As promised, I have visited Bourbon Street here in New Orleans so that I could give you a description of it. (The link is to the BourboCam, across from the club "Cat's Meow." That's the place where people, couples and lots of single guys, stand on the second floor balcony and shout down for women in the crowd to "Show your tits! Show your tits!") The place is definitive of the tawdriness of Bourbon Street, as many locals see it. But I found a certain charm there in its ability to condense all the wonders of this semi-tropical outpost of what is normally a Puritan country. I think you might understand where I'm going with this line of thought... It is my fondest hope that one day you and Dragan will see it for yourselves. Until then, I will try to paint in words for you what America's theme park for adults is like.

My roommate, Caio, says that the closest thing to this special street in New Orleans is Avenita de Revolution in Tijuana. "Come on in! We got what you want!" It's like a scene from the movie "Dust 'til Dawn." At least in Tijuana. Here in New Orleans there is much more texture, I think, even though Louisiana is the poorest state in our Union. You start with strip clubs, and clips joints, and then you get various choices of the unique, some of which supply surprisingly good music. You can enjoy that if you're willing to fork out your ducats and dinars for the over-priced drinks. OR you can do what I did, enjoy the music while standing outside on the street.

I have to tell you about "Fritzel's," a German pub that features a portrait of General Rommel and had the classiest live Old School jazz band, with a featured clarinet player a la Benny Goodman, that I heard all night. (Yes, my darlings, I know there is no love between the Serbs and the Germans, but you would really like this club. All of the musicians are typical New Orleanians -- meaning old men with a story to tell.)

You and Dragan would like Bourbon Street, I think, though it seems to be built for tourists. Some of the music is too loud, and some things are too gaudy and *definitely* too expensive. (If I took you to Decatur Street we could get a beer for two dollars and cocktails for three tops. At some places on Bourbon you pay up to six dollars a drink. Aaack!)

BUT besides the Napoleon House on Chartres, also in the French Quarter, one of the oldest buildings in town is LaFitte's Blacksmith Shoppe. (As in pirate Jean LaFitte, who helped save General Andrew Jackson's ass in the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812 between the US and Britain. Jackson went on to become the seventh President of the United States. New Orleans legend has it that the blacksmith shop was just a front for LaFitte to launder his ill-gotten gains.) It's not a blacksmith shop now, of course, it's a bar. But it is preserved French architecture that draws in the yuppies. The drinks are way over-priced, which means that your poor construction-worker friend was not a habitue. I liked it from the outside, though.

Napoleon House, on the other hand, is the home that the conspirators here expected the Emperor to reside in after they spirited him from Elba. LaFitte's brother and a mayor of New Orleans were involved in that plot, back in the 19th century. You both know me and history. I loved that story and savored breathing the same air as those silly dreamers. I want to believe that one day you will do that with me here, my loves.

You can't spit in this town without hitting some history of France, Spain, and that "young" country, America.

I know that I shouldn't still be writing to you, after all these years, but I can't stop.

I will always write to you, I guess, as you are the person who woke me up to sensation. Everything I have always written has been for you and that is probably why I feel so lost without a Next Woman to write for.

I know: I should write for myself. But that is not how the chemistry (dare I say "the magic"?) works. Forgive me for continuing this way...

I am now living in a Third World country that pretends to be part of the United States. That is fitting, since I've left on that hejira of mine. New Orleans is semi-tropical, subterranean, politically corrupt, time-warped and loaded.

Where else could I go after renouncing the "normal" American life?

So I keep writing to and for you. You are still the Muse in my mind. Not because you want to be, I know, but because I can't let go. Who else would I write to/for?

I had only made a Life Plan for me to be 36 years old and now I'm almost 50. Damn! What happened? I'm not even sure anymore.

If I had not gone to Serbia, there would be no reason.

But I am still alive and I have the dream of The Next Woman, and my mission to help my friends... I guess that is enough.

But I digress.

Maybe, just maybe, there is one more novel left in me. Perhaps one that will actually be published. But that one won't be yours. That one is for The Next Woman.

And then, at last, I can rest...

THINGS I DREAM THIS WEEK

Rod was a columnist for the Andover News Network, where he wrote over two hundred articles on web design and development issues. He was also principal writer and Editor for IT Manager's Journal, where he reviewed technology issues weekly, producing 383 editorials. He became the Managing Editor for Electronic Mail/Newsletter Publications at Andover.net at the end of February, 2000, and left in September of the same year. He was a contributing writer for ACCESS magazine, which appears both on- and offline for 10 million readers in 100 newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Post, Boston Herald, Austin American-Statesman, Denver Post and Orlando Sentinel, among others. Rod was the US reporter for Silicon.com, a division of Network Multimedia Television in London, UK, reaching 3.5 million European readers, until May, 2001.

Rod lives in New Orleans, Louisiana, right now. The new home of the magazine. But he plans to return to Serbia next year.

He continues to be committed to integrity, chastity and a dose of humility.

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