Activity: Free Burlesque

Difficulty rating: Mugging

Across the road from the place that does free comedy on Saturdays is a place that does free burlesque on Wednesdays. It’s called Siberia and it’s in the Marigny/Bywater/Let’sGetMugged area so it’s gotta be good to lure you there. The show was called Mistress Kali’s Cabinet Of Curiosities and, yes, I was performing so it wasn’t just a regular night out for me. I got a free drink though and the audience got free entry, so there was plenty of free to go around.

I’ve performed in dozens of variety nights in Australia that have been run by comedians – so that means nine stand up acts and one singer to finish. But a burlesque variety night has a different structure. So much of the burlesque act is based on layered costumes that performers can’t get up and do ten minutes of different strips, so all the acts get up onstage multiple times in the lineup. This means you’re whoop-whooping for the same arse over and over, but for me it means doing two or more songs at various times in the lineup. It’s tricky because the audience will fluctuate throughout the free show and you’ll be performing to half new people, so you can leave with a weird simultaneous “I totally nailed that!/hmmm they weren’t that into me.” feeling.

On this particular night we were treated to Mistress Kali the strip tease dancer, a sword swallowing clown, a lady who hammered nails into her face and a particularly vibrant guitar player who sang like Little Richard with a ferret down his pants. And of course me doing my Karin Klassics. Its awesome performing here because my regular, boring Aussie accent is super cute in America and makes everything I say twice as funny.

New Orleans is a bit of a fringe city so it’s funny to thnk of the fringe of the fringe, but that’s what the vibe is at Siberia. It’s the kind of place where you’ll get your entertainment with a side of tattoos, dreadlocks and ironic taxidermy. But it’s a kind of playground for variety performers where you can see them do their thing without paying the megabucks. Oh! And the food is excellent. But not free.

Here’s a picture of a clown about to do inappropriate things with a coat hanger.

Activity: Free Jazz (literally!)

Difficulty rating: Easier here that any other town.

By now you’ll know, from avid reading of my blog (hi mum!!), that Bourbon street isn’t always my favourite place to hang out. Sometimes I like it. Sometimes I want to hear Don’t Stop Believin and Livin On A Prayer played by twelve different cover bands in two hours. Not always though. If Bourbon is the street of loud 80’s pop/rock, then Frenchmen is the street of intense jazz, and it was thence that I went in search of free music. I arrived at Joey Van Leeuwen’s free jazz album launch at the Dragon’s Den.

By “free jazz” I don’t mean unpaid, even though it was. I mean the musical style characterised by complete freedom from the conventions of key, rhythm, time signature or being pleasant to listen to. This is jazz that went past dance halls in the 1920’s, past the “we don’t want you to dance to this so we’ll do it in 7/4” music of the 1950’s and settled deep in the heads of inventive musicians. Basically, they take a song you know and love, replace all the harmonics with dozens of variants and passing chords and take turns making up a tune that only hints at the melody.

I won’t lie, free jazz can be difficult to sit through, but my American Husband is a player and lover of it so its in my life now. Better for me to try and understand it than stick my head under a pillow every time it comes on the iTunes. He hates when I say that free jazz is intellectual, but it really is. In order to appreciate what’s going on you must have heard the original song, plus every major cover and modified version, plus a whole lot of other songs in the genre because someone might start playing Giant Steps in the middle of Bye Bye Blackbird and then you need to applaud and say “very witty reference, old bean!” It’s like musical Inception. A song riffing off a song based on a song hinting at a song.

The music at the album launch was very lofty and cacaphonic, as expected, but the bar was packed and the audience was listening intently. One guy even shushed a loud-talking hipster halfway through an anti-Trump rant so he could hear better. Sometimes I listen to this music and feel like I’m watching the emperor strut naked, but everyone else gets it so I must be the minority. Still, Frenchmen is the place to go to continue my free free jazz education. I had a solid night of live music and heard Naima in 11/4.

 

Here’s a picture of the band.

Activity: free South Park

Difficulty rating: Internet

This is not a particularly New Orleans thing, but it is such an awesome thing that I wanted to write about it anyway. American Husband and I streamed the new episode of South Park on the night it aired and watched it in bed, laughing and relaxing. This may not seem like a big deal to Americans, but it’s a huge deal to someone who grew up on the opposite side of the globe from where TV gets made. 

When I got here I assumed my computer would just know I was in America, the way it just knows my eBay password, my credit card details and when the next issue of XXX Monster Truck Porn Magazine is coming out. I set the time zone to New Orleans and tagged myself @ the Mississippi #authentic and I thought that would be enough to get the benefits of American media. Turns out computers are selective arseholes. #harshreality

I don’t know how to work the downloady websites, but I wholeheartedly appreciate their fruits. I feel like we are in a happy little gulf of history between companies being able to put shows online and companies figuring out how to stop shows getting pirated. It’s a rare moment when the plebs can thieve from the rich with no comeuppance and we should relish it before being inevitably forced to pay out the megabucks just because we’re on the wrong continent. Anyway, I’m not a tech guy so I usually have to wait months to see shows, or I try to go through legal channels and end up clicking through mazes of browser windows before signing my credit card details over to LiveShowsForRealThisIsntAHoax.com. Netflix arrived after I left and only Nannas have TVs anymore. #truthbomb

Sitting in bed watching an episode of a great show, legally, hot off the presses on my husband’s iPad was an almost out of body experience. I felt so radically in the present that it could’ve been the future. I didn’t get any of the jokes because Aussie pop culture is still about six months behind the US anyway, but that didn’t matter. I was happy just to be there. 

Here’s a picture from the latest South Park. Something really funny was happening. 

Activity: the Dueling Oak

Difficulty rating: As easy as falling off a log

Yet another romantic but odd feature of New Orleans is its status is the dueling capital of America. The colourful and passionate blend of citizens that dwelt here in the 1800’s led to dueling as a popular way to settle arguments as well as a fun spectator sport. If you made eyes at another monsieur’s beau or insulted the Mississippi before a Creole you could expect a kind invitation to bite his shiny metal cutlass delivered by carrier butler the next morning.

The dueling always occurred beneath two oak trees in what is now City Park. Any locals who saw a pair of dandies marching towards the trees were invited to witness the dignified battle. Duels were fought with swords, pistols, knives or even poison pills – which I imagined would’ve been a wrestling match that ended with nose pinching and forced swallowing, but turned out to be a drawing of lots with the loser taking the pill.

Dueling was so popular that sometimes ten duels a day were fought under the oak trees. One guy is said to have killed so many rivals that he started his own cemetery to dispose of them. Legends say there were many brave battles fought to the death there, but anecdotes indicate most duels ended when one guy got scratched and surrendered squealing in fear.

Nowadays there’s only one dueling oak left. The other one got drowned in hurricane Katrina. Finding it as a bit like following a treasure map through the park. It stands isolated from the rest of the forest but it doesn’t have a plaque or anything to signify its blood-soaked history. The tree is about 300 years old and its huge. The big boughs stretch all the way to the ground and are a good place to sit and breathe in the ghosts of offended fops. I wanted to climb up into the high branches but even though the park was pretty empty every time I got the impulse to climb a jogger or dog walker would appear. I suppose I could’ve challenged them to a duel instead but I left my dueling dog in Australia.

Here’s a picture of the now peaceful dueling ground.