Don’t let the Famous Door hit you on your way out
Wednesday, June 25th, 2008Sorry about the incredibly slow updates, there’s a lot going on on my end.
I’m not much of a drinker, really. I got blackout-drunk once when I was eighteen and barely touched another drop of liquor for ten years after that. Alcoholism runs in my family, but I guess it skips a generation now and then, because I don’t even like the taste of booze, nor do I feel compelled to drink. After my underage over-indulgence, I didn’t get drunk again until my friend (the same one who is on this trip with me) bought a bar in Cleveland. My friend is no more a drinker than I am, but you can’t visit a friend who owns a bar and not get drunk, I’m pretty sure that’s a law. So, we had a great time being drunk and stupid in Cleveland and had high hopes for New Orleans.
New Orleans did not disappoint.
Being the only one us who had ever actually been to New Orleans, I showed my friend around the parts I knew, and we picked up a couple of drinks along the way, including some cherries that were soaked in something that was not Everclear and some of the famous New Orleans Hurricanes. We had a nice buzz going, but we were looking for serious drunken stupidity, so we wandered in and out of a few bars. Although it was only a Thursday, there were live bands in several of the bars lining Bourbon Street, and we wandered into one where the band was playing some eighties rock covers.
Sidling up to the bar, we ordered a couple of shots. The bar tenderette eyed me up for a few seconds, then walked off to pour my shot, which she put into a glass tube, followed by putting the tube between her breasts and encouraging me to pull it out with my teeth. Talk about service! We knew where we’d be drinking for the rest of that night.
Oh, boy, did we drink. I bought shots, my friend bought shots, we bought each other shots, we bought the bar tender shots. It got to the point where the bartender was feeding me two shots at a time, and at some point she started feeding us Grand Marnier, which means i was already drunk, because I don’t like that orange flavored alcohol. I’m pretty sure the bartender was only marginally more sober than we were, because she spent most of her time drinking with us and eventually she didn’t even seem to be charging us for drinks. The drink girl working the floor stopped by once or twice and, using the shrewd tactic of taking my money and giving me extra alcohol instead of change, managed to get me to drink six or eight shots in addition to what we were getting at the bar.
The music pounded, the people danced, and we drank. The bar tender found increasingly creative ways to feed us increasingly large amounts of increasingly powerful liquor, and we tried to drink enough water to keep from dying of dehydration right there at the bar. Thank God for the air conditioner in the doorway, because that alcohol had my body temperature up to about 338 degrees (Kelvin).
Seriously, we drank a LOT. All I can say for sure is that we stood right at the end of that bar for hours and there was never a lull in the alcohol consumption. I am pretty sure our intake that night would be measured in bottles. We both drank a lot, but my buddy made several trips to the bathroom, whereas I spent that valuable time consuming more liquor. Also, I seemed to be getting a lot of extra attention from our bartender. This is kind of odd, since I am a fatass and my buddy is a gym rat, but what can I say, I’m charming. Or else fat guys are easy marks, whatever. The upshot is, I drank even more than my friend, and he drank a lot. We closed down the Famous Door, which is now my favorite bar on Bourbon street and my favorite tourist trap in the whole city, drunk as can be, and staggered next door to a place whose name eludes me. There, we got some greasy breaded food to soak up some of the alcohol (good luck with that) and some more alcohol to replace what was being soaked up by the greasy food. A delicate balance was maintained.
Although this second place (directly across the alley from Famous Door, if that helps) was more subdued and we didn’t party quite as hardy, we did have some interesting experiences there, as well. Most notably, as woman who was sitting at the bar with her dog invited me to a backyard crab boil at her house (I told you I was charming.) I absolutely would have gone, but my friend, my other friend (more on this later), and my girlfriend (or did she become my wife? more on this later) were uncomfortable about showing up at a stranger’s house. My feeling is, people who aren’t comfortable having strangers at their houses don’t hand out crab boil invitations to strangers in bars. Along with a verbal invite, she actually gave me a printed paper invitation and the fact that we didn’t go is my only regret about the whole trip.
I also met a guy named Michael (I think) from Holland (I think) with whom I had a lengthy and interesting conversation about America, world politics, Michael (I think)’s job as a diver in his country’s navy, and how there really aren’t any more fat people in the USA than there are in his homeland. I really had a good time shooting the breeze with that guy, and I wish I had gotten his contact information. Hell, maybe I did, I was wickedly drunk.
Some people rolled into the place (across the alley from Famous Door, remember?) and, being the friendly types we are, we raised a few glasses with them. Eventually, it was time to head back to the hotel. At this point, it’s post-5:00AM and we’ve been drinking since the evening before. My buddy seems to have shaken most of it off (he thinks he drank nearly as much as me, but he didn’t, period - I am sure I outpaced him by low double digits) but I was still outrageously drunk. Just as we left to head back to the car, the skies opened up in a monster downpour. The streets flooded in minutes and the rain showed no signs of slacking, so we hoofed it back to the car (parked on Canal street) in puddles that sometimes reached almost to my knees, and I’m a solid 6′5″ in shoes. On our way to the car, my cell phone rang and on the other end was a friend of mine from Las Vegas, a fellow professional poker player who had actually lived with me and my girlfriend for a while. My girlfriend (or is she my wife, now? the suspense must be killing you) doesn’t know it, but I’d invited this friend to meet us in New Orleans, and he’d arrived just as my buddy and I were leaving Bourbon street.
We stumbled into the lobby, collected my other friend, and headed up to bed, with no marriage license and only a few hours until my girlfriend arrives.
I think I’ll leave you all hanging, again. Tune in next time for the shocking conclusion (or not) of this exciting (or not) story.
