Sidenote: The Origin of the Name

without further ado, the return of the fivedollarsandabucketofchicken blog.

before i get started, i feel that it's probably my duty to explain to you guys why exactly the blog is named as it is. in fact, im not sure why i didnt put it in the first post. this has nothing to do with travelling in asia or five dollars or friend chicken; the origin of the name can be traced back to one rainy evening in new orleans, just a day or two before the start of the last new orleans jazz fest before hurricane katrina hit.

it was 2004, just about 6 months before george bush jr. was inexplicably reelected to serve another term as our commander in chief. i was working for a nonprofit organization called 'mobilizing america's youth'. my buddy eric and i were canvassing the southern portion of the united states for our organization's very ambitious "march across america", which was basically a cross-country winnebago trip where a bunch of college kids played house...but thats another story for another time. our goal was to GOTV, which means "get out the vote"... a cutsie term that "rock the vote" and other youth voting organizations made up that basically means, "get lazy young people to care about politics enough to exercise their american right to vote for their own leaders" or something to that effect.

our "boss", david beaumont smith, was a good friend from college and he used our being in new orleans as an opportunity to celebrate his birthday as well as to do some much-needed political schmoozing. so dave flew out and met us when we were floundering in the disgusting heat and humidity of houston, texas and the three of us made the 5 hour drive to the crescent city, which by the way is entirely on an elevated freeway over the deep bayou swamplands.

we left houston in the afternoon and got to louisiana in about 3 hours. by that time, it was dark and we pulled over to get some gas just across the border. i remembered hearing from somebody that it was legal to carry an open container in louisiana...or at least we thought it was... i mean, people carry their drinks around on bourbon street all the time, right? how else could mardi gras happen?

so we walked into he mini mart attached to the gas station and we asked the guy at the register what the deal was. what we really wanted to do was to buy some alcohol and consume it in the car as we were cruising into new orleans. as you all know, this is mucho illegal almost everywhere in the states (cause the states is pretty much gay). so this is what happened: the guy behind the counter was this big ol' southern hick with a deep southern/creole/bayou drawl that kinda made him sound like foghorn leghorn. he was a real nice guy and honestly wanted to help us out. he said that he always drank in his car while driving, but some cronies in the state legislature were trying to push through a law that would forbid regular, law abiding citizens from drinking while driving. so he picks up the phone and, i shit you not, calls the county sherriff, whose number i assume he has memorized or on speed dial.

the conversation went something like this:

"sheriff...i got some boys over here who wanted to know about the laws in louisiana.... they wanted to know if it would be alright if they bought some beers and drank 'em right there in the car while they were drivin'.....oh yeah?..... well that sure clears things up..... oh yeah, everythings goin' just fine out here...yep......well thanks, sheriff.....you have a good night."

at this point, we thought that our goose was cooked, so to speak, but with a big, friendly grin, the guy behind the register declared that he had OKed it with the sherriff and that we could indeed drink in the car without any problem. we asked him if we had to hide the beers if we passed a cop or anything. he kind of looked at us like we were crazy and asked us why we would do that. so that was that. we bought 4 bottles of 'mad dog 20/20', she shit we used to get drunk on in high school that has like 4 flavors: green, red, blue, and purple -- and we were off to new orleans.

that last little bit of a story has nothing to do with why the blog is called what it is, but i thought that you guys might want to get a feeling of where we were and the kinds of people we were dealing with.

there was this other time in louisiana when we went to this local diner that was set off the street a little ways in the woods. the place was packed so we decided that it had to be good. the scene was straight out of the fifties. literally everyone in the town was there eating. this was a little podunk town east of new orleans. the football team, all the cheerleaders and their parents and grandparents and whoever the fuck else was white in the town were there. (so i guess 'everyone' isnt really the correct term to use here -- let's go with 'every caucasian person' and be done with it.)

we sat down to order, and this 16 year old, britney spears lookalike comes over to take our order. we ordered our meals....i think i ordered the country-fried chicken-fried steak, because it had two 'frieds' in it. literally everything on the menu was fried. im not kidding. they had fried ice cream, fried bananas, fried snickers, fried pork chops....and here's the kicker: after we all made our orders, the waitress asked us how we would like our corn. huh?

apparently, they also deep fry corn on the cob in louisiana. i was astounded. i ordered it immediately, along with some fried alligator and a fried onion blossom thing. we ate our meals with ketchup and thousand island dressing and got the fuck out of there....the locals were eyeing us....and at that point, i realized that i was probably the first asian dude they had ever seen that wasnt on tv. awkward and illuminating.

