Notes from New Orleans’ Vieux Carré
A brief outline in words & video-graphs for the reality-based fictional stories of Thomas Balzac, and his life in New Orleans’ Vieux Carré follows:
The mediocre, oft-rejected music composer Tommy Balzac continues to try no matter what obstacles or even landmines get in the way of his Fate. If he must, he’ll coerce it into place — mid-pandemic, even. So what, the virus has killed music in the streets of New Orleans — his dreams remain alive:
Nevertheless, the best he can do at the moment to pay his bills is a sideline gig composing jazz funeral dirges. Funeral dirges have been a hard sell before Covid-19 hit America, but “The Great Pandemic of 21st Century America” gives him confidence his sideline business will pick up; especially after Mayor Cantrell lifts Covid restrictions that presently forbid second lines and jazz funerals.
“The Great Pandemic…” is a working title Balzac is using for another opera he is focused on when not composing funeral dirges such as those he penned.
The dirges are performed by local bands during the “Second Lines” parading in the streets of the French Quarter. This one is in honor of and sending-over to the other side, in the best of Spirits, Balzac’s dear musician friend, Mickey “Slewfoot” McLaughlin:
Musicians and other artists have experienced the hardest of times, due to the Great Pandemic. Balzac doesn’t even have enough money to pay for parking near his Vieux Carré hideout — a converted “slave-quarters” built alongside the rear courtyard of a grand townhouse near St. Louis Cathedral.
Some historians have theorized his rear courtyard structures were originally the holding cells of slaves — poor souls shipped-in from the islands of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, and the like.
They were locked in these human cages to await their impending fate on the human auction block, located a stone’s throw away, where the Governor Nicholls’ Wharf is situated atop the levee of Old Man River, a little more than two blocks from the musician-composer’s studio located in the courtyard of a townhouse on St. Philip Street that was once owned by his great-grandfather.
The out-of-work composer (“unemployable,” Flower would say, before she ran off with the “sculptor”…) will be ticketed by the City of New Orleans and potentially his 1959 TR-3 will be, again, towed and imprisoned in the City Auto Pound (located beneath the I-10 overpass that destroyed the once-thriving Faubourg Tremé neighborhood below).
Way down or up in these “Notes from The Vieux Carré” the middle-aged New Orleans music composer’s riverside blue Daewoo with the Space Shuttle plate will be towed. Inside the trunk was stored for “safe-keeping” the famous local guitarist and crooner Coco Robicheau’s Shure-57 microphone; the one his father had given to him….
Balzac does not take care of this parking ticket because of life’s inequities; and because he preferred exposing the “City Chop-Shop” — which is a long story to be told later, about which he composed a musical for Off Broadway, by the same title —which became an internet hit (at least, in Balzac’s own mind).
The “simple” parking ticket, however, is merely emblematic — one of many, many other landmines in his, what one would believe to be, simple struggle to make a living as an artist inside one of the country’s, certainly this State’s, wealthiest neighborhoods: the Vieux Carré (note the diacritical over the e).
Founded 400 years ago, the community is popularly known as “The French Quarter” — however, both Spanish and French architecture dominate the 10-square-block community of locals.
Travelers weave up and down the narrow streets and tourists pack the bustling riverfront convention center, giving a boost to the hotel and restaurant industry from the tip of Canal Street, to Esplanade Avenue.
During the Great Pandemic of the 21st Century, he will deal with the simplest of matters such as internet and phone costs. Then there’s his continuing battle over his unlimited parking permission —requiring a local-resident permit for New Orleans’ Vieux Carré….
Balzac’s fight with City Hall is “Confederacy of Dunces” humorous; as, in fact, his grandparents’ siblings settled in New Orleans centuries ago.
One great uncle had sold the property where the neighborhood’s grandest hotel, The Monteleone still sits today. He has stayed there for a period during Hurricane Katrina — also the title name of an opera he was composing during the disaster — at the invitation of the new owner, in fact….
In the earliest years of the 21st Century it cost $400 or so just to “live” in New Orleans’ French Quarter. That’s even if he does win his argument that his 100-year lease on one of the French Quarter’s most-historic properties, and voter ID card, sufficiently “evidence” his local residency. The City-sanctioned chop-shop officials simply, shamelessly, bow their heads in traffic court.
“‘Everybody knows,’” as Leonard Cohen sings, the dice is loaded, the cards are stacked.
“We ignorant, over-hopeful, common folk are life’s digitally-controlled silently majority; we are their practically microchipped pawns!” he lively explains to his astronomer friend JB, who is not listening very intently, being in the middle of a sketch he is drawing of the transition of Saturn’s moons across her rings….
Balzac at this moment seriously needs an Internet connection (at least he thinks he does), He is beyond panic close to giving up, in whatever the key this song is performed which he is composing as he thinks. He has no time to think, really; no time to wait for the correct notes to accumulate on the empty lines of the otherwise blank composition paper….
The idea is, for a composer to reach into his notebook of music fragments and, with whatever is pulled out, create a fugue or symphony or opera — or whatever tune is desired by the customers of his day-job employer, The Canal Street Music Store….
In a pandemic, Balzac is reminded, time waits for no one.
