Op GE, Part I

Sweet Jesus, I made it back. Well, I'm assuming I made it back, although the horrors of the trip back might actually have been me dying. In any case, I claim victory. This weekend tried its best to take me down. It paid off the weather, the police, and the roads to stub me out like a used-up Pall Mall, but they were only 98% successful.

I've got to say that I really fell down on the job here as photographer. I got a grand total of two pictures from Friday, when we went down the river and then drove to Houston. Considering the events of that evening, it may be for the best. But man oh man, I documented the hell out of the drive to New Orleans, and then got some quality stuff of the city itself.

Ladies and gentlemen, Operation Golden Earring is now completed. Read on for the pics.

Friday, noonish, Austin. Look how crisp and upstanding we look here, preparing to hit the river. A short twelve hours later, we were arm-wrestling homeless kids for thrown-away hot dogs, and then kicking over their trash fires when they beat us.

This is to blame. Eight people + a three hour river trip = nine twelve packs of beer. If you were to ask the good folks at the FDA, they'd tell you that's pretty much the exact Recommended Servings equation.

And here, I am done with pictures for Friday. I wish I could've done more, but some of us had some pool wrasslin' to do. At the very least, I'll give you a mental image of the Tomball experience. I woke up Saturday morning at about eight, and I was pretty sure I had contracted leprosy; I was not feeling so fresh. I check my surroundings and see I'm in Mike and Julie's living room upstairs. I'm on a fold-out bed, surrounded by blankets, but I slept the whole night with nothing but a damp towel around my waist. I had no idea where my pants, keys, or wallet were. And in spite of all of that, I realized that was pretty much the best case scenario.

In case you think I'm exaggerating, here's me that morning. Women were just walking up to me and tasering me as a preemptive measure.

Let's go to New Orleans! I handed over the reins to Goodman Danza to captain our stagecoach east. After all, those rest stop toilets weren't just going to photograph ourselves.

Do you know how long the trip from Houston to New Orleans is? Long. It leads to lots of pictures like this one.

The only thing that can make a 400 mile trip even more enjoyable is to do it through a flood of Biblical proportions.

You've got to believe me about this rain. If I had just opted for the fan boat extension when I got my car, we would've got there millions of hours sooner.

Booyuckis! Welcome to New Orleans, home of excellent alleys! Actually, I'm just taking the guys' word that this was actually New Orleans. I was so blinded with hatred for Louisiana and its road systems that we could've stopped at the Atchafalaya County VFW and I would've insisted on staying for the night.

Once there, we dined like kings. Kings who actually had to pay for their food. King livin' ain't cheap.

Bam! If my French stands up, I think New Orleans actually means Neon and Rummies.

This guy did back flips on the street for a dollar. I don't any commentary is necessary here.

And this next picture takes a little explanation. After a few hours of pub crawl, we split up, with my group heading to the Harrah's casino. As one might expect, our crowd of drunk guys in a foreign city got lost in roughly 18 seconds. We soon found ourselves at some playground by the water. It was around midnight at this point, and the only person to ask for directions was this 6 year old girl. Let me tell you, it's not a proud moment when you're asking the 6 year old how to get to the casino. But really, if any 6 year old can tell you where the casino is, it's the one hanging out at the playground at midnight.

I think she realized the direness of the situation too, because her directions were a blatant attempt to wipe us from the earth. She told us, verbatim, to just follow the railroad tracks.

She's a native; who are we to argue?

Hey, let's pose for a picture! It's not like we're drunk and on the railroad tracks or anything!

When that girl said to follow the tracks, we stuck to her word. We stayed right on the tracks. In fact, we stayed so close, one member of the group had to speak up and say we may want to move off a little bit, since the street cars came through so quietly. We step off, and as if on cue, a street car whooshes up behind it. It was maybe 30 seconds from the comment to the street car appearance.

Somehow, we made it to the casino. I don't want to embarrass Harrah's too much, but THANKS FOR THE EASY TEN BUCKS, CHUMPS.

We came back from the casino a while later, and wondered around the French Quarter. Then I saw this sign, and something in my mind clicked. Through the Hand Grenade-induced haze, I remembered my uncle saying something about this enormous blues singer who performs every night at the Funky Pirate.

Bam bam! Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce you to Big Al. Goodness gracious, that guy could wail. I should tell you that the same uncle told me about Fat Elvis. That man is 2 for 2 when it comes to obese entertainer recommendations.

The longer we stayed, the more we loved him. Once 3 AM rolled around, it had gone from "Man, this guy is great" to "We must carve his face into our chest." We were a few muskets away from starting up a Big Al Army.

We screwed around for a couple more hours, then went to the hotel. What's a night at the Best Western without a little Fight Club action taking place in the room?

When we go somewhere, it's first class all the way. They told us the Prime Minister of Japan had stayed in our room teh weekend before.

See that big pile of crap in the middle there? That was my pillow. I'm thinking about looking into a similar set-up for my bedroom here.

The next morning, and a pretty accurate summary of the entire trip.

That's it! Except for the entire trip back, which was so awful that it gets its own entry tomorrow. Prepare yourself.

Posted by Cody at May 30, 2005 6:59 PM