In April/May, I spent a couple of weeks in NOLA visiting family. First trip since the pandemic upended everything! Wanted to share some photos I took both there and on the train (Amtrak’s Sunset Limited) there and back.
Old southern house seen from train.
Above ground graveyard somewhere in Louisiana (seen from train)
my feet on an old hearts of pine floor.
I thought this was pretty (at a restaurant in NOLA)
Mrs. Maisel’s Fabric Store
My lovely sister and niece.
A grand old NOLA house.
Outside the El Paso Amtrak Station.
Meditation dome.
Love that Spanish Moss!
I hate seeing these ghost bikes. RIP.
Loved this house as well.
Antebellum building being renovated for senior housing!
This is a main street in a Texas town, as seen from the train.
Daisies
How they raise a house in NOLA.
Little church in a NOLA neighborhood.
Location of the Upstairs Lounge, a deadly attack on the gay community of NOLA back in 1973.
Leafy walk in Uptown, NOLA.
Love these little shotgun houses (also Uptown, NOLA)
The Blogger before coffee at a house in NOLA.
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Despite its well-deserved reputation as a party town, I’ve never imbibed in New Orleans. I first visited the wonderful southern city in 1996 (as part of my journey in Wanderslut 1996: A Gay Road Trip Across America). I was living six years as a sober gay man by that time.
The blogger with some famous shaved ice at Hansen’s.
Mindset
When sober, you have to think of the other attributes of a place (other than the tourist stereotype) to focus on. In New Orleans, for me anyway, (on my first few visits at least), that fact that it had chops as a gay-friendly place — The French Quarter, anyway — that was a major attraction.
I liked these frilly porches I found on one of my bike rides in NOLA.
Beyond that particular carrot, I think that your interests (as a sober gay man) expand after achieving sobriety since that kind of wild partying is no longer an option. You gravitate toward long dormant, or new interests – which for me include things like history, architecture and building history, music, food, nature and of course, my family.
Rue de la Course, a coffeehouse in an old bank building in Uptown, where I’d sometimes go to write.
Things I Did for Fun
The gay stuff: New Orleans has/had a ton of gay bars, most located in the French Quarter around Bourbon Street. I more or less did the requisite “stop in” but to be honest, there seemed to be such an emphasis on getting that drunk buzz that I felt uncomfortable and had to leave.
I had much more fun at the Club New Orleans baths (detailed in my book Wanderslut 1996) which, unfortunately, is closed now. Four floors of sober gay fun in an ancient building a block or so from the Mississippi! It did, at least for me, have a lot of answers to carnal dreams. I was sad to see it close. Every time I visit I hope I’ll find that some entrepreneur has opened a new bathhouse. The hook-up apps have ruined a lot of IRL gay culture – this was just another casualty.
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NOLA was not all about sex, of course. There’s music – I went to Jazz Fest (usually late April every year) a couple of times, and also to clubs to hear live bands. I really love New Orleans style piano, so if Jon Cleary is playing while I’m visiting, I do try to go.
The sightseeing/history piece: New Orleans and the surrounding area is nothing if not historical. On that first trip in ’96 I did walking tours in the city, the Quarter and Garden District, etc. Later on, and especially once I had family living there, we’d go farther afield — to a Plantation Tour on the old River Road, a Swamp Tour on the Pearl River in nearby Mississippi.
This shack is a slave quarters at one of the plantations I toured. (Laura Plantation)
The Spring after Katrina, my sister (who by now lived in NOLA) took me on what she dubbed the Katrina Tour of Destruction, which pretty much describes seeing the remnants of that terrible storm.
Lived There for a Month
In late 2012, I wrote a post titled “Is It Time to Consider Leaving Los Angeles?” — which my sister saw. She then invited me to spend some time with them to “try living in New Orleans” as a sober gay man for a month.
So I did, l lived there for a month in spring, 2013 – to see if I wanted to move there. What did I do? Write, exercise, spend time with family, see some music events, bicycle, went to a couple of recovery meetings, maybe cooked dinner, restaurants, a bit of sightseeing, even a trip or two to the baths. Tried to do pretty much what I would do at home in L.A. if I was there.
A restaurant on Oak Street in Uptown.
In the end, I decided against a move — but that, as they say, was then. I’ve never closed the door completely on that idea. It’s a fascinating place!
An old oak with Spanish Moss in Audubon Park, New Orleans.
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Recently I went on a train trip to New Orleans (Amtrak Sunset Limited) to visit my sister and brother-in-law and family. Went out there by train, flew back. This video is a compilation of some views from the train, especially in Texas, as well as some of the sights and sounds of New Orleans. Those are a bit different from the usual tourist things you see, as it’s not the French Quarter, it’s Uptown New Orleans where my relatives live.
I like taking morning walks, so I made a bunch of walking videos of the sites along my routes. Hope you enjoy the clips!
