Last night we went out for a drink (several drinks) with my colleagues Dwight and Tom.We went (after dinner at Bacco in the Quarter) to the Bayou Bar in the Hotel Pontchartrain. The hotel, which is on St Charles Avenue in the Lower Garden District, opened in 1927; Walker Percy lived there for a while, as did Tennessee Williams. Big names like Richard Burton and Walt Disney stayed there once upon a time, and Anne Rice was all over it like a rash: she set part of The Witching Hour there. Phil Melancon, pianist and cabaret performer, is the bar’s big attraction three nights a week
The hotel is closing at the end of July for renovations. (I had to switch from Grey Goose to Belvedere after two drinks, because all the former was gone, and they’re not re-stocking.) The renovation is good news for New Orleanians with fond memories of the hotel’s glory days – not such good news for its staff, most of whom are getting laid off (including Kevin, the renowned bartender), and for Dwight, who had booked most of his out-of-town wedding guests into the hotel and scheduled the rehearsal dinner there in August.
But the place certainly needs renovation. The Bayou Bar smells as though the place flooded (which it didn’t) and looks like the victim of too many ill-conceived and half-finished redecorations. According to the hotel's website, the bar was added in 1947, and features canvas murals depicting scenes of Louisiana bayous, birds, and aquatic flowers painted by the noted New Orleans artist, Charles Reinike. Unfortunately, the bar also features shabby furniture, one of those sticking-out-brick feature walls, and a curious window display that involves a crumpled dark tablecloth, a stone urn, and some kind of mini-lantern. In other words, the sort of quasi-European vignette you’d expect to see in a branch of La Madeleine.
We spent most of the time there arguing about Dwight’s bizarre definition of the phrase “greatest movies of all time.” He seems to think this includes Ishtar and Starship Troopers.
However, I wouldn’t mind watching his favorite TV series, Ice Road Truckers. It’s about truckers hauling supplies to diamond mines across frozen lakes in Canada’s Northwest Territory. (Dwight said it was in Alaska, but we’ve already established he has a problem with accuracy and definitions. Perhaps he has it confused with another of his favorite shows, Deadliest Catch, which is about Alaskan fishermen going after king crab.) Ice Road Truckers is the highest-rated original program ever on the History Channel. My idea of a great TV show is Petticoat Junction or Rainbow, but I’d like to check this out.
On the subject of the Greatest Movies, Easy Rider was on TV this morning. I watched it up to the great-line moment (“We’re eatin’ their food!”) and then, as ever, felt all Easy-Ridered-out. We’ve driven many times, on the way to Marksville, past the now-closed diner in Morganza where the restaurant scene was filmed.
But now I must get on with some work.
Comments