Travels with Brendo - New Orleans
The summer is coming and a young boy’s loins want to wander! And who am I to deny my loins? My loins run this city! And so it was time for some a-meanderin’, this time to sweaty steamy sexy New Orleans!
Long-time readers may remember my usual travel crew from past travelogs, including my road trip through Cleveland and Vegas as well as last year’s trip to St. Louis. Every year, me and four of my longest-tenured idiots get together for a long weekend of fun and original comedy bits that we then unsuccessfully try to explain later to our significant others. This year, we decided to check out all the hubbub about New Orleans. It was time to gooooo!
Day 1
Winslow and I are the sole Angelenos in the crew and happened to be on the same flight, so we headed out of LAX together. Like a chump, Winslow doesn’t have TSA precheck. So I breezed through security with smiles and congratulatory pats on the back while a lady yelled at him for standing in the wrong one of four separate nonsensical lines. I was halfway through a pre-flight burrito before he even joined me at the terminal. But as always, Winslow had the last laugh by upgrading to first class and being on and off the plane way quicker than me. I showed him how I felt about it…
I had never been to New Orleans before, so I was all about the recommendations. I don’t drink anymore, but I still eat like a toddler with a credit card so I wanted to make sure I got all the eating recommendations from my fellow fat guys. The first stop was the Napoleon House, a renowned spot for po’ boy sandwiches. I ordered up a catfish po boy and… wow! It was fucking mediocre! Just essentially a fried piece of fish on a dry bun with a tomato. I tasted my friend Jonny’s fried shrimp po’ boy and it was even worse! What was going on? What was my fat guy recommendation squad thinking?
Thinking it was a fluke, we headed to Bourbon Street to take in the local culture. If you haven’t visited, I would describe Bourbon Street as “Vegas without the nuance and sophistication.” Loud music, aggressive door men trying to lure you in to watch mediocre cover bands, strippers outside Larry Flynt clubs calling Madden a pussy for not coming in… if I were 22 and having my bachelorette party before I returned to the Midwest to marry my high school math teacher and pop out a couple of Kid Rock-loving progeny, I might find Bourbon Street to be kitschy fun. But as an adult with a shrinking tolerance for capitalism and human folly, it raised an immediate question:
Wait… does New Orleans suck?
We headed back to our Airbnb to lick our wounds and consider the mistake we may have made. As we wrapped up the day, we discovered that one among us (who shall remain nameless to protect his family) wipes his ass not from a lifted cheek side angle but through the legs under the balls. The rest of us were dumbfounded. We had never heard of such a wild wiping technique. We debated the merits of the proper wipe for the shank of the evening. Personally, I had never even considered this technique was possible. How many people are doing this? I will now ask this question of everyone I meet for the rest of my life. It is amazing - you can know someone for thirty-plus years and still be surprised at learning how he wipes his ass. Friendship!
Day 2
Determined to turn the trip around, we headed into the French Quarter for some classic New Orleans exploring. After five years in southern California, my body had forgotten about this thing called “humidity.” I soon realized that my underwear rations would be sorely lacking for the swamp ass to come. My balls felt like they were having their first televised debate with JFK. (Timely reference!) We decided to dive into full-on tourist traps and took a steamboat ride down the Mississippi. As we approached the Natchez steamer ship, it enticed tourists with a positively ear-splitting pipe organ!
Horrifying, huh? Despite Jonny’s yelling, the video still doesn’t capture the bowel rupturing volume. I asked the employee working at the ticket booth if the pipe organ played the whole trip to which he responded “No, thank God.” Once we disembarked, we actually had a nice afternoon cruising down the Ole Miss. (The Ollllllld Man.) Luckily, the pipe organ never returned and was replaced with a fun on-board jazz band. You were starting to turn things around, New Orleans!
Another ‘must eat’ from my Fat Guy Recommendation Squad (FGRS®) was the beignet. I wasn’t 100% sure what it was, but I knew I was excited about it. As it turns out, it’s just fried dough with powdered sugar just like you’d get at any state fair or carnival. It was… fine. I definitely am not complaining about putting a lot of sugar and carbs into my greedy belly. But worth a “must eat” recommendation? I don’t know.
We headed to another recommended seafood spot - Felix’s. And… it was also terrible! Mediocre seafood that you could get at any run-of-the-mill joint in Boston. Was I spoiled from my culinary New England upbringing? Or was New Orleans once again proving to be not that great? This was supposed to be a world-renowned eating town. What was going on here? Because so far, this city was coming in at a solid C- at best.
Despite being underwhelmed by New Orleans to this point, we made the best of it with bits. As we walked by the Barely Legal strip club, we came up with the opposite - a strip club for longer-of-tooth ladies on their last run in the cabaret business. It would be called Hospice. When we were done laughing at that top-notch idea, we followed another recommendation to get away from the super duper touristy part of New Orleans and headed to the simply super touristy Frenchmen Street where we got the whole “jazz band on the street“ experience that felt very cool and New Orleansy.
The trip is only halfway over and you know what? I think this is turning into a two-parter! Will your pal Brendo fall in love with New Orleans? Or will he, like the Jazz before him, fuck off to Utah in order to need permission from a stranger to have a drink? It’s a cliff hanger, bitches!
Boogie Writes is a completely independent endeavor by one hard-working funnyman trying to make his way in the world today (which takes everything you’ve got.) If you like what you read, please subscribe, support, and tell a friend! Also - do you need advice? Of course you do! Send your queries to brendan@brendanboogie.com with “Dear Boogie” in the subject and get some solid or at least passable advice!