“The gates are open,” the Priestess said in the din of the back room of her psychic shop on Decatur where, minutes before, she’d told me to scram and grab a drink while she finished her slice of pizza. It had looked like a decent slice. Pepperoni, I think. Because I’m from the Midwest, where pizza is king, and because I tend to be over-polite and presume fault in the face of … [Read more...] about Memoirs of an Authentic French Quarter Priestess
New to New Orleans
The Cat Cracks
A crack formed in the porcelain of the Cat Lady’s mind as she drank in Johnny White’s. Or maybe it had been there for years, laying dormant—waiting for the right word from the right lips to birth the tectonic tremor that broke the dish. (But let’s also be real, the Lady’s blood type was and is psilocybin; the Pangaea of her consciousness had long split into drifting … [Read more...] about The Cat Cracks
Deep Diver
On the corner of Bourbon and Bienville sat Nobody’s Favorite Restaurant, an Italian joint resting so firmly on its laurels that it had veritably hunched over its pasta gut to give its menu a blowjob. The best you could say about this establishment was that it was reliably decent, but that’s the case with most Italian cuisine. In foodservice terms, it’s as challenging to fuck up … [Read more...] about Deep Diver
Cat Lady
When you’re down, you relate to the Cat Lady. Perhaps a little too much. I first crossed her path before I knew she was the Cat Lady, in the wintertime around dusk. I’d just moved to New Orleans with my husband, formally, and we were running low on funds. Rather than have one of those pathetic marital arguments about bills, overheard through the walls of our shotgun, Ryan … [Read more...] about Cat Lady
Kinderguardians
Stink hits in July like nothing else in New Orleans. Indeed, the whiff of an overripe human being, mixed with perfume or the ketones of booze or a spritz of Axe Body Spray from the pits, can clear out a room—unless you’re body-blocked in a concert or trapped in dialogue or duty-bound to man your post. And such was the dilemma of my friend, who I’ll call Prince of the … [Read more...] about Kinderguardians
United We Stand… In Leather
New Orleans did it quietly this year. Proudly, reverently and in the rain. A few of us had wondered, as the June 24 anniversary approached, if there were going to be any observances of the historic Up Stairs Lounge fire. Those of us who’d helped plan last year’s 45th anniversary events – Frank Perez as liaison with the Historic New Orleans Collection and Reverend Cory Sparks … [Read more...] about United We Stand… In Leather
Ama-gay-us
I grew up wanting to kill the thing inside me. Through religion, through self-brainwashing, through various substances and sexual encounters with young ladies my age, I devoted the bulk of my youth towards willing an act of self-conversion that would enable me to walk free of my secret burden: the fact that I yearned for and actively masturbated about other dudes. Looking at … [Read more...] about Ama-gay-us
