Have I been blind?
Have I been lost inside
myself and my own mind
Hypnotized, mesmerized
by what my eyes have seen?

Rod Amis - Unbound

NEW ORLEANS - 23 April, 2003: I'm seven days out from having to move from the French Quarter to - wherever. With my luck, I'll just move somewhere else in or near the Quarter. Victoria is complaining that I move her around too much. Her x and h keys are beginning to stick. She wants to know when I'll replace our burned out battery so that she could stay out longer without being tethered to her power cord.

I want to know when I'll have enough money for any of her needs, let alone my own. "I'm still trying to find us a new place to live for a while," I groan. "First things first."

I'm trying to avoid telling her that I might sell off her siblings for enough to fulfill her wishes and my own.

For those of you new to this column, I should explain that Victoria is my faithful laptop and her "siblings" are the two desktop computers that languish Back East waiting to be reunited with our family. I've sussed out that the reunion will never happen, so I might as well have them put on e-Bay and bring Vickie and I back up to speed. Life calls for letting go of things sometimes.

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25 April, 2003: This has been my week of walking around. I pick up a few bucks passing out fliers for Scott's new tacqueria venture and then his other noodle shop venture, but that's about it for income. I walk around to other bars I have known and see if they are looking for bartenders. Turns out that one, in the Quarter, just might be. Others could be "down the road" but I don't have a lot more road to go down.

I recommend to my pal Darryl that he sell my two desktop computers on e-Bay since I need the money and shall probably never have the money or stability to have them shipped out here. It is the time of walking around and "seeds and stems," as we used to say in the bad old days.

The Web site project for the band is in drift, like most things in Nawlins; the outline they were scheduled to have ready this past Tuesday is in permanent manana-mode. JazzFest has started.

I have five days remaining before going - where next?

Henry Miller in Paris. The Consul in Cuernavaca. Charles Bukowski in L.A. I am wearing the treads off my tennis shoes and losing weight again. Eating is something that comes sporadically, if at all, and then I recall vaguely that I have a magazine to put out again this week ...

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IN THESE TIMES it becomes difficult to pay attention to the news of the world. I am floundering in the morass of my own bad news. I am dreaming of places to be. I am dreaming there is something else I should or could be doing now but can't figure what that something could or should be exactly. So I begin walking around again, casting my fish hooks, thinking it will jump out at me like the beast in the jungle.

Once again I am dreaming about my own death. In my dream, the latest version, I die here in New Orleans, all the people I know in New Orleans queue up in my Second Line and pretend that they were my friends, that they did everything to help and encourage me. They forget the days that they ate in front of me, knowing that I had not had a morsel in days, like some scene out of a Charlie Chaplin movie. They forget that while I starved they laughed and drank cocktails. They forget avoiding me when I was down. They pat themselves on their collective backs for being my best friends of all time, while forgetting that they watched me fade away without a care. Like they really gave a shit.

"I loved Rod because he kept to his principles."

"I loved Rod because he was true to his dream"

In the Second Line, when I'm not there to gainsay, it's easy to get away with that prevarication.

IF I WAS STILL ALIVE I'd say: "You lyin' sack of shit! You told me how wrong I was at every turn. You discouraged the things I most believed in! And now that I am dead you pretend to all the world that you loved me. Why couldn't you love me when I WAS alive?

"I can see why Jesus got so upset with Pharisees and hypocrites!!"

And I know what my "friends" would say in such a hypothetical circumstance: Shut up, Rod. You're dead.

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NICE BIT OF BILE that was, wasn't it? It's the kind of thing that comes up when you're tired and hungry and desperate for your life to change.

When things get bad enough, of course, when the sadness and sickness in your eyes begins to show through, your real friends do come to bat, of course. Scott and Steve tossed a burrito my way and started to make a few phonecalls. Maybe something will come of that.

To Scott's credit, he can intuit when I'm still keeping up appearances but my back is against the wall. He's come through more than once when I was holding back a scream...

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26 April, 2003: We have a saying here in Nawlins that even appears on bumper stickers: "New Orleans: Proud to crawl home". My walking around turned into crawling and trawling around last night. That's because of Lisa, who would soon be my boss. I'll get to that after telling you about my curiouser, curiouser day and night. It started with my idea that I should see my friend Janine, who bartends at The John. I've been thinking about her a lot lately and hoping that she's heard about a potential job for me. On my way, the path takes me past Buffa's, where my friends Boo, Sarah and Patrick work. Lisa came running out to the street to flag me into Buffa's. She offered to buy me a drink (of course!) and tell me how much she wants me to work at the back bar where she is managing now. We chat for a while about her night of shots with another bar manager. She sends me rolling along to The John.

