Portraying Silly Lad Displaying Frilly Fad At The Lilly Pad Making Hillbilly Mad

 

It's hard to keep pace with the French Quarter these days.

Stuff like avoiding energy sapping foods like Zebra Cakes; getting 8 hours of sleep and having clean clothes; keeping the kitchen clean, taking care of Harold and the usual daily chores, when added to the need to be playing at a high level from say 10:30 in the evening until 2:40 the next morning makes it so I have been waking up and immediately beginning to prepare for the next busking session.

It being Sunday night, I am curious about the Lafitt's sound system that they had been blasting the past couple nights.

It seems like a crass attempt to make more money by using an area of the block which is about 4 times bigger than the inside of the bar, to accommodate additional people who become transfixing by the 90 decibel sound system, that seems to always be playing hip hop music. This has the effect of garnishing "the oldest bar in America" with the latest willy-nilly fads in music; at the expense of the old fashioned piano guy.

Only about 15 or so people can crowd around his piano; but almost 100 people can shake their bodies to the likes of 50 Cent (who is going to appear in Canada as '38 Cent," I've heard) and the latter just moves more over-priced drinks, in plastic cups. So, the place has the aura of 1772 about it, still has the original bricks and everything from back when it was a used as a front for fencing pirated goods out the back door and past what is now Lilly's pool. Sitting in the candle lit place, it is easy to feel like you are back in the 18th century; the mule drawn carts going past, the gas lamps lighting the neighborhood streets. It's just like the 18th century, just with 50 Cent there, rapping away...

So, out with the intimacy of the piano bar with its caricature of Billy Joel at the helm; and the intimacy of me playing by Lilly's stoop, and in with the thumping bass and the mostly white crowd that can become quite unsettling when they start to sing along with Cardi B, and they know every word...