Trail of the Lion King

Staying out in the sticks was all very well, but every now and then you want a little more action going on and so Jen and I booked three nights in New Orleans, staying in an Airbnb about forty-minutes walk from the busy part of town. Each day we had a wander into the touristy bit for a mooch around.

On one of the days, we got caught up in a jazz funeral that went past our house. You can’t miss an opportunity like that and so we followed it along to the church next to the underpass where the rough sleepers congregate. I’m not really sure who benefits from a jazz funeral, certainly not the dead and probably not those grieving. Maybe it’s just for bystanders like me.

One of the events that we’d planned was seeing Jonathan Richman at some old French theatre. I’m not that familiar with his music, but I’ve seen the tribute band, The Modern Ovens, that some of the Sea Power members play in, a few times. If it’s good enough for them then that will do.

We met up with Luke, one of Jen’s brothers who lives in New Orleans, and had an enjoyable evening.

Next night was the Pelicans in the NBA. Another of Jen’s brothers, Jeff, picked us up and commenting on the place we were staying asked “Were the projects too expensive?”.

I don’t think Jeff was too impressed with the seats I’d bought either. He used to be a marketing guy for a minor league baseball team and has the contacts to always sit somewhere good. We were quite high up, but I thought it was a decent view. The venue hadn’t sold out and Jeff let me know that if we’d waited until the day of the game we’d have picked up seats for buttons on the resale sites.

The Pelicans had only arrived back in town that day, having been stranded overnight after an away game. With sixteen games scheduled for November they chose to rest both of their star players which may have impacted on the crowd. On the plus side it meant we didn’t ever have to queue to get another ten dollar can of beer.

The lack of stars didn’t seem to hinder the home side and after a sluggish start they found themselves twenty-five points up at one stage. Thunder pegged it back towards the end, but the result was never in doubt in what turned out to be a good evening for the Pelican’s fringe players.

Tags: Jazz funeral, NBA, New Orleans, Pelicans

This entry was posted on January 15, 2024 at 3:21 pm and is filed under Basketball, Dead people and stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.