I’ve noticed that most of my posts have been really vague esoteric bullshit that really only makes sense to me, and probably has most other people uncomfortable. That’s why these posts will never see the light of day. But to combat that trend, let me tell you, the reader, how great the last week has been. For the past seven days, I’ve been staying in Austin, San Antonio, and topped it off with a couple days in New Orleans for Mardi Gras.

Austin

The trip up to Austin was the second multi-day trip I’ve taken through the US, the first being the one that kicked off the experience in the first place on the California Zephyr. But while the Zephyr cut through the majestic mountains and canyons of the Rockies, the Texas Eagle cut through the boonies in only the most drab of fashions. The sky was covered in a multitude of gray and the fields were mostly just plain dirt lying fallow or otherwise unmaintained. One interesting thing I picked up - a large number of ramshackle homes have trampolines in the backyard. My current theory is that the trampoline is the poor man’s swimming pool. More portable too.

In Austin, I did precious little to be quite frank. I stayed at Meredith’s place, in a sense celebrating her newly-wed experience (note to self: to get her and Akhil a gift of some sort for being impromptu hosts and absolutely wonderful). There was a strange sense of noticing the first real picturesque “real-life” experience from someone I know. A couple, married, with a job, and an apartment, in a city they actively moved to, and two dogs to take care off. There’s no roommate, or school, or in between quarter-life crisis sabbatical - its just life. I spent most of my time hanging out with Akhil, getting to know the puppies Wrigley and Avel, and marveling at the different kinds of street lights that Austin as to offer relative to the rest of the United States - they’re often yellow, run horizontal and have more than 3 lights. Why?

In an attempt to see Austin as well as maybe give the Horning-Rao experience some space, I went out to 6th street and checked out a couple places with terrific live music. It felt like a tidier version of New Orlean’s Bourbon/Frenchmen street, which will make an appearance later in this post. I also learned that I desperately need to learn how to salsa, because I botched four dances in rapid succession and I’m not sure a man has ever looked less attractive than me as a failed saucy dancer.

Austin was also home to Franklin’s BBQ, an experience in itself - I spent about four hours from 9am to 1pm waiting in line for what is claimed by many to be the best BBQ in town. The restaurant itself opens only at 11am so for at least 2 hours, the line isn’t even moving. If I had thought of it a little earlier, Franklin’s does do pre-orders of food around four days in advance, and I could have skipped the line because queueing is British people problem; as both an Indian and American I have a natural inclination to reject most things British. But, to Franklin’s credit, most of the experience IS waiting in line: buying Girl Scout cookies and eating complementary sandwiches as an interim breakfast, drinking and contemplating your life choices with other individuals in lawn chairs, all of whom are equally confused as to why they actually enjoy waiting in line for the first time in their life. In effect, you’re tailgating for 3 hours, and scarf down what may be the best brisket I’ve ever had in about 3 minutes. In fact I’m pretty sure I finished all my food in less than 15 minutes. Franklin has a good business model I think. The camaraderie of the queue was most of what made the experience worthwhile. It’s always a fun time seeing people’s reactions to what I’m doing “Yeah I quit my job” high fives “I’m running away from all my problems for two months” high fives

Also as a line-item, let me tell you Gourdough’s is the best shit I’ve ever had, I did not know how to donut before and let me tell you I donut all the time, Gourdough’s you better come to the West Coast because I might legitimately move to Texas to court you otherwise and I can’t really afford that right now.

The last quintessential Austin Experience was the Graffiti….. compound? Idk. Basically a failed public works project that became home to loads of people just graffiti-in everything everywhere. There is a spot back home that I have wanted to graffiti for some time now, in the in abandoned lands between Sunol and Pleasanton, but I’m glad I did it alongside 5 year olds with My First Spray Can by FisherPrice™. Mostly because, goddamn spray painting shit is hard. I tried making Mickey Mouse …. it did not go well. In addition to the fact that I clearly have no recollection from memory what Mickey Mouse looked like, the overabundance of paint that I used had poor Mickey’s face melting off, as if he were a Nazi and had burned alive by the Ark of the Covenant. I suppose there are rumors that Walt Disney himself was an Anti-Semite, but I think we could have spared Mr. Mouse his terrible fate.

San Antonio

I didn’t actually intend to do much in San Antonio - so the result was I became a wandering hobo for about 9 hours, and as I arrived at 9pm, the train was set to leave at 6am and the only available hostels were about 30 minutes out from the city center. I have very little trust in my ability to come in on time to any thing, so I decided to wander around. I had a rudimentary plan - see a movie, chill in a pub, go to Denny’s, and then wait out the remaining hour in the station. Of course, I hate plans, because planning is for CHUMPS so the first thing I did was go to an improv comedy club and see Al Ducharme, who’s apparently in tv things that people like, and he was quite good.

