Darkend Paths - Louisiana

No Sleep till Royston
New Orleans, Louisiana - 26-28 April 2001
Submitted by the Dead Parrot

About a month after GothCon, Lilith and I made plans to visit Snow in New Orleans to discuss next year's plans, and so I could spin at one of Snow's club nights. Lilith told me that she used to do the drive down to New Orleans occasionally. It takes about 8 hours to do the whole thing. Lilith dropped me off at my office about 20 miles north of Atlanta at 7am Friday morning, then picked me up again at noon to depart.
We'd been to New Orleans before, but we got there by air. This would be my first time riding through the rural South. Between Atlanta and Montgomery wasn't too bad. At least there were services off of some of the exits. The road in Alabama between Montgomery and Mobile, on the other hand, is a 180-mile stretch of nothingness. It makes our neighborhood look [Franklin Co., GA] like Connecticut. Sure, once you get to Mobile, you think to yourself, "that wasn't so bad". But while you're in the middle of it, you can't WAIT to see something. Something other than a state trooper. Goddess bless those men in blue. Most of the traffic on this stretch of road is thru-traffic, and the Alabama state patrol had a field day ticketing people trying to get the hell out of there before their child asks, for the 458th time, "Are we there yet?" Lilith lost track of the number of times I asked her that very question.
The Gulf Coast highway between Mobile and New Orleans seems to be more bridge than roadway on solid ground. It has to be to traverse all that swampland. The economy of the Mississippi Gulf Coast is almost enitrely derived from casinos and bridge construction. Maybe they could help the Louisiana Highway Dept with some maintenance. I-10 east of NOLA is one of the roughest roads I've ever ridden on. There are literally waves in the road about 30 feet long and several inches high, and you get bounced around alot. All you'd need to do then is flood the trunk and throw in a load of laundry.
I don't know too many goths who haven't been to New Orleans, or haven't talked endlessly about going there someday. But I'll give you my take on the Big Easy. Nobody has cleaned up there since Thomas Jefferson bought the land. Its the only city in America where dilapidation looks quaint. And where else besides New Hampshire can you get a frozen daiquiri at a drive-up window? Anyways, we found Snow's house, as per their directions, but we didn't know WHICH house their's was. Lilith got out her cell phone, called Snow from right outside her front door, and asked which house was hers. In retrospect, this was probably a better idea than what I had suggested: shouting Snow's name until someone answered.
Lilith, myself, Snow and Tommy [DJ Vulture] all went to the bar downtown where Snow runs an 80s club night. Lilith and I were dead tired from the drive and wanted to go to bed. Snow gave us her house key to get inside. We got back to the house to discover that they key they gave us did not actually work on the door as advertised. We had no other place to go, so we got in the car, reclined the seats, and drifted off into a back-twisting sleep. Snow and Tommy returned at about 4am. I made her show us how the key actually worked. Well, if we had known that, we could have just done that, gotten inside and, just as we would have drifted off to sleep, been arrested for what would appear to be breaking and entering.
The next night was the night I DJed at Mausoleum. Finding a place to park in the Quarter is never an easy thing to do. Snow insisted that we could find a spot, but after 15 minutes, it dawned on us that the reason we were still driving around in circles is because I was still in the car. I seem to carry with me an incredibly unlucky streak when it comes to parking spots and red lights. Snow dropped Lilith and I off at the front door, and apparently found parking less than 5 minutes later.
The club night went very well. I got a chance to play a bit of industrial in with the goth I usually play, and had a great time DJing. Thank you, Snow for the opportunity to spin at your club night.
We left Sunday mid-morning. We would have stuck around for breakfast, but Snow and Tommy were still dead tired, and we needed to start our drive home. I-10 isn't nearly as rough headed towards Mississippi as it is in the other direction. Lilith's friend, Louise, lives in Mobile, so we stopped to visit with her for a few hours. We left there, and began the long stretch of nothingness in southern Alabama. We didn't see nearly as many state troopers, but we were getting quite hungry. The only worthwhile place to stop along the way is a small town called Greenville about 40 miles south of Montgomery. We ate dinner at a Ruby Tuesday's in Greenville, then drove straight through to home. Have I mentioned anywhere in this lengthy story that we took Lilith's car? Lilith drives a stick-shift. And since no one has taken the time to teach me how to drive one, she did all of the driving. For her, the trip was now about getting home before falling asleep at the wheel. I tried entertaining her with my singing, but she threatened to jump out of the car if I continued. We got home late, but stayed up long enough to go online and see who won the wrestling PPV.
I wish I had funnier stories to tell from this road trip. But then again, that might have meant that something unfortunate happened to us in the middle of rural Alabama.