Happy Lundi Gras

If anyone not from New Orleans would like to get a little taste of the New Orleans magic, they should definately go to the Mardi Gras. Forget Mardi Gras in Mobile or Washington or any other city that claims to hold Mardi Gras sacred. Mardi Gras is not just a parade , dressing up, eating king cake, listeneing to New Orleans music or knowing how to get a good pair of beads on Bourbon street or any other street for that matter. It's a spiritual thing. Not just religious but spiritual.

Mardi Gras is magic. Not figuratively but really magic. How else can you explain the transformations that happen to just about everyone in New Orleans when Mardi Gras time grows near. I've seen every type of person swear that they weren't doing Mardi Gras this year and then get up at 5am on Fat Tuesday and out to get a spot. I've seen young, old, black, white, rich, poor, religious and not so religios come together for the "party". Something about that day brings out the Coon-ass in all of us. You don't have to be born in the city to be effected by it.

When you stand in the street and smell New Orleans in the night air while dancing to the big bass drum from the Saint Aug purple knights. While you eat a moon pie , drink a beer and watch Bacchas or Endymion roll by. You look up in the hazy night and see the beads hanging from the Oak trees or look back at the balcony and see the Mardi Gras party going on. You go to your
"Mom an them's" and eat Popeyes chicken waiting on the next parade. The beads are so thick around your neck that you have a hard time putting your little boy or little girl on your shoulders to see the Parade. Even while you watch the young and old out of towners talk people out of their clothes for beads or even pass out yourself on the blanket in the middle of the neutral ground while everyone steps over you for the beads and cups being thrown from floats. You are feeling some of Mardi Gras. During Mardi gras the inhabitions take over at some level and start to feel like a New Orleanean. It's a kind of initiation into a not so secret club that you can never leave. Once you feel it you are addicted. Your experience can be as extreme as you want it to be or as docile as you like. But you will have an experience.
Straight people come from miles around to watch the gay parades and costumes. Gay people show up in Metairie to have the family experience. Black people dance with White people and White people show up on Claiborne ave to see the Mardi Gras Indians in all of their grandeur.
Kids fight with old people for throws and Old people enjoy being young again for a day.

I still haven't completely explained the magic but I did touch on it.

Happy Lundi Gras

I'm sitting in a coffee shop in Longmont Colorado
wonderin' what to do.
I've been home to New Orleans and my house is
empty without the kids and you.
The life we loved and the life we knew
washed away in the august storm,
I don't know if we can ever go back to the
place that our love was born.

Call me an Expatriot

I was reading a book today about New Orleans and it said that
There is always something going on in New Orleans. That is what I miss the most.
I've said that home is where my wife and kids are and that is mostly true but I cannot
help but hope that place is in New Orleans. I've spent a few months in beautiful Colorado and there is nothing wrong here......but then again everything that is wrong with new Orleans ( excluding the crime ) is what makes it special. There is something always going on in New Orleans. It is more important now.....now more than ever that something is always going on. Mardi Gras, Jazz fest, French Quarter fest, St Joseph's day, Saint's games, Hornet's games, WWOZ broadcasts, WWL broadcasts, Music in the 24 hour dives, Artists,in Jackson Square, Tarot Card and Palm readers in Jackson Square, Everything on Bourbon Street, Galleries on Royal Street, White lenin night, Awesome food in all of the restaraunts, The Rich snobs and the poor street urchins. Everything and more........ At the moment I consider myself and expatriot. My heart and soul is in New Orleans. They were there while I lived there and they are there now. But my heart and soul live for my wife and kids. I will do what is best for them. Even if it means remaining an expatriot. I will do everthing I can to help the people and the city. I will do everthing that I can to make sure that my Mom and Dad who are buried in New Orleans do not rest there without us. I will make sure that New Orleans and the Ellis family remain intertwined. I will remain a New Orleanean in my heart.

The top of the trees

I've been in New Orleans for what seems like forever.
Every day that passes it seems less and less like home.
I love it here but I love it more when I can share it with my wife and kids.
My Dad use to tell me that Home is where you hang your hat. He always said that he could live anywhere.

