I left the house at O-Dark Thirty this morning and headed to New Orleans. It's only a three hour drive, I didn't have to be there until noon but, I didn't know exactly where I was going. I did have directions but I know how helpful those can be in Mid City.
I once drove in circles 'til I got dizzy trying to make sense of the relationship between Canal St and Carrolton...and I had a flippin map and a compass. It can be a nightmare down there. Streets change names when they cross boulevards and avenues. Worse still, these roads often determine the directional designation of a street. In other words, whether a street is called north or south has nothing to do with the direction that it travels but whether it is north or south of certain roads. You can be driving on South Crazy St heading west...or maybe even north.
The place is a giant crescent, Crescent City, but the streets aren't laid out like a spider web...that would be too deliberate and regular. The maps look like The Boy's attempts at drawing a cat..and street signs are put up with a nonchalance that only New Orleans could achieve.
So, I had no expectation that the directions would get me exactly where I was going but they'd get me close enough to be guided in by phone. Between an early start and my approximate directions I was in good shape...or so I thought as I smoked a cigarette, drank coffee, outside of a gas station in Hattiesburg. Then the phone buzzed in my pocket.
"Hey Sugar."
"Uhm...I've got a set of directions here. Did you need those?"
"Awwwwww CRAP! Let me get something to write on."
I tried to tell myself it was no big deal. Martha had the directions...just write Em down...no problem but, I knew I was in trouble.
"Just start at Canal," gee great, "I know Canal's in there right?"
I was trying to keep the details to a minimum...genius.
"Yep you get off the Interstate at Canal and turn right...then you make a right turn on Harrison...Oh my.," oh no, "it looks like you'll have to drive about thirty miles to get to Harrison."
WHAT THE...assuming my vague, spinning, mental picture of the area was correct...that'd put me in the middle of Lake Ponchatrain!
"No..no. Wait. Harrison is right there off the exit...right on Canal, right on Harrison and then right Vicksburg."
"Ok then...right on Canal, right on Harrison, right on Vicksburg. Got it. Thanks Sugar."
At that I was still pretty confident I'd get where I was going. I had hours to get there and a general direction of where I needed to be. In New Orleans, sometimes, that's all you can hope for. I stubbed out the smoke, climbed in the truck and me and Elvis headed south on 49...
to be continued
Sounds like a real human place to live, instead of those sterile grids with numbers you see on TV, glad to hear those exist over there. I reckon you'd get lost on a straight road between two places, with a map and full set of instructions :-P
ReplyDeleteI don't think there's a more human place in the West than New Orleans. It is completely insane.
ReplyDeleteYou are one funny man e.f. - crazy human I would say...
ReplyDeleteO-Dark Thirty! And immediately I know exactly what you mean. I have spent the last 4 years travelling at just that time. Sucking on a smoke - measuring journeys in cigarettes.
Got myself a car with satnav. But have never trusted the thing. As a result I have managed to lose myself in small towns of 10000 people or fewer... taking roundabouts three times before exiting on the wrong turn... looking forward to the next installment...
Also known round here as; O'stupid hundred hours, I am of the variety of the species that considers this to be anything before 9am, but then again, that is still O-dark thirty, but then again I know you are a bed-wetter at heart dude, and probably mean some ungodly hour that I would consider to actually be a 'late' hour of the previous day :P
ReplyDeletehaha - I am with you Adam. Anything before 9am is defo a late hour of the day before!
ReplyDeleteThanks Muj...we have two stated missions here. One, is to be hilarious but, the other and primary mission is to wind up Adam...who is obviously feeling very chippy after his break from the blog.
ReplyDeleteHe's actually making a clever reference to one of my brilliant wind ups and to this...
http://flimsycups.blogspot.com/2011/05/colonizing-egypt-in-hattiesburg.html
Which is something that I actually had in mind while typing...and something that we're coming back to.
I read about one of your road trips. It was disturbingly familiar.
You've gotta have some love for the King; yes, the latter days were a glittering, amphetamine-stoked, burger-turd served up on a silver platter, but the haters forget the pre-wing-lapel-ed,kung-fu,Vegas jump-suit days - halcyon they were.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of fecal matter: poo - Vanders lost; double poo - my primary hard drive died, fortunately I had the foresight to install a back-up hard drive. Took me a while to learn that lesson. Now I'm running a 64bit Linux distro that is just sweet.
The mention of Elvis sparked a distant memory from my teens (80s), when I vaguely recall a weird US TV comedy that had a through-running Elvis theme and opening titles tune. Thanks to the power of Goggle, I believe I have identified it:
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/PDrwOOBK_WY
Elvis was stone cold...that's all.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing to think that in 40 or 50 miles between Tupelo and West Point/Columbia Howlin Wolf, Tennessee Williams and Elvis Presely were all born and raised.
I think you know more about U.S. television than I do. I have absolutely no memory of the show.
Should be West Point/Columbus...not Columbia.
ReplyDelete