5 days in the French Quarter - Super Bowl weekend

There was something different in the air when I arrived in New Orleans on the Thursday before the Super Bowl, and for once it wasn’t the scent of vomit mixed with stale beer and overfilled trash cans.

Something special was going on in the city despite the rain, and you could see it on the people’s faces. Shop owners hocking plastic lead laden mardi gras beads, liquor store owners selling 24 ounce cans of Busch beer for $1.19 plus tax and CRV, even the down and out huddled under awnings trying to remain dry under impossibly wet circumstances were in high spirits. I’d been here many times before, but it was never like this.

I chose to come to New Orleans on this particular weekend for two reasons. Obviously, the Saints were in the Super Bowl ™ and I did not want to miss what would potentially be the biggest party in the history of CreoleKind. The second reason was that my father was going to be riding on a Mardi Gras float on the morning of the big game, you see, and it dawned on me that I had a chance to catch ‘throws’ from a family member and watch the Saints win the championship all in the same day. You have to be able to recognize when life presents you with situations that will likely never happen again and act on them, I told myself. So despite having a show with Shades of Day that I would have to cancel out on, I grabbed my wallet and booked a flight. At that time it was roughly 72 hours till departure.

2/4/10 6:00am PST

Taking off from Santa Barbara Airport is a wonderful thing. Not only is it 10 minutes from my house, but getting through security and into your terminal is a quick and easy process. It feels more like a train station than an airport, and you get to walk across the tarmac to get onto your plane. During the walk I always feel like a rock star heading to my private jet, and when I hit the top of the stairs that take you to the door of the plane, I have to resist the urge to turn around and give the ‘Nixon peace sign wave’ to the non-existent crowd.

Being that it was 6:00 am, I was treated to a spectacular Santa Barbara sunrise. I didn’t get any shots or video of it, but I did get a great shot of the snow on the way into Denver:

Flying into Denver

Ahh..snowy bliss. I would have loved to stop for a few and say HI to all my Colorado peeps, but I had a huge ass beer waiting for me in New Orleans that I had a date with.

Next stop, Houston.

Alright! I’m in....Houston. Go Astros! Do they even exist anymore? Probably not, Texas isn’t really a big sports state.

Houston took me right to the New Orleans airport, abbreviated MSY for some reason. The Grateful Dead argue that the proximity of these two cities is much to close, but personally I have no reason to concur. I was greeted with a row of limo drivers holding signs with other peoples names on them. Even though I knew I didn’t have a limo waiting, I quickly scanned the names just in case one said ‘Camp O’Neill’. Maybe someone wanted to surprise me, maybe I was the lucky winner of some unknown sweepstakes. No such luck this time, so I headed to the taxi line.

To get from the airport to the French Quarter by taxi you pay a flat rate of $33.00. I’ll hazard a guess and say that $2.00 is probably the most common tip they receive, so not wanting to stand out I fell right in line. 35 bucks and 25 minutes later, I arrived at my hotel.

Remember when I said something was in the air? There were signs all over the place that this was going to be a special weekend. I checked in at the Hotel St. Marie on Toulouse and Bourbon, room 420. I let out an audible chuckle in the lobby when the overly-made-up, underly-interested female clerk handed me my key. A fitting room number, indeed.

At this point I headed to meet up with that date I was talking about earlier. Remember the huge ass beer? I wasn’t joking:

Huge Ass Beer

After a few laps up and down Bourbon St and a few empty beer cups later, I did what any red blooded American male alone in the French Quarter would do. No, not that, sicko. I headed to Harrah’s to do a little gambling. And drinking. Drinking and gambling. Here’s the first hand of the night:

First hand of night

Yes, there was magic in the air! I was dealt 5 rags and traded them up for a 3 of a kind. I’ll drink to that!

After a few hundred hands I was feeling saucy, so I cashed out and took my booty to a Blackjack table. Since there were nothing but $15 minimum tables I was a little apprehensive, however with a little urging from my friends Anheuser and Busch, I posted up in the anchor position right next to this crusty old lady who probably had more casino experience than the rest of the table combined.

After 1 hour (actually, it was 3 hours but casino time warps your sense of reality in many ways, and the passage of time is one of them), I decided I’d had enough and would take my winnings to the money station. I couldn’t believe it, but I actually came out WAY up on the night.

Exiting the casino

Time to crash. Sweet slumber after a long and productive day.

2/5/10 8:00am CST

In the morningtime, daylight is newborn and so am I. I quickly take inventory on the severity of my hangover. Eyes open, massive stretch, I notice I am still wearing my shoes and sweatshirt. This could be bad. I stand up and shake the cobwebs out of my head, and much to my satisfaction despite having fallen asleep without disrobing I’m not too hung over. A little cloudy, yes, but such is to be expected.

Breakfast time! Sitting at the bar, I get a text from Robyn saying something to the effect of ‘have a bloody mary for me’. Not being one to want to disappoint, I happily obliged, taking video to immortalize the moment:

Bottoms up!

11:00am.

Miller time. Or whatever shwaggy beer they give you in those huge ass beer mugs. It doesn’t really matter, I’m not here to discover the next great American ale, I’m here to clear my mind and cloud it up again. Swing my cognitive pendulum from one extreme to the other, taking notes along the way and basking in the experience. Isn’t that what life is, anyway? A series of experiences? Stay on track, Camp. This is no time for existentialism. Let’s go find something REAL.

