Author: gregh121

I am a writer and editor who lives in New Orleans.

Would I Lie To You

Wednesday.

I’ve not been sleeping well for the last two nights; I’ve woken up after sleeping for a couple of hours and then been kind of half-asleep the rest of the night. Relaxed, resting, but not fully asleep. I’m not sure why this sudden change, especially after getting an amazing night’s sleep Saturday night, but there you have it.

I started working on Bury Me in Satin last night again, in an attempt to get past the stress and tension of election night. I am very pleased this morning to see that Louisiana passed the initiative to require unanimous verdicts in criminal trials; finally, that hideous Jim Crow law is off our books. I wasn’t able to concentrate fully on the writing, though, and eventually took to watching reruns of Jeopardy on Netflix, which is a lot more binge-addicting than you might think. Before I knew it, Paul was home and I’d burned through about five episodes–but it’s nice to know I can have that on now in the background as I do chores or read or make writing notes.

Once Paul was home, we watched the final episode of Bodyguard, a BBC political/suspense thriller starring Richard Madden (aka Robb Stark from Game of Thrones). It’s quite good, very twisty, and incredibly nerve-wracking; I do highly recommend the show. Madden, who is also very pretty, has been mentioned lately as a contender for taking over James Bond. I’ve not really seen it, to be honest; he was good (if annoying) on Game of Thrones (not his fault; the character, really) and he was good in Medici Masters of Florence, but I just didn’t see him as Bond. After watching Bodyguard, I can actually see it; he would be a very good choice (if we can’t have Idris Elba).

Our office moved this week; today I am working out of the main office, and then it’s back to the new building tomorrow and possibly Friday. I am not sure; I may have to go to the main office to help them pack up on Friday, as the rest of our department is moving over to the new building next Monday. The new building, on Elysian Fields past Claiborne on the UNO side, is quite nice and lovely. Lots of unpacking and setting up remain to be done; we are going to be operational and seeing clients apparently next week. I do miss the client contact, quite frankly; it’ll be nice to start seeing clients and getting used to the new work space.

And I am hopeful work on the novel will continue to go smoothly. The second chapter is my bane, a transitional chapter, which means it will seem odious and take me forever to slog through writing it. But I am excited to be finally writing this book, having thought about it forever–it started as a short story called “Ruins” that I wrote in the 1980’s, and while I like Ruins as a title, there’s a rather famous Scott Smith novel called The Ruins, and so I am not quite certain calling this one that is a good idea. I do like Bury Me in Satin as a title, and I am going to be trying to figure out my complicated plot a bit this weekend after I get deeper into the manuscript.

It’s probably the most complicated plot of a young adult novel that I’ve written, but I like my main character, Jake Chapman, a lot. He’s smart smart smart, and I like the idea behind the concept of the book. It remains, however, to be seen whether I can actually pull it off. We shall see.

And now, back to the spice mines.

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I Wanna Love You

Ah, it’s Tuesday, an Election Day in the republic, and I certainly hope everyone is voting today. We kind of take that for granted–the right to vote–and it’s more than a little bit on the shameful side, all due respect.

I’ve also not worked on Bury Me in Satin since Sunday; Monday was a bit of a crazy day, but I am hoping that tonight I can get back into the book.

On the other hand, I am so anxious about this election I don’t know if I can sufficiently focus or not. Heavy sigh. But then again, going deep into the manuscript might also be just the ticket to keep my mind off everything; it’s going to be a late night and I don’t know how much of it I can take. So there’s also that. I hate that every election now is so stressful, and there’s so much urgency!

I voted, of course, as I always do; I’ve voted in every election since I turned eighteen. I vote in midterms. I vote in local elections. I vote in all national elections. Hell, I’ve worked on campaigns and I’ve knocked on doors and I’ve donated money. There wasn’t a lot of terribly important things on our Louisiana ballot today; some ballot initiatives–one of which was incredibly important; requiring a unanimous verdict in criminal trials; the old law, requiring merely a majority, is a horrific Jim Crow holdover which was put into place precisely to send people of color to prison; I very proudly voted to require verdicts to be unanimous. Our local House rep was, of course, up for reelection; there were some judgeships on the ballot, and of course, secretary of state. I walked over to the International School on Camp Street and voted; the ladies who always work the elections told me this was the busiest election with the highest turnout that they can remember. I found that interesting,  particularly because there was so little on our ballots.

I finished reading Empire of Sin this weekend during the Saints game; I really enjoyed it, and I’ve now requested an inter-library loan of Alecia Long’s The Great Southern Babylon. We have a copy of it somewhere; she and Paula are friends, and she has been at the Tennessee William Festival numerous times. I also started reading Herbert Asbury’s The French Quarter, while I wait for the Latter Library to get the Long book in. One of the things I love most about New Orleans history is that the city has always been rough-and-tumble; so many of the original settlers the French sent over were criminals and/or shady people. It was actually kind of interesting to read how, in Empire of Sin for example, even back then–the 1890’s through the 1920’s–the locals shook their heads and lamented the crime rate in the city, and the corruption/incompetence at City Hall.

Some things never change.

But I got the contract for Royal Street Reveillon today in the e-mailbox; signed that sucker and sent it back. So a release date will be forthcoming shortly, and sooner rather than later there will be a cover reveal. (I also played around with potential Scotty titles for the next book in the series; came up with some really good ones, but am not sure what the plot should be…Scotty went to Jesuit High School, which has been roiled in some sex abuse scandals lately; along with, of course, the Archdiocese of New Orleans…it’s something I’ve always wanted to write about, but I don’t know if Scotty is the vessel for such a story. I am also thinking about something voodoo-ish; but then I think well, yeah, there’s SOME woo-woo in the series but for the most part the series is fairly reality based so would that even work? There’s also the whole Jean Lafitte thing I’ve always wanted to do. Heavy heaving sigh. It never ends…and I really need to focus on the book I’m writing, don’t I?)

FOCUS.

And now, back to the spice mines.

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Justified and Ancient

GEAUX SAINTS!

Well, that  was certainly fun. Although I did get a bit concerned as the Saints blew their 21 point lead and the Rams tied everything up at 35-35; but the boys got it together and scored ten more points to seal the win in the Dome.

