Tag: Louisiana

Life in the Big Easy Ain’t so Easy!

COVID-19 Devastates the French Quarter.

I was driving cross country on my way back to Los Angeles from spending Christmas in Tampa. It was the week between Christmas and New Year’s, and I decided to spend a couple of days in New Orleans.

I’ve been going to New Orleans since I was 17 years old when my high school band, the Valdosta Wildcat Marching Band won a band contest, and our prize was to march in a parade that went through the French Quarter on Bourbon Street. I’ve returned many times since then. Eaten amazing food and listened to wonderful music. I’ve also been kicked out of bars and had some pretty wild times in New Orleans. Yet, I hadn’t been back since before Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the Quarter and  the Ninth Ward.

I’d heard that New Orleans had made a comeback, but I was wondering what COVID-19 effect would be on the Big Easy.

I’m sad to say that I think COVID-19 has decimated New Orleans almost as bad as Hurricane Katrina did. Why would I say something like that? Because the economic damage that I saw when I walked through New Orleans and the French Quarter was prolonged and it had been going on for months. There was not the catastrophic devastation that happened with Katrina, however the continual loss of life for over a year and the economic downturn that came with the pandemic in its own way had as much of a devastating effect on New Orleans as the hurricane did.  

I checked into a hotel about eight blocks away from the Quarter. The hotel gift shop was closed, and the bar was closed, and the restaurant was closed. The reservation concierge behind the desk told me that the staff had literally been cut in half over the preceding months. After settling in my room and relaxing from the road, I walked down Canal Street to Bourbon Street and turned into the Quarter looking for some real New Orleans cuisine. As I walked down Canal, business after business was boarded up or had for lease signs in the windows. There was a lot of street construction going on so New Orleans is not completely dead, but the theaters were shut, restaurants were closed and even the few package stores that were open looked like they weren’t doing well.

As you turned into the Quarter you noticed that a lot of the store fronts were shut up. Now this was a weekday, but it was also 7:00 PM at night and as anyone who’s ever been to the Quarter knows that it never sleeps. Restaurants were closed, bars were empty or if they were open, they were only doing takeout drinks and there would only be one employee working. And even the bars and restaurants that were open were not full and some of them closed early. Pat O’Brien’s, a bar that I have never seen closed in my entire life was shuttered for the two days that I was there. The Quarter was a shell of itself. There were still tourists and there were still crazy people running around doing crazy things, but it certainly wasn’t the jam-packed Quarter that I remember from days gone by.

The only area that was full that I could tell was around Jackson Square. The restaurants around the square seemed to be doing OK especially Cafe Du Monde where you went to get chicory coffee and beignets. Yet even the street merchants and artists who sell their work around square seem to be struggling.  There weren’t many street musicians who were out performing. In the two days that I was there I literally saw only one street jazz band.  While the art galleries and souvenir shops around Jackson Square seemed to be attracting a lot of business, elsewhere in the quarter there were signs for apartments and storefronts for lease everywhere, and empty buildings with going out of business signs on every street.

Now maybe people were waiting for New Year’s Eve or they were waiting for Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to come into town so Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints could beat them in the NFL playoffs (which did not happen), yet there was just a feeling as you went from street to street that there was a pall over the quarter. I don’t know what the rest of New Orleans was like. Maybe restaurants are doing well. Maybe people were going out and shopping, but the tourist area of the French Quarter was hurting really badly. And it was so very sad to see such a lively and vibrant place brought to its knees by an invisible enemy that no one has an answer too.

New Orleans is a resilient city. It will come back once people have found a cure for this pandemic. I just hope there’s enough of it left for people to want to visit when they do return.

Los Angeles Is Closed

Living During Covid-19

Los Angeles is closed.

The mayor of Los Angeles closed down the city on March 15th, 2020. The governor followed the next day shutting down the entire state on March 16th, 2020, with a “shelter in place “order. Since that time all schools, restaurants and bars, churches, parks have been closed. The beaches are closed. Our famous hiking trails throughout Los Angeles are closed. All movie theaters, museums, any place where people would gather are closed. This is what it’s like living in Los Angeles, California, in the time of plague.  

When I first came to Los Angeles in 1984, it was already an overpopulated city. There were too many people, traffic jams, incredible air pollution, a growing homeless problem, and you had to add 20 minutes to any trip that you were going to take anywhere in the city just to be on there on time. But it was also the capital of filmmaking in the entire world and I wanted to be in the entertainment business, plus it had great beaches, incredible sunsets and that incomparably great weather.