Balzac long ago successfully tested this theory by randomly turning to a notebook page and using the notes created in the past to compose a melody that captures what is presently going on in the life of, this song he decides, the nocturnal life of The Cathedral Bar’s late-night doorman, Lucky.
…Luckyman this week left his slave-quarters hideout apartment located upstairs from Balzac’s, to the rear of the garçonnière.
He also is unable to focus on earning a living; he put out a few applications for work (actually, e-mail replies to Craigslist advertisements), but nothing came of them. One promised to give him a $450 retainer but it was quite suspect and Lucky does not count on that vague offer of employment with payment in advance.
The advertisement seemed real enough; the person who emailed him seemed somewhat real — but not totally; so he is not certain and until he sees 450 he will not give the music-club doorman job a second thought….
His neighbor Balzac has only 15 or so dollars left and now he is trying to justify spending 10 dollars to have an Internet connection for two days. He has not received any money to speak of from his Internet connection this month, except for (he is embarrassed to admit) the 200 begged from his lawyer friend, who died of cancer before the desperate loan was repaid, leaving him with deep guilt.
Similar to another neighbor, Mike, who gave him $200 to buy him pot should he come across any soon; and, when he found an ounce and delivered it to his neighbor Mike, he was found dead of a heart attack by the condo manager Balzac contacted when Mike failed to answer his door after several days of knocking and calling-out had passed….
If he spent $15 on the internet service connection he may have a chance to earn money today. Here are his choices: he can buy food or an internet connection. His dog needs food as well, and there is no guarantee having an internet connection will put money into Balzac’s pockets.
“I am doomed!” he tells himself in a frantic panic, half-jokingly mimicking his artist friend Lala living in Faubourg Bywater, the one who is working on the portrait of Mohammed, in a veil — and on a painting of the Last Supper, at Galatoire’s Restaurant, with Jesus as a waiter….
Balzac will park his car near the Vieux Carre’ Hotel around the corner from his garçonnière and use its internet hot-spot to check his email.
At least he has a little hope that the 450 a week music composing job is real (although his mind, objectively viewing the matter, realizes “if it sounds too good to be true, it is likely not true.” Hope feels better than logic, the old, desperate, dying composer imagines….
He must face the fact that he has nothing to say musically; he is empty of talent and imagination…. Balzac walks to his mailbox, to be sure the promised 450 check has not arrived, and will not arrive. He would like to think it is there, as he approaches the box, but — “knowing” it is not — will not add anxiety to his already frightened condition. His mind races with uncertainty; he can almost feel his body shivering from fear, his mind erupting like a volcano…..
…It is time to leave, to suicide; but the ugly, old, impotent composer proves to be the coward he is and is unable to go through with what he should do — for the betterment of his children, siblings, family, friends … and his own dignity.
“My god!” he screams silently. “Are you going to stay this way until you are debilitated by a heart attack or cancer or other end-stage event? Like neighbor Mike?! Lucky?!”
Was he going to burden his children and family with caring for his sorry ass’s burial? At least Mike left a small estate, being a retired Jaguar mechanic with a pension….
“Sure, had you accomplished anything “important” in your life — why not decide to live life to the very end; certainly why not, if you are able to pay for your eventual end-life event that puts you in a hospital or hospice bed for months or years sometimes, until your organs wear out and the line between life and death is finally crossed, however hard your mind fights against your own death…..”
Today Balzac’s lovely but unpredictable young lady friend writes him a text message to say she believes in him and that he is a sweet man. The composer estimates he is at least 25 years older yet he has loved her since she was a teen almost two decades ago.
The two, only once 10 years ago, made love — an awkward time in both their lives, so not surprising. Balzac is wondering whether he can, should, or will be with her again in the near future….
It may be a practical move, in that he can not afford to shelter and feed both himself and her with the meager income he receives from the Canal Street Music Store, and his royalty checks for his published music compositions, meager as they already were, now arriving in a trickle, due to (he lies to himself and friends) hard times in America.
The truth is that people today simply have come to the realization of how boring his music really is and, recently, one critic even labeled it “masturbatory nonsense”…..
He owes too much money to his artist friend for the head medicine that he had hoped would cure him of his malaise or increase his psychic energy or alter his drive to find work and earn a living.
Balzac has concluded, however, that he is incapable of earning a living — his mind is unable to stay focused long enough to search the job listings in the local newspaper or online.
His body is too lazy for his mind to accept “just any” work which he should do to get enough money to buy food for his dog if nothing else; and to pay his artist friend for the Adderall that, it turns out, does not help him find work or do anything that provides him with money.
Balzac hears the echo of his other artist friend in his ear shouting, “You are doomed!” He eats and eats, out of pure fear; but he does not seem to gain weight. He is doomed and is certain he will die early in life, from some as yet unknown, but poverty-related, incident….
The pills do not help; in fact, they do nothing at all to his mind but make his body a bit sleepy. They are supposed to, designed to, improve his focus of attention — so he can accomplish a paying-job — but he has nothing important on which to focus (certainly not paid employment) and this medicine does not help.
“Do you see yourself, yet?” he asks the object in the mirror. He does not know who — or what — the object is; it is shaped like himself, has the same hair and body type, but he is unable to see the eyes and behind the eyes.
