Monday, November 26, 2007

The Strangest thing...

Ok...I have a contest.

I was just watching the preview to Cloverfield online and I saw this scene:



It reminded me of one of the stranger moments I've experienced here in New Orleans.

About 2 months after the storm I was walking through the Marigny (aka Bermuda) Triangle with my bud after a late night stint at the R Bar. Ironically, we were talking about how frikkin' weird it was to be living in the city...Martial Law, sporadic electricity, etc. We paused for a second as I heard something strange...something I hadn't heard in a while. It was the sound of mule hoofs hitting the pavement. I looked up and sure enough a mule rounded the corner of Kerelec and Pauger. The lights were on the carriage but there was no one in the driver's seat. We both watched silently as the mule passed by us at a brisk pace...she apparently had somewhere to be.

We sat there looking at each other for few seconds...it was a very eerie scene. A few seconds later this guy comes huffing and puffing around the corner with a pistol in his hand screaming misogynistic obscenities at it....that's how I knew it was a female mule. For a second I was worried that he might shoot the mule if he caught it, but he was so overweight and out of breath I figured the mule had a fighting chance.

So as for the contest....What is the strangest moment you've ever had in New Orleans? Please respond in the comment section of this post. If I get enough responses....I may start a book.

11 comments:

Leigh C. said...

I can only refer you to the strange and unusual case of Puppy, the small wonder.

http://liprapslament-theline.blogspot.com/2007/06/puppy-this-is-blogosphere.html

As long as Puppy was in the New Orleans environs, things were good. Sadly, Puppy came into a Chili's in Baton Rouge with us one night and was never recovered. I can only hope that Puppy is doing well wherever he is...and if he isn't, well, everybody can check the link for his picture. Have you seen him?

Anonymous said...

I have a category on The Chic about what I call NOMOs. Nawlins moments. Maybe we could collaborate?

Anyway, here's mine:

I was riding my bike on Mardi Gras Blvd. the other night. I was entering a sketchy block and a car approaching me slowed down for no reason in the middle of the block before I passed.

A little concerned, I stopped the bike and wouldn't pass. When the driver put on their hazards, I moved up. No mugger is courteous enough to put on hazards when they are jacking you up right? When I was near her, a lady got out and looked on the roof of the car. Then she looked at me and said, "There was a chicken up there when I left and I was just checkin' to see if it fell off."

"He's gone now!" I answered back.

jeffrey said...

Good lord.. where to begin?

How about with something on the mule theme. I remember because I blogged it three years ago.

jeffrey said...

Okay two and a half years ago.

jeffrey said...

Ooh here's another one I blogged two and a half years ago about being threatened by the paper guy.

Aren't you glad there's so much Yellow in the world?

Jason Brad Berry said...

Jeffrey,

DAMN...that's what must have happened with the mule. I wonder if the stables are somewhere on the other side of the Marigny?

You're gonna win just by volume alone.

Kevin Allman said...

Two things come to mind...

1. Walking in Jackson Square and hearing some people scream. I turned around to see a man walking a large dog. On the dog's back was a cat. And on the cat's back was a mouse.

People were open-mouthed. I thought the mouse was stuffed or somehow tied onto the cat, but the dog stumbled and the cat and mouse tumbled to the ground. The cat hopped right back on, the man scooped up the mouse and put it on the cat's back, and off they went.

2. The late Larry Linville (Major Burns on M*A*S*H) playing video poker drunkenly while a she-male nuzzled his ear.

Varg said...

- I was making out with a girl in the stairwell of OZ and the doorman came back there and said, "You two get out of here! None of that!"

- Last Fat Tuesday I witnessed a man in a bird suit drive an El Dorado corner of Royal and Governor Nichols and my fiance yelled, "Holy Shit! It's a chicken in a Cadillac!"

- My grandma got drunk on Bourbon St. and we had to take her back to the hotel in a wheelchair.

Anonymous said...

Dambala,

There is a mule stable on Burgundy near Frenchmen.

I was a little flipped the first time a mule and carriage came ambling out from the stable. It was the first time I had walked down that street after I moved back home in '02.

GENTILLY YARD ART said...

doing a play at the old theater marigny on frenchman street back in the early 90's i was the sound man and i was supposed to cue up a clip clop on the cassette deck. instead i had snuck out to the apple barrel to get a beer and missed the sound cue but nobody noticed because a mule went by as if on cue.

the other was when i was a young man in the early 80's and they still had horses pulling the wagons. a horse went belly up from the heat near the resturant i worked at. all the news channels came out and filmed it's death thros and the city councel got rid of horses right after that.

i guess the other one i can remember is again in the early 90's when i worked at the nap. house and one day i saw a mule who had had enough and he walked three blocks backwards with the cart with out a jack knife.

sorry i didnt spell check this. please let it ride bone man.

Anonymous said...

Strangest thing that is really a New Orleans thing, I documented in the "Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans"...working underneath a moving Mardi Gras float making the moving parts move, and during a break the drunk float driver climbed underneath the float where we were clinging to the framework and proceeded to take a whiz on the street, out of sight of the crowds since he was basically standing on the street inside the float. He invited us to join him. We declined. The piss puddle streamed out under the float and out into the crowd of throws-seekers.

Weirdest post-Katrina moment: Eating a lonely dinner at Tujague's on a Monday night at 8pm in November, then coming outside and standing in the middle of Decatur Street and not seeing a single person or car, in any direction, other than the waiter who was waving goodbye to us from the door.