NOLA journal entry 3 - 2/24/22 or "cost-conscious cannibal"

Journaling as I go today. Currently in the car with Lorn sipping pecan iced latte with caramel from PJ’s. I got what Em got! Em is on their way to get their hair bleached and cut and they will meet back up with us later here in downtown! Downtown has more of a city feel, riding into it on the bridge feels like coming into Baltimore–the Royal Farms arena replaced by the Superdome. Before leaving the Garden District I found Sno-LA, which is walking distance and in the direction of Cooter Brown. Sno-LA is the home of the cheesecake filled snowball, I’ll be hitting them up soon so that’ll be another thing I get to scratch off my to-do list. Speaking of to-do lists, today has been a major day so far for scratching shit off. Firstly me and Lorn went to the Cafe Du Monde at the location I dreamed of visiting on Decatur Street. We tried, at my request, to do the “sit at a dirty table” scheme in order to skip the line–a trick I learned from Youtube. So we sat at a table with a rag and spray-bottle on it and surely enough an employee came by to clean the table but as I attempted to place my order with her she pointed us to the line. There were two–one to be seated and another to place to go orders. The latter line was significantly shorter but the other line moved surprisingly quick. There were quite a few people there but not an uncomfortable amount and there were quite a few empty tables. Lorn and I took selfies as we moved forward in line and at the window we were quickly served–I got the beignets (my first ever)--Lorn so graciously paid and they got the frozen cafe au lait. At my request we sat on a bench facing the Mississippi and enjoyed our goodies. Beignets are basically pastry-shaped funnel cakes. Crispy outsides and soft insides. There was a fourth beignet–langniappe (a lil something extra) which I held in my teeth as I poured the deposit of powdered sugar left in the corner of the bag in my mouth. It wasnt as messy as I thought it’d be, which was nice. I did however after eating need to ask Lorn if I looked like a crackhead, luckily I did not. We went to the French Market, an above ground terminal if you will unbound to an trainstation where several shops and artists and restaurants sold their stuffs apparently you can bargain/hassle with them but I made no attempt. Funnily enough w/o my asking, the Pakistani man who I bought a turtle figure from–for my mom–immediately knocked the price of it down from $35 to $20. Im sure $20 was probably his intended selling price–which was good because a dub I could manage, $35 I wouldnt have done. Mom was on facetime with me as I bought it and her face at hearing him say $20 was delightfully funn. I assured her it was nothing. I asked the man if he’d made them and he said no, his family back in Pakistan made and sent them. I dont know how true that was. In addition I found gumbo mix and jambalaya mix at N’awlins Cafe & SPice Emporium which was dope because my mom had been asking me to bring some back and I was nervous that I wouldnt know where to find any. But sure enough, upon seeing a shit ton of spices and entering th elittle nook to investigate I pretty immediately found both mixes and bought them for a total of $9 from the beautiful woman working the cash register. I placed $2 in the tip jar and told her she was beautiful. I got this neat little bag with a cool gator logo on it in bright red and rich green. A beautiful bag. Speaking of bags I kept my Cafe Du Monde beignet bag. I may tape it in here actually. Another noteworthy thing was that I got to tip a street musician–which was on my list of things to do! He was a saxophonist who wore a loincloth. The next thing I got to do which was a major thing was visit the Museum of Death. It was $19 and more than worth it. I saw Aileen Wournos’ dirtied prison panties and bra, JFK’s dead open eyed, open mouthed face, Sharon Tate’s bloody, pregnant body, a victim of Jeffrey Dahmer who’s corpse had its chest stripped down revealing a full ribcage. Did a lot of reading and one of the most amusing things I read was that a cannibal cannibalized in order “to save money on food” Another interesting thing was that in India they did execution s using elephants. Elephants, being smart, easy to train, and apparently sadistic in nature would be instructed to step on the poor fellow’s head to pulverization. Most importantly I got to scratch off seeing Napoleon’s death mask. It was amongst the last things I saw. I’d been questioning whether I had it right that his deathmask had been there. I learned about it from BeyondBourbonStreet which I proudly told the friendly ticket man at the front when he asked how I learned about the Museum of Death. I had wanted to buy merch–specifically the tote bag with some