The Big Easy

I have completed my maiden voyage to New Orleans. It was a success. I shall return someday. These are some of the things I saw, did, and/or heard:
1) Started my breakfast with two enormous Vodka Lightnings and crawfish nachos.
2) Tore into the delicious flesh of turtles and alligators.
3) Drank two absinthes.
4) Saw a woman give a man a blowjob on the sidewalk of a crowded street in the middle of the afternoon.
5) Got called Eminem by a crackhead.
6) Was within a block of several rounds of gunfire, smoke from aforementioned guns, and a man running away frantically.
7) Ordered three Heinekens at once. Watched a man in a pompadour/mullet combination perform the longest version of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" in U.S. history.
8) Baffled the French.
9) Taxi driver, after my friend inquired about the condition of a woman about to vomit out of her car window: "Put a dick in her mouth, and she'll be alright."
10) A stripper told us she wasn't allowed to pick her own songs at the strip club and once had to dance to the theme song from "Friends."
11) Rich, on the proximity of Taco John's (a Midwestern fast food Mexican chain) to his new home in Washington, D.C.: "I'll drive 200 miles for a lot of shit, and Taco John's is one of them."
12) Our friend Rich, again, on the difficulties of picking a Ramones song to put on a mix tape: "Picking your favorite Ramones song is like picking your favorite ant from a pile of ants."
13) Accosted by a street performer for being too tolerant to the crackhead who called me Eminem. This street performer, the angriest sax man in the world, told us that "the motherfucker probably breathed TB all over you guys."
14) Found a mysterious rip in my shorts that wasn't there at the day's beginning.
15) Got called "honey," "baby," "sweetie," and "sugar" by various waitresses. I like that.
16) Got drunk on Russian plum wine.
17) Looked at the Mississippi River. It was good.
18) Rode the trolley a lot. Looked at fantastic architecture and urban squalor.
19) Sweated my ass off. Drank, ate, and walked constantly. This is living.
20) Saw a chef and an alcoholic nearly break out into a fistfight over the way a steak was cooked and the way the salad dressing was poured.
21) Every five steps, a different aroma. The pungent stench of delicious food, Southern humidity, fruity drinks, sweaty tourists, and rotting garbage was an olfactory symphony that accompanied my every move.
22) Watched some episodes of "The Office," in between hitting the city. It was good. Peace to the I-Hump (or IHOMMP), Learning Center, and Robot Town. Air Wolf, Teen Wolf, and Robot X have destroyed another city.

"You know what I would change about the world if I could change one thing? Absolutely nothing." (Lift up your shirt, rub your belly, and dance) -- the crackhead.