A blogger’s birthday party in conjunction with a Big Easy Rollergirls bout – this is getting to be a habit around here. A wee past tea-time, Loki and I ventured out onto Frat Row and then quickly turned left to attend Ashley’s birthday get-together. Oyster, his Lovely and Pearl Girl followed my car in their ClamMobile, little perceiving that I had as much idea of the location of Ashley Grand Central as they did. “Pine’s parallel to Broadway, not perpendicular, Maitri” I had been admonished by Ms. Alexis earlier that day. Is that right? Don’t make me teach you complex analytical geometry to describe directions in New Orleans, missy!
“It’s This Big! Honest!” (L); Stay Away From Our Cake And We Won’t Hurt You With These Plastic Forks (R)
We met … more bloggers like GotLaw, TrinaLovesNewOrleans and some other people who have promised to get in touch with me. To give you an idea of how small this town is, Cindy, little Lily and I went our separate ways after our Krewe du Vieux subkrewe meeting earlier in the day only to converge at Ashley’s later in the evening, not knowing we were going to see one another … again. Petite, nine-month-old Lily was a BIG hit as usual, as were all the under-7s at this kid-friendly gathering. A lesson learned – you know you’re old when you teach the little kids how to play with certain toys and beseech them to share.
Funny/weird moment of the party – One of the guests looked at Ray‘s son, Liam, turned to me and said, “That kid doesn’t know who Mick Jagger is.” A child of Ray doesn’t know who Mick Jagger is? Hmmmm … not possible … Without missing a beat, I yelled at Liam, “I don’t care if you don’t know who Mick Jagger is. You’d better know who Keith Richards is.” And then, to make him feel better, I added, “Don’t feel so bad. I was born in the year the Stones conducted their Tour of the Americas, their first tour with Ron Wood.” Of course, Liam was long gone by then. Another lesson – never underestimate the elastic rebound capacity of children.
Speaking of music, I still love-hate Ash for the following picture; that’s him with Zevon.
Gina was able to secure me two tickets to the Rollergirls Bout Part Deux, again held amidst the float storage at Mardi Gras World. Oh, glory be! The rest of the evening was spent with Alexis getting ready for and attending The Carries vs. The Rinkwraiths. It turns out Mrs.-Loki-To-Be and I were the only audience-members who bothered to dress up for “the costume party.” With Ruffit and Vandal O’Riley (who crashed early on and popped out her left knee) on The Carries, we had our cheering cut out for us. As always, I am in complete awe of Sophie Nuke’Em, Marquee de Squad and Illegally Blonde – they put the rollerskating prowess of my teenage years to utter shame. dangerblond and her friends, Shannon and Thierry, managed to attend for the first time and had a ball as well.
Pictures from Rollergirls Bout 2
Buy tickets for the November 18th bout now – a portion of your ticket purchase is donated to non-profits served by Brown Paper Tickets, like the Animal Welfare Institute.
The boy may not know who Mick Jagger is, but he knows who Joey Ramone is, and who Keith Moon is, his favorite Beatles album is The White Album, he can play “Iron Man” on guitar and he can belt out the scream from “Immigrant Song” and he’s dressing as Ozzy for Halloween.
And he chose Buddy Bolden as his biography topic in school (after some other kid got Jackie Robinson).
I think he’s gonna turn out OK.
What doesn’t sit well with me really is when people say, “Oh my god, I can’t believe you don’t know so-and-so. Kids these days.” You know, we were all born at some point. I could just have easily turned to this person and quizzed him on Mozart divertimenti and concertos, and then have admonished him for not knowing. But, that would be rude.