Picture it, New Orleans, 2017.  

A yearly pilgrimage with close friends find us in New Orleans for Mother's Day weekend celebrating my friend Mark Doty's birthday.  A Friday through Monday shit show of shenanigans all starts at the Commander's Palace for 25¢ martinis - limit 3, unless you flirt with the waiter.  

Usual chain of events:- Board an early morning flight at DFW

- Arrive at MSY and take a pre-arranged blimo to the French Quarter and drop off bags at hotel
- Uber to the garden district to Commanders Palace for lunch

- Get shit faced while enjoying an amazing meal

- Uber back to the French Quarter and claim our place in a convo section at the Carousel Bar all the while taking in the local and visiting flavor.

- Someone tries to slur that their hungry and we leave for food

- Arrive at Clover Grill for a greasy hamburger, fries, and a Coke

- Stop by our hotel for a quick whore’s bath and a costume change

- Bars.  By this time we know where we’re going but we can’t remember until the next day with the help of photo recognition the next day.

- Café Du Monde first thing the next morning for café au lait and beignets to recover just enough for an early brunch of bloody mary’s at Tujague’s.   

- In between popping into bars the next few days we usually go junk shopping and travel out to a museum or attraction.

- Sunday main focus is mother’s day brunch at Muriel’s.  The live jazz band is always festive!

- Sunday’s are lazy until it’s time to pop over to Bourbon pub for a few dozen cocktails that runs into a night of debauchery amongst the seediest of bars like: corner pocket, raw hide, and the green lantern.  Corner pocket is where we discovered the term “helicopter dick”.

- Early Monday checkout and after one last trip to Du Monde, we head to the airport.

 

We’ve gone since 2015 for Mark’s Dirty 40.  We’ve missed last year and this year because of the pandemic and I’m ready to go back.  We usually try to invite new people each year to keep it fresh and in the last 3 years Mark has started dating someone but I’m ready for just the three of us to go.  Ginger Chris, Skinny Doty, and asshole J.R.  Cheers to friends.