GEAUX SAINTS!

My Italian lessons continue, five minutes at a time every day, and while I am not certain I am actually learning how to speak Italian, I am learning something. (When I think about it, I don’t think I know any Italian words or phrases; but boy, once I start one of the lessons it’s almost automatic how quickly it comes out: oh, yes, this means water and read and book and newspaper and woman and man and girl…you get the idea. So maybe it is indeed working.)

I turned in Royal Street Reveillon yesterday, and hopefully my publisher will want it. I like it, but am heartily sick of it and desperately need a break from it. I do look forward to editorial notes and the inevitable clean-up process it will need, but I think it’s pretty good and I am pleased with it. It’s always lovely to dip back into Scotty’s world a little, and now I can move forward with Bury Me in Satin. I somehow managed to get almost three thousand words done on Chapter One’s first draft, which is a BIG WIN. And so I am moving on to Chapter Two.

And I actually feel pretty good about Bury Me in Satin, frankly; I think this might come along rather nicely, if I do say so myself. There’s somet

I got quite a bit done yesterday, didn’t I? That extra hour of sleep really came in handy. I actually woke before six, but stayed in bed until just past seven, and woke up feeling rested and refreshed; the four day weekend really came in handy, methinks. I need to remember that every now and again; I need to occasionally take these mini-vacations, otherwise it is very easy to get sidetracked, easily distracted, and lose my focus. Yesterday I feel like I can conquer the world, which is a feeling I’ve not had in like, forever. I also didn’t spend the afternoon during the Saints game fighting off the feeling that I needed a nap and trying to stay awake, which was incredibly lovely; I’d kind of dozed off in my easy chair the previous three afternoons.

And now, back to the spice mines.

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Keep on Walkin’

I’ve never really thought I could write personal essays (or non-fiction, for that matter). They never held much appeal to me, as either a reader or as a writer.

A lot of this has to do with my checkered educational history; for someone who aspired to be a writer, it now amazes me how many college professors desperately tried to stomp that aspiration out of me–yet at the same time, it enormously pleases me that I proved them all WRONG. When I first started college, the week before my seventeenth birthday, my basic English Comp class required us to spend the first day writing an essay, predicated around the question you are going to spend the rest of your life on a deserted island, what three people and three things would you take with you, and why? I don’t remember what I wrote; I know one of the people was Stephen King so he could keep writing books to entertain me. But the end result of that essay was me being moved from Basic Comp to Honors English. This was not only a surprise but exciting; whomever that professor was, he recognized my ability! 

Honors English, however, turned out to be a horrific nightmare…as did all of my experiences with the English department of that particular college. My new professor–whom I shall never forget, like I shall never forget my first creative writing professor at that benighted plague of a university–was, quite frankly, a moron. There were only twelve of us in the class; she advised us on the very first day that she never gave A’s because that left no room for improvement. I was not an Honors student, so this didn’t phase me, but it caused a lot of discomfort in my extremely-driven-by-GPA classmates. And she stuck to that; none of us ever got an A on any of our essays or papers, and she certainly didn’t teach us anything. My essays were shredded by her on a regular basis; she also liked to proclaim that we would never get so honest an opinion on our writing as we got from her, and even as a naive teenager, I sensed that she took malicious pleasure in being as nasty as she could with our work. We never got anything productive or useful from her; no editorial guidance whatsoever; just nasty condescending commentary in red ink on our papers. That, coupled with a kinder yet equally unhelpful professor in the second semester of Honors English Comp, convinced me that I would never be able to write non-fiction; that writing essays and personal essays were a skill set I neither possessed, nor could learn.

Thanks for that, bitches.

And when you factor in the creative writing professor the next semester who told me I’d never publish…well, you can see why I became absolutely disinterested in college and it just became something else I had to endure and get through.

So, as I grew older and evolved and continued reading and pursuing from time to time my desire to write, I avoided nonfiction and essays. I was never going to write them, I wasn’t any good at them, so why bother? This negative perception continued throughout my life until a friend told me, several years ago, that you write a personal essay on your blog every day. I’d even written and published some, yet I still had that wall up in my mind: I’m not smart enough. I’m not clever enough. Anything I have to say has already been said better by someone else. Anything point I’d try to make would get the response “well, duh, LOSER.”

I started reading Joan Didion last year, beginning with her book Miami, and suddenly, began to see essays in an entirely new light.

This is a book about books. To try that again, it is a book about my fatal flaw: that I insist on learning everything from books. I find myself wanting to apologize for my book’s title, which, in addition to embarrassingly taking part in a ubiquitous publishing trend by including the word girls, seems to evince a lurid and cutesy complicity in the very brutality it critiques. If I can say one lame thing in my defense, it is that I wanted to call this book Dead Girls from the moment I realized I was writing it, in the spring of 2014 I wrote an essay on the finale of the first season of True Detective, trying to parse a category of TV I identified as the Dead Girl Show, with Twin Peaks as this genre’s first and still most notable example. People seemed to like that essay, so I understood that Dead Girls was something I could hitch my wagon to.

So begins Alice Bolin’s Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving an American Obsession. To be honest, while I greatly enjoyed reading this book, I didn’t find that most of the essays were, in fact, about ‘surviving an American obsession’; I thought this was going to be a lengthy look at how the trope of dead girls runs through, and is repeatedly used, over and over, in all aspects of crime fiction; be it a television show, novels, or films. Bolin instead extrapolates her theme to encompass society as a whole, and I’m not entirely sure she succeeds.

