Katzenjammered 1

Mardi Gras, 2002. Four and a half months since the events of September 11th, and the world was on fire. But New Orleans wasn't quite land, and it wasn't quite water. As the dark cloud of war lurked over the country, Carnival was something in between for The City that Care Forgot. New Orleans was a nebulous, bohemian geography of sleep and wake to delight and poison my dreams. It was Southern; yet American, European, African, and Caribbean, all at once. A place more obsessed with living than worried about dying. There was an unending supply of vodka and an escape from the malaise of religious rhetoric and the frenzied rumors of a 24-hour news cycle. Bourbon Street was a murky and anesthetic wonder populated by sex mad trolls, indifferent locals, dimwitted drug dealers, raging strippers, alcohol fueled tourists, and dangerous parrots. But when an opportunistic zealot brought his wrath of suspicion and fear into the French Quarter, I knew... The goddamn party was over. Katzenjammer - (noun) - a discordant sound; distress; a hangover. Katzenjammered - (abstract noun) - a hilarious, manic, fast-paced burn through the annual chaos of French Quarter at a time when all seemed lost.