He is blind to his own being, his mind’s eye can not distinguish whom it is there in the mirror — an imposter, surely?
He has been a fraud unto himself all this time — these half-dozen decades or at least from time of self-consciousness. What caused him to never “see” his own person and mind? What caused him to run away from this figure in the mirror?…
Christmas 2020 has arrived and it’s just as well, all considering; although for many, the old composer is sure, life has been fine — they and their circle of family & friends have thankfully escaped The Great Pandemic.
Indeed, most French Quarter residents are protecting themselves by not venturing outside their small backhouse enclaves not unsiilar to Balzac’s rear-courtyard “slave-quarters”).
Most who live in this somewhat wealthy tourist neighborhood are smart enough to stay inside; to certainly not venture to sardine-packed Bourbon Street at night, where tourists and area suburbanites apparently did not get the word of The Great Pandemic of the 21st Century.
These anti-vaccine folk wander about mask-less all night through the French Quarter, putting an exclamation mark on the once-insulting phrase “stupid Americans!” long ago invented by other Western peoples.
During the three year period of The Great Pandemic of the 21st Century, Balzac resides at both, his New Orleans’ Vieux Carre’ remolded servants’-quarters, and his Indian Rocks Beach, Florida shack.
Alas, America remains the shining light on the hill. Or choose another sentimental euphemism, for hope or prayer or bootstraps — anything but the reality we have become.
Western Europe does not laugh at us; its People are too “human” (as all of their great philosophers teach — too innately kind and empathetic to display meanness at a time like this. Some may scoff, of course, and rightfully; really.
But more in satire than real hatred for …”us stupid Americans.”
Some epidemiologists estimate the Great Pandemic will eventually bring death to half of the population of the United States of America. Balzac doesn’t remember how long they said this morbid statistic will take to prove out, but does it matter? he asks himself.
The C-span callers this morning ask: “why do we the people” allow Mitch McConnel to throw a monkey wrench into the Senate bill authorizing $2,000 pandemic payments?
…“The people making $75,000 shouldn’t get it! The trouble is they need to get Mitch McConnel out of there, him and Lindsay are the ol’ plantation boys…. They want Trump out of office, they can’t wait….”
“If I die from the virus, I should be able to donate my citizenship to a ‘dreamer’,” declares another caller.
“The people who are working don’t need that money. Mitch knows what he is doing, he doesn’t want to give the $2,000 to anyone. That’s why he added the poison pill language….
“McConnel won 100 percent of the votes in an almost entirely black county, which is impossible….”
A Republican C-Span caller agrees the “stimulus” money “should go through. McConnel is showing bad faith….People on social security who do trade home shows, venues like craft shows, sports shows have been shutdown because of the Corona virus….”
The last day of the year 2020 has arrived. Nobody is happy about the past year, except those whose families had a member who luckily survived the virus. California is on fire, as well as Arizona, where nurses have to handle more patients than they legally should.
Florida’s governor is vaccinating the old rather than the, already-spent, ER room doctors and nurses. Balzac turns off the news, too many virus deaths, too many police-shootings.
Empathy goes out the window when the mind overflows with such stories….
Mornings come and go for the old, failed composer Tommy Balzac. Every 30 seconds someone in America is dying from the virus, and very few vaccinations have taken place to date.
There is no national plan, federal trucks are simply dumping vials of vaccines at State hospital doors, without any guide…. It should be coming to stadiums, parking lots where staff is ready to vaccinate immediately; otherwise, if not gotten under control, the next wave — Christmas visitations by relatives not heeding CDC guidelines — will be doomed.
After many days, another morning comes; and Balzac isn’t any better off than the last, except for the advantage he lived to see a few more mornings. In fact, he rarely “sees” the mornings, lately, because after he wakes he is too busy “on deadline” composing funeral dirges for the many thousands of victims of The Great Pandemic of the 21st Century.
It is 2021 now, many mornings have come, almost 10; yet there’s no end in sight to the infections and deaths born of the pandemic.
The composer’s last musical piece attempted to capture in musical notation the many senses of humanity happening all at once due to this beast cast upon the world, particularly America; even Brazil is second-worse, both countries’ Presidents’ playing-down the importance of the deaths, compared to the perceived necessity “to keep the economy going.”
Grief is at the top — Balzac’s fugue begins — unless the listener’s empathy is with the patient dying (often on a ventilator); then perhaps Loneliness would be at the top of their list….
The instruments’ juxtaposition between Grief and Loneliness, violin and cello; the high-pitches of internal pain, and the real, anesthetized pain of the patient who is also isolated from the world, alone, slowly dying, slowing re-living their former lives as they lay (sometimes for weeks on end, before “the tubes are pulled”)….
Balzac is not happy with this latest “day job” but he must pick up work where he can find it, and The Canal Street Music Store pays him a living wage composing funeral dirges for New Orleans “jazz funerals” that rarely happen due to virus regulations, strictly enforced — except, sometimes, families of police officers for instance, will parade their ‘hoods with a jazz funeral procession, horns and second-line dancers and all….
Then they quickly disperse. The only rules outside the traditional second line is that everyone is wearing a mask….