Janine and I chat and she buys me a couple. The owner, Kay, comes in happy to be ready for the weekend JazzFest crowds and introduces me to a guy who works for Molly's (the one on Toulouse, off Bourbon Street) and recommends me for a job. I trundle from there to Molly's at the Market and talk to Scott and Steve about jobs. Scott buys me a drink (of course!). Scott gives me a burrito, too. He has figured out that I haven't eaten in days, being low-cash. I crawl home.

I eat the burrito and decide to stay in and read. Around nine, Jak calls me and invites me out for a drink (of course!) When I get to the appointed rendezvous at The Abbey, there is no Jak. I wait for half an hour and then walk home. I call Jak. I get the Three Stooges "Hello, Hello, Hello!" harmonized by the assembled drunks. I remind Jak of our rendezvous and he assures me that he is still making his way to The Abbey. I hang up on him.

I kick off my shoes and settle back with my book.

Steve calls me to inform me that his sister is looking for prep cooks at the catering company where she works. He gives me an unfamiliar address at which to apply. When I ask for a cross street, he recommends that I come down to Molly's at the Market and have Scott look it up on MapQuest. I walk down to Molly's. Scott buys me a drink. He finds the directions to the place and gives me ten bucks so I can take the bus to apply for the job today.

Walking home I pass the bar that Lisa wants to me to work and she flags me in. She proceeds to buy me drinks. I meet a gay psychic who tells me that rather than searching for my home I should make it. I should make it here in New Orleans. Lisa buys me more drinks. "You're twisting my arm," I tell her.

She gives me her winning smile and tells me to stick around. She introduces me to the owner of the bar and we start talking about living in Texas. He tells me he thinks too many bar owners hire young chicks nowadays and how he used to love The Old Absinthe House (the original one, not the "copy" that abides now) because all the bartenders were Black men who knew how to mix a decent drink. Lisa says I should take this as a good sign, being a bartender looking for a bar.

The owner, JD, buys me a shot. We talk some more and they invite me to go with them to BJ's, a place down in the Marigny. But it's late (or early, depending on your point of view) and I have to apply for a job today. Lisa slips me a fiver and suggests that I go back into the bar and have another drink before crawling home. How many times do women buy you drinks all night and then give you money for another drink?

I crawl home.

A warrior in Nawlins is a guy who takes his belly full of drinks with style and still manages to make it home remembering what he did and what was said, carrying his shield rather than on it.

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27 April, 2003: Curiouser and curiouser. I may be able to sell off my iMac. That would help. I've pushed to get this last edition of your World's Magazine out for you, my love. I'm not sleeping enough. I dream about food these days. My pal, Ian, with whom I've been crashing again, tosses packs of cigarettes at me and keeps me laughing about my destitute life while denigrating my writing skills. Days go by. I wish I had those red tennis shoes you bought me.

Darryl writes, for the umpteenth time, that I should "change your way living."

Duh.

And if I were a leopard I would lose my spots... An arcane fact, little known, is that a tiger's skin is striped like its fur.

Why must I feel this way?...

It's been a while
Since I could look at myself straight -- Staind

I don't honestly know where I'll be after Wednesday, Darling. If I sell the computer that will help. But I shall stay in touch with you, no matter what. Victoria and I will abide until they pry her from my cold, dead fingers. That is something.

Things I Need This Week

1. Cold, hard cash.

2. A new place to live.

3. The roadmap to my Separate Country.

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Thanks for coming back this week.

"Work like you don't need the money,
"Love like you've never been hurt,
"Dance like no one is watching..."
Rod

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ROD AMIS has published this magazine since 1990. It first appeared as a hardcopy 'Zine. In March, 1996, he launched it here on the Web. Rod was a Contributing Editor at Suite101.com, where he wrote the " 'Net Publishing" feature. His work has been featured in the San Francisco Bay Guardian Online, NRV8, and at WebLab's Reality Check site. Rod was also a contributing writer on technology for Faulkner Information Services. He wrote on Web issues for MethodFive.com's Hyper newsletter.

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 appeared 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.

Last year he worked as Assistant to the General Manager of a Big Easy company that does restaurants and nightclubs. (Think: The Boy.) Oh yeah, Rod's had Day Jobs working construction. Mostly renovations of old New Orleans structures, houses and a bar. Sometimes he designs Web sites for other people so that he can get his creative juices flowing the way he can't at a staid publication like this one. And he's been the instructor in Editing for Internet Publications at the Novi Sad School of Journalism in Yugoslavia. Right now our Resident Philosopher has left the pantheon of New Orleans bartenders and still doesn't know when he'll have a "permanent residence" that he likes.. He's decided that maybe it's time to be an entrepreneur again. Working with "employees" and Bosses doesn't suit his temperament. In his spare time, he chases women in the manner that a fly pursues a spider.

Rod lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. This town is eroding his normal sense of driven purpose. He wants to live somewhere civilized when he grows up. Wish him Luck.

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

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