Didion, on the other hand, opens this way:

This book is called Slouching Towards Bethlehem because for several years now certain lines from the Yeats poem which appears two pages back have reverberated in my inner ear as if they were surgically implanted there. The widening gyre, the falcon which does not hear the falconer, the gaze blank and pitiless as the sun; those have been my points of reference, the only images against which much of what I was seeing and hearing and thinking seemed to make any pattern. “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” is also the title of one piece in the book, and that piece, which derived from some time spent in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, was for me the more imperative of all these pieces to write and the only one that made me despondent after it was printed. It was the first time I had dealt directly and flatly with the evidence of atomization, the proof that things fall apart: I went to San Francisco because I had not been able to work in some months, had been paralyzed by the conviction that writing was an irrelevant act, that the world as I had understood it no longer existed. If I was to work again at all, it would be necessary for me to come to terms with disorder. That was why the piece was so important to me. And after it was printed I saw that, however directly and flatly I thought I had said it, I had failed to get through to many of the people who read and even liked the piece, failed to suggest that I was talking about something more general than a handful of children wearing mandalas on their foreheads. Disc jockeys telephoned my house and wanted to discuss (on the air) the incidence of “filth” in the Haight-Ashbury, and acquaintances congratulated me on finishing the piece “just in time,” because “the whole fad’s dead now, fini, kaput.” I suppose almost everyone who writes is afflicted some of the time by the suspicion that nobody out there is listening, but it seemed to me then (perhaps because the piece was important to me) that I had never gotten a feedback so universally beside the point.

It seems unfair to critique Bolin negatively simply because the book went in a different direction than I thought it would; but I ultimately was disappointed in her collection primarily because I was looking for, I don’t know, a feminist point of view about the misogyny in crime fiction, both written and filmed. That was, actually, my primary carp about her book. I enjoyed it otherwise; Bolin has a dry wit and she wrote about a lot of things from a perspective I hadn’t considered–that of the young millennial female trying to make it in an increasingly hostile world with very little opportunity for young writers to make a living. She also critiques Didion harshly; harsher then perhaps I might have, although I do periodically take some issue with the lens through which Didion sees the world and writes about it–that of a very privileged white woman, whose inability to recognize her own privilege sometimes colors her observations.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem is the third non-fiction book of Didion’s I’ve read over the last two years; the others being Miami and After Henry. I also read her novel A Book of Common Prayer, which, while bizarre, was also terribly interesting and exceptionally written. Regardless of what one might think of Didion’s privilege and how it might color her lens, the woman is an exceptionally skilled writer. Her sentences are flawlessly constructed, and the rhythm manages to convey an almost world-weariness, a sense of being jaded by what people do. The two books are actually good to read together, because they seem to focus on the same thing, even though written decades apart. Bolin uses the trope of the dead girl to launch into her consideration of a world where young people are disillusioned by the lack of opportunity, where intelligence and talent perhaps do not provide a means of making a living anymore, and how the misogyny of society, as depicted through the dead girl trope, helps stack the deck against young women. Didion’s book looks at the beginning of that erosion, the decay of the mythology of the American dream. Her observations of Haight-Ashbury during the days of the hippies and the flower children, and conversations with the young people who flocked there, is an interesting contrast to the world Bolin is writing about: those young people were disaffected by the box of the American dream, felt trapped by the opportunity their parents were pushing them towards; they didn’t want the white picket fence and the 2.3 children and the dog and the split-level house in the suburbs and the long commute into the city for a 9 to 5 existence. They rejected the American Dream; Bolin’s generation wishes it were even an option to reject.

Were I teaching Freshmen English Comp, these two books would be my required texts for my students. Both books made me think; both books inspired me to write myself and gave me ideas; both writers have depth and perception and skill. I got more than I was expecting from Bolin’s book; I got precisely what I thought I would from Didion’s.

I highly recommend both.

When I Look Into Your Eyes

GEAUX SAINTS!

Friday, while running my errands, I decided to finally stop at the Latter Library on St. Charles Avenue and get my goddamned library card. Yes, I have lived in New Orleans for over twenty-two years and had never gotten my library card. I had tried once before but that was when you had to fill out an application. Mine was denied because I used my mailing address rather than my actual home address; I got the denial in the mail and was highly annoyed. Instead of being an adult and thinking, oh, I’ll just swing by another time I never did; even though I have actually been to the Latter Library a gazillion times in the meantime. So Friday I finally did it; and amazingly enough, it’s all automated now. She entered my information into the computer and activated my card and voila, I walked out of there the proud owner of a New Orleans Public Library card.

I am really pleased with myself, which is kind of interesting. As I’ve said before, I’m reading Empire of Sin, and am wanting to do even more research into New Orleans history–and of course, the library card is an important first step for me. Part of this is my desire to write a short story collection called Monsters of New Orleans, which would be my foray into horror; I have some things already written that would work for it, but the majority of the stories would be original and new, and I want to base them in actual New Orleans history. Empire of Sin has been a veritable treasure trove of ideas for me; I am also looking at writing a historical mystery novel set here sometime between 1900 and the 1920’s. Maybe it will end up just being my short story “The Blues Before Dawn,” or maybe it will be a novel called The Blues Before Dawn.

Maybe both. Who knows?

The Saints are playing the unbeaten Rams today; this has not been a good football weekend for me; kudos to Alabama. I don’t see anyone even staying close to them in a game this year; other than possibly Clemson. The lovely thing about LSU being out of contention now means that I don’t really have to commit so thoroughly to watching college football games all day on Saturdays anymore; I’ll only need to watch the Tigers so my Saturdays have suddenly become more free. Ultimately, not a bad thing.

So, GEAUX SAINTS indeed.

One of the funny things about being a football fan is how committed one can become to one’s own superstitions; there are certain LSU shirts I won’t wear during games anymore, and the same with a pair of sweatpants, pictures to use on Facebook, and so forth. I realized how silly this was yesterday–like anything I could possibly do has any effect on the outcome of a game, as opposed to the other hundreds of thousands of fans–and wrote down some notes for an essay about how weird being a fan can be; more fodder for The Fictions of My Life.

And yet…I wouldn’t wear my yellow LSU sweatshirt yesterday. I just couldn’t make myself do it.

I realized yesterday as I watched the Georgia-Kentucky game that we are several days into November and I haven’t yet started my unofficial Nanowrimo project, Bury Me in Satin; I intend to rectify that this morning. That extra hour of sleep has me up before eight this morning and feeling rested and inspired; it only took three days to get to this point. I did manage to clean yesterday during football games; I wasn’t terribly committed to watching Georgia-Kentucky, and during the stretches when Auburn was stinking up the field against Texas A&M I also organized and vacuumed and washed clothes, etc. So this morning, the Lost Apartment is relatively–relatively being the operative word–clean and looks nice. But not feeling fatigued this morning is quite lovely, to be honest; I worried I’d have one of my patented lazy moods today, and that is most definitely not the case. I want to get the chapter headings put in for the Scotty so I can get it turned in at long last; I want to get those tweaks done to Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories done; and of course, I simply have to get started on Bury Me in Satin. I also spent a lot of time reading Empire of Sin yesterday; I am now up to the part about the Axeman, and it’s absolutely riveting, particularly since I want to write a Venus Casanova story called “A Little More Jazz for the Axeman,” which I’ve already started, honestly. I also made some notes in my journal yesterday. Progress comes in all shapes and sizes, and I will embrace any and all of them that I actually experience.