Days pass and soon-to-be President Joe is extending emergency assistance to children, mothers and families; help get restaurant workers back on the job…. Fix the waive of evictions, which will increase Covid 19 infections; next week will extend nationwide __on evictions; ask Congress to fund landlord.. police officers, fire fighters, educators — putting their lives on the line….
“Our rescue plan will …ensure to keep these essential workers on the job; …also will help small businesses — which account half of the entire US workforce…provide the goods & services…. We’re gonna focus on small businesses, on Main Street. We’ll be responsible with the public’s money….will reduce poverty in the black, Hispanic communities…
Balzac personally fears his name will be on the list at the morgue soon, and his frozen body will be waiting its turn for the perfunctory autopsy, likely by a teenaged medical student, the composer smirks.
He leaves the Sunday morning talking heads suddenly to wash his hands with 70 or 92% alcohol. His son and daughter-in-law had just visited to drop off Christmas gifts — and to jump-off his van whose battery succumbed over the past few days’ cold spell.
They want it in running condition so he will come to Christmas dinner tonight, Hijo says, holding jumper cables and joyfully displaying his new tooth that was replaced the day before; he’s no longer a “hillbilly” he jokes (until his father reminds him it’s no laughing matter for Coca Cola to have poisoned these mountain folk, who as children, were plied with sugar drinks — knowing sugar, this particular consumption of sugar by children, is the cause of most of the tooth decay found in America, particularly the — targeted — Appalachia region…).
But, then, he is remembering this conversation while eating fudge and drinking sangria wine, both sugar based products; so, Balzac calls himself out as a hypocrite but begs forgiveness. Being a good Catholic — well, his parents were, so doesn’t that qualify him? — he believes he is forgiven, and moves on….
The day was meant to be for work; composition of online-funeral dirges has become a quite lucrative side gig for the otherwise failed composer; and quite popular in and around New Orleans’ French Quarter, where the music genre originated in the 18th Century about the time the slave trade was finally being abolished at the Port of New Orleans, located at the furthest end of Esplanade just across the railroad tracks, earthen levee, and tourist “Moonwalk” path along, and overlooking, The Mighty Mississippi.
On the left is where the former slave trade took place, often straight from off the boat to the seller’s block; although most likely from nearby offices that pretend officialdom.
[insert the history of slavery story by “Desert Storm” combat vet, now local artist, Gregory Arthur Conan [I’d add “dearly departed” but the rumor of this itinerate sidewalk artist’s demise may be exaggerated (surely, Balzac wishes so)]
So now the change of Presidential power is taking place and the old is playing … and the new … and soon, at noon, Lady Gaga will sing The National Anthem and Balzac wonders if she will be dressed in black and if there will be backup music, perhaps the US Army Band or such….
Yet Balzac continues with his morning routine while viewing the TV — composing his jazz-funeral dirges in New Orleans’ Vieux Carre’ on Saint Peter Street, to be exact, the 900 block, where he lives in a 1700’s slave-quarters set on a 100-foot lot behind a double-shotgun home bordered by 10-foot cinderblock walls and a 15-foot-wide cement porch with steps at each end leading to St. Peter.
To the left only one house away is Burgundy Street and turning right the narrow street ends three streets away at the Cabildo where it meets Cathedral Square.
“They all know I’m a fraud!” the old man laments, as the new President attends church with the Nation’s new VP (the first female, of-color as well). Indeed, he will never attain the notoriety and wealth of the musicians participating in today’s transfer of Power from the defeated to the victor President.
As hard as he tried, the old composer’s intellect simply is not — and was never — up to snuff for “the big boys” (and girls). He admits that but sometimes, still, laments. “If only I had paid more attention to my university studies; heck, to my junior high schoolwork!” he continues to lament….
Alas, his energy is already spent, mid-morning. He turns back on the TV, then back off. Why continue watching the pomp and circumstance; besides, he’s not into church ceremonies, his mother tried her best to change his mind without success, so who — or what — else can?
He must take time, instead, to come to terms with the fact he will never be a rich (therefore, “good”) music composer. He will never have an audience of more than a handful of folk who accidentally happen upon his works, a rather small library or discography, he realizes with not a little embarrassment.
Perhaps it is time to be with his dear older brother Georgie and eldest, Joseph; he ignorantly uses perhaps too often, perhaps. His mind is fogged-over, he has no energy, his memory has faded to a dull base, his eyes are heavy and he wants to close them — forever, really.
Except, he has so-called obligations to attend to; he must play the role, grandfather to beautiful granddaughters, and father to beautiful boys, and sibling and uncle to beautiful family….
There is nowhere to go, logically speaking, without doing harm, and certainly the nearly gone artist means no harm to anyone or anything.
He had, just recently, cried over accidentally wiping-out a few ants that were moving about on the kitchen countertop when he, without forethought for the little creatures, swooshed the cleaning sponge across their pathway and, most likely, squished them out of their life, their existence.
Whether they were “sentient” beings, or not (although, Balzac truly believes they have lives no different than ourselves, as humans….) their lives should not have been destroyed, as they are, daily, in every household on the whole goddamn Earth….
