403 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
403 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
From slcpi!govt.shearson.com!mjohnsto@uunet.UU.NET Tue Jan 8 09:47:18 1991
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To: wordy@Corp
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Subject: Part 44 of CAA #2
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BORN TOULOUSE
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#44 in the second online CAA series
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by
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Steven K. Roberts, HtN (WORDY)
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New Orleans, LA
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July 14, 1988
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copyright 1988, Steven K. Roberts
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The energy is building: Journey 3 is mission, passion,
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obsession, religion. As we make our last swing through the Southeast,
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pausing to frolic in New Orleans with 15,000 sweaty librarians, I am
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loosing a barrage of proposals like seductive cruise missles into the
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hotbed of high-tech industry.
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And the results are trickling in, changing the bike beyond
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recognition. The Oki cellular phone is installed and ready for
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interfacing with fax, modem, and the 256-point crossbar switch. The
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components of my satellite station are arriving, frightening me with their
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combined weight while exciting me with communication potential. And a
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Createc dual-channel digital oscilloscope and signal computer is on board,
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obsoleting my previous mobile laboratory equipment and opening a 20 MHz
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window into the new electronics.
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Yeah, it's starting all over again. I'm pouring my passions
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into a blender and reaching for the puree button...
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* * *
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But the bike will still be there when I write to you from the
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BORING places. Today I want to talk about N'awlins. There's a sort of
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melancholy about this city, you know, a strange melancholy that excites
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the lusts and touches the soul... and every descent from our balconied
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French Quarter suite into street-level turmoil makes the keyboard fingers
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itch. Stories lurk in the dark eyes that glower from shadows, in the
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antics of children marked by street life, in the crenelated faces of those
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who were here to watch the first electric streetlights sharpen their
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familiar shadows. This is a rare thing in post-video America: a city's
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identity proclaimed by every street, every guitar lick, every face, every
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shot of Jagermeister swilled before breakfast in Molly's Irish Pub.
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And in the deep sultry night the rhythms of cultures mingle.
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Stand at Toulouse and Bourbon and let them shake you -- a thrumming
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confusion of blues, rock, jazz, Dixie, and a passing nuclear-powered
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automotive rap machine with enough oomph to perform CPR on the driver.
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Swirling through the violent acoustic crossfire is a motley fluid of
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drunken humanity, and if my metaphors seem mixed... it's no accident. So
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is the reality.
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People! Blacks from the projects, street-wise and native, white
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eyes darting between the blues man's golden sax and the tan legs that lure
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imaginations past the hem of a passing red miniskirt. Tourists of all
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flavors, ambling with too-deliberate ease along a path that avoids the
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ruffians -- eyes alert to the approach of hustlers, drunks, or the
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titillating shopfronts of commercial naughtiness. Sixties carryovers,
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ponytailed, attitudes revealed less by hard-rock style than by a sort of
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Rockwell hardness index of the eyes. Hawkers, luring people into
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doorways to glimpse nude women writhing on smoky stages. Cops, jaded and
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confident, frisking passers-by with a glance and arresting the city's
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descent into behavioral entropy by their very presence. The rich, too
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well dressed, slumming. The bottom out-of-sight poor, eyes pleading,
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slumped against dirty walls in visible dejection. Con artists, accosting
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the naive. Musicians, easy in their element but disturbingly
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ordinary-looking off stage, commuting the side streets with battered
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instrument cases. Mimes, eloquent and graceful, filling cash boxes with
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the wordless poetry of dance. Hookers swaying practised hips under
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the lacy incongruities of Frederick's. Librarians on furlough from the
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conference, walking in close wide-eyed groups in this place far from
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Kansas. Ordinaries, who could be up to the most hienous of evils and
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never show it. Gays, simpering down the street with hands on each other's
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bottoms. Cabbies lending a touch of hard-edged New York raucousness with
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ready honks and impatient driving styles. Whooping college students,
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hell-bent on having a good time, clutching their paper-cupped Hurricanes
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while getting down in coarse parody of the bloods who lend authenticity
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to what might otherwise degenerate into a Daytona Beach. Old coots, young
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nimble black break-dancers, lost drunk white high-school kids, businessmen
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recovering from business, toughs on missions of darkness and terror,
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brain-damaged druggies slurring curses, and the gaudy human echoes of
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Mardi Gras. And above all, such a variety of bodies and faces that no
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stroll through the maelstrom can fail to yield arousal, disgust,
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longing, fear, awe, nostalgia, and laughter (sometimes... all by the same
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person.)