killer on it. But I didnt, instead I bought a gift for sweet Lorn from a neat jewelry store we went to. They’d be admiring a few rings so I got them one of their choice. Felt nice to get them something, they’re so deserving of good things. I lowkey wish I’d gotten them the skull earrings instead for I feel these wouldve been a more memorable gift. There were so many cool skull earrings, I really shouldve gotten one. They were honestly well worth the $38-$45. | Im now finishing this two days later as I sit @ Cooter Brown’s waiting for my hot sausage po’ boy and french toast bites. Ive got a headache. I dont know how it could be a hunger headache as I ate a huge burrito (black and gold burrito) from Mr. Tequila. I dont think its a hunger headache.. I havent had a headache in so long Im worried. Dont know why im so concerned about it. Its not even particularly painful. Anyways the night of th 24th was literally life-changing. We–me, Em, Em’s boyfriend Damani, Lorn, and Lorn’s boyfriend Justin went to a bar/venue called Carnaval to see their friend 3-Brained Robot, or Sam. Initially I was sleepy and wanted to leave–the loaded birria nachos gave me the itis–a term which me and Damani had to explain to Em and Lorn. The first act was a bald man in a ring leader uniform adorned with shoulder balloons and no pants. He was marvelous and charismatic. He played original tunes on his ukelele and some covers too, Fantasy by Mariah Carey and my favorite, Circus by Britney Spears. Delighted at having been a part of crowd participation, I hollered “Circus!” at the end of every line of the hook. Oh let me make a quick rewind–I was wearing devil horns given to me by Lorn and as I re-entered Carnaval the ringleader, whose name is Stanley Roy had been singing an original tune apparently about the devil. He pointed me out and gave me a shot out hehe. He introduced and vj’d for the next act, Flutterbug and Scribbles who put on a marionette strip club show–there was a pole and everything–which they lubed up in the beginning. To two tracks by the Weeknd and that one song by NIN that has the lyrics “I want to fuck you like an animal” extremely creepy and pointy hand-crafted marionette dolls danced and jerked and twisted and bounced and occasionally got tangled up into one another. It was great. There was even a tip-jar. Indeed, people had gone up to the stage and made it rain ones. I wouldve too but I didn’t want the marionette to give me special treatment, ie giving me a lapdance. This however still ended up happening–it was a tad unsettling being caressed by literal sticks, but then, it was okay. Next up was the act we came for, 3 Brained Robot–a puppet artist who also performed cool, quirky lil songs between his skits, quirky lil bops such as “Boo Hoo, That’s You” to which he danced like the son of fitness instructor Richard Simmons. 3BR has great hair btw. Long, brown, curly. He wore a long yellow tee shirt with pink brains painted all over it. Im sure he’d probably been wearing shorts under it, although it wouldnt have been so unusual, considering everything, if he hadnt been wearing anything at all. The highlight for me of his performance was his Bart Simpson skit where a makeshift, hand-crafted Bart-head was affixed to a yellow cabbage patch kid doll. In the skit Bart prank called Moe’s asking for Mr. Butts, to his surprise there was an actual Mr. Butts there,  he hopped on the phone (at which point Sam, 3BR, placed a butt-faced, fedora’d sign  over his face–he’d do this each time Mr. Butts had a dialogue bit. What I loved was that Samhad to act in synch with the audio being played over the speakers–ingenious as he didn’t have to bother with a mic and with having to memorize all the lines. Having pre-recorded audio was also genius because it was very audible and clear and streaminlined, had Sam been on the mic there may have been the usual difficulties–mic issues, low speaking, forgotten lyrics. So Mr. Butts told Bart, over some extremely ominous music that on some specific day in the future on what would be an ordinary day for most people, he’d succumb to a heart attack and die. There was a suspenseful pause–the fear I had for Bart was palpable–then Mr. Butts chuckled, “Im just talkin out my ass” He’d go on to make a long fart noise in order to “lighten the mood” It was the most brilliant thing I’d ever seen. The night honestly changed my life and showed me things I could bring to my art and performances that I’d neber imagined. I made sure not to hold these flowers back, I showered Sam in them, gave him a hug, and told him that his performance changed my life. He’ll be performing both in DC and Baltimore soon and he invited me to be in his DC show! I’ll need to work on my stage act and incorporate not only my new songs but some cool performance art stuff.