So what the fuck am I doing in Denver? My memory’s hazy. When Rita completed the second half of Mother Nature’s one-two punch on my beloved, adopted state, I went into an all-levels tailspin. At the time, I had been in Memphis for two weeks and was very much ready to leave. Beale Street has way too many policemen and Coca-Cola billboards. It’s disgustingly safe. Home didn’t seem like a real option, despite my acute heartache and overwhelming compulsion to just GO BACK, no matter the cost. I tried to counteract this compulsion with some reason. I knew that the city was fucked. I still didn’t truly know the condition of my apartment. (Turns out it was pretty nasty.) Then someone said “Denver” and it seemed like a good idea. It was a concrete place, somewhere I could point to. So, about 4,000 FEMA dollars, 8 hours of Kansas and a wrecked U-Haul later, I find myself in the West.

For the first two weeks after I moved, I was dizzy, disoriented, constantly thirsty and fatigued, and in no way interested in food. If you want to lose weight, girls, move to the front range. The altitude sickness kicks the appetite right out of your system. In the past two months, I’ve lost twelve pounds without really trying. Nose bleeds are common. It’s the altitude, they say. You’ll get used to it.

I’ve yet to accept Denver as my Personal Katrina Savior, but here are some initial observations from the western front:

In some ways, Denver is similar to New Orleans. There are streets and people and buildings. There are cars and busses. There is sky and a moon, and lots of sun, and sometimes you can see stars. That’s about as far as it goes.

No one talks to each other in checkout lines. The bank tellers are appallingly efficient. And I haven’t seen a Rite Aid in three months. Or, for that matter, any black people.

Everyone raves about the mountains here. There’s a whole society of stoner retard kids who get high and go boarding. My landlord’s son is, in fact, a member. I went to Central City once, about 7500 feet up in the front range. That’s where the gambling is. (On the Gulf Coast, they put gambling on the water - we all know how that turned out; here in Colorado, gambling is in the mountains.) I didn’t gamble in Central City, just tromped around on some rocky dirt hills and took photos of red and yellow aspens. Beautiful, but I still don’t get it. They just look like giant dirt hills from Denver, covered now in snow, which somehow makes them look even dirtier.

There are hundreds of Mexican restaurants here. Better than the restaurants, there are these guys who push taco carts up and down Federal Avenue during the day. They look just like Lucky Dog carts, except they sell tacos. They ring a cheery little bicycle bell as they go, muttering angrily, shoving the cart uphill. Who needs the Roman Candy man? Viva burrito!



Santa Fe Avenue is the Arts District of Denver. There are about 20 galleries in four blocks, as well as tattoo parlours, independent theatres, the obligatory Mexican restaurants, and the Democratic headquarters. That’s the first place here where I’ve seen a guy playing a sax on the sidewalk. People have warned me to “be careful” going down Santa Fe. It’s got a shady reputation.

I now reside in the whitest town I’ve ever seen, both geographically and demographically speaking.

This is all terribly wrong.

Missing New Orleans IS like missing a person — like missing that eccentric aunt who never married, who has traveled the world and had a string of dangerous lovers, who smokes cigarillos, wears costume jewelry and French hair combs, irons her silk underwear, drinks her whiskey neat. I sorely miss my girl, tatters and all.

I want to say I will be home soon, but I don’t know what is going to happen. The only thing I am sure of is there is one bitch of a winter ahead out here; it’s only just begun.

Someone said Denver, a concrete place, somewhere I could point to.

A view from Central City, CO. Below: A view from Central City, New Orleans.