so back to the five dollars and a bucket of chicken story:

so dave, eric and i -- because we were actually 'working' -- had each brought along a dapper-looking suit and tie getup so we could impress the political activists and leaders that we were lucky enough to get a meeting with. all along the way, eric and i hadnt really been able to utilize them ... for fear of coming across as douchebags. but on this occasion, dave had obtained for us an invitation to this big deal crawfish boil that this woman, peggy wilson, was having at her house.

she lived in the rich part of new orleans in a plantation-style house that had a big courtyard with a big gate and statues outside of it. dressed in our best suits and braving the rain, we hopped in a cab that took us out to her estate. she greeted us with big hugs and kisses at the door and warmly invited us in. her house was amazingly well decorated. everything was old and tasteful. it was just as you would imagine an old, southern, rich-white-person house would be... right down to the old baby grand piano with the bust of somebody dead and famous sitting on it.

ms. wilson told us that her next door neighbors were none other than the esteemed archie manning on the one side, and trent reznor on the other. she even complained that trent would sometimes play his music a bit too loud. we were pretty much in awe at this point. after some very awkward, but genuine meet and greets with the family and friends that were there, we were led into the kitchen area where most of the partygoers were there were gathered. we were told that there was a keg of beer outside and the three of us immediately got to drinking it.

we were the only people even remotely dressed up for the occasion. apparently, crawfish boils aren't really meant to be a big deal in new orleans. most of the people there were in shorts, tee shirts, and tank tops. most of them also appeared to have eaten a little too many fried corn on the cobs, if you catch my drift. so here we were, these three preppy yankees, trying to fit in with an intimate family gathering. this is why we started hitting he booze pretty hard.

they had hired this professional crawfish boiler to make the food, which by the way, is absolutely delicious. they said he was the best in new orleans, so im guessing he may have been one of the best in the world. the boil consisted of a bunch of crawfish, ears of corn, halved new potatoes, some scallion, and a bunch of cajun spices. the dude made the boil in this big cauldron that he had set up in the yard next to the keg.

after a few minutes of drinking and schmoozing, we were called inside to start eating. this is when the story starts to get exciting. we literally had no idea how to eat crawfish, let alone eat them at a fancy schmancy crawfish boil while wearing suits and ties. ms. wilson asked her daughter in law to show us the ropes. this thirty-something southern belle comes up to us and, without hesitation, grabs a crawfish in her hands, rips it in half, and proceeds to suck the brains out of one end, and tear the other end apart with a combination of her hands and teeth, all the while making this slurping, sucking sound. needless to say, we were very impressed. i guess thats why they were just wearing their yardwork clothes...this was going to get messy.

for the next hour or so, we sat with the wilsons at a table covered in newspaper and the crawfish king kept bringing in shovel loads of crawfish and piling them in front of us. as i said earlier, the food was delicious, but probably not so nutritious. we sucked and slurped with the best of them. the food was spicy, so we were crying, sweating, and constantly blowing our noses the whole time. with our meal, we had beer and white wine. everyone was getting kind of tipsy by the end of it all and ms. wilson began to open up to us a little bit.

dave had told us that she had run for the governorship of louisiana and had narrowly been defeated. again, we were very impressed. we didnt bring this point up until after we had talked about what we were doing, what our plans were, and why we wanted to get young people out to vote. she was very polite and hospitable to us and we were charmed.

we got to talking about that ill-fated election in the course of conversation. we were simply curious about what it was like, what she had learned, etc. that's when the old southern woman began to get a little saucy. she started lamenting about how corrupt the politics in louisiana were and how everyone in the government was corrupt in some way. she talked about kickbacks, bribes, scandals, everything and pretty much prefaced, for me, what happened in the city when the hurricane hit less than a year later.

then she uttered the magic words: "are you boys going to go and get the blacks to vote?"

umm... yeah

"those blacks -- they'll vote for anyone and anything someone tells them to. in the election that i lost, i was winning until the very last minute, when the democrats went and bussed a bunch of them blacks out to the polling places..."

umm... so what's wrong with that?

"them blacks... all you have to give them is FIVE DOLLARS AND A BUCKET OF CHICKEN.... and they'll vote for anyone ... they'll do anything you ask them to do!!!"

after this, we didnt know what to do. nodding and smiling, we politely let the conversation go towards greener pastures. then we got the fuck out of dodge. again, you have to remember that i was the only non-white person there; it became readily apparent at this point. actually, it hit us like a ton of bricks in the face -- people in the south are still racist....even the nice old ladies that run for governor.

we made an excuse about how we had to meet some girls out on bourbon street and made a mad dash out into the rain. ms. wilson, ever the proper host, offered to call us a taxi. we politely refused and said that we wanted to give one of those famous new orleans trolleys a ride. she kissed us mightily on the cheeks and told us we were good boys with a good cause. we thanked