Thirty-eight years later, it’s even more crowded. The traffic jams are even worse. You have to add 45 minutes to any trip that you’re going to take now. The pollution is a lot better, but our homeless problem has grown to such proportions that by itself is larger than most mid-sized cities in the United States. It’s still the movie capital of the world but there’s now five world class museums, two sports teams in every major category: baseball, football, basketball, hockey and soccer. And still we have those incredible beaches and sunsets, and still enjoy the best weather in America.

But Los Angeles is closed.

I’ve been sheltering in place since March 16th. On the 15th, two days before Saint Patrick’s Day, I went out to an Irish bar and had a Guinness while sitting in the most distant corner of the bar to keep social distance between myself and others. Other than going to a grocery store or a pharmacy that’s the only human interaction I’ve had since March 16th. I have a roommate, so I have someone to talk to. But I can’t imagine what it’s like for people who lived by themselves and can’t venture out. Humans are made and programmed to be around other humans and to not have any human contact is almost inconceivable.

Few days ago, I was allowed the opportunity to take a Corona virus test. The week before I had reached out online to the testing authority here in Los Angeles to see if I had symptoms of the virus, and I was told that I didn’t and stay home. But then I was contacted by them because I fit into a certain age category and have an underlying health condition. They allowed me to come be tested. It was very strange as the photographs show. It took place in a large parking lot of a church. Everyone was dressed in hazmat suits and you were told to roll down your window just a little bit so they could slip you a test kit. No one personally tested me. Those photographs or videos that you see on the television or online of someone sticking a swab up another person’s nose didn’t happen for me. What happened was they gave me a plastic bag with a swab inside of it, a small vial filled with a toxic liquid, a list of instructions and two smaller plastic bags. The man who handed it to me at the side of my car told me what I needed to do. Then he asked me to repeat it back to him, and then he told me the instructions one more time. At that point, I was supposed to pull off to the side in the parking space and perform the test myself.

I was supposed to open the kit and take out the swab. Then I was to swab the inside of my mouth three times. Then I was to break the swab in half so it would fit into the small vial with the toxic liquid and close it. I was warned several times not to let this liquid spill on me. Then I was to take that vial and put it in the smallest plastic bag and seal it. Then place that bag in the next size bag and seal that one. And finally put that bag in the bag that the test kit came in and seal it. I was then to drive to the exit of the parking lot and throw the bag in a large container that had all the other test kits that had been used. That was 10 days ago. I still don’t have my test results. And I have my doubts that that is the most effective way to test people for coronavirus. What if they don’t understand the instructions? What if they get confused? What if they don’t do the test in the correct way? Don’t think that’s the most effective way to do it.  No human interaction whatsoever. Self-testing seems like it leaves a lot of room for confusion and improper testing.

Three days ago, I was so stir crazy that I decided to drive down to Santa Monica. Just to see what there was to see. Nothing. Empty streets. Closed stores. Hardly anyone on the street at all. The 3rd Street Promenade and Santa Monica Pier were completely closed and empty of anyone. Standing on the cliffs overlooking Santa Monica beaches, they were completely empty.

There was a movie that came out in 1959 or 1960, that I remember seeing as I was growing up. It starred Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner and Fred Astaire. It was called On The Beach. It was based on a controversial book that had come out in the late 50’s about a possible nuclear war that happens between the Soviet Union and the United States. The war happens and the fallout from the radiation kills everyone on the planet. Gregory Peck is the commander of a submarine that was at sea when the attacks happen and, they survive. The eerie scene of the submarine sailing into San Francisco Bay to find nothing. The city wasn’t blown up, it was just empty of people. No one there. Empty streets, empty buildings, just empty. And that’s what Santa Monica reminded me of. It was very spooky and eerie and unsettling.

What will life look like on the other side of this plague. Will we remember to be nicer to each other as we are now? Will we maintain the slow pace of life that we have managed to accomplish now? Will the pollution continue to get better because there are less cars and less movement on the streets now? Or will it return to the way that it was before with overcrowded freeways, and the hustle and bustle of a massive city.

Life will begin to return to normal. Movie theaters will open, churches will open, schools will open, restaurants and bars will open, and life will begin to return to something that resembles normal. The beaches will open. The parks will open. And there’s still the incredible sunsets and the beautiful weather. Right now that’s in the future and no one knows when that will happen.

