The Road Trip: Part 2

I've been putting off writing this part of the blog, because, as you will see, it is very revealing and possibly damaging to The Greater New Orleans Artist Mansion. And although they suck, they did treat me relatively fairly. Let me explain...


Jacqui and I arrived at GNOAM at about midnight, having warned the resident with whom I was in contact (lets call him Ron) that I would be arriving at this exact time. We let ourselves into the house, whose main entrance was wide open despite the shady neighborhood, and introduced myself to the two fellows sitting on the couch in the large living room and asked if they knew where Ron was. Blank stares. "Dunno."


Awkward.

After calling him on my cellphone from inside the house (the two on the couch didn't seem that it might be appropriate to tell me where his room might be let alone say howdy-do back to me), Ron appeared in the hallway. He babbled incoherently about some paperwork he needed to fill out -and how this was a scary neighborhood-and how he didn't have keys for me yet -and how I might be able to have the back door fingerprint-reading lock programmed for me tonight -oh and here's your room:

Cooool.....

So, I kinda thought that my room was supposed to be on the first floor, not in the basement...I didn't even know that basements were structurally possible in New Orleans (or smart for that matter). That window doesn't look too secure...didn't you just tell me this was a "really scary" neighborhood? And I know that you said the furnishings weren't going to be "glamourous" but two dirt encrusted half deflated air mattresses as "bed", and a 2'x2' tv stand as "work table" might be considered a little bit less than unglamourous. And this closet, well:

That's a creative solution, but I'm not so sure that this piece of string is going to hold up to the weight of even one clotheshanger, and those fabric "shelves"might not exactly provide the storage space I was looking for. Thanks for the effort though.

Jacqui was even more skeeved than I was (I was quietly panicking, thinking that this was to be how I would spend my next 4 months). We elected to spend the night sleeping in the car and assess the situation in the morning.

The light of day, however, didn't exactly do wonders for the place:

cool bathroom.........

cool hallway.......

cool bathtub......

cool "gallery space"........

cool kitchen......

cool pile of shit in the corner.......

cool...absolutely appalling-

completely squalid-

totally offensive junkyard-

I mean cool backyard.....

I'd like to go on, but I think this is enough to show you how absolutely incredible this place was. This wasn't exactly the professional residency that I had been sold via all of GNOAM's online media....this wasn't a place that I could work, let alone live. So, I confronted Ron and his resident cronie (who proceeded to immediately unprofessionally gang up on me whilst trying to defend their professionalism) and I left. To GNOAMS credit, with alot of supremely honed cajoling, I was able to get my security deposit back from the relatively sympathetic mysterious off-site landlord guy.

AND I found a truly amazing place to live that same day. This scary, squalid place did not colour my view of New Orleans or it's fantastic artists, either, as the days that came afterwards were filled with the vibrantly talented and friendly people and extroardinarily exciting experiences I was expecting from this town. Pics and stories will soon come.