The longer you are away from your family the more you start to realize that they can live without you. They call a little less each day and your conversations get shorter. You get alot more paranoid and in some ways a lot smarter. Where there's smoke there's fire . At least that's what you believe. Everyone seems to think that you are lounging around and taking it easy.
In reality this is the hardest thing that I 've ever done.
In some ways I think I didn't lose much in the Hurricane, but then I realize that no matter what my house looks like, I lost everything. I lost my life, my job, my house, my friends, my way of life. My family can no longer function like a family because we don't live alone and haven't for 5 months.

We are what we are. I don't feel sorry for myself but I cannot sweep the facts under the rug. Will my family survive this disaster. In some ways I think we've already succombed to Katrina.
In other ways we were successful in overcoming.

Wait for the sequel to see what happens

Dad's Birthday

It's only fitting that Dad's 77th birthday would fall on Superbowl Sunday.
I happened to be in New Orleans and spent some time at the cemetary talking to Dad and Mom. It doesn't seem possible that he has been gone for 4 years.

What do I remember about Dad.

I can remember that he would wake up very early in the morning. Sometimes 3am and would walk down the stairs. He would be in his polyester dress slacks and tank top undershirt. He would sit in the kitchen on a stool and he would smoke a cigarette. He was rarely without his cigarette and a cup of coffee, with cream and sugar. He would sit there and think. He would come up with business ideas or simply read the paper. He was always thinking about how to make money. He would stay there until someone woke up and kept him company.

Dad loved Mom unconditionally. There was never a time that he I ever heard him say anything bad about Mom. He would do some things that would make her so mad that sometimes I thought she could leave him. But even during those times, he loved her beyond comprehension. Dad could never have survived without Mom.

Dad loved us Kids more than anything, except Mom. He would always do anything or give anything to make us happy. He was always there when we needed him. He was an example of a simple human being with his own demons, but he never let us kids know about them.

Dad loved to eat. He loved to have barbques and crawfish boils. He loved to have cookouts. I remember one time when he got an idea from some friends about burying a roast in coals and cooking it. He got up at about 3am and dug a hole in the backyard. He started burning wood in the hole until he got some really hot coles. He had about a 30 pound roast that was trimmed and wrapped in foil. He put the roast in the coals and then filled the hole back up with dirt. About 3 hours later he dug it up and trimmed all of the dirt off of it... It was one of the best pieces of meat we ever had.

He also loved to cook pigs on a spit, cou sean du let. We did that at least 5 times and were never disappointed.

I remember Dad's riding lawn mower. Dad loved to be outside and he would cut the grass about 3 times a week. He would get on his riding lawn mower and he had a cup holder mounted to it. He would put a can of beer in the holder and would cut the grass wearing his pastel blue old man shorts, dark socks and dress shoes with no shirt. He would work outside all day.

Dad was comical in alot of ways but as a Pool player he was dead serious. He had nerves of absolute steel when the cheese was on the line. Dad would play the same for 5000.00 as he would for 5.00. He wasn't the absolute best pool player bt all around he had the respect of anyone in the city who knew anything about playing pool for money. In a legendary place like New Orleans, that's saying something.


I talk to Mom and Dad every day. I wish they were here with me....sometimes it would be nice to have thier support. But I know that if heaven exists. Dad and Mom are there. They are happy because they are together. That's the way it was meant to be.

Broken

Broken

There are days that I feel like I’m broken.
My son’s bike with a flat tire, My daughter's doll
With a broken leg.

I’m broken.

In a storm there’s a light that seems to beckon
Me.
I follow until I get to the site and wonder why I
Went.
Why did it seem such an important task ?
Why did I feel no need to ask
before I left?

I’m broken.

I get to a place and don’t like how I got there
Why did I ever leave ?

I’m broken.

Like my parents hopes,
Like my children’s dreams,
Like my wife’s heart,

I’m broken

I sit in the corner and wonder when
I got so broken.
and then.........it hits me.
Like a chorus of angels singing my life
I am the way I am supposed to be.




broken is how I'm supposed to be.
broken is what I am.