Southern Decadence 2013, New Orleans—Vacation Day 1

~Thursday~  I arrived in New Orleans at around 9:30 AM (local time, of course) and Amos, Phil, Angel, and I shared a harrowing taxi ride from the airport to the French Quarter.

Seriously, our taxi driver was an awful driver. First of all, he wasn’t sure exactly where our hotel was—and he either didn’t think it would be helpful, or he didn’t know how—to use GPS to get us there.

Second of all—Oh my god!—swerving in and out of lanes, starting to change lanes and then seeing someone already in it, and swerving back. He really was a terrible driver.

Once my knees stopped knocking, I checked in to the Wyndham Hotel French Quarter to a lovely room with a king-sized bed.

Since I’d only gotten about three hours sleep last night, I took a two-hour nap before venturing out for some lunch. I quickly settled on the Bourbon House Seafood Restaurant, which had me at Bourbon.

I chose their Bourbon House Salad—to which I added grilled chicken—its draw for me being the “Maker’s Mark bourbon vinaigrette dressing” that came on it.


For dessert, I had their “New Roads Pecan Pie,” which was pecan pie accompanied by Vanilla Bean Gelato, Caramel Sauce, and a Praline. As I said in a Facebook update: “It was off-the-charts delicious.”


From there, I took a stroll up Bourbon Street, which started with this “gayed up” (i.e., flying the rainbow flag) Hard Rock Cafe New Orleans:

Although, it was only mid-afternoon, the “barking” had already begun at various establishments to try and get you to come in and “sample” their product, which at times was of the keg or barrel, and at other times of the flesh.

I find it kind of amusing how the titty bar barkers sort of have to assume that you’re straight, even though they know, especially with this weekend being Southern Decadence here, that a good chunk—if not a majority—of the guys walking up and down Bourbon Street gave up titties as soon as they relinquished their suckling status with their momma.

But I digress…

There were some very pungent smells walking up and down the street—from stale beer to urine to &diety knows what.

I ended up at the Bourbon Pub & Parade, which is one of the “headquarter” bars, I guess you could say, for Southern Decadence, which was just teeming with men.

They had monitors with music videos playing on them, and at one point a video came on of Michael Jackson doing some incredible dancing—Does he do any other kind?—and there was a blond chick who came out on the stage with him who looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her.

I said to the guys sitting next to me, who were both my age (and by that I mean, they both looked older than me, because I don’t look my age—LOL. I crack myself up.) and I said, “Do you know who that girl is?”

Neither of them knew, and they asked a young guy (probably in his 20s) sitting to their left whose mouth just dropped looking at all three of us, “You’re kidding me, right? You’re kidding me, aren’t you?”

He looked as if he were trying to assess whether we were from the United States—or perhaps Mars—and then he said, “That’s Britney Spears.” And not being at all gracious he added, “Wow. I’m really feeling a huge age difference right now.”

Anyhow, I was absolutely mesmerized by this video, and once back at my room, I YouTubed it (not that YouTube is a verb), and it being from 2001 and with over 14 million hits on it, I wondered how I’d never heard of it before.

On the outside chance that you, too, are from Mars, here’s the video I’m talking about:


Britney’s legs are beyond amazing in this vid, and I’m quite sure that if I were straight, I’d go for summa dat.

I was excited to learn that there would be some country line-dancing at John Paul’s bar this evening, so I started the approximate 1.3-mile walk to Elysian Fields Avenue from my hotel, and imagine my disappointment when I finally made it there to find tables and chairs set up throughout the place, with clearly no area in which to dance—not to mention that it was 8:10 and no sign of any kind of dancing or intent to dance.

After a while, I bought a bourbon and diet, and when I asked the bartender, “Is there line-dancing tonight?” he said, “It’s Tuesday night. Lince-dancing is Tuesday night.”

I bit my tongue from saying, “Well, your website clearly says Thursday night, too. Do you think you could update that?” but instead just enjoyed the fact, that at $4, that was the cheapest bourbon and diet I’d had in New Orleans so far.

As soon as I finished my drink, I trekked the one mile back to Bourbon Street. It was after 8:30, by this time, I wanted to get some dinner in me before drinking more, so I stopped in a place that sold “Po Boys,” and I got a “BBQ Shrimp Po Boy,” which was pretty darned good.

I got a text at about that time that my friends Corey and Patrick were down Bourbon Street at a place called Funky 544, but by the time I got there, they were gone.

It was quite warm and humid and I was sweating at this point, so I made my way back to the Bourbon Pub & Parade, where there were a ton of men poured out into the street when I’d passed it walking down to Funky 544. I paid the $15 cover, which was totally worth it to have air-conditioning and dancing go-go boys on the bar.

At one point, a dancer hopped up onto the bar, right in front of me:


and started doing his thing. As you can see, he had some fantasy athletic outfit on. He was in good shape and a decent dancer.

However, mostly I worried that he was going to kick over my drink, or step on my phone, which I had set on the bar.

I got a text from Corey that he and Patrick were going to make their way to where I was, but when they hadn’t showed up by 11:10, I decided to forgo waiting for them, and the midnight “Bid Dick Contest,” and I headed back to the hotel.

Although it was not yet midnight, it had been a long day, which had started at 4:30 in the morning, and I was exhausted, and I fell asleep within minutes of my head hitting the pillow.

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