Cathedral Square, New Orleans’ Vieux Carré ©ThomasBalzac|www.vieuxcarretimes.com
12/20/20, 3:27a.m. The middle-age'd musician/composer agonizes over Flower's absence and safety; it is the coldest night of 2007 five days before Christmas, and windy. She left on bike 18 hours ago.
"She has flown the coup perhaps?" he asks himself. How can she be so irresponsible to not call and let him know she wasn't coming home for dinnertime. Balzac fears the worst --that she may be in an accident or such. Balzac prays not, although he is not particularly religious.
What can he do about this ? If she cannot love him for the person he is, however embarrassingly defective can be sometimes, then she couldn't love him for anything Balzac may have become, or whatever....
His ramblings are for naught. His heart aches yet hers is numb as stone tonight, he is certain, as he falls fast asleep in a hashish daze inside his French Quarter studio several blocks from Treme' Manor....
"I'll take Baby with me if necessary!" he angrily confesses the next morning to his best friend JB, a local (but world-famous) sidewalk astronomer.
Flower will snap out of her current state of mind soon, however, and rush back to her baby; that's the simplest of maternal instincts.
It truly hurts to know what is probably happening, Balzac worries silently. She invented another excuse today to go walkabout and run away. Balzac have tried and failed over and over, again and again. Balzac had failed to earn a good wage as a composer, and that quickly becomes the root of his demise.
[edit] He didn’t want his marriage to end but the solution was not entirely in his hands to grip; he had applied for perhaps a hundred bands, concert halls, orchestras…over these past three years. Had Balzac been hired his family would have been like all the other lucky Americans--rolling in the money, and the hay for that matter.... [edit]
…It is now near 8 a.m. An "emergency message" on the answering machine she answers in less than 10 minutes.
…The Pandemic of 2020 is taking its toll. In-between arranging funeral dirges for Second-Line processions — into percussion, horn, and string-instrument sheet music that can be easily read by any musician — for his day job at The Canal Street Music Store, the composer is making final edits to his final opera: the re-composed “Finale’” of his failed “masterpiece”-work— “Sodom” — which is a “masterpiece” in Balzac’s own mind, of course.
Indeed, the first production of this life’s work was almost a hit at the smaller theaters off-Broadway, a decade ago; although the world in that year’s particular “upheaval” caused the performance to succumb after the third week, bankrupting two theaters and causing forthcoming misery to a few dozen actors and stagehands.
Balzac’s re-do of “Sodom” is an attempt to bring to light the current state of mankind’s lewdness — perhaps this disgust is limited to Americans, but he doubts it. Man’s — and woman’s — insistence on satisfying the libido is a continuing theme of so-called “civil society” here in the United States.
His new opera explores questions such as: “Is it their “fault” to succumb to thoughts?” and “Must there be a thought police now?” etc. Dealing with the thin line allowed for his artistic investigations is stressful, so he limits it to a fugue — a lone composition utilizing many musical instruments, ending in an orgiastic crescendo. The pleasure police will be out in full force, taking down the lewd and perverted. But they are not alone, their sort rank among the thought police, the pleasure cops. There are limits, of course, but his opera does not quite breech them, much to the chagrin of the powers that be in New Orleans’ Vieux Carre’….
…She claims to have been sleeping the many times Balzac had called but he does not believe her. She doesn’t care and he shouldn't either; besides, his definition of love is different than hers.
She will be here soon, pretending to be so concerned about Baby. Maybe it is me who is over-concerned about her.
And he too betrays; he doesn't
tried and failed again and again. over and over, Balzac failed to earn a good wage; that quickly became …. the money, and the hay for that matter....
She claims to have been sleeping all the time Balzac called It is now near…. But Balzac leaves the idea behind. He busies himself with his forced-hobby of sorting the many collectibles he has accumulated during his long lifetime and even longer, his ancestors’.
He feels somewhat like the character Silas Marner hovered over his riches, keeping them hidden only to himself at certain wee hours of the night….
But these particular “treasures” he will be posting to Flower in the lowlands of country Australia, where she settled with their child Baby. She sells jewelry at surrounding town fairs, a trade she picked-up from her father and nurtured during her time with Balzac, selling to the vendors of the French Market, and sometimes working their tables….
[insert jewelry lady video]
=============================
…The first draft continues. Balzac’s forced-profession as a composer of funeral dirges for second line musicians like himself has the failed artist in a trance only mushrooms have put him in ever and that was his Woodstock Folk Festival days. Today is many decades later and he finds himself battling old-timer’s — or is it just circumstance.
It makes no difference, as the task before him is undaunting — there’s no time to think. He feels obligated not only to his day job employer, the 150-year-old Canal Street Music Store, but also insists on showing respect for the dead.
He knew many of them, or their families, and The Great Pandemic of 2020 will soon have killed half a million, perhaps Balzac himself, before it’s all over, he realizes with a shutter (knowing how ill-prepared for death he is).
Not a great matter, really, his own impending death-by-pandemic; just this weekend his dear once-little granddaughters advised they no longer require his pawpaw watchdog services when the parents are out of town. His younger son, single-without-kids, has a very good career ahead, already advanced in status and salary; so, Balzac has no reason to worry he will be needed. Of course he will be missed, his children and theirs have good hearts….
