This Christmas my immediate family gathered in New Orleans for the holidays to celebrate the wedding of my friend Jake-the-Snake Williams’ son Mac, whom I’ve known since utero.  Ned came all the way from Nuremberg, Harrison and Taryn from NYC, and, of course, Brooks, Caroline and I-and-I from Folly Beach, SC.

We rented a VRBO in Treme, two houses down from the Back Street Museum, which houses Mardi Gras Indian costumes and Second Line Parade outfits.

Renting a VRBO in Treme would be massively frowned upon by Davis McAlary, a character on the HBO series Treme, because it violates Davis’s paradoxically entitled notion that he should be the only white person allowed to infiltrate Treme because of his profound love for New Orleans’ African-American culture.

That’s our excuse, too.

I-and-I on the porch of the Back Street Museum

Here are some pix from our excursion to Walgreens to process photos and cop some razor blades. While Caroline and Brooks waited for photo processing inside the pharmacy, I wandered outside to check out the environs.

The black citizens of Treme could not have been more welcoming, Mr. Francis, the proprietor of the Back Street Museum, called a friend to find out where Sunday’s Second Line parade would originate so we could catch it. Rodney, the manager of the Lil People Bar just around the corner from our place, gifted us some toilet paper and invited us to a catfish fry Sunday to watch the Saints game.

What to do?  Check out the Second Line?  Eat catfish at the Lil People?

The great James Booker

I ain’t know.