Los Angeles lives one day at a time. Some people still go to work but many people have lost their jobs because film production is stopped, and the service industry of bars and restaurants have shut down. And the ripple effect has affected almost everyone that I know. Whether they are renters or homeowners or landlords or just regular business owners because all nonessential businesses have closed as well. Los Angeles is closed. And we don’t know when it’s going to reopen.

When it does, those of us that live here hope you come back because our city exists on tourism as a major source of our income. But will you want to come here? Will you trust that you can fly in a plane and not catch the virus? Will you want to be on the Hollywood Walk of fame with hundreds of other people, will you want to go to our fabulous beaches with hundreds of other people, or want to go to our museums, the 3rd St promenade, and the Santa Monica pier?

Los Angeles is closed. And the Los Angeles we used to know will be very different than the one that arrives when they finally lift the shelter in place order. And I wonder what that will be like?

We should be thankful all across the country for the men and women who work as doctors, nurses, EMT’s, grocery store clerks, people that restock stores, pharmacists and their colleagues in drug stores, Amazon drivers and UPS drivers, and the growing business of food delivery. All those people risk their lives every day being confronted with the possibility Covis-19. I don’t know that I could do their job. Yes, they’re making a living because they have to but they’re also brave. I really don’t know if I could stand behind a cash register as hundreds of people walked by me maybe with the disease or maybe not. The odds of not getting it are not Vegas odds, but they’re still not good.

In the meantime, please stay inside, when you go out wear a mask and remember social distancing. The reason that California, the most populous state in the United States, has some of the lowest Corona virus numbers is because our mayor and our governor got out in front of this and our curve is a lot lower than other places especially New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Louisiana.

Be careful, be safe and stay healthy.    

Hosting in the Time of Corona

AirBnb hosting during a pandemic.

Yes, for those literary types who caught the reference, the title of this blog references the famous novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera. The title of this famous book references a disease but the term Cholera as it’s used in Spanish can also denote passion or human rage in its feminine form. Therefore, the title of the book is a pun: Cholera as a disease and Cholera as a passion.

For those of you that have been following this blog for a while, you know that I am an AirBnB host in Los Angeles. And in this time of Coronavirus and very limited travel, I decided to write about what’s happening to the hosting business in Los Angeles.

Hosting for me has been a passion and a way of life since 2011 when I joined AirBnB. And I was playing host to students from University of Southern California for five years before that. So, hosting for me has been going on for about 15 years. In that time, I have hosted over 300 people and have over 150 positive reviews and only two negative reviews. I was a Superhost for three to four years losing that last year when I canceled someone who I thought was a danger coming into my home.

Some of my best friends from around the world I have met through hosting. Some of the people that I have hosted in my home, I have ended up staying with them when I traveled to their country, and conversely, people that I met while traveling have come in stay in my home when they’ve traveled to Los Angeles. My marriage which is now ending unfortunately was also a happenstance of my hosting a woman from Denmark and we ended up being married for five years.

For the first time since somewhere in the beginning of 2012, my rooms are empty. I have always been full since that time. I have 4 bedrooms and a guest house and an apartment which I converted from the former servants’ quarters in my large house in Los Angeles. I’m not wealthy. I bought a derelict house and have spent the last 19 years restoring it. It’s taken a lot of time, lot of effort and a lot of love. Working with AirBnB has allowed me to pay my mortgage and pull myself out of debt and repair my ancient home. For some of you around the world, this house would not seem old since it was built in 1904 but for Los Angeles which tears down everything after about 50 years, this place is ancient.

My 4 bedrooms are empty. The guest house and the apartment are rented to tenants thankfully at the moment, but the main house is empty. On around March 14th, the Mayor of Los Angeles and the City Council closed all bars, restaurants and gathering places. The only thing open are grocery stores, pharmacies and other essential businesses. All groups of 50 or more people were not allowed to meet and instantly all concerts and events and conventions that were in the Los Angeles area were cancelled. Within a space of three days all my business for March, April and most of May has completely disappeared. If you listen to the CDC out of Atlanta instead of President Trump, you realize that America is in very bad shape to meet such a pandemic. Believing the science more than I believe the propaganda, the experts are predicting that in Los Angeles, the crest will come sometime in late March or early April, if then. Erring on the side of caution, I’ve also decided to cancel any new reservations for the month of April because the coronavirus is just now arriving in Los Angeles in force. And we are warned that we will soon look like New York or New Jersey or Louisiana in terms of cases and rates of infection and community spread and rates of death.