And now, on that note, it is back to the spice mines. I should take full advantage of being wide awake so early in the morning; if I can get all of this stuff finished and done and out of the way before the Saints game, well, more power to me indeed.

And I may even be able to finally finish reading Empire of Sin today at long last–something to help keep my mind off the Saints game.

Have a lovely Sunday, everyone.

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Slow Motion

GEAUX TIGERS!

ESPN’s College Gameday is in Baton Rouge this morning, and tonight Number One Alabama takes on Number Three LSU in Death Valley, aka Tiger Stadium.

This season has already exceeded all expectations for us Tiger fans; I think the best pre-season predictions had us finishing at maybe 7-5, and finishing no higher than fourth or fifth in the SEC West. Tonight, with only one loss, we take on the Alabama juggernaut which has been almost awe-inspiring to watch play all season. There are few teams, in all my years of watching college football, that have been so dominant as Alabama; no one has even gotten remotely close to beating the Tide this year. Their quarterback, Tua Tagovailoa, is an unbelievable player; Alabama could probably be competitive in the NFL.

I’ve done a good job of avoiding the hype for the game all week. I’ve made the mistake of getting sucked into this before, and I don’t have the time to bother with it. This past week, according to the hype machine and the newspapers and so forth across the state has been “Hate Bama Week”; I don’t hate Alabama. I have too many friends who went there and/or are fans; I also have family who went there. My distant cousin Gary Hollingsworth–his father and my father are first cousins; I don’t know what that makes us to each other, maybe first cousins once removed, or something like that–was the quarterback for Alabama in 1989 and 1990. (I also know this is all in fun for the most part , but I’ve never enjoyed the taunting or teasing or smack-talk from one fan base to another) My immediate family, and most everyone on my father’s side of the family, are all Auburn fans. I was a kid when Bear Bryant was the coach at Alabama, and I remember their dominance of the SEC in the 1970’s–when their worst season was a three-loss year in 1976. Sound familiar? Alabama’s current dominance began ten years ago in 2008; since then their worst season was a three-loss campaign in 2010. Other than that, I don’t think Alabama has lost more than one game in a regular season in the past eleven years, which is pretty damned impressive. They lost twice in the post-season in 2008 (Florida in SEC title game; Utah in the Sugar Bowl), three games in 2010 (South Carolina, LSU, Auburn), once in 2011 (LSU), to Texas A&M in 2012, Auburn in 2013, lost two years in a row to Ole Miss in 2014 and 2015. They won all their games in 2016, lost to Auburn last year, and are undefeated this year.

You cannot, no matter how badly you want to, deny what Alabama has accomplished under coach Nick Saban, who was 7-6 in his first season in Tuscaloosa–including a loss to Louisiana-Monroe. The next year they rolled into the SEC title game 11-0, and other than 2010, have been a national title contender every year since. That’s a pretty fucking impressive resume, and one that no other college team has even come remotely close to.

LSU hasn’t beaten Alabama since 2011, and hasn’t beaten them in Baton Rouge since 2010.

LSU has slipped since 2011. The Tigers have had some amazing, signature wins since then (Ole Miss in 2014, Georgia this year, to name two) but hasn’t contended for the national or conference championship in those seven years. In 2015 LSU got off to a great 7-0 start, before falling to Alabama in Tuscaloosa and skidding, losing three in a row. This year, the underrated Tigers have somehow managed to be ranked Number 3 in the playoff rankings and 4th in the polls, pulling off a 6-1 start which includes wins over three teams ranked in the Top 10 when they played and another ranked team in Mississippi State. In my wildest preseason dreams, I never would have dreamed we’d ride into Tiger Stadium ranked this high to play Alabama.

To be the best, you have to beat the best, and the best is Alabama. Every national champion since 2008 that is NOT Alabama had to beat Alabama in order to claim the crown (the sole exception being in 2013. Florida State beat Auburn in the closing seconds of the title game to become the only national champion in the last eleven years–LSU was national champion in 2007, and while Alabama wasn’t a contender that year, they still had to beat them–to not have to play Alabama). The dominance of Alabama and Coach Nick Saban is pretty much unparalleled; even the great Bear Bryant didn’t win as many national titles as Coach Saban has–Alabama always seemed to stumble in the post-season under Coach Bryant during the 1970’s, but finally won back to back titles in 1978 and 1979. Bud Wilkinson’s time at Oklahoma in the 1940’s and 1950’s was similar, the Sooners have also had some other periods of enormous success; USC has also had periods of dominance, as has Notre Dame, Michigan, and Ohio State. Florida dominated the SEC in the 90’s; while Florida State and Miami also had great runs in the 80’s and 90’s.

As I said, love them or hate them, you can’t help but admire and respect what Alabama has accomplished, and there’s no end in sight for the foreseeable future to their winning ways.

Of course, I’m hoping LSU can shock the college football world one more time tonight, the same way they did by beating Miami, Auburn, and Georgia. Realistically, I have no idea how this game is going to play out.

But losing to Alabama is kind of like losing to the Patriots, or Serena Williams, or Simone Biles, or Roger Federer. You can only do your best and hold out hope that the breaks go your way; and there’s no disgrace in losing to a great team. I just want LSU to play well.

I grew up rooting for Alabama, and I still do most of the time–just not when they’re playing Auburn or LSU.

And yes, I am the only person in my family who roots for LSU. (My sister, my nieces and nephews are Kentucky fans; they live near Lexington and my youngest nephew and his wife both went there–and they too are having the season of their lives. Today they host Georgia, both teams with one loss, to determine who is going to win the SEC East; and who, before this season, would have dreamed that both Kentucky and LSU, on the first Saturday in November, would essentially be playing for their division titles? NO ONE.)

