Defiant After All These Years

I suppose it was the sight of Eric Burdon sauntering into my roost-away-from-home this morning - his plump, lined face betraying a kind of quizzical pout - that brought it all home: It's been years-mocking-ages, since rock 'n' roll and the people who make it were part of my everyday experience, or even mattered much.

Yet, here was Burdon, still somewhat defiant after all these years - light-years from his heady days with the Animals and War, but determined, nonetheless, to keep making his music, his way. And no one's ever questioned his integrity or his taste - the session, with German music producer, Thomas Roof, features the likes of legendary bassist, George Porter, an electrifying presence in his own right.

Not that his appearance here at this eclectic little bed 'n' breakfast that many people simply call "The Dive" was all that surprising. Burdon's been here several times, always up to late-night splashes in the swimming pool with his host, Buddha Bubba, and the usual cast of groupies. Each time he comes, you half expect "The House of the Rising Sun" to break through the crust of the sodden ash heap of myth and history, calling forth all bad girls and badder boys to the altar of wine-soaked skin games and damn the brain cells forevermore.

Burdon, as welcome as his visits always are, was really just a catalyst this fine, muggy morning. What I'm really after are the memories and the el loco-motives that drive this town to its distinctive, mind-numbing brand of distraction. I mean, just a few days ago, a New Orleans-bred U.S. Attorney finally nailed the guy who'd slipped the Federales so many times before. He's about to put the state's most popular - and, not so ironically, also its most fiercely reviled - ex-Governor in jail for what might be the rest of his life after playing funny money with Louisiana's casino licenses. Four-time Governor Edwards, known to many as The Silver Fox - perhaps as much for his cunning, predatory sexual habits as for his silver-tongued ability to talk his way out of two previous racketeering trials - could not have attracted a more unlikely adversary: an African-American prosecutor in a state where he had been legendary for locking up the black vote.

But as depressing as his crimes may have been, I can't help but remember the times he so skillfully played to my curiosity about the corridors of power. When I was a young reporter for an alternative newsweekly in New Orleans, the Governor readily agreed to an interview request. Like some other charismatic politicians I've known, he made me feel as if my questions were the most probing and insightful he'd ever been asked. Another time, he invited me to fly with his entourage on a trip to north Louisiana. Once we'd landed, he took pains to introduce me to his friends and, later, checked to make sure I had a place to stay for the night. Later, amused when a friend and I performed a parody of the Blues Brothers, he invited us to Governor's mansion for a photo session. I still remember the sardonic look on his face as I raised the obligatory rabbit ears behind his head before the photo was snapped: "What the hell," he shrugged, "looks like a Martian victory sign to me."

While the Governor was not a constant presence in my N'Awlins, his spirit constantly hovered nearby: The rumors of orgies at the Monteleone Hotel; the titters of groupies who told of quickies in the back seat of his limo; his raucous meetings with an wildly diverse cast of boxing promoters, bankers, oil barons, real estate moguls, cattlemen, Korean rice dealers, and not-infrequent love/hate exchanges with New Orleans' insular power brokers.

The Governor lived, by many accounts, a surreal life, not so much bigger than life as bawdier and more brazen than the tawdriest imitations of life. And that's New Orleans, a New Orleans that makes a kind of tragi-comic sense. But it is no more the essence of the city than the decent, working-class neighborhoods so full of color and everyday heroism.

There's the New Orleans of Henry - no last name necessary - the jolly, full-of-himself St. Charles Avenue Streetcar conductor who gruffly announces the passing streets like a mirthful militant: "Comin' up on Napoleon," he says above the roar of the rails. "Watch it now! Josephine's not far away!" Or mock-threatening cars and trucks that dare to cross his path: "Oh, yeah," he yells in full growly throttle, oblivious to his slack-jawed on-lookers, "I see you there, Mr. Bell South telephone truck man! You better get out de way 'fore I slice you up like a can opener!"

That, and the rocking, bell-ringing music of the streetcar itself are the concertos of the streets, just as surely as the Neville Brothers raised themselves a musical dynasty from the Calliope housing project. Just as surely as legendary composer Allen Toussaint coined the term "Chicken-cacklin' horns" for any number of arrangements of his songs and recording sessions at Sea-Saint Studios. Just as surely as Professor Longhair reigns supreme in the eternal Mardi Gras of the soul.

New Orleans is, indeed, The Big Easy, The Big Tomato, The Big-gest Myth-story of all. On Decatur Street, the smell assaults you: two centuries of sea men's sweat, tears, essential body fluids, beer, blood, and the aftermath of cheap second-hand perfume lingering from brief clinches with Bourbon Street whores too long in the harsh realm to know or care where their last bit of hope went.

Bourbon Street pummels you with the sound and boozy fury of tourists and barkers, tap dancers and charlatans; by turns, contemptuous and awe-stricken, amused and bedazzled, ready for anything, and scared witless at the oncoming blur of lights, come-ons, rip-offs, street hustles, distorted music — wrapped, by night's end, in a muggy blanket of stars or beggar's rags. Doesn't matter. Everyone always — always — gets what they deserve.

Ah, N'Awlins, I hear ya. Muffling a chuckle at some self-important East European poet spouting carefully accented, obscure literary references while glossy-haired Uptown debutantes swoon at every syllable. Giggling at the gutter punks, clad in enough high-grade leather to clothe an upscale Midwest biker club, yet presumably so poor they beg spare change from nervous tourists or ground-score discarded Hurricane's from Pat O's. Sighing at the languid pace of the native dandy, resplendent in seer-sucker suit, weaving in and out of the Royal Street gawker traffic as his reflections wavers across the glass of Keil's Antiques, both projecting attitude so pure and self-assured you wouldn't dare call it arrogance.

N'Awlins, I smell ya. Rank, disquieting, stale one moment; aromatic, rich and bold the next. Coffee and chicory, olive oil, Magnolia blossom-wonderful; rotting fish, watermelon rinds, discarded and broken-syringe-repulsive. Gumbo and crawfish etoufee; festering wounds and festive decay.

N'Awlins, I remember you, my red-haired daughter conceived here, her mother plump and ripe and sexy, freckles radiant with expectation. Armand St. Martin, locking eyes with an approving anti-nuke audience, wailing soulfully about "lives that feel their worth." Ron Cuccia, fronting a band elevated to immortality by Lil' Queenie and Charles Neville, riffing about "empty wine bottles" exploding in the streets. Big Luther Kent, one wild and woolly night at the late lamented Old Absinthe, jamming with Rickie Lee Jones 'til 4 a.m., as sinners and music-makers alike drank in the hazy moonlight and the liquid hum of spirits in transition.

It all comes back, as Eric Burdon looks over my shoulder, nodding sagely - or dazedly; doesn't matter - and Buddha Bubba guffaws as Willie Confucius (the blue-collar Zen master of recent renown and questionable repute) punches the remote and stares, transfixed by the oscillating waves from the blue-screen box of memories, rumblings of Jazz Fest just past, and Nine Inch Nails, and Cowboy Mouth, and Continental Drifters and Lenny Kravitz to come.

Latching on to another brassed-off memory, lost in the sun-dappled ghostlies washed up on the shores of Lake Ponchartrain, the entourage heads to Fat Harry's for some red beans and ricely sustenance, maybe to watch the New Orleans baseball Zephyrs and plot the spaces on the N'Awlins treasure map when next they meet.

Until then, wake me up up when Armaggedon's got da crawfish in de boil and Brain Dead Bubba puts da moves on Hip Hop Heddy.