The Vieux Carre

It's been a busy couple of weeks over here and I have not really had the time to sit and write much of anything. So I'm going to wing today's blog. There's a ton of shit going on out there and every asshole (including this one) with a voice is chiming in about everything from Trannies winning elections, to gun laws, to fat Hollywood big shots fucking Corey Feldman.

So what shall I write about? How about the place I love so much? The French Quarter, the Vieux Carre. The place I feel most at home. I'm tired of politics, pussies crying, know-it-alls telling everyone else what they should think and/or do. I want to go back to how it used to be. You walked along any street here and you said hello to everybody. Nobody cared what color you were, if you were gay or straight, Republican or Democrat. We were all just PEOPLE going on with our day to day lives and chasing that dream.

To many locals dismay, I love Bourbon Street. I love to people watch and that's the place to do it baby! You've got every walk of life there. The whole French Quarter, albeit mostly a tourist trap now, is still like stepping back in time. The architecture here is like no other city in the country. So many influences came together to make the Vieux Carre what it is. Can you just imagine the shit that went down here? I love reading the history of New Orleans, specifically from the late 1700's to the Victorian era. It was a dark time, but a romantic and hopeful time as well. So many people, the majority lost to time, traveled through here. We know of the famous ones, but I always wished I could some how learn about the "Average Joes", like me, that graced the Vieux Carre.

People always ask me. "Why do you call the French Quarter the Vieux Carre?" Well...that's what it's fucking called here. It's French and basically translates into "Old Square". It's the oldest part of town, the initial square section founded in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville. And I can't explain why but when I'm here, all is right with the world. It has a smell, a sound, and an attitude that no other place (that I've ever been to) has. If I could, I would transport myself back to 1850 and live a happy man. I'd have been dead already because the average age was like 40 or something...but I'd have lived fast and hard and with no regrets. No cell phones, no internet, and no gusoneil.com. Shit...no hot running water, indoor toilets, and M*A*S*H* reruns either, but I'd have survived.

But with no gusoneil.com how would I piss off the masses? I'd probably run a newspaper. Print this shit daily and at least make some God damned money doing it. But I don't think people speaking their minds back then was a rare occasion. So I'd be just another cog in the wheel. I'd have to find another niche. Black Marketer perhaps? No...I'd own/run a bar. Listen to and learn all about the average Joes passing through. Getting a snapshot of their lives, taking it all in, and writing about it so that you dip shits 225 years later can read it on your fucking Kindles during your train commute while you drink $12.00 mocha java double decaf coffee. Thousands of people who's voices lost to time that we will never know about. But they mattered. Their lives and hardships shaped this town, yet today, some are hell bent on destroying what we have here. It's old, scenic, smelly at times, but it's historic and there's no place else like it.

So what ever you call it, The French Quarter, The Big Easy, Vieux Carre, the City That Care Forgot, enjoy it. Embrace it. And respect it's history and don't try to change anything about this place. And for the love of God...don't ever call it N'awlins. You'll sound like a limber dicked cocksucker who just fell ass first off the shit wagon.

Laissez les bons temps rouler ~ Gus