But at the moment he is alive and well and most feels an obligation to respect the Music Store’s “family of customers” who are ordering original musical elegies, Sacred Heart fugues and marching band dirges for the many funeral processions happening throughout the City of New Orleans, particularly within the Vieux Carre’ and the surrounding 7th and 9th Wards.
Balzac regrets not having composed better-known works but understands the gamble an artist takes for his freedom is that he will die most likely a starving artist, or near-starving. Alas, the life of a Vieux Carre’ artist is that of “feast and famine” and worse, especially, for instance, during The Great Pandemic…
~“Napoleon” ~
For more than a hundred years, New Orleans’ Jackson Square artists have experienced more famine than feast in their business, which depends on tourism and the number of visitors to the tourist district’s big granite square situated between the massive St. Louis Cathedral and a public park with benches, fountains and shade trees.
©ThomasBalzac|www.vieuxcarretimes.com
Artists hang and display works for sale along the park fence and, while waiting for customers, they work on new paintings, often the artists’ chairs are occupied from sunrise to sunset. It is hard to tell whether the artists are doing any better than the starving artists of 100 years ago.Renown Italian artist Achille Peretti lived just around the corner from Jackson Squae, for 20 years of his 50 year art career.
Even though he was a famous artist at the time in the early 1920’s, the local paper quotes him saying how, in Paris or Italy, local people respect the artist, even feed and shelter them when needed. But in America, Peretti complained in the early ‘20’s: “the people allow police to sweep an artist off the streets like rubbish!”
I’ve known quite a few French Quarter artists and musicians over the decades, and all seem to be living desperate lives and at the same time are having the time of the lives.One artist friend would regularly paint a large oil on canvass of the St. Louis Cathedral; it would take him weeks to complete.
Although he knows it is worth a couple thousand he usually ends up having to sell it at the end of the month for a couple hundred, just to make his rent and groceries.
That’s a typical French Quarter artist situation even today. It was 15 years ago when this photo of Napoleon was taken, and was more than a hundred years ago when Achille Peretti was a Jackson Square artist complaining that police swept himand his easel off the sidewalk “like rubbish”…. ©ThomasBalzac|vieuxcarretimes.com
The process of compiling multiple musical compositions is extremely stressful, on top of Balzac’s old-timer’s and long-timer’s (or -hauler’s) conditions.
His psyche is failing to focus on what should be more urgent matters such as the safety of his own family, although to date, this last week of January 2020, 01/23/2021, thanks to the Fates, all is well with them….knock wood.
-30- Unedited material appears below: [“My Kingdom for an Editor”] ~Thomas Balzac
“Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down!” ~New Orleans’ Meschiya Lake ©|www.vieuxcarretimes.com
“I Can’t Believe that You’re in Love with Me!” ~local crooner Joe Braun and his New Orleans Jazz Vipers light up The Spotted Cat every Monday night. ©ThomasBalzac|www.VieuxCarreTimes.com
The band: Joe Braun — Alto Sax, Vocals Craig Klein — Trombone, Vocals Kevin Louis — Trumpet, Cornet, Vocals Oliver Bonie — Bari Sax, Vocals Molly Reeves — Guitar, Vocals Joshua Gouzy — Acoustic Bass. Tonight’s guests: Chris Christy (guitar)….
“I Can’t Believe That You’re in Love with Me” is a 1926 popular song composed by Jimmy McHugh, with lyrics by Clarence Gaskill (Wiki)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Can%27t_Believe_That_You%27re_in_Love_with_Me
The Vipers’ Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/TheNewOrleansJazzVipers
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~New Orleans’ Irene Sage is one of the highlights of this year’s French Quarter Festival (April 7–10) performing on the Big River Stage Friday April 8, 1:30–2:45 p.m. Here’s a link to the festival’s complete lineup: http://www.offbeat.com/news/french-quarter-festival-reveals-stacked-lineup/ -and here’s a link to the Irene Sage Band website: http://irenesageband.com/bio.html
“A Sunday Kind of Love” in New Orleans with Irene Sage
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“Willie the Weeper” sung here by New Orleans’ Lissa Driscoll “is a really a nice old Irish song” about drug addiction, recorded in 1927 by Frankie “Half-Pint” Jaxon and based on a standard Vaudeville song. ©ThomasBalzac|www.vieuxcarretimes.com Likely written in 1904, it has 30 versions with a hundred different verses; here’s a link about the song: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_the_Weeper
Lissa’s National resonator guitar is as old as the song!(: If able, please support Lissa medical fund here: https://www.gofundme.com/sy2a2u8 If able, please support Lissa medical fund here: https://www.gofundme.com/sy2a2u8 Here’s Lissa’s Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/lissa.driscoll.5?fref=ts
©ThomasBalzac|vieuxcarretimes.com Email: vieuxcarretimescom@gmail.com
Old guitar, old song, old problem (heroin) ~New Orleans street music
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my back pages ~from “The Abbey Bar” guestbook, New Orleans…
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Cathedral’s Jesus statute spared from trees felled by Hurricane Katrina ©TBalzac|www.vieuxcarretimes.com
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“Black Moses” ©TBalzac|www.vieuxcarretimes.com ~When I interviewed soul singer Isaac Hayes as a college newspaper reporter covering his “Black Moses” tour in Louisiana, he only agreed to talk if I brought him a large bottle of honey, which he said he drank during concerts to “lubricate my voice.”
