Tag: New Orleans

New Orleans 2026

~ johnbrandall

1.17.2026, 8:06

My eyes are big bags hanging off the side of my face...

A few expenses. $3, accordion player on Royal. $5, skeleton guitar guy. $20, Oyster Man. $219, round of snacks and drinks at Patula. $2, club soda. $30, St. Roch oysters.

List for the next visit to Rouse's. Vodka (handle), mixer, six-pack of amber beer, chips, juice (?), kombucha (?)

I am remembering images and moments from last night. The walk back from St. Roch in the dark. A longer walk. Dane talking to the pool player. The Calico cat. A frenetic, loud, tight Frenchman St.

Missing: Hugo, my dad. There is still a heaviness. I enjoyed standing and smoking outside of Fritzel's. Then hiding in plain sight in the Bourbon Orleans lobby.

Only two or three items left on the must-do list. Muffuletta. Po Boy. Audubon Park. Tanker on the Mississippi.

8:40. Wrapping up breakfast. Get outta here, stop by Rouse's. Coffee water, goodbye. I'm still nursing a cut on the side of my mouth caused by catching the edge of an oyster shell. I keep irritating the cut, opening it back up. I've gotten some balm from B but this is a Vaseline job and we don't have any. Time to pay, via hand-held kiosk, the way things are done these days...


This is just an excerpt. For the full post, click here or click above on the Tree of Life...

Triage

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

Put down your forcefield, sugar.
I grew my hair this way for you.
Do you see the skin of which I dreamt?
Torn to and fro, it reveals pools of co-habitation.
Supplies like bread, and soda, and diapers.
I can get these things for you — free-like.

We’ll have a hot time in the old city tonight, sugar.
For which do you care more — bourbon or gin?
Don’t spin your way out of here, not just yet.
I’ve got ways to free us from this island of dark sweat.
The canoe of opportunity, carved for me and you.

This town has never been a finer sculpture of mud and chemicals.
The skies have charmed it free of its alcoholic businessmen.
Let them comb hotel-room carpets looking for lost contact lenses.

We shall take our moldy crown in the throes of lineage, having outlasted
plaided Acadians, discombobulated Americans, and fur-trading French.

Dredge this lake, and you'll know the ways of a queen.
The Feds, the governors, the mayors:
they hold no quarter for us now.

We don't stand in line for them.
They stand in lines for us.