Apologies, Etc.
Item #1: Apologies
So much for updating this site every week. By all accounts, it's been about 7 weeks since my last installment, and you may notice I've stopped associating a "week number" with each diary. Readers who work at Yahoo! can, if you really want to, ask Thomas Ludwig and Mike Riley about how diligent I was with getting my "weekly" in while in their employ. To the rest of you who have been waiting (with baited breath, I'm sure) for a new installment I beg you to accept my humble apologies for being a bit flaky about this. It will happen again. Anyway, moving on...
...let me tell you about Tara.
I'll avoid all the mushy/gushy language that I'm prone to using in this kind of situation, but in the immortal words of Cher, "I've found someone to take away the heartache." Don't vomit.
Tara is from Livingston, New Jersey, which is my home town -- and don't think the irony of a world traveller finding a girl from home is lost on me. Hell, Superman may have had Lois Lane in Metropolis but he also had a long-distance thing with Lana Lang in Smallville. And given I'm not Superman, and the fact that Tara would probably be very upset if I had a Lois-type thing going on the side, I think I can probably make do with just Tara. Quite well, in fact.
She's sweet, beautiful, wonderful, and graced me with her presence last week here in New Orleans. We had an awesome week, spent a day at Jazzfest, visited her brother Glenn in Baton Rouge, and generally made it very difficult for me to put her back on a plane to New Jersey.
I'll see her again this weekend for a couple of days before I head back to Europe, but it won't be enough. It will be hard to be away from her for that long. If you're wondering how I feel about Tara, take note of the fact that I wanted to discuss her in the diary before talking about Jazzfest.
And so, now, speaking of Jazzfest...
...another one has come and gone. Jazzfest is my favourite time of the year, the most concentrated dose of high-quality music one could hope to get, and generally exciting enough to me that I keep a running countdown of the number of days until it comes (344 left until fest 2003)
This year's fest was no disappointment, especially as my good friend Manolo very predictably decided to come at the last minute. Manolo was born to go to Jazzfest just as much as Jazzfest had to have been invented with him in mind.
A bunch of other people came down too, including my sister Jill, aunt Barbara, cousin Wendy, uncle Richard, Hairy Dave, Joe, Claudia, Jess, Rand, and Cher.
Personally, there were two individual fest highlights for me -- seeing the Wynton Marsalis Septet at the Congo Square stage as the afternoon sun started to wither (see picture of big-booty woman dancing at the Wynton set) and seeing John Mooney & Bluesiana at the Mid-City Lanes Rock & Bowl (picture is from the Maple Leaf Bar -- maybe I enjoyed the Rock & Bowl more because I left my camera at home).
I've said it before and I'll say it again: come to Jazzfest next year. It's important.
Just L-I-V-I-N
But for the most part, and outside of Jazzfest, living the last 2 months in New Orleans has been pretty relaxing. The music is there every night if you want to go, and will still be there tomorrow if you don't. The most bizarre thing about living here, in fact, has been that there isn't the pressure to go out every night that there is when you come to town as a visitor.
New Orleans is very liveable. There's good food, it's pretty, there's a lot of art going on, there's the music. People sit on the front porch and watch other people. They say hello when you walk by. The neighbourhood feels like a neighbourhood. People just drop by to say hello (most frequently my friend Ivan). If you have to live in the USA, New Orleans is a pretty good place to do it.
Next moves:
Here in New Orleans until Saturday morning, then New Jersey to visit Tara on the weekend. Back to Madrid on Monday morning!
Until next time...
--Andrew