O.K. I'VE BEEN VERY, VERY BUSY.

The new job has been a very wonderful challenge so far, an interesting puzzle, and I'm having a very good time with it! Four days... hehe.

Already they notice. And it's wonderful to be back on such a beautiful street, where the trees meet above..



SO, anyway, I wrote an e-mail to a friend from Baton Rouge, (you might know him...)

He sent me a note about a site called Gallery Of Eccentrics (of New Orleans)

Ah, my dears... I have stories to tell... about the Eccentrics of New Orleans!



First of all, The Lucky Bead Lady!

I ran into the bead lady for the first time one night when I was new to NO. I had heard about her and had seen her from a distance, but one drunken night, I turned a corner and there she was blocking my way! "Buy a lucky bead?" she said. I pulled out all the change in my pocket, a little over a buck and handed it to her. "Is that enough?" I asked. As she handed me my lucky bead, she shrugged and said, ", Ah, it's O.K."

For a while, there was a group of delirious gay men who gave her the outfits she used to wear; they would all find things of interest and then get together once and a while to select the best to present to her and then wait to see what she actually wore. They weren't really mean about it, they were just terribly curious.

She often showed up in the buffet line at the La Pavilion hotel (where my friend Margaret was CEO) mixed in with a group of French or Italian tourists, and Margaret would have to weather a stream of curses as she escort the Bead Lady out, at least on those occasions when someone else noticed it... otherwise, Margaret would let her be.

One time I saw a group of Japanese tourists go up to her and ask her where Bourbon Street was. (Why they chose her as a source of information, I'll never know!) She screamed, "You found Pearl Harbor easy enough!" and walked away.

She started coming into my store in the Quarter. She always bought a stick of butter and a banana. She would stand outside and eat the banana and throw the peel on the street. Then she would eat the stick of butter, and use the wrapper as a sort of moisturizer wipe. Then she'd toddle on down the street, muttering to all she met in that strange glossalia...

One day she came into the store after not having been in many weeks. I asked her how she had been and said that we hadn't seen her in a while. She said, "Well, your prices are a little high, and I want an extra bag!" I gave her one, but she was off and running in that strange weird language at the top of her lungs. She meandered out the door and never came in again. I haven't seen her in years.





Ruthie, The Duck Girl!

I used to run into Ruthie, The Duck Girl fairly often, as she frequented many of the gay bars in the Quarter. She would ask you for a cigarette, and "one for later" and then ask for a beer, which the bartender would usually provide as it was much easier than refusing her. One day, I had taken a puppy that we had just got to show to my friend Danny, the bartender at Tiger's. (I had a cloth shoulder bag that the puppy was very happy to ride in and he enjoyed going out where he got lots of attention. ) Ruthie came in with this enormous! white duck, took one look at the puppy, plopped the duck in my lap, snatched the puppy, lovingly cooing sweet nothings to it and walked away saying she would bring the dog back in a few minutes. I tried to get up, but this 25 pound duck wasn't having any of it! I could drink my beer and light a cigarette and talk to my friends, and this huge duck was perfectly content, but if I tried to get up or move, the duck would bite me! And hard! Of course, this was hysterically amusing to all my dear friends and I must admit, to me as well. She eventually came back, returned the puppy and took her duck and left.

A couple of weeks later, I saw her in line ahead of me at the A & P on Royal Street, and I asked her how her duck was doing. She hauled off and slapped me in the face! and hard!
...and then she asked me for a cigarette, and one for later.

I once saw Ruthie get on stage at some French Quarter thing. She was wearing her usual costume of a wedding dress and roller skates and seemed to be as drunk as usual. She careened about the stage skating dangerously near the edge, one time even backwards waving her arms and all the while laughing hysterically. The performance reminded me of Charlie Chaplin in that film where he spends the night in a department store; she was that flawless. She spent all day on skates, and I never saw her fall.

A couple of years ago, she was put into a home, very much for her own good... She hated it, of course. She has been the subject of thousands of photographs and one documentary for PBS. A true French Quarter character.


My ex, from years ago, knew the Chicken Man... but I never actually spoke to him...





Of course, I know Becky Allen;

... everybody knows Becky Allen! She used to come into my store all the time when her theatrical cohorts, Ricky Graham and Sue Gonzy both lived across the street. She is the quintessential New Orleans party girl, and probably the only actress in the city that can guarantee a hit production just by the fact that she is in it. She is always appearing in everything, everywhere. She is Mardi Gras, the French Quarter and the ninth ward personified; always over the top and always tremendously amusing to run into.

She is a force of nature.



Other things...

Like I said, the new job is great; I am having fun rearranging things and making new things up! Amazing things will happen...

I just got off of the phone with someone who is buying a house in Las Vegas! I'm pretty sure I'll get the catering position for next years gathering.. (I'll certainly have the best cheese!) hehe!

My Dad had a good Father's Day, even though he didn't get the keys to the car back... (Good work, my sis and Chris; love you both! I talked to him after you left him back home. We talked about the big old wooden barns in our old neighborhood, and especially the ones that we owned, and played in as kids. He told me about things that happened in the forties and fifties... it was sweet.)

I am still thinking of Noah, in Australia. He's having a hard time right now, and I also starting thinking of his mom, Bronte, she must be having a hard time also. She seems to be an amazing woman, and so I add my affirmations to her.

Bryan from ChaosInAustin just had a "birfaday", hehe. He's a fellow Gemini; his day is the day after mine...

And Dazed has dazzeled us all! Dazed has found true love! Perhaps there is hope for us all.

The ever lovely, and totally amazing FORD! just returned from London Town. Ah, when he makes his trip to NYC, I will prolly have to use up some of my frequent flier miles...

And next week, I think I will finally get my scooter! And I will join one of those scooter gangs... eat my 49 cc dust, binch!

Yes indeed, cher, I will be livin' the wild life now...

teehee,



durlx