Even with a loss today, it’s possible for LSU to have its first ten win season since 2011.

I doubt very seriously that LSU won’t be taken seriously in the preseason next year.

GEAUX TIGERS!

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Thinkin’ Back

Here’s an excerpt from Bourbon Street Blues, to celebrate its release at long last as an ebook. You can order it here for only 2.99!

 

Chapter One

KNIGHT OF WANDS

A light complexioned young man with an adventurous spirit

 

It’s not the heat, it’s the stupidity.

A T-shirt bearing that slogan hangs in the window of every shop in the French Quarter that sells cheap souvenirs. The tourists, wiping the sweat off their foreheads with napkins while holding a forty-eight ounce plastic cup filled with an exotically flavored daiquiri in their other hand, nudge each other when they spy it. They exchange knowing smiles. The slow pace unique to New Orleans has irritated slightly ever since they got off their airplane. The long wait at baggage claim and the even longer wait in the taxi line. The check-in process at the hotel seemed endless. The line at Walgreens that just didn’t seem to move at all. The lackadaisical attitude everyone they have encountered since walking off their airplane seems to have toward efficiency has been all explained and summed up by a slogan on a cheap T-shirt. The heat is bearable, after all. Everything is air-conditioned, for one thing, and there’s all those forty-eight-ounce daiquiris with names like Cajun Storm, Swamp Water, and Mind Eraser for another. Yes, the heat can be borne. It’s the stupidity that is truly annoying.

What the tourists don’t know is, the stupidity referred to on the shirt is theirs.

New Orleans is a whore who makes her living by dressing herself up as the City That Care Forgot. We peddle cheap gimcracks to the tourists who checked their brains at the airport along with their suitcases but apparently forgot to claim the brains again upon landing at Armstrong International. We sell them refrigerator magnets with a drunk with X’s for eyes holding on to a Bourbon Street lamppost for support. We sell them beads they proudly wear even though Mardi Gras has been over for months. We sell them porcelain masks of white-faced harlequins made in Taiwan. We sell them forty-eight-ounce daiquiris that are flammable, or drinks in clear green plastic cups that are shaped like a hand grenade. We smile and avert our eyes as another vomits into the gutter. We plaster a smile on our faces as they drive five miles an hour through the city looking at the architecture even though we have to be somewhere in three minutes and they’ve backed up traffic for blocks. Tourism is our biggest source of revenue, after all, and if they can’t hold their liquor, oh well.

We have sold our collective soul on the altar of tourism.

In the summer, the French Quarter reeks of sour beer, vomit, and piss. At seven ever morning, the hoses come out and the vomit and spilt liquor and piss is washed down off the sidewalks. By eight, Bourbon Street stinks of pine cleaner, a heavy, oily scent that cloys and hangs in the air. It hit me full force when I slipped out of the front door of the Bourbon Orleans hotel at eight-thirty in the morning. The bellman on duty winked at me. I shrugged and grinned back. I wasn’t the first non-guest to slip out of the Bourbon Orleans that morning, and I wouldn’t be the last that weekend.

It was Southern Decadence, after all. Urban legend holds that Southern Decadence began in the 1980’s as a bar-crawl-type party a group of gay guys had for a friend who was moving away. They had so much fun, they did it again the next year. Each year it grew and grew until it became a national event, drawing gay men from as far away as Sweden and Australia. As opposed to other circuit events, for years there was no big dance party. It was just a big block party held in what we locals called the Fruit Loop, a five-bar, four-block stretch that runs from Rawhide to Good Friends to Oz and the Pub to Café Lafitte’s in Exile. All the bars have balconies except for Rawhide, and of course you can always take your drink with you.

The gay boys had started arriving yesterday afternoon, with the big crush coming in today, Friday. Labor Day weekend. The end of summer, when the locals can begin to breathe a little easier. The mind-numbing heat will break in the next few weeks, and what passes for our fall season will begin. Sunny days with no humidity and the mercury hovering in the seventies and low eighties. In New Orleans, we turn off the air-conditioning when the temperatures drop into the low eighties and open the windows.

I headed for the corner of Orleans and Bourbon. My stomach was growling. The Clover Grill was just a few blocks up Bourbon, and one of their breakfasts was sounding damned good to my slightly swollen head. There’s nothing like scrambled eggs and greasy full-fat bacon to make you lose your hangover. The food at the Clover Grill is one of the best hangover cures in town. I shifted my gym bag to my other shoulder.

The bars at the corner of St. Ann and Bourbon still had patrons. It was probably too early for new arrivals from out of town, so these were the holdouts from the night before, who still hadn’t grasped the fact that the bars don’t close. Tourists always have trouble pacing themselves in New Orleans. Bars that have no last call is an alien concept to most. The bars had been packed with tourists who had come in early for the weekend, the liquor had flowed freely, and there were very likely a lot of drugs to be had. Today the bars would be packed again, almost impossible to navigate through. I waved at Abel, the morning bartender at the Pub.

I was dancing at the Pub this weekend for extra cash. One of the porn stars, Rock Hard, who was supposed to dance this weekend, had overdosed on crystal meth on Wednesday. Condition stable—but no condition to dance. Randy Westfall, the manager, had called me on Thursday afternoon to fill in. It was very good timing. I was behind on some bills. It probably wasn’t very good karma to be happy that Rock Hard had overdosed, but I reasoned that it was probably a good thing. Perhaps the overdose would wake him up to the fact he had a substance-abuse problem, and he would now get some help for it. The summer’s heat is always a bitch on my personal training business, but this one had been particularly bad. It had been hotter than usual, which is a staggering thought. Everyone who could afford a trainer had left town. Those who didn’t leave didn’t want to sweat any more than they already were. Can’t say that I blame them—except when the second notices from my utilities start arriving.

The Clover Grill was crowded. I swore under my breath. Goddamned tourists. A wave of nausea swam over me. I shouldn’t have let what’s-his-name talk me into those tequila shots. What was his name? Bill? Bob? Brett? He was from Houston and tall, with a shaved torso and a nice, round, hard ass. He’d flirted with me early in the evening, wanted to know what time I was off, and had come back. You’d think at twenty-nine I would know better than to do tequila shots at two-thirty in the morning.  Dumb, dumb, dumb. Well, not that there’s a good time to do tequila shots.

