The Big Easy Hair

Before we get into this week's main topic, I want to take a moment to express some appreciation for my hair. During my last trip to the Hair Cuttery I asked them to put down the clippers and only work with scissors. The result was a little dikey, let's just say I would have fit right in hanging out in the LPGA club house. When I got back to the office I didn't have any gel, so in a desperate move I tried some Purell, which gave it that tingly alcohol smell, but didn't exactly help my lesbionic sheen. Now that it has been 4 weeks my hair has evolved into the realm of Patrick Swayze circa the mid to late 80's. A little Selsun Blue and ton of mousse and I am ready to make pottery with Demi Moore.


While I may not have the movie star looks to fight guerilla warfare against the Russians, shake my moneymaker in the Catskills or beat up on some good old boys down at the road house, there is little doubt that I could be a body double for his hair. And for the record "Nobody puts Baby in a corner."


And now for something completely different...


The crescent city, the big easy, chocolate city, mother nature's toilet bowl, that's right I'm talking about New Orleans. Earlier this week I was lucky enough to visit this gem on the Mississippi River for the first time. My company's annual sales kickoff was being held in the city filled with people that as Kanye says "I ain't messin' wit no gold digger" no, not that, the other thing "George Bush hates black people!" That's the one.



Night 1:

Dinner on Bourbon street. We stroll past the restaurants, live sex shows, international houses of touristy crap and arrive at our destination. Live Zydeco music is playing and there's a buffet, but the hurricanes are being served in the bar and that is where the line is the longest. No matter how many times management warns us to go easy on night one and tear it up on night two, it never really works out that way. Everyone is getting lit and we have access to a balcony onto Bourbon street so the bead tossing olympics begin.


Unfortunately, it is a cold Monday night so it's slim pickins. We get a lot of older tourists who would have to undo their pants to flash us. The game changes from trying to get flashed to trying to get the beads in people's beers. A female middle-aged project manager to my left spies an Asian kid and let's me know she has him dialed in. Away they go and bam the kid takes a shot to the noggin. He looks up, smiles and continues on his way. Balcony bead bombers 1 unsuspecting passer-by 0.


This is entertaining for about 5 minutes and then it becomes boring, so we go back inside for more music and hurricanes. As the party winds down a different female co-worker wants to hit up the live sex show across the street and a couple of us oblige to join her. Surprise! It's not a sex show at all, but a low budget strip club that makes the Tuesday night Hooters girls in Sheboygan, Wisconsin look like super models. Unless C-section scars and ridiculously bad boob jobs are your thing, this place is about as exciting as watching Terri Schiavo get a sponge bath.


We hang out a bit, sip our $10 beers and then realize that one of our crew has gone missing. I check the bathroom, and then make the big mistake of going upstairs. I find a slew of filthy rooms and couches that looks like a frat house on Saturday night. Black lights would make this place look like a crime scene from Scarface. I make my way downstairs and eventually we leave, sans one co-worker.


The meetings start early the next day, so we call it a night. The next morning the missing co-worker doesn't show up for the first speaker, which by the way was Sir Edmund Hillary's son who made us all feel like we were wasting our lives in the corporate world. That dude has climbed all of the major mountains including Everest twice and has been to both poles. I've been as far north as Niagara Falls and as far south as Tijuana, Mexico. I don't think he would be as impressed with my travel stories as I was with his. I digress. Anyway, after Peter Hillary finishes I get the call from the missing co-worker. He apparently gave back several hurricanes to the New Orleans streets before being helped back to the hotel by some black girl who wouldn't let him sleep on the sidewalk. Big props to chocolate city for their hospitality.



Night 2:

We put on our best suits and dresses and wait in our hotel rooms for a knock at the door. Marketing is getting all "Eyes Wide Shut" on us tonight by providing colorful masks and withholding details about the evening. We are greeted by a festively dressed, clown-like person who then leads our entire group of about 110 people to an old 18th century building where a dixie-land band plays and we again get into hurricane mode.


After happy hour we walk onto the street and there are police cars with the lights and sirens going. Everyone has on boa's, masks and beads and we instantly become a Mardi Gras parade led by the band. We end up at Arnaud's and have the annual awards dinner and banquet. Being crushed from the night before the festivities peter out and I head back to the hotel to get some sleep before flying home the next day.


I can now check New Orleans off the list of cities I have not yet visited, and I will be scheduling a doctor's appointment to make sure I didn't catch anything from Bourbon street.