The Raish Brothers Brotherly Road Trip - New Orleans

We woke up in Austin with slight hangovers and ate a crappy hotel breakfast and got on the road in the rain.  We went through Houston, TX on the way to New Orleans, LA

we found Bubba's Texas Burger Shack on Yelp.  It's surreal because it's surrounded by highway overpasses above it.  Luke said he went there a few weeks earlier and their local friend took them there and remembers when it was just a shack in a field.

Buffalo chili in the front, Frito pie in the back.  I was dissapointed that this Frito pie was not in a fritos bag and more gourmet but it was tasty.

Buffalo melt or something like that on rye, also tasty.

Driving through Louisiana most of the day.  Bayous?  

Even more Flamin' Hot action.  This time it's a munchies mix of rold gold pretzels, doritos, cheetos and yes even sun chips covered in healthy Flamin' Hot powder.  I think we called a moratorium on Flamin' Hot stuff after this.  Also eating 4 servings of chips a day on top of all the other Americana food we've been eating doesn't make you feel so good.

Bob in front of the Crescent Palms Motel, New Orleans, LA.  We made it to New Orleans and stayed at the Crescent Palms.  As we were driving there we were like F****** where are we gonna park, this area looks ghetto.  It's weird because you don't know if areas are ghetto because of hurricane damage or because it is an impoverished area.  And then you can look across the street and see where it's ghetto and then there will be super nice houses.

We went to Deanie's which was packed and the wait was too long and it looked touristy so we walked down the street to Felix's where the wait was 15 minutes.  We saw a young girl in booty shorts passed out on the corner of Bourbon and Iberville street with cops standing around her.  More on Bourbon street coming up.  We started the night with Hurricanes, a drink from New Orleans and they got us feeling way better than one drink should have.  We had gumbo which was awesome, catfish which was awesome, and alligator which was decent and was like slightly tougher chicken and hushpuppies that were awesome.  I think that almost every business in New Orleans is touristy because it seems like the whole city is nothing but a tourist's playground

Saw a wedding procession dancing down the street with brass band.

Bourbon street is the grossest street I have walked down in the world.  Granted I haven't been to Thailand and places in the world with straight up hookers on the street and super real underbelly of society stuff but Bourbon street is gross.  I don't think even when I was in my 20s that I would like Bourbon street.  There were tons of strip club type places with scantily clad girls standing outside them.  Gross cheap bars, all with take away drinks (I guess drinking in the streets is legal cuz everyone was doing it), tourist shops, bars with balconies and people throwing strings of beads to people below.  Its a mix of young people and then old people like your parents age and its the old people that are going crazy like its their last bender ever.  It was like 50% old people.  I call New Orleans a geriatric playground.  Bob calls it the last bender ever (for old people).  Sorry but I don't want to see the equivalent of my parents dressed badly, stumbling in the streets with leprechaun hats on and beads, gyrating on the dance floors or worse (see below).  And everyone is wasted

Down by the river things get calmer

a strip of fortune tellers

The famous Cafe du Monde

BMC on Frenchman street we ended up back her to see a brass band.  Frenchman street is where it's at for me at least.  I'm a jazz lover and New Orleans is the birthplace of Jazz.  The prospects of a street filled with Jazz clubs was awesome.  It was a little disappointing to find that most places have moved on from Jazz and now have bands playing R&B, Blues, covers, and other stuff.  Don't get me wrong I love all that stuff but the only "Jazz" that we found was at the spotted cat and that was swing era Jazz with vocalists.  There was no "Hot" Jazz or dixiland or ragtime jazz to be found.

paid $5 to get into the Spotted Cat.  A cool enough place and the only option left for us at 9pm on a friday night.  I expected more from New Orleans.  I would call this tourist jazz.  Everyone was tickled pink by this swing era band but they were just acceptable.  There is tons of this in new york, where is the New Orleans hot jazz!? The cutting contests?!!  By the way we tried Preservation Hall but the line was super long with no guarantee of there being room for people that far back in the line and filled with squares so we tried elsewhere.  So we ducked out of the spotted cat to find street drinks and something else.  But don't get me wrong, this place is totally fine, i was just on a mission

At the spotted cat they did bring on these 3 girls (the Hazelnuts) that were from Israel and sang in amazing harmony like the Andrews sisters (boogie woogie bugle boy).  They were the most amazing thing about this place.

so we got street drinks and walked around to listen to the buskers who were more interesting than what a lot of the music going on inside the establishments was.  This guy on a steel resonator guitar was awesome

these girls were fun

I talked to some street buskers and they told us about a website to find whats playing in New Orleans so we found this brass band, The Lagniappe Brass Band playing at BMC.  It was sweet.  Brass band is a traditional New Orleans thing so I was happy.  We had enough booze in us to feel good and it was late enough in the night that people started dancing.  This big boy trombone player came some point after the set started and just walked up and immediately went at it.  Tuba player in the back was holding everything together.

A girl talked to Bob!  A girl that is our mom's age.  She kept talking to Bob.  It was gross and funny.  You can see one of her friends out there dancing which was even grosser.  Remember her because she's coming up in a bit.

wedding party popped in to dance to one song

at some point the spirit of the Mississippi delta emerged out of nowhere taking the form of cowbell master.  so before we left I went to the bathroom and then I couldn't open the door all the way because an EMT crew was there in front of the women's bathroom with a stretcher. I wiggled by and saw Bob's girlfriend's friend passed out on the floor of the bathroom and her friend in there with the EMTs.  Tough luck Bob, could have been your lucky night but girlfriends gotta take care of girlfriends.  So in closing this is a prime example of how I was so grossed out by the geriatric playland aspect of New Orleans.

Lil' Wayne on the sax?  I see a Mannie Fresh flyer in the window but I think Lil' Wayne is too huge now to play this lil' venue.  He is from New Orleans though

Hurricane Katrina damage