I don’t know if it’s the current state of affairs in the world, or my own personal experiences, but I have this latent fear as a bearded brown guy running around the country especially in places like Texas where the clothing signifiers like cowboy hats and bolo ties and certain styles of button ups and jeans and boots have come to represent racist bullshit. I hate it. It feels constant and omnipresent and I think I’ve come to engage in the culture of de facto segregation that comes from radical discourse, and I hate it. I feel like in radical discourse, there is a constant push to use your identity to “other” people in positions of power. While I recognize the value in drawing attention to invisible power structures, as someone who is well-spoken enough and friendly enough and educated enough, I feel have a better opportunity to work within liberal power structures and affect change through individual experience. There was nothing in the comedy show or the people around me that indicated any sort of ill will towards me. But the insecurity of running around alone combined with my own very clear unconscious prejudices against quintessential white, southern culture was enough to dampen the mood and make me feel uncomfortable, mostly with myself.

So after the improv show I went to random bars and like a fuckin moron I brought my bag with me and it was just “ugh now I have to be responsible for this bag.” Super annoying. No dancing was had for me. But the music, as per usual, was quite good. I could legitimately see myself moving to Texas maybe. I’m not super interested, but if something came out of there I wouldn’t be actively opposed.

So due to bag related troubles I found myself leaving the bars a lot earlier than was detailed in my plan - clearly, I was a chump - and Denny’s by yourself isn’t a particularly long engagement either so I was back in the train station by 3am. It is, of course, impossible to sleep or do anything productive of note, so I tried watching TV shows and wallow in my engineered homelessness in the tiny Amtrak station which was empty save for me, the occasional Amtrak police officer, and an elderly lady with a shopping cart. I can only imagine that she had a night as crazy as me, mostly because with her under-the-breath muttering and vaguely piss-scented bedsheets, baggies and backpacks in her shopping cart, we probably looked like twins. Vague characters flitted in an out between 3am to 5am - I suppose this makes me one of them. Or perhaps, one of us.

New Orleans

And so we finally come to New Orleans, on the week of Mardi Gras. I came in Sunday night, at Madame Isabelle’s hostel, down Esplanade. Let me tell you, that was a proper use of my budget. At the hostel there were very few people traveling in groups, and so there’s an instant camaraderie born, maybe out of utility but also by way of similar interests. There’s a value in being alone and meeting new and colorful people, and to experience something together for the first time.

Mardi Gras is, I think, inappropriately named. As someone who did very little research into the holiday let me tell you something: maybe take a week off instead of a couple days. The festivities start the week before and there are a number of different groups that put on their own parades with their own brass bands running through the streets. I only came for one of the random knockoff parades and it was still really good - the Krewe of Red Beans and Rice (What?). People dress up and toss coconuts at you, but in a good way I guess, and unsuspecting women flash their chests in an effort to get Mardi Gras beads at creepy men in videotaping very overtly in balconies up on Bourbon street. One of the hostel members did a cursory glance on Pornhub to verify that, yes, his girlfriend might now be on the internet and she won’t even be paid royalties.

And of course in typical New Orleans fashion we took some hand grenades to the face, stayed out till 4, got some beignets and called it a day on Monday, Lundi Gras.

The Mardi Gras experience in relation was quite tame. The parades were large and organized and had marching bands and giant floats. It was organized. And early in the morning, which means I did not show up until at least 3 hours after it had started. If there is anything that I am known for, it is perpetually showing up late and still somehow getting there on time. One interesting thing of note was how overtly racial the Zulu costuming was - all people were in some form of blackface paint with certain white outlines and fake Afro wigs. While the majority of people dressed up were black, there were also white people in blackface and afro wigs. This had to have caught flack at some point, but I guess racial issues like blackface have a cultural context that perhaps the unique history of New Orleans and the Krewe of Zulu run orthogonal to. It’s not a classic blackface either, there is a distinct design to it that makes it uniquely Zulu. Anyways, I caught a coconut, which means something that I have yet to figure out because a moment later I got beaned in the head with a bag full of beads.

In any case, the rest of the day was rather tame and sober and quite nice as I walked with strangers become friends through Frenchmen street dancing to what was some of the best live original music I’ve ever heard in a band. In particular, at the Blue Nile there was a band called Water Seed, check them out. And then went home at 1 am to pack and maybe nap before my next train, due to depart at 7 towards Greensboro, North Carolina.

There was a little snag though because that train has run into a car. ¯_(ツ)_/¯