I headed down Dumaine Street to the Devil’s Weed. The Devil’s Weed is a tobacco shop specializing in fine cigars, pipe tobacco, and imported cigarettes. They also serve coffee, muffins, and bagels. Not quite the greasy scrambled eggs and bacon my hangover was demanding, but it would have to do. I walked in.

“Scotty!” Emily, the cure twenty-two-year old lesbian who worked the morning shift, grinned at me. She wore her hair shorn close to her scalp and Coke-bottle glasses that magnified her big brown eyes. She always wore a tank top with no bra restraining her big full breasts, and a loose-fitting cotton skirt over sandals. She was from Minneapolis and had come down for Mardi Gras. New Orleans got to her and she stayed. New Orleans has that effect on people. You come for a weekend and get caught in her spell and can’t leave. It just gets in your blood. I’ve lived here all of my life and have never wanted to live anywhere else. When I was on the stripper circuit, every weekend a different town, I never found another place I wanted to live, and I had looked. I always came back with a healthy appreciation for my home city. If a city isn’t open twenty-four-seven, I don’t want any part of it. Here you can drink at any time of the day without feeling any guilt. You can eat whenever you want to, because there’s always someplace open. You can keep whatever hours you want. You don’t have to be a part of that whole nine-to-five rat race unless you want to be. I don’t. I hate waking up to an alarm.

My parents, who owned the Devil’s Weed, had practically adopted Emily. She was so likable and cute, you couldn’t help wanting to take care of her. She was a genuinely nice person, without a mean bone in her body. She has that good energy.

“Coffee and a bagel,” I sat down on a stool. She had a cigar burning in an ashtray.

“Liked the day-glo G-string.” She grinned as she put my coffee down.

I grinned back at her. “I made close to four hundred last night.”

“All right!” We high-fived. “Your mom and dad are still asleep.”

“Of course.” Mom and Dad were unrepentant stoners. They were hippies and counterculturalists, who’d never sold out, despite their successful shop. My first name isn’t Scott—it’s Milton. Pretty awful, right? Coupled with my last name, which is Bradley, and you can imagine the horror my childhood was like before my older brother started calling me Scotty. Of course, his name is Storm, and my sister’s name is Rain. When Mom was pregnant with me, both sets of grandparents had apparently sat Mom and Dad down and insisted I not be named after a force of nature. I can almost see the stoner glint in my mother’s eyes when she agreed. Milton was Mom’s father’s name. She always claimed she was simply honoring her parents by naming me that. That was her cover story, and she has stuck to it my whole life. I think both she and Dad regretted it later. They’re actually pretty cool parents. When I came out to them when I was sixteen, they wanted to throw me a coming-out party. They are both pretty active in P-FLAG. A huge rainbow flag hangs out in front of the store year-round. It’s kind of hard to be pissed at them for naming me after a board game company when they’re so cool. I’m sure it sounded like a good idea after a couple of joints.

“Since you’re up so early, I’m assuming you’re just now on your way home?” Emily raised her eyebrows and winked.

I winked back. “I never kiss and tell.” Well, I really do, but Emily was more like a little sister to me since she’d started at the shop. I would never give my sister Rain the details of my activities. Besides, Emily was also still a virgin. She was saving herself for the right woman, bless her heart. See what I mean about sweet? How could I corrupt her with my sordid tales?

I smeared cream cheese on my bagel and leaned over the counter to kiss her cheek. “You gonna be out tonight?”

“Yeah.” She giggled. “See ya on the bar.” She did a little dance for me. “I wanna pick up some of your moves.”

Laughing, I walked back out into the street and headed home, chewing on my bagel and sipping my coffee. I was tired. The bagel was helping the hangover. Thank God.

My apartment was on Decatur Street in the last block before Esplanade. The coffee was hot and strong. Carrying the cup was making me sweat. I could smell my armpits and it wasn’t pretty. All I wanted to do was get home, turn the air down to about sixty degrees, wash off the sweat and smell of sex, and sleep for a little while.

My building has a little mom-and-pop grocery store on the first floor. It opens pretty early. I waved to Mrs. Duchesnay, who always worked the morning shift. She and her husband had started the shop years ago, when they were both pretty young. All six of their kids had worked there at one time or another. Her husband had been a mean old man. He was always yelling and threatening kids about shoplifting. He’d accused me of stealing a pack of gum once that I had come in with, and called my mother. I don’t think he was expecting the furious harpy who stormed in and backed him up against the soda cooler and called him a fascist. He was always nice to me after that. The Quarter kids called him Mr. Douchebag. He’d disappeared about ten years ago. Quarter lore and legend believed Mrs. Duchesnay had killed him and gotten rid of the body. He’d been a bastard, so if she had, I always figured, more power to her. Those who believed the story didn’t hold it against her. He’d been a pretty miserable person.

I unlocked the gate. There were three floors above the shop, all apartments. My landladies lived on the second floor. Velma Simpson and Millie Breen had been together for about thirty years. Velma was watering the plants in the courtyard when I got back to the staircase.

“Morning, Scotty.” She nodded at me. She was nearly sixty, with steel-gray hair and wire-rimmed glasses. She was wearing a pair of tired old jean cutoff shorts and a white, sweat-stained tank top with no bra. She played tennis three times a week and jogged on the levee every day. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on her anywhere. She’d been a high school gym teacher and girls’ athletics coach until she’d taken early retirement a few years ago. Millie and Velma had baby-sat us when we were kids, whenever Mom and Dad had one on a private vacation or been arrested at one of their many protests. “How’d you do?”

I opened my bag and pulled out a wad of ones, fives and tens. “About four hundred.”

She put the hose down. “Give me three hundred.”

I counted out the money and handed it to her. She tucked it into her pocket. My rent was only four-fifty a month, which was a steal for the place. She and Millie could have gotten fifteen hundred for it easily. Luckily, Millie had been my mother’s best friend since grade school. She was also a lawyer, so they didn’t really need my rent money. I was pretty damned lucky. Anyone else would have thrown my late-rent-paying ass out on the street years earlier.