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* * *
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Jackson Square. Jax Brewery. Cafe du Monde. The shops and
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museums of Royal Street. The city by day is awash in tourism, an economy
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based on T-shirts, biegnets, ceramic masks, artwork, and endless
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variations on the almighty souvenir. For 75 cents, you can knock back an
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"oyster shooter" -- a raw gob of glistening gray flesh swimming in a
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dollop of Bloody Mary mix. At Mr. B's Bistro, the bartender muddles an
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Old Fashioned while keeping up a running commentary on local food, music,
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and shops. At Molly's breakfast, fogged penitent eyes and tortured
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foreheads mark the hung-over. It's all here: portrait artists competing
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for sittings, joggers in the park, calliope toots under rising
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columns of riverboat smoke, sunsets over the cathedral, fleshy old women
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in ghastly pastels clutching beaded handbags, a pricey gallery of Lennon
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and Erte, bored horses with flowered hardhats standing before idle
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buggies, coarse propositions muttered to any female on the street, a
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capella falsetto soul scatting, mingled languages, heart-pounding glimpses
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of flesh and ecstasy, ripoffs, good deals, brutal humidity, and interludes
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of iced cappuccino to cool the sweat.
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And what delights me most in all this is that it knows itself,
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celebrates itself, procreates itself like a giant mutant amoeba. New
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Orleans is its own species, not a homogenized amalgam of malls,
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billboards, and suburban conformity; this city rejects the ordinary by
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seducing it, assimilating it, and changing it forever.
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* * *
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Our home for a week has been the Olivier Guest House on Toulouse
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Street -- a rambling place of eccentric hallways, surprise staircases,
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gardens, balconies, old N'awlins flavor, and a slowly-evolving family of
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international guests (mainstream American tourists, as a general rule,
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prefer the predictable carbon-copy motel motif). This place has taken on
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a sense of home -- not only because of its period furniture and shambling
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authenticity, but also because of its familiarity: I stayed here when
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I pedaled through four years ago.
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Our bikes have their own room -- the original parlor with its
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16-foot ceiling, bronze chandelier, and blue velvet wallpaper. And an
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unexpected bonanza: they are guarded around the clock by guest house
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personnel and a New Orleans cop named Aaron... a source of colorful street
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stories if ever there was one. In this place where madness and booze
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mingle without discipline, it's comforting to have a friend on the force.
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The Olivier is an oasis -- a quiet retreat from the city nestled
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in its very midst. We lay around, skinnydip in the pool, stroll in the
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courtyard, neck on the balcony, frolic in the canopy bed, spy on the
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neighbors, play with the four kittens stumbling cutely around our room,
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and gaze out over the city's rooftops... all without the nervous
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excitement of street life itself. Yet with a few dozen steps we can
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switch modes and join the revelry, making the change with no more effort
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than idly fingering a TV remote control. The difference, of course, is
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that the TV is video and the city is an intense, involving experience
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that assaults all the senses.
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* * *
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Speaking of video, we've had a healthy dose of media exposure
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lately -- with CNN and CBS both splaying us across national screens within
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the same week. But last night's adventure added a different perspective
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to the CAA video collection...
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The bike stood parked against a blue wall. Behind glass, a
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mostly male crowd gawked and grinned; in the room, Maggie and I reviewed
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our loosely-choreographed script and took last-minute swigs from emergency
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Hurricanes. A wall of monitors and control panels was alive with images:
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the bike, a layer of swirling mist, color bars. Then the music started...
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ZZ Top's "Legs."
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Bouncing in hot pink, Maggie danced into the camera's view. In
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exaggerated motions, she mimed her astonishment at encountering the
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Winnebiko -- bending low to study it, eyes wide and innocent, hips rocking
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to the beat. The music moved her, and the men behind the glass risked not
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a blink as fabrics flowed under hot lights. Knowing well her body
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language, I could feel the growing tension...
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I chose my moment, and danced into view. "Who are you?" asked
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my eyes, and we looked each other over, circling like animals in season,
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touching in tentative intrigue. "She got legs -- she knows how to use
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them..." I knelt and felt, hands gliding over calves and thighs, eyes
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teasing, fabrics playing peek-a-boo. The dance grew ritual, erotic, its
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outcome obvious in every touch.
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I made my move. Climbing aboard the Winnebiko and fastening my
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helmet, I pointed at her and then curled my finger into a "come hither."
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"Moi?" questioned her look. "Vous!" answered mine.
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She stepped astride my lap, leaning into me as the music shook
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us -- video capturing in silhouette the lovers meeting, the first kiss,
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the bodies moving, the power, the beginning... and then the bike rolling
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slowly out of frame to leave only colors, guitars, desires, and an
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audience stunned by this unexpected blend of technology and erotic rock...
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* * *
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Yeah, it's hard to leave this place. I write now at a worn
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table in Molly's, dark walls around me plastered with yellowed business
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cards dating back to the 60's. The clientele is varied: hungover Smiley
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asleep against the pay phone, a woman in too- tight leather, a
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street-scarred longhaired Asian, a scattering of tattooed regulars.
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Another perfect omelette just met its match, and I alternate between
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coffee, water, and Jagermeister while trying to capture something of this
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town. And oddly, I find I don't want to go.
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Cities usually chase me away with noise and danger. This place
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has both in abundance, but I think there's no hurry... and I certainly
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don't miss the hot smelly bus and its load of clutter. I know this little
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place down on Decatur where the jambalaya can make you crazy...
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Cheers from the road!
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Steve
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