The next day was the Zulu parade. The Zulu parade is an amazing parade, but it runs through some pretty income challenged areas of New Orleans. We parked on the outskirts of a sketchy neighborhood and began our mile or so walk to the parade route. I remember lots of people along the walk on the stoops of their shotgun dwellings dressed in huge native head dresses and other amazing ceremonial costumes. That was the cool part, the uncool part happened next.
As we are walking down the sidewalk we notice in the distance someone lying in the middle of the sidewalk. He was white and he was definitely passed out in the wrong hood… He was not wearing a shirt or shoes. As we neared the poor soul who had ingested entirely too much alcohol I noticed two black dudes making their way toward him. They started yelling at him “get the fuck up, you don’t belong here motherfucker”. We just calmly walk past them, no problem right… No cause I’m stupid. I am the one with the camera hanging around my neck so of course I turn around to see if it has escalated. Of course, it escalated. Each of the black dudes had one of Mr. shit faced legs and were dragging him down the sidewalk. As I said before I am rather intelligence challenged so I shot a couple of pics of Sir plastered shirtless bare back being ground into hamburger with the two lovely human beings dragging him. I made eye contact with one of them and at that moment I was pretty sure I was going to have to buy a new camera shortly, because the one I was holding was going to smash in someone’s skull to defend myself when they come at me.
Eye contact lasted several distressing seconds, then thanks to whatever guardians I possess the two left the man alone and walked away and my camera remained intact. The remainder of the walk to the Zulu parade commenced without further incident. The parade itself was spectacular with the most amazing music and dancing imagined.
We left the Zulu parade and headed back to the CAN house where the party never seemed to stop. More alcohol fueled merry making continued with two tabs of LSD at around 8 pm, to be honest with you the rest of the night was kind of a blur, I have flashes of memory but nothing concrete except for the field trip to Bourbon St. Bourbon St. was packed, wall to wall people. Smelling of cigarettes and vomit, it really didn’t appeal to me in my heightened state of awareness. I couldn’t even find the energy to go into any bar as the packed crowds, the noise and the smells just made me want to run far far away. I sat on a curb on the corner of Bourbon and Orleans and watched people for an hour or two. The remainder of the night was spent back at the party at the CAN house. Sleep was hopeless, so I didn’t even attempt it.
The birds started chirping around 5 or 6 am and the party was winding down for the day time rest period. Around 7 am Peter comes in and says, “hey man you want to head out to St. Louis Cemetery or Metairie and have a look around.” Sure, I said, and we gathered the girls, and my camera and piled into the Celica for the field trip. I walked around the back of the car and placed my ruck sack in the trunk and glanced at the bumper sticker on the back of the car. The bumper sticker simply stated, “mean people suck” Little did I know this phrase would play a role in my future.
We drove away from the house and I was still kind of high from the LSD and not quite as acutely aware as I would like. Driving was kind of like a dream till the moment we were on St Charles ave and I decided that for some reason it would be ok for me to make a left turn into the medium between lanes on a red light. Not entirely sure why I thought that was OK. The police behind me had other ideas about that.
The cherries came on behind me and a little shit ran down my leg… Just stay cool man, I thought. I have an innate ability to stay cool and everything probably would have been ok if I hadn’t had a bag of weed sticking out of my front shirt pocket. I honestly had no idea it was even there. The officer looks in the window and says, “sir could you please step out of the car” “Um yes sir”? I get out of the car and he immediately reached into my front shirt pocket and grabs the baggie of cannabis and proceeds to ask, “what is this”. “I believe you know what that is sir” “Please turn around and place your hands behind your back” Next thing I know the nice officer is kindly holding my head as he stuffs me in the back of the cruiser, God knows they don’t want me to hit my head on the roof as I find my way into his nice patrol car. Next thing I know I am on my way to my free tour of the New Orleans municipal jail.
Evidently the officers were unsure if they should take me to jail or not, so they made a stop at a local cop bar to ask their commanding officer what he thought they should do. I was wondering if maybe they were going to find a cozy alley and beat my ass and leave me there. Might have been preferable to the grand tour of the Jail. The commanding officer said to just take me in. We drove away from the po po watering hole and not far down the road the officer turned to me and asked if I thought he was mean, to which I replied, “no I think you fucking suck”. A block later we came upon a stop light, the officer driving slows and just runs right through the light. I screamed “are you fucking serious right now!!! Is that not what you just pulled me over for you hypocritical steaming piece of yak dung!” We got to the jail and I was processed, you know the drill, picture, fingerprints, the whole shooting match.
To be continued:
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