She pulled a joint out of her cleavage. “Need some help to sleep?” She and Millie always got the best pot.

“You gonna join me?”

She laughed. “Stupid boy.”

I sparked the joint and took a long hit. She took it from me, took two, and handed it back to me. She waved me into a lawn chair and sat down herself. She inhaled, long and deep, then pinched it out and set it on a table. “What you gonna do today?”

“I’m gonna sleep.” I felt quite pleasantly stoned.

She leaned back. “Leave your gear. I’m gonna do a load of laundry later this morning. I’ll bring it up.”

“Cool.” I yawned.

“Does your getting home at this hour mean you got lucky?” Velma and Millie always wanted details on my sex life. I didn’t mind telling them, although I did think from time to time that was a little weird that two lesbians in their late fifties were so interested. It was a small price to pay, though, for them being so cool about the rent.

I smiled at her. “Guy from Houston.”

“You like them cowboys.”

“He had the nicest ass.” I winked at her and then launched into the gory details.

I’d been dancing for about an hour when he came up to the bar. I’d seen him in a corner, sipping on a Bud Light long-neck. He was good-looking, all right. Short black hair, blue eyes, dark tan. He had a red tank top tucked into his belt, and a torso shaved smooth. Big pecs, melon-sized, abs you could do your laundry on, and a pair of tight jean shorts rolled up at the knee. He grinned up at me. Nice, even white teeth. He stroked my calf. I knelt down with him in between my legs.

“You’re pretty.” He said, pulling a five out of his pocket.

“You ain’t bad either.” I put my hand on his chest. Solid as a rock. Skin smooth as a baby’s butt. Definitely shaved.

“What time you getting off?”

“Two in the morning.”

“I’ll be here.” And he was. Simple as that. A 2:10 we were down tequila shots. Half an hour later we were in his room at the Bourbon Orleans with our tongues down each other’s throats. He did have the nicest, tightest, hardest ass I’ve come across in a long time.

I’d left his five on the nightstand when I left.

Velma sighed. “Ah, to be young again.”

I yawned. “Can I go to bed now, Aunt Velma?”

She handed me the roach. “Take this for later.”

I kissed her cheek. “Thanks, doll.”

I was so tired by the time I got upstairs that I decided not to shower but just go straight to bed. I collapsed on my bed and closed my eyes.

I was asleep in a matter of seconds

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What About Your Friends

This four day weekend was precisely what the doctor ordered.

I feel relaxed and rested already, which is quite lovely, if I do say so myself. Although yesterday…I didn’t realize precisely how worn out and tired I was. I wound up doing some chores around the house in the morning, only to find myself very tired and unable to face my computer screen. So, instead, I retired to my easy chair and finished reading Slouching Towards Bethlehem, which I enjoyed, and then dove back into Empire of Sin. I also dozed off once or twice in my easy chair, with Scooter curled up in our lap; Paul and I always joke that’s his primary super-power: putting people to sleep. If he comes and cuddles and falls asleep on you, you will also eventually doze off. It’s very interesting and strange at the same time. Go figure.

We are also watching a rather well-done suspense series on Netflix called Bodyguard, which stars Richard Madden, aka Robb Stark (which probably means there won’t be another season of Medici Masters of Florence, damn it), and it’s quite interesting; well written, with twists and turns and some very interesting points and all kinds of Machiavellian machinations. We are enjoying it, which is great.

One of the many things I put on my goals for 2018 was a renewed focus on self-care; I’ve kind of let that fall by the wayside as the year has progressed (although it’s one of the reasons I am not beating myself up for not getting anything done yesterday; I was extremely tired). I have returned to the gym in fits-and-starts–getting a new groove going for a few weeks only to fall off the wagon and then having to come up with the motivation to start over again. Despite these enormous disappointments with working out, 2018 is one of the better years I’ve had lately, fitness wise; at the beginning of the year I weighed in at a terrifying 225 pounds; last week I weighed myself and discovered, to my great delight, that not only had I finally broken through the plateau of 215 (I never seemed to be able to get my weight lower than that, no matter how hard I tried), but I blew it up; last week I only weighed 208. I haven’t weighed that since 2011 or 2012; one of the two, and it’s just continued to climb since then. It would be great and amazing and awesome to roll into 2019 with 200 firmly in my sights; I doubt I will ever be able to get back down to 180. but if I can get down to 200…who knows what I can accomplish? Needless to say, this is very exciting for me.

I had some hopes and thoughts about possibly going to the gym today later; I may still do so. But I have some errands to run, some bills to pay, and some writing to do; the house is also kind of a slovenly mess. I also have the next two days off; big games for both LSU and the Saints on tap for the weekend–it’s easy going to be a great weekend for us here in Louisiana, or one of the worst football weekends ever. You never know, really.

We also get an extra hour of sleep this weekend, which is amazingly lovely.

All right, ’tis back to the spice mines with me. These bills aren’t going to pay themselves, nor are the groceries going to do themselves, either.

Have a lovely Friday, one and all.

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Thought I’d Died and Gone to Heaven

Thursday, and the first day of a four-day weekend that just kind of dropped into my lap. The office move and so forth has had some complications; I’d planned on taking today off anyway, and then it occurred to me yesterday that I should just go ahead and take Friday as well; what was, after all, the point in taking Thursday off, working on Friday, and then having the weekend off? I’ve been very tired lately, badly in need of recharging the batteries, and the two-day weekends just haven’t been cutting it; so why not take a mini-vacation?

So, here I sit at my desk, looking outside at a gray day. Shadow is watching birds atop the stone fence outside my windows, there’s no sign of the sun anywhere, and it rained pretty heavily at some point in the early morning as everything is wet and shiny and dripping out there. I have a load of dishes and a load of laundry to put away; another load is running in the dishwasher, and the kitchen/office is completely out of control. Yes, indeed, there are plenty of things for me to do today, when the spirit so moves me.

We finished packing up the office Tuesday, and the movers came yesterday. I worked at the main office yesterday; a long ten hour day mostly doing paperwork, making condom packs, and then doing testing last night.  Apparently we’re waiting for some final clearances from the city before the new office building is up and operational. It was a little poignant saying good night and good luck to the office on Frenchmen Street when I left Tuesday night, and there were a couple of times  during that day when I felt a wave of sadness coming…but I made it. Yay, me.

