Leveling yourself
Last night, before I left for Swirl, I lay on the couch and tried to bring myself down a couple of notches – I was amping too high to go out because the outcome would have been gasoline and fire. It helped. I got there and pretty soon Swirl became the Ottoman Empire – so many Turks – all so beautiful – jesum, this one woman, Melissa (what kind of Turkish name is that?) was so outstandingly gorgeous she could have been on the cover of National Geographic under the title Ottoman Empire. I took a picture of her.
Then a bunch of us went over to Asia Pacific to sit outside and eat sushi and watch an Elvis film, only the Elvis film was almost over and we ended up with Lucille Ball instead. I kept saying I wanted to go see Gal Holiday at Chickie Wah Wah but the crowd was starting to want a different direction so I decided I would go solo.
Instead, an entourage followed, and we took over Chickie Wah Wah – Gal and her band were incredible – she looked like something off of a chewing tobacco tin – an anachronistic silhouette singing covers by Hank Williams and others. I kept thinking to myself – this is surreal being here in New Orleans at this club and watching this band for $5 and hearing this music. I danced a little but was more into the scene than the dance floor – the one guy who wanted to dance with all of us kept coming over and I shoo’d him – after all I had to keep an eye on my girls who were getting messy and careening all over the place – even though that in and of itself was worth the price of admission.
The Turks stayed with us vying for their own limelight and at the end I was glad that I had switched to soda water and had found a place to be an observer at a level that wasn’t about to blast off.