D and I are going to New Orleans at the end of this week for a few days to wander and explore. While I’ve been there twice, on a pretty basic level it feels as if this will be the first. And in a way that’s true because both the other times I was working, which meant a gazillion distractions happening in my head rather than merely taking in my surroundings. I wonder once we start wandering if traces of my past visits will gather around me like cotton candy swirls onto a paper cone when it’s dipped into the rotating sugar vat? Memories sometimes seem like that to me: very wispy and not all that reliable. Often they look like they’ll be more solid, then once I take a bite they kind of melt.

The first time I was in New Orleans, I was working at SPIN and had gone for Jazz Fest, although absurdly, the piece I was working on wasn’t actually a music review of the festival but was rather a fashion piece (August 1992) where, although I interviewed some great blues legends (Clarence Fountain, Al Green, Allen Toussaint, Irma Thomas, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown) and was able to use their quotes, overall it was all in service of styling them up in brand names that would get the magazine advertising. Still&all, I was in The Big Easy and saw some great music, which I have very little memory of. This confuses me, this lack of concrete memory. Passing through my mind, the spotlight shines on watching the Reverend Al Green bringing a church to its feet in song and watching Clarence Fountain and the Blind Boys enter and exit the stage, one leading the other as the concert hall clapped and hallelujah’d. Those are actually my only concrete memories from the trip except that it was hoootttt. Where I stayed, what I ate? Bupkis. No clue.

A few years later, when I worked at Elektra, I went back to New Orleans when one of the label’s bands, the Afghan Whigs were playing a showcase of some sort. What I remember about that trip has mostly to do with the excess of testosterone in the music business in the nineties (er, still, no doubt): male record executives, alcohol, Bourbon Street strip clubs (for a tale on one of those moments, click the storytelling button below), and traveling cocktails. I was there with the Afghan Whigs manager, who’d become a close friend so she and I were able to carve out our own time among the boyzclub moments. My strongest memory of that trip (alongside the story below) was being in a thrift store where she found this great red, pulled-yarn sweater that I coveted (silently) while I found and bought an orange pleather mini skirt with snaps up the front that I wore for years and years and years while never fully understanding how to launder the thing (spot-cleaning).

Returning this time, I wonder as I always do when I go back to a place I’ve been in another chapter of my life, what senses I’ll be taking in the city with. It seems before that my alertness had to do with completing a job and being on guard against disaster. It honestly felt like everything was just one inch from the end of a cliff so while I’d teeter along with the rest, I always remember holding my proverbial breath and hoping I’d make it out intact. I’m sure there was some excitement in that. Perhaps that’s also why I don’t have sharp memories of the moments because I was so busy planning an escape route or packing up a parachute to drop me into emotional safety. Or maybe I was just too busy trying to keep up.

Currently, I’m happy to say I have no agenda for the trip. My fight-or-flight instinct doesn’t need activating. I’ll be visiting the city on my own terms with my favorite person and very little scheduled except reservations at some excellent-looking restaurants. I’m looking forward to it with all my heart. (No post next week. Wishing you all the very best entry into 2025 and look forward to seeing you all — either in real-time or blog-time — in the new year!!)

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