Also Tuesday morning, the ebook of Bourbon Street Blues, aka Scotty I, went up for sale at long last. I’m very excited about this; it’s been unavailable for far, far too long, and people have been asking about it for years. But it’s finally a thing, and eventually a print version will also be available. If  you’re interested in getting the first Scotty ebook, you can get it right here. This makes me really happy; you’ve got no idea, Constant Reader. Especially since I am in such a Scotty state of mind with my writing these days.

Hopefully, Jackson Square Jazz (aka Scotty II) will be up by the end of the year as well, and all Scotty books will thus be available for anyone who wants to buy and read them.

I also finished writing Royal Street Reveillon  (aka Scotty VIII) Monday night. I am going to go ahead and get that turned in this week. I just need to add the chapter headings, which is always a fun part of the wrap-up process. I also have to do the afterward, but that’s going to have to be short–the book is clocked in at 101,000 (and some change) words. This is the longest book I’ve written in years. I guess I am writing longer these days. Not sure what that’s about, but there you have it. I feel relatively confident I can get these finishing touches on the book done today.

The rest of this week I am going to focus on replacing “Don’t Look Down” with two other stories for the collection Survivor’s Guilt and Other Stories. I’ll probably start working on Bury Me in Satin, my Nanowrimo project, on November 1 and hopefully will have a healthy first draft finished by the end of the month, after which I will spend December revising it and tearing apart/restructuring the WIP, which is what I plan on doing in the first two months of the new year; I’ll then have to spend another month or so writing a new ending for it, and then another month or so revising and polishing. Hopefully, come April, it’ll be in good enough shape to try to lure in an agent. One can hope, at any rate. And then I want to spend the summer writing Muscles, and then I am going to spend the fall trying to write something historical about New Orleans; I am just not quite sure yet what that project will be.

I didn’t sleep well Sunday night, so Monday I was tired all day. Monday night I slept deeply, but had to get up earlier than I wanted to; I felt rested but still slightly sleepy. Sleepy is better than tired; there’s a difference, and that distinction is important–kind of like the difference, from working out, between sore and tired. Since this is the week of the office move, my work schedule was disrupted; I had to get up early every day until today, which made me cranky and tired every night. I’m not really sure what my schedule is going to be next week. Alas, uncertainty is not one of my stronger suits. But I did sleep very well last night, getting up just around nine this morning and I feel rested and alert. This is a very good sign for the rest of the day, and the potential for productivity.

I also started gathering my essays over the last couple of evenings, which was interesting and fun, yet weird at the same time. There were essays I’d published that I’d forgotten about writing and publishing–seriously, who else forgets work they’ve done and been paid for? This mook, that’s who. (MOOK? This is what comes from following David Simon on Twitter.) So yes, that is definitely going to take a while to get in order. It’s always interesting–at least to me–to come across old things I’ve written, whether I remember them or not. If I do remember writing them or what they’re about, I almost always discover my memory is wrong when I start rereading them. I don’t mind it; it’s just odd. That’s kind of where The Fictions of My Life comes from; my memories aren’t correct so frequently because of the interpretive personal filter I view everything through that I often suspect my memories differ so much from the reality that they are closer to lies than truth.

And on that note, I think I shall head back into the spice mines.

Have a lovely day, everyone.

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Take This Heart

This week, my office–where I’ve spent most of the last thirteen years–closes and we are moving into a new building. It’s the end of an era, really; I started volunteering at the Community Awareness Network (CAN) in 2003, was hired part-time in 2005, went full-time in 2008, and here we are. It’s the longest I’ve ever worked anywhere–previously, the record was four and a half years with Continental Airlines–and I’ve actually been using the same room as my office since October 10, 2010. (easy to remember as 10/10/10)

This has been in the works for many months, if not years–recent history has a tendency to blur in my mind–but I’ve been in denial about it for most of the time; I haven’t wanted to deal with the realities of the change or what it means to me personally so I’ve just pushed it to the back of my mind with a very Scarlett O’Hara-like I’ll think about it tomorrow. Well, that no longer works. They are coming to box up our computers and IT equipment on Tuesday; the movers are coming Wednesday morning to take everything over to our new building.

I shall miss my old office on Frenchmen Street; the thin walls, the ugly utilitarian carpet, the questionable plumbing. I will miss the parade of people on the street when I get off work after dark; the guys who smoke weed around the corner; the people I can see getting tattooed  through the windows of the tattoo shop on the corner; the occasional hot fireman from the fire station on the island separating Frenchmen from Decatur. Scotty lives only a block away from my office; the last block of Decatur before Esplanade across the street from the Mint. I will miss my parking spot in the lot on Elysian Fields that made going out in the Quarter so easy for so many years. I’ll miss being across the street from Mona’s Cafe, being a few blocks from Cafe Envie, and how simple and easy it was to stop at Rouse’s on the way home from work in the CBD.

I have prepared for the move without acknowledging the emotional component of it. I boxed up all the books in the bookcases in my office and brought them home or donated them. I have removed the pictures from the walls and the framed certifications I’ve earned over the years. I’ve emptied the desk drawers, organized the paperwork, removed the testing supplies back to the lab for packing.

But now, that the week of the actual move is here, I am remembering past times in the office. I am remembering Felicia and Mark and Roberto and James; Josh and DJ and Tanner and Martin and Jake and Ryan and Mark and Ked, Tyson and Jessica and Joshua and Matt, Brandon and Sarah and Lindsay, Luke and Morgan and Jeff and Drew and Augustin and Alex, Tiffany and Lena, Chris and Michael and Jeremy, Robin and Nick and Chivas and Miguel, Larry and George and Kathy, and so many volunteers over the years. There was a lot of laughter and fun in that office, and over the years we helped so many people.

It’s always sad when a chapter closes in your life, but there’s also the thrill of a new chapter beginning; the ability to keep helping people and doing the kind of work I believe in, and to just keep going on. There will be new challenges to face and overcome, but change isn’t always a bad thing; nor is it something to fear. Life would be rather dull if it remained the same, day in and day out; we would not evolve or grow were it not for change.

And on that note, ’tis back to ye olde spice mines.

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