Confessions of a latter-day lothario...lost and (not) found New Orleans style...19th century French novelists!

Happy Thursday to you all (y’all)! Have the post-voting day blues, I guess. Just can’t seem to get motivated today. Cousin Fred is talking about embarking on a new enterprise that has to do with medical marijuana…I can’t wait to hear about that. He has a backer that wants to talk with us. Again, can’t wait…

Friends, have you ever been to New Orleans (NOLA)? It’s a great place…to visit. I don’t think I’d want to live there, but for a few days it’s not too bad. I’ve never made a trip there (and there have been several over the years) that I could call a bad trip. Well, there was the time I drove from NOLA back to Pensacola, Florida on a motorcycle in a driving rain in November – I don’t think I’ve ever been that f*#king cold and miserable in my life.

But I digress.

I started making regular runs to the Big Easy when I was about 19. My girlfriend had dumped me, so I was looking for new adventure. I was stationed in Pensacola at the time and New Orleans was a fairly easy drive (around 200 miles I think).

Of course, I was making those drives in a 1962 Chevrolet Bel-Air (with the 327 engine) that had ZERO business being on the road. The tires barely passed for tires, but somehow still managed to hold air. That beast consumed oil much faster than it did gas. In fact, I had to stop every 60 miles or so just to put another quart of oil in it. The cooling system was screwed, you couldn’t punch that 327 to life for more than about a quarter-mile before the thing overheated and shut down.

But, when you’re 19 and there’s a woman on the other end of the 200-mile drive…I’d have walked to New Orleans barefoot if necessary. Her name was Marie. We were sorta shacking up…if I could make it to NOLA, I had a shack to “ing up” in. I thought at the time I was in love; most likely it was lust.

I’ve been back to NOLA many times since those days. Marie is long gone, but I never get tired of the city.

Maybe I was lucky that I didn’t get burned by Marie. History is replete with tales of men being led astray by one siren or another. What got me to think about all of this is a story I read online about some poor slob (I use the term poor figuratively – you’ll see why in a second) who while staying at a hotel in New Orleans lost in big way. By the way, the guy was down in the $$$ part of town and as near as I can tell was staying at the Hyatt House on Poydras St.

Details aren’t plentiful, but it seems our high-dollar horndog (hereafter Horndoggie) had been partying in the French Quarter (been the ruin of many a poor boy) on Bourbon St at 2AM where he met an enchantress by the name of Kristen (her story and she’s sticking to it). Soon enough they head back to his hotel (probably about 1 mile away).

I’ll bet they went there for a late-night/early-morning literary discussion of the propensity of latter-19th century French novelists to use footnotes in their fiction. Hey, it’s what I would do!

No, really!

At some point in the middle of their literary discussion, or more likely soon thereafter, Enchantress leaves the hotel with his $100,000 Audemars Piguet watch.

A $100K watch. Who the hell spends that kind of $$$ on a goddamned watch? Obviously Horndoggie did. Hey, maybe he’s married to a sugar-mama (though not likely for much longer) who bought it for him as a gift, “A mere trifle, Dahling! A mere trifle!”

Yep…the fat’s in the fire now…his bacon will cook when them chickens come home to roost. Or, words to that effect.

New Orleans PD is hot on the case. Uh huh. She probably left that hotel that morning and drove straight to Houston to hock that watch. They have a surveillance photo from the hotel of her on “check-out.” Horndoggie told the cops that she has a tattoo on her left thigh that says, “MONEY.” Hey, now that should have been a freaking clue!
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What have we learned here today, kids?

• New Orleans is a fun place to visit, but you won’t want to live there.
• If you go, be sure to visit Café du Monde on Jackson Square for coffee and beignet donuts.
• Also, if you go, leave the $100K watch locked up in the hotel safe. Better yet, DON’T OWN a $100K watch!
• Avoid the French Quarter after 11PM when the freak parades start. Didn’t you ever read “Interview with the Vampire?”
• 19th century French novelists used footnotes in their fiction and women like to hear about it.
• Somewhere there’s a woman named Kristen with MONEY tattooed on her thigh and a wad of cash from selling a very high-end watch. If you run into her, RUN, but not before she buys the drinks.
• On second thought, just stay the hell away from NOLA!

​That is all!
 

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