So, for the first time in my hosting career I am turning people away. And part of me is very sad. But after living in a house full of strangers for the last 15 years part of me is also happy. For the first time the place is quiet. There’s no one around. I don’t have to be worrying about how much noise I make or if I can play billiards in the pool room downstairs past 11:00 PM or play the stereo loud. I’m here by myself. I’ve been self-quarantining for about 11 days and on certain levels I am extremely bored and stir crazy but on the other hand the peace and quiet is kind of nice. It actually makes me think that maybe I’m not going to host anymore. I might rent a couple of rooms to students from University of Southern California but leave the rest of the house quiet.

Hosting in the Time of Corona. It’s a time of reflection. It’s a time of sadness because I have friends who have already passed and many friends who are currently battling the disease. So far, I’ve been lucky. But that doesn’t mean that I will escape it. It’s just now cresting in Los Angeles, so the possibility of me getting it in the next few days or next couple of weeks is very strong. You can’t stay indoors forever.

Yet the peace, the quiet, the reflection and the time to myself has been very nice. So, here’s to the 300 plus people that have lived in my house. Here’s to the 150 plus good reviews that I’ve received for my work and allowing people into my home and treating them like family and friends. Here’s to nine years I have been an Airbnb host. I don’t know if this will continue. It takes a lot to operate a house this big – 6 bedrooms, three bathrooms, living room, dining room, pool room, guest house, an apartment and on and on and on. But I wouldn’t have changed the last 15 years for anything.

Please stay safe. Please stay healthy. Many people seem to take this virus as something that’s not really that important. You’re wrong. This virus is a killer. Most people won’t get very sick but those that do it’s a terrible way to die. Gasping for breath. My thoughts are with everybody around the world as we go through this world changing event. And my prayers are with those who are very sick or who have passed from this terrible disease.

Hosting in the Time of Corona. A life changing event for everyone and one in which the future cannot be known.

Be safe!

Drive Across America – Day 5 – 7, Abilene to Atlanta

One of my grand plans before I left to drive across the country was to stop everyday to see something interesting, take a hike, or visit some place I haven’t been before – but after driving four days non-stop across the United States (of course only 300 miles a day) I was anxious to get to my final destination, Atlanta. So Days 5 and 6, I really didn’t stop, I just drove.

Abilene, Texas was a nice town. The night I arrived I wanted to get some something to eat in a nice restaurant and I found a nice place using Yelp. The bartender recommended a pub near the local college to check out, and I ended up in a few games of friendly pool with some locals who were very nice. Abilene is actually considered a very good place to visit and live – this link will tell you a lot about Abilene history and livability – https://livability.com/tx/abilene . But overall Abilene did not leave much of an impression on me. I was only there for a night and my apologies to anyone who reads this who is from Abilene but I just decided to move on down the road.

Cisco, TX Photo J.Carey

But as I was headed east on Interstate 20 I did come to an interesting little town called Cisco, TX. Cisco seems to be surrounded by a lot of trees which was different after 4 days of driving across desert and flatland. That was because of Lake Cisco, a man-made lake created in the 1920’s.

Conrad,Hilton Photo J.Carey

One of Cisco’s claims to fame is that Conrad Hilton, the founder of the Hilton Hotel chain bought and operated his first hotel in Cisco. The story goes that Hilton came to Cisco to buy a bank, but the bank cost too much, so he purchased the Mobley Hotel in 1919. The hotel is now a local museum and community center. The hotel had about 40 rooms and did a very brisk business right from the start as this occurred during the beginning of the Texas oil boom. It’s now on the National Historic Register, and right next to the community center is a little park called the Conrad Hilton Park with a small statue of him there.

Photo J.Carey

The rest of the drive that day is kind of a blur as to what happened because the entire focus of the trip was now just trying to get out of Texas and across as much of Louisiana as I could make in my 300 mile radius. I spent the night in Greenwood, Louisiana.

One last comment about Texas before I move on. What is it in Texas with the super high transition ramps to other freeways? They’re in every city no matter how small or how large, and they just keep going higher and higher and higher. Other states have them as well but Texas seems to have a real proclivity for building these structures. As I drove across the country along the southern route, Texas by far had more of them than any other place I’ve ever seen. Fort Worth has so many freeways crossing and re-crossing each other that the confusion of roads and bridges and transition roads is called the “Mixmaster.”