Mr. Hayes told me the heavy chains he was wearing during his concerts represented not bondage & slavery but black power — strong, virile & masculine as Moses. Seemingly “a new morning” had come for us all in the early ‘70’s; sadly, however, economic bondage & slavery continue today. Black & white both have lost power; worse, we never achieved it, to lose.
Yet: “Where there’s life there’s hope!” as my mother always says (:
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Artist Fiona Estella ©|www.vieuxcarretimes.com
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coastal lake heron ©|www.vieuxcarretimes.com
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happy valentines’ day ~©|www.vieuxcarretimes.com
“I Can’t Believe that You’re in Love with Me!” ~The New Orleans Jazz Vipers
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“Free”-Style Jazz ~This video could be from a hundred years ago on a typical hot September day in “the city that care forgot.” I personally can’t get enough of New Orleans’ uniquely-original “free”-style, street music; however, there’s a growing number of elitists (or however one can describe them) hollerin’ for volume-controls on instruments played by musicians who perform on the banquettes, in bars & clubs, and the streets of the historic Vieux Carré (or “French Quarter” tourist district).
Many naysayers are long-time wealthy residents of the French Quarter (and other tightly-knit neighborhoods) who simply grew old and became pathetic with their better-than-thou personalities they grew into over time (bless their ignorant, bitter hearts (:
The other sour-pusses are (some of, but not all) the people who moved to the New Orleans recently (gentrifiers, or however you label them). They haven’t yet realized New Orleans’ street music is a constant that never has changed, never will change, and can never be changed. Even the City government stupidly on occasion attempts to criminalize music in one way or another, and fails….
They have no idea that loud, “free-style” music is the status quo in New Orleans; that nobody who truly cares for this City, cares that the music is loud. In short, the naysayers will simply have to “get over it” or move out. Please move, because you are displacing housing needed by local musicians, artists, restaurant & shop workers, etc. — the ones who really keep the gold goose (French Quarter) alive.
“Free” music has been around since the 1830’s beginning around the time of the Congo Square drum circles with hand-made instruments; and in the Tremé where brass bands were born. The French Quarter & Storyville lured tourists and world travelers to this unique music and word was spread around the World. This allowed “The City that Care Forgot” to become world-famous, prosperous and unique in not only music, but also architecture, cuisine, art, literature, local culture….
©ThomasBalzac|www.vieuxcarretimes.com
“Exactly Like You” is a 1930 jazz standard composed by Jimmy McHugh with lyrics by Dorothy Fields.
Here’s some Wiki articles that mention the history of “free” music in America that began in New Orleans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_S... (Congo Square) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trem%C3%A9 (Tremé)
~Thomas Balzac
Websie: www.vieuxcarretimes.com
E-Mail: vieuxcarretimescom@gmail.com
“Louder, Gents!” ~original New Orleans “free”-style music
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“You can Depend on Me” — sung here by guest singer-guitarist Chris Christie — was written in the early-’30’s by Charles Carpenter, Louis Dunlap and Earl “Fatha” Hines. Tonight’s band: Tom Saunders (bass sax), Matt Rhody (violin), Matt Johnson (guitar), Tyler Thompson (string bass) & Charlie Fardella (trumpet). The New Orleans Cottonmouth Kings’ new CD, “Still Thirsty” can be sampled here: http://www.louisianamusicfactory.com/shop/compact-disc/new-orleans-cotton-mouth-kings-still-thirsty/ or http://www.nocmk.com
“You can Depend on Me” was popularized by Louis Armstrong (1931 & 1951), Count Basie (1939), Earl Hines himself (1940), Nat King Cole (1957), and by Brenda Lee in 1961: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Can...)
©Thomas Balzac|www.vieuxcarretimes.com
E-mail: vieuxcarretimescom@gmail.com
The New Orleans Cottonmouth Kings @ The Spotted Cat
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“Good Luck Dolls” at New Orleans’ French Market
.©ThomasBalzac|www.vieuxcarretimes.com
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All the state, federal and world politics — even local issues like murders and poverty (and the criminalizing of poverty) — in New Orleans were set aside for a single day; “Fat Tuesday” (Feb. 9, 2016) is more than beads, parades, parties & over-eating. It represents “seizing the day” knowing that the next day, Ash Wednesday (or “Lent”) we begin fasting until Easter Sunday…or else be condemned to Hell. It’s true; Catholics don’t fool around! (: Actually, Mardi Gras is embraced by residents of New Orleans beyond those of French or Catholic heritage. Celebrations are part of the basis of the motto” laissez les bons temps rouler (“Let the Good Times Roll!”). ©ThomasBalzac|www.vieuxcarretimes.com
Here’s more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mardi_Gras
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lent
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“Happy Mardi Gras!” ~New Orleans’ carnival season is underway until midnight Tuesday, February 9; followed by Ash Wednesday and the Lent season (for Catholics) of simple living, self-reflection, & fasting. ©ThomasBalzac|www.vieuxcarretimes.com
The Dead Waking the Living on a typical New Orleans “Fat Tuesday” Morning
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Mardi Gras Parade on St. Charles Avenue near Canal Street
Kim H.: I haven’t been to a parade this year,not yet anyway :)) I love Mardi Gras season! thanks for posting.
