with more alcohol. I was not immune to the debauchery; in fact I'm told at one point I played a washboard with the house band, though I have no memory of it.

The main sport of the evening was, of course, hurling beads and the crowd below. I saw one legislator throw his beads at an attractive young woman, when an older bearded guy reached over her and snatched them out of midair. This politician, elected by the good people of his district and sworn to uphold the laws and regulations of his state so help him God, then dumped a FULL cup of beer (an official Beer Wholesalers cup, in fact) on the guy’s head, and yelled “GIVE THE CHICK THE BEADS YOU FUCKING DOUCHEBAG!”

I had another conversation with a politician who has helped my organization in the past, to the point where we’re throwing him a fundraiser in his home state next week. This is a stunningly stereotypical politician – fat, rich, drunk, and smoking a big cigar. About ten minutes into our very one-sided conversation (my side was “uh-huh….yup….exactly…uh-huh…) he started in on his belief that marriage is “one man one woman” and it’s up to groups like mine to try to promote Christian lifestyles. My immediate thought was, lifestyles like the one you’re living now, urging young women to show you their tits for a twenty cent string of beads made in China by a kid making a buck a week? My next thought is, who the hell does he think I work for? He either forgot who I am, never knew who I was, or he thinks that the medical specialty organization I work for gets a lot more intrusive than simply cutting you open during surgery. It all became a moot point when he spilled a hurricane on a colleague of mine and stumbled away mumbling incoherently.

On Friday morning, the NCSL held their annual “Walk for Wellness,” a 5K (3.1 mile) walk/fun run that aims to raise awareness of something and promote a healthy something else. It’s a great cause. I had been excited about this year’s race as I’ve been running a lot more in the past year, which isn’t hard given that, prior to that, I never ran at all. Unfortunately, even at 6:30 a.m., it was 85 degrees and humid. As if that wasn’t enough, there had been a massive oil spill (or “awl speel,” as they call it on the bayou) on the Mississippi river two days before, and the stench was absolutely overwhelming. Regardless, I had a good race, very nearly keeping pace with the 12 or 13 year-old kid who was in front of me the whole damn time. The frustrating thing about running is not my inability to win races – I’m never going to be fast and that’s fine. It’s that I get beat by people who I could clearly pound the holy living fuck out of. You are not my physical superiors, dammit, you’re just faster. Get me my gun (which you can do now in DC) and I don’t care how fast you can run, pipsqueak.

Anyway, I came in sixth, which will easily be the highest I ever rank in anything. There were two reasons for this:

1) It helped that of the 80 or so participants, roughly 60 of them walked. Slowly.

2) It did not help that this little blonde girl blew by me at the very end, ruining my potential top five finish. I asked her how long she’d been waiting to pass me. “2.9 miles,” she said. Again, I need my gun. I’ll have to have a longer talk with the hot blonde girls at the NRA booth.

So that was New Orleans. As a footnote, I’ll add that as I was flying out of MSY, I heard the following coming from the gate across from mine:

“Ladies and gentlemen, you’re wondering why we haven’t started boarding the aircraft…our technicians have told us that the two aft lavatories are malfunctioning. It’s up to the pilot whether or not we can go, so we’re awaiting his word.”

Later:

"Ladies and gentleman our technicians have deplaned and were unable to fix the problems with the two aft lavs. I’m working with the pilot to get this resolved and I’ll let you know if we’re going to Philadelphia in just few minutes."

Obvious grumbling. Some cursing. One vow to “pee in the sink.” Finally:

“Ladies and gentleman, I’ve convinced the captain to let us go to Philadelphia. I’m looking out for number one, so to speak. What I need you to do, before I begin the boarding of this aircraft, is to GO TO THE BATHROOM. Now. You’ve got a long flight to Philly and your options are...well, you’ve got no options. Please take a few minutes and go to the restroom, and you might want to think about skipping the coffee or soda or iced tea on your in-flight service, maybe just have those pretzels.”

Back in the Big Easy Pt 1

The allusion has been made many times by blues musicians, but New Orleans is like a hot woman that’s way out of your league but for some reason keeps sleeping with you anyway. The blues guys say this much more skillfully than I - blues musicians can say things like “squeeze my lemon ‘til the juice runs down my leg” and make it sound saucy instead of ridiculous. The first time out, you’re just amazed you’re there. You don’t want to make any big mistakes or fuck it up (so to speak) so you take it easy and don’t go to crazy. Second time you figure you’ve got more leeway, so you go a little harder. Leaving the woman metaphor for a minute and returning to the Big Easy, you drink a little more, stay out a little later, and maybe even throw a couple of stings of beads off a balcony. Third time out (and each subsequent visit) you’re in a comfort zone. You’ve done the touristy stuff (hopefully we’re really away from the woman metaphor now) and you’re settled in, relaxed, and able to go at your own pace and enjoy the beauty and splendor of one of the finest places on earth (okay, maybe we are still with that metaphor).

I’m currently in New Orleans for the sixth time in my life, the fourth trip this year alone. I’ll be back one more time – maybe even twice – before the year is out. I am not guilty of hyperbole when I say I could probably pass for a native at this point. I know which streets go where, where the good, out-of-the-way restaurants are, and where the best music can be found. I can also tell you where to get your bike fixed. Where to buy three pounds of the best crawfish in the city. Where you should go running.

Bottom line, lost in all the post-Katrina hooplah is the fact that this is still one of the most fun cities in the world, Bourbon Street notwithstanding. Which isn’t to say that Bourbon isn’t good for a larf. My room here at the Hotel Monteleone is just a block away, on Royal Street. But there’s so much more to this city than boozing. Take this hotel, for example. I had a roster of hotels where I could have stayed, some closer to the convention center (where I’ll be spending most of my time over the next three days), and some nicer (I once stayed at the Ritz at the same time as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I don’t know a lot of guys on that team by sight, but you could pretty much tell who was on the team and who wasn’t. If the dude was 6’6” and 350 pounds, odds are good he was on the team. Or just a local named Tiny who likes his alligator tail and bread pudding.) Instead, I chose the hotel that was haunted. Not just one of those “they say there’s occasionally a strange presence in room 237” type of haunted, but a flat-out, there-are-ghosts-everywhere-in-the-place haunted. No way I was gonna turn that down. So far I’ve been ghost free, though for some reason my room has five smoke detectors, all with spooky little green blinking lights. Perhaps the ghosts frequent this establishment because of all buildings in the French Quarter it’s the least likely to burn down.

They may be frightened away by my odor this evening though – I went to K-Paul’s restaurant tonight, third time I’ve eaten there. K-Paul’s is owned by Paul Prudhomme, a chef so astoundingly fat he is no longer able to stand up under his own power, instead wheeling around on one of those electric scooters you see advertised on daytime shows like the Price is Right. I’m in danger of catching Paul on the scale after just one meal – frog legs, onion rings, gumbo, jambalaya, a chicken leg stuffed with (really) a chicken breast, and bread pudding. And here I have ambition to run tomorrow. We’ll see how that goes. Tomorrow, a tour of the Superdome, a place of death, sorrow, and disappointment. And that’s just the Saints.