Train trip continues – first leg of my monthly pass was Los Angeles-New Orleans, where I got off the Sunset Limited. My sister and brother-in-law (Kate and Dave) picked me up at the station.
Here’s the train near dusk entering Morgan City, Louisiana:
Most of the days there were filled with family catching up. They live in the Uptown neighborhood, about a block from the Mississippi River levee, in a very quiet little corner of NOLA that Dave has called a “quiet small Southern town.”
I have to agree. Love being there, I love the quiet and the pace. So so different from Los Angeles. And everywhere the divine decadence of the old city collapsing, almost: the streets are unbelievably uneven with potholes everywhere; the sidewalks are cracked and chipped or non-existent. The songs of cicadas rise and fall as you walk, the Spanish Moss hangs from the trees and often buildings sport saplings or other plants from their own facade cracks.
Here’s me walking to coffee in Uptown:
I’ve been there often enough now to have pretty much seen most of the tourist spots and now my favorite activity is just to walk and absorb the city: its people, architecture, culture — which of course includes music, and I was there for Jazz Fest activities.
We didn’t go to the Jazz Fest grounds, but a lot of the musicians play in clubs around town during the event, and we did get to see one of my favorite NOLA musicians, Jon Cleary.
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Sex notes — I’m not having any here, but I do have thoughts/opinions on it — On looking for sex so far – it’s the apps, it’s all about the apps, it’s Adam4Adam. The same thing I typically get at home – headless or totally photo-less guys emailing me asking me if I’m interested in sex. I don’t even bother answering anymore. Especially on that site Adam for Adam – the only reason I keep it is that I still would like to meet this one L.A. guy some day and so far as I’ve seen, he’s not on Grindr or Scruff. And of course, I would never run into him in the real world, because who goes out anymore? How we’ve changed, in such a short time.
I thought about writing this last night and this morning, and decided maybe I should try cruising, you know street cruising, again, which I’ve largely avoided since prostate cancer surgery for a number of reasons. There’s also the part about being old. It usually doesn’t happen anymore, that instant eyeball connection that was made in public so often in the younger years. But sometimes it still does happen.
It’s still fraught with danger, somewhat, in that you never know if you’re cruising a straight guy who will be offended and possibly violent. Or, if you cruise a younger guy—and at this stage, they’re ALL younger—you risk coming off as a creeper. So I usually don’t – make initial eye contact, or do the 1-2-3 turn-around-and-look dance.
One of the days we went up to City Park to look at the sculpture garden and have coffee and beignets. At least I did. Some pictures of that park below.
One sculpture in particular caught my fancy, it was for the Resistance Fighters. Obviously super relevant in the age of Trump.
Here’s some pix from the NOLA portion of the trip:
Actually this is Houston train station. (Close enough)
Jolene, one of my most beloved canine friends.
It’s true; I do like bike
Jon Cleary
Blogger with sister Kate
Ruthermere, where I stayed
Protestors over the removal of this Confederate statue – is now gone. City Park
a WPA Bridge, City Park. Loving the deco typography
loved the deco typography. Also in City Park
Leandro Erlich: Window with Ladder: Too Late for Help
Arnaldo Pomodoro: A Battle: For the Resistance Fighters
More from the NOLA trip – on May 9, we went to the Rock ‘n’ Bowl, which is “a live music venue located on S. Carrollton Avenue in New Orleans. It is a unique venue that combines a bowling alley and a music club together in one place,” and, there is also food, a bar, and of course (as you will see) dancing.
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Houston train station. Depot is the small building in the BG. This is the only platform. Note crumbling canopy similar to the one in Rochester.
Cleveland Amtrak station, waiting for the train. The depot is a small structure between the freeway and lakeside structures.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/U4CtltBrGyA[/youtube]
I know that infrastructure refers to much more than just train tracks and stations — however, that’s the most recent infrastructure I’ve had the opportunity to take a good look at.
Media is from recent train trip: Crumbling infrastructure all over, but I particularly noticed it in a few areas specific to train tracks, train stations and bridges. I’d have to say that most – but not all – of the train stations east of the Mississippi, from Toledo to Albany, were in some need of major overhauling. One thing I did notice were that the platforms and canopies (see pix and video clip – which I believe is Rochester, New York) are all the same vintage. To my uneducated eye, they look like they were likely built in the 1930s or 40s.
They all seem to be falling apart at the same rate.
One of the most embarrassing stations of all was Union Station in Washington, D.C., which has the same deal with the crumbling platforms. Luckily, they just announced an upgrade is on the way. Imagine you’re a businessperson from Europe on your first trip to D.C. from New York and this is your first impression of our nation’s capital? Kind of pathetic, compared to what you’re used to seeing in Western Europe or Asia.
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For me, the most disappointing of all was Houston, Texas, which is the nation’s 4th largest city, right there behind New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. The Amtrak station in Houston is a garbage-strewn wasteland of one crumbling platform stuck under a freeway. Again, I wonder if Houston’s city fathers and mothers really want that to be the first impression visitors get of their fine town when they roll in on the train?
