Radiating Love
The Jamesons, 18 strong, aged 1 to 59, were in New Orleans last Friday (5/27) to celebrate my brother P.D.’s 50th…We surprised him at Jackson Square, wearing pink punk rocker wigs (think Cindi Lauper)…had a spectacular dining experience at Muriel’s, including Sazeracs to kick off the night’s grog consumption…saw some fun cajun act at the Bayou, and some less memorable acts in the rock clubs on Bourbon, but some sublime jazz from a cat named Sharif at Maison, club to club, me serving as the consigliere of sorts for the raucous nephew Sean (nicknamed “Spalding” from Caddy Shack), brother Paul morphing into Hunter S. Thompson, complete with velvet pimp hat & dark shades…but sans weapons, thank God Almighty…the Crescent City weather was pleasantly hot, with low humidity, so we northerners (PA) were delighted to see blue skies and sun, after a horridly dreary April/May…we also saw a terrific young band called the Bonoffs, whose cd I bought and proceeded to leave as a lagniappe for another wanderer..
My niece Mary is a tireless music head, having been raised by my brother Rick (born in ’51), whose Animals, Dave Clark 5, Four Tops, Beatles, Stones, Doors, and CCR records served as the soundtrack of my early years…She had emailed me before the trip to give me a heads up on the Radiators farewell tour, which was making a swan song at a club called the Maple Leaf…late Friday night, Mary was nowhere to be found, Hunter Thompson finally lost his yearning for destruction, and headed home…I was left with Spalding, Mary’s younger sister Katie, and Dan the Man, the family’s actual lawyer, a 6’4, 230 pound specimen, capable of warding off unsavory sorts…so, off we went in a cab with a driver from Egypt, Spalding fairly freaking out about getting in a car headed who-knows-where, and Katie whining similarly…Dan saw the wisdom in our quest, even if I had by now adopted my Neal Cassady persona: “It’s gonna be a gas, man, can you dig it?” I fairly spat at the three of them shoulder to shoulder in the back seat…upon arrival on Oak Street, it seemed like a small town, but I was told it was still N’awlins proper…people were gathered outside the club with drinks in hand and the atmosphere anticipatory…we got in for $20 apiece and entered a bar area adjacent to the performance space…by the time they came on I had wriggled my way to within about 20′ of the stage…the room was hot, humid, sweaty, but somehow perfect…i had to hydrate with water to counter the occasional Gator brews, and what followed was a richly satisfying love letter to their long-adoring fans…I’ll let the music say the rest…Let the good times roll…