The Mixmaster, Fort Worth

Day 6 was just spent driving I-20 through Shreveport, Louisiana on to the Mississippi River. I crossed the river at Vicksburg, MS. This is the site of a huge battle during the Civil War between the North and the South. The North had been trying to take Vicksburg, a major port city for the Confederates on the Mississippi for months. Every time they were rebuffed by the Southern soldiers. Finally Lincoln placed a relatively unknown general in charge of the effort, U.S. Grant. Grant laid siege to the city for 45 days cutting off all food and water. The Southern command finally surrendered, and the victory turned Grant into a Northern national hero.

Entrance to Vicksburg Military Park Photo J.Carey

The Vicksburg National Military Park is here that you can drive through and see almost the entire battlefield. Even places where people currently live and own homes are included in the National Monument. It is really quite moving when you consider the sheer amount of death and destruction because the weapons of war had far outstripped the stratagems that were used to guide men into battle. Although the sheer amount of information about who was fighting at what position on the battlefield, and who did what, and who died here after a while becomes overwhelming.

Real cannon used in the war, and actively shot each day in a mock battle. Photo J.Carey

Here I have a a comment about growing up in the South. I’m of a certain age when the people of the South still talked about the War of Northern Aggression. Every little boy that I know including myself grew up pretending to be a Confederate soldier fighting against the Yankee intruders. Thank God that is all changed to a large degree. I don’t think many little boys grow up anymore wanting to pretend fight the most deadly war that the United States has ever fought which based on slavery, and that we fought against each other. What the southern states in the late 1800’s did to hang on to some integrity after losing the Civil War was to put memorial plaques up everywhere that something happened during the Civil War. And they’re literally thousands of them in every state. Starting at Louisiana and continuing on into Mississippi and Alabama and Georgia, thousands of Civil War historical markers everywhere covering everything from houses to where people slept, to where battles were fought, to where it seems like famous people took a crap. They are every where.

True family story – My mother used to like to read the markers and often complained to my father when he was driving that he would not stop and let her read them. So once on a trip to Mississippi after her constant complaining, my father began to stop at every maker and read them out loud in their entirety. After 10 miles of this history lesson, my mother gave in and never complained about reading the historical makers again.

I spent the night in Meridian, Mississippi.

Waking up the next day, I headed straight toward Atlanta through Birmingham on Interstate 20. As I drove further and further east that day my anxiety over why I was taking this trip and what I hoped to accomplish in Atlanta grew. Why had I driven 2400 miles to another city to prove what? To whom and why? Plus driving for 7 straight days with huge bridges, big trucks, crazy drivers, and the endless boredom of just looking at scenery pass by made me a nervous wreck the further I drove.

Yet I could also reflect on the amazing size of our country and the constant changes in scenery and climate. I started on the Pacific Ocean through the changing scenery of California, Arizona, New Mexico to the Flat Lands of Texas. Than in East Texas things start to change with trees, and the drive just gets Greener and Greener and Greener as the humidity soars, and plants and trees start to take over everywhere. I travel back to the South often but I am always amazed at how green it is and how many trees there are.

The maze of roads around Atlanta! Map by TRIPinfo.com

I finally got to Atlanta about three in the afternoon. I had chosen to stay for the first few days near my nephew Justin and his family who live in Woodstock , GA about 27 miles outside of downtown Atlanta. I had rented an Airbnb just a couple of miles from his home. Yet, in my exhausted and anxiety ridden state, I just could not handle driving on Atlanta’s infamous I- 285 Perimeter which is like a racecourse with too much traffic and huge trucks and Atlanta’s very aggressive drivers all doing 10 miles per hours over the speed limit. So I choose to take smaller state highways around to Woodstock, but that gave me the opportunity to understand how much Atlanta and the surrounding area had grown through the years. What had been open country and small towns was now malls, housing developments and apartment/condo complexes. Rows of them in all directions.

Downtown Woodstock, GA Photo – visitingwoodstockga.com

Arriving at my AirBnb, I unpacked my car and set up my temporary quarters. While worried, I was also very excited to see what the next two months would hold for me as I began my adventure in Atlanta. Performing and seeing what opportunities either in show business or real estate existed here, and the chance to really start to understand the city that I’ve passed through so many times during my life but have never stayed for more than a week at a time. After 7 long tiring days, The Grand Adventure was about to begin.

unique car decorations, Woodstock, GA photo – J. Carey