The Hula Hoop Artist.

The Vampire Kitchen does have a real kitchen, even if it’s not staffed by real vampires. The guidebooks say that this is the street where the locals go to listen to music, and they do. They just happen to be working. We’re here to see Lula Hula, the hula hoop artist.

In New Orleans, everybody has a chance to be who they want to be. It’s a city full of make-believe.

Lula works next door at the Sideways Sushi Lounge. Her set tonight was between the Mahogany Hall Jazz Band, and followed by a sword swallower. Such is the life of a hula hoop artist.

Now that she’s through, the three of us are going to the Prom of Doom at the Crypt.

Ready for some Dark Goth Electric? It’s gonna be the opposite of this Vampire Kitchen.

There’s a fortune teller at the door. Her eyes are milky blue, dead. She must be wearing contact lenses because her eyes match her hair. She must be wearing her whole jewelry box on her face.

“Cards, or palms?” she asks, as if in a trance.

Maybe later.

The fortune teller perks up when we tell her we’re here for Lula. “She got here about ten minutes ago. She’s at the bar,” she points across the room.

That’s Lula’s back, alright.

…To be continued behind the paywall. Free subscribers may not know what I’m up to, but I am rewriting some stories I have been working on for possible publication, whatever that means. This is what I have been preoccupied with, recently, which is why output is down.

Quality is up.

Should you choose to subscribe for money (and you should, I could use the dough), you’ll get access to the all the archives as well as be up to date on what is going in in a New Orleans State of Mind.

These tales are densely woven experience lived through a flaneur’s idle lens. There are angels in the details. The craziest thing is that all of it is true. I have witnesses.

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