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“Happy Mardi Gras!” ~New Orleans’ carnival season is underway until midnight Tuesday, February 9, then followed by Ash Wednesday and the Lent season (for Catholics) of simple living, self-reflection, & fasting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans_Mardi_Gras Parades: http://www.mardigrasparadeschedule.com
©ThomasBalzac|www.vieuxcarretimes.com
Daniel Rohde-Kage: This must be Fiona!? How is she?
Thomas Balzac: Daniel, my friend! Fiona is doing fine, still always-working on her art (see next post (:
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Clarence “Trixzey” Slaughter (R.I.P.) ~The young, sensational sax-player passed through New Orleans like a shooting star. Many of us knew the intensity could be short-lived. His playing was so phenomenal (to his musician peers not only club patrons like me); so we cherished every note he blew. And, man, could he play! His style was so fast & hard (Clarence probably went through sax reeds like elephants go through peanuts! (: …and yet smooth as well.
This video is of Clarence “Trixzey” Slaughter singing “St. James Infirmary Blues” (with younger brother William on trumpet) as guests of New Orleans’ “House of Cards” featuring Michael Darby (guitar), CaryB (bass), Nervous Duane (bass sax), and Tom Chute on drums; @ Igor’s Checkpoint Charlie Music Club (501 Esplanade)
Check out more of my Clarence Slaughter club videos on the channel I created as part of my YouTube playlist. Please subscribe! (:
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©ThomasBalzac|www.vieuxcarretimes.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Jam...
“St. James Infirmary Blues” by Clarence “Trixzey: Slaughter (R.I.P. ):
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Thomas Balzac: “Dixie Beer” — “Feral Cats” — “The Wizard of the Wishing-Well” — “Can Man” — “Slave Quarters” — “Code Noir” & other story titles come to mind. Stay tuned!©ThomasBalzac|www.vieuxcarretimes.com
“Can Man” would fill the large clear-plastic bags show in this photo with aluminum cans he recovered from local French Quarter bars such as Pat O’Brian’s, The Bastille… well, in the beginning, literally every bar in the French Quarter, as Herschel was New Orleans’ first can aluminum-can-recycling entrepreneur.
He began in the early 1980’s until the mid 1990’s when carpetbaggers & gentrification thieves invaded the last vestige of African-American French Quarter residents and drove them away by hook and by crook…. (I’ll post that sad story another time).
Can Man’s “day job” was chef — first for famed restaurant owner Ralph Brennan, then for longtime friend Jesse (I’ll remember “Hombre”’s last name soon) at The Steak Pit, from 6 until 2 a.m. Herschel walked around two corners to his large cypress-board shotgun on St. Peter Street; but — unless it was raining cats & dogs — wouldn’t take a rest, yet. He’d go home long enough to fetch his rubber gloves, hop in his truck parked across the street, and start his rounds….
He’d go from bar to bar; some barkeeps would have mercifully saved their empty cans on the side for Herschel to just empty into his large clear plastic bag; but most often he’d have to dig through the trash cans that had been placed outside the bars after closing time….
It was a dirty, hard job and no wonder it took decades before Joe-citizens such as Herschel “Can Man” Badon of New Orleans, to think of recycling the cans for, like 10-cents a pound in the beginning. The chapter of how the recycling-goods market has fluctuated over the past few decades is very interesting and I’ll get to it later as this “Can Man” story progresses….
Here’s Chapter 1: https://plus.google.com/+ThomasBalzacLaVieuxCarr%C3%A9Times/posts/2gRdAuFtP5d
[to be continued]
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twitter.com
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Led by the legendary Dixieland clarinetist and other local jazz musicians, the decades-old event begins early on “Fat Tuesday” morning uptown (usually at Commander’s Palace in the Garden District) and proceeds downtown on St. Charles to Canal Street then enters the French Quarter at Bourbon Street (in this video the red-suited musicians are wandering on Royal Street ) and eventually ending up at the New Orleans Riverfront. Mardi Gras Day 2016 is Tuesday, February 9 but the first big parades begin Jan. 23 with Krewe du Vieux. Here’s the entire 2016 Mardi Gras parade season schedule: http://www.mardigrasparadeschedule.com/schedule/
©ThomasBalzac|www.vieuxcarretimes.com
“Pete Fountain’s ‘Half-Fast Walking Club’” parades Feb. 9, 2016
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“Mardi Grass” ~”Zulu” parade, Canal Street, New Orleans
©ThomasBalzac|www.vieuxcarretimes.com
Mardi Gras 2016 falls on Tuesday, February 9 but the first big parades begin January 23 with Krewe du Vieux
Here’s the 2016 Mardi Gras parade schedule:: http://www.mardigrasparadeschedule.com/schedule/
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This story was placed in my Medium account and edited, but not published.
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