Real. Like a dude on the street playing a one-stringed guitar with fake million dollar bills taped to it, breaking off tapping riffs with a grin as wide as the nearby missisippi, and just as brown.

One Stringing it

“Who dat!” It’s how you say hello and goodbye down there these days. Like a Cajun ‘Aloha’. To me the phrase has become more than just a war-cry of Saints fans, it’s an expression that has, cheesily speaking, united the citizens of the city under a common idea. “Who dat saying they gonna beat them Saints”. Who dat saying New Orleans is down and out. I started to think that the phrase meant more to the locals than just "the sports team from our area is superior to the sports team from your area", and more of an idea for the inhabitants to rally around.

Finally, I meet my brother in the Casino (how did I wind up THERE again?) and we throw away a little money on the tables. By this time I’d been bumping around the city by myself for around 8 hours, so I was feeling slightly non-sober, and definitely not drunk. I was threading the needle in between ‘I could use a beer’ and ‘I could use some water and bread’. Sitting in the inebriation pocket, if you will.

Let me stop here and say, for the record, I like to drink beer, wine and bloody marys. I tend to keep it in moderation on ‘school nights’, and on the weekends I’ll let loose a little bit. This was a 5 day weekend, so much of my day to day operations involved alcohol. It might sounds like I need to be in some sort of rehabilitation program due to the frequency of my drinking references, but hell, it’s super bowl weekend and I’m in the Quarter. Bottoms up, I say!

My brother Zack and I headed out to what will soon become a legendary residence in New Orleans, 922 Dumaine Street. You see, Zack wrote a book called ‘The Blue Stoop’ which he started when he lived in New Orleans for 2+ years. The stoop was actually the front entrance to the street-facing residence of the complex he lived in. Every time we go to New Orleans we make it a point to visit the stoop and revel in its glory. It’s not very blue anymore, but to its credit, it IS still a stoop. Careful on this video, kids, there is adult language so turn it down so your mom doesn’t hear.

Blue Stoop

2.7.10 – 7:30 AM CST

Fast forward to Super Sunday. Saturday was awesome: we ate, drank, and frolicked in the Quarter. I don’t know if it was the excitement of what was to come, or if it was the shouting echoing off the buildings from the previous nights revelers, but Zack and I got up at the beer-crack of dawn and roamed around the Quarter. He was taking pictures of the city and jonesing for a Red Bull. I was in a daze, hoping to find an open bar for a bloody mary tune up. Unfortunately, even the French Quarter has its limits and all the watering holes were Cerrado. That means ‘not open’ for all you non Californians.

Allright kiddies, time for a brief volley of New Orleans knowledge. The groups of people who operate Mardi Gras floats and march in the parades are called Krewes. My dads was called “Krewe of Carrollton”, the 4^th oldest parading organization and one of the few that accept non residents of New Orleans to become members. Each morning before they ‘ride’, they all meet at the House of Blues for breakfast and bloody marys. After breakfast they take to the streets for an impromptu parade in the early morning hours. Zack and I decided to join them and toss beads at the newly awakened:

Waking up the quarter

Naptime, but not too long. How can one sleep when this is right outside your door? 2 hours till Super Bowl, and the town was busting at the seams:

2 hours until the Super Bowl - Bourbon Street
(click for vid)

I didn’t do much video taping during the game, save for this one snippet. This was right before Manning threw the interception that all but sealed the deal for a New Orleans championship. I still can’t believe they really did it. *chills*. As you can see in the video, we were all very relaxed and carefree. Yes, that’s my mom with a Deuce McAllister jersey on. Rad.

Tense Super Bowl viewership. Manning is about to throw the pick 6 like a chump.
(click for vid)

I turned the camera back on as soon as I knew what was going down. The runback:

CLINCHED
(click for vid)

And then…the moment it became official.

This is my favorite vid of the whole vacation.

A single shot straight from Peyton Manning walking off the field in shame, right to Bourbon Street. I got to Bourbon about 45 seconds after the end of the game. It’s 6 minutes long, but I really wanted to capture just how incessant the energy was. The party maintained these high RPMs for a couple hours before coming down a notch. A very, very small notch.

From TV to Bourbon Street
(click for vid)

I took a few videos of this nature, but they’re really all the same … people shouting, jumping up and down, going crazy.The feeling was electric and I am so fortunate to have had the opportunity to be there. Usually I’m not one to buy into ‘feel good’ stories, but this was truly a story to feel good about. 4 1/2 years ago the residents of New Orleans were taking shelter in the Superdome while their city and houses were being pillaged by hurricane Katrina. On Februray 7^th, 2010, the Saints brought the Vince Lombardi trophy home to that same Superdome, and I believe an entire city was finally able to move on. To anyone who ever says football is just a game, I know about 1.17 million people who would beg to differ.

Who dat!?!






Here are a couple videos that you might find interesting that I didn't include in the story:

-A girl playing a regular ol' saw with a violin bow. To me it sounds like a theremin...how'd she come up THAT?

Cajun Violin

-A sweet pink caddy with white leather interior. I'm not sure if I'd be parking that beauty on Bourbon st on a Friday night, but to each their own.

Pink Caddy