My point with the post is not to vilify certain cities or regions (sorry Houston and Ohio) but to just point out what’s probably obvious to anybody anywhere in America these days: Yes, our infrastructure is crumbling, and falling behind the rest of the world. We have people who need jobs who could rebuild it; we have money available at the lowest interest rates in decades to finance it.
Not to be completely gloomy, there were some bright spots: NOLA’s completing a new light rail line, Los Angeles just opened a new light rail line, there were well kept up small town stations in places like Tuscaloosa and Meridian. And, there’s a new intermodal station in Milwaukee.
Shot of fountain with St. Charles streetcar in the bg
Corner of Dominican and Fern in NOLA
Real Nawlins Food.
Roof symmetry.
This made me laugh. Didn’t eat there.
Before an afternoon nap. Angel Heart, without the violence?
Audubon Park fountain.
I love the drama of the Spanish moss.
relocated slave quarters on the Laura Plantation
Another view. The guide said this house was abandoned after the Civil War.
Slaveowner’s retirement house, in ruins
Video, as well. Scroll down.
My final visit on this month-long trip with the train was to see my sister Kate and brother-in-law Dave Maleckar in New Orleans. It was a pretty quiet week – didn’t do too much, as I’ve been in NOLA a number of times and have pretty much maxed out the usual tourist sites – with the exception of seeing a plantation, which we did do.
The Laura Plantation is out on the River Road and a very interesting example of a Creole business plantation. An excellent tour, heavy on the history of Louisiana including the part before the USA got the Louisiana purchase, finally explaining to me what Creole really means. Highly recommended if you go down there and want to see one of the old places.
Other than that, just hung out and did a lot of walking around my sister’s neighborhood of Uptown (see photos, video) and visited with them. It’s been a very hard year for all, hard to believe it’s already 8 months since their daughter’s death (Alma Maleckar Bear). It was great to see them, as well as Alma’s husband David Bear. I took the Sunset Limited home to L.A.
And now, for the pros and cons of the train pass and Amtrak travel:
PROS
economical way to go: my 30-day pass cost $649.
Very relaxed way to travel – there’s no TSA. You don’t have to disrobe at the train station and there’s no groping. They actually do have food on the train (though you buy it, and it’s not cheap). There’s no traffic jams getting to an Amtrak station.
On time departures: every train I took left on time.
Clean and well-stocked restrooms: No train restroom I was in ever ran out of TP, soap, or towels, so unlike, for instance, the horrid and bitter end of a cross country flight where the restrooms resemble the final night of a decadent county fair.
Diversity: Face to face with your fellow man, any race, any age, any size and disposition. For a writer this is like filling up a dry well.
Helpful phone reservations: I had great experiences talking to actual booking agents on Amtrak, and it was speedy.
You see fascinating parts of cities and the countryside you would never see if you were driving (and, if you were driving, you should have your eyes on the road anyway!)
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The day before my niece Alma’s funeral some of us went down to the Music Box installation at the Dithyrambalina on Piety Street in the Bywater section of NOLA.
They let us experiment with the instruments in the various “houses,” including the spiral staircase organ (I actually got up to the top of it), the Balinese hut with the bells on the wall, a little shack with floorboards which would each play a different tone (reminded me of the giant foot-operated piano in “Big”) and a little gazebo which had what looked like a giant wedding dress (that you could sit inside – see photo) lined with bells and other things (keys, etc) that would tinkle and ring when shook. There was also the tiny house which had a stethoscope hanging from the rafter, which you could place against your heart to have the life beat broadcast throughout the yard. This was slightly disconcerting to me, as in, what if there was no sound, what if — it stopped? Yet it also emphasized so clearly that each person who tried it (and we all did) had a unique sound and vibration.
The air was so clear, crisp, and the light so winter.
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The installation is also a fine place for musicians to play and experiment, and I see that’s the point of us being there that day, something Alma would have been first in line to do.
View from Piety Street: Whispers behind the wood
Molly, Kate and Faith in the music yard
Taking a picture of a person taking a picture: Naomi focuses while David Bear plays a water organ
view from inside the wedding dress dome: Molly and Morgan
Molly sitting inside the bell dome wedding dress thing.
Another music house
This image on the wall reminded me of Alma Claire Maleckar
Little houses of music in the yard in Bywater
Kimball upright innards forms the wall to this music box
My lovely niece Alma and her husband David Bear (my nephew-in-law?) have made (and appear in) this promo video for the unique French Quarter gallery he is now managing. This reminds me so much of something my sister and brother-in-law would do it’s spooky – guess that just goes to show the apples never fall too far from the damn tree.
When in NOLA, make sure to visit David at Fair Folks and a Goat and get some unlicensed therapy! Maybe you will even get a popover.
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Update August 8, 2011: My relatives are no longer associated with this business.
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