I hate New Orleans.
I realize that most people get a dumb grin when you mention this place, and are completely in love with everything about the town, but that’s mostly because they love drinking and seeing women flash their boobies. Now I dig woman parts as much as any other red-blooded man, and I certainly have nothing against drinking. But it just so happens that my wife is equipped with said parts and there’s plenty of brew in my own fridge. Or was it the other way around? No, I think I got it right.
So there’s certainly no reason for me to visit the dirtiest, most corrupt city on the planet for the enjoyment of either. And as you may have guessed, it wasn’t beer or boobs that drew me to the sphincter of the U.S. Actually, nothing “drew” me. It drug me here kicking and screaming, and “it” is the International Workboat Show that occurs in New Orleans this time every year. Why couldn’t the show managers pick a more pleasant place to visit, such as Beirut? There’s less violence there and the corruption probably isn’t quite so prevalent.
You might feel the urge to cry “foul” and tell me I shouldn’t speak in such a way about New Orleans after the Katrina tragedy. Well here’s the thing; I hated New Orleans before the hurricane. I feel awful that so many people suffered so greatly during the Katrina episode, but that’s no reason for me to suddenly develop a love for dirty cities bulging at the seams with corrupt officials and drunk people.
Oh, and I realize this is the second post in a row in which I have complained about a city. But when your job requires that you stay on the road a lot, and it just so happens that a number of your regular haunts are guilty of sucking, you can’t help but mention it. I have the joy of leaving on Saturday, however, so there’s a light at the end of this particular tunnel.
As has become my custom, I listened to a book on CD during the drive to New Whoreleans. The book was titled Wildfire (still is, I’m sure – but I no longer have it in my possession), and was written by Nelson DeMille. It was a somewhat low-brow yarn concerning several FBI agents investigating a very rich, very not-so-well-in-the-head man who had decided to single-handedly provoke World War III with the middle east. He intended to accomplish this by setting off suitcase nukes in a couple of American cities, thereby automatically setting “Protocol Wildfire” into motion. This protocol was a hush-hush government plan of action that, in the event of a terrorist attack involving weapons of mass destruction against a U.S. city, called for an immediate nuclear retaliation against dozens of major cities in the middle east. It was basically a form of “mutually assured destruction”, similar to the concept applied to the USSR threat during the Cold War.
Naturally, the good guys won, the U.S. cities didn’t end up glowing in the dark, and Mr. Crazy Rich Man finished out the story as a corpse. It sounds fairly stupid and unimaginative, but that’s just the result of my inadequate depiction. It was actually a very entertaining story with some fairly clever twists. I won’t provide any details on those, however, as doing so might compromise the boring nature of my synopsis.
As you can probably tell by my nonsensical writing, I’m extremely tired from standing on my feet and talking to strangers all day, so making sense isn’t one of my priorities tonight. I’m going to call it an evening and try to get some sleep. If I find myself unable to sleep, I may just head down the street and catch one of the drag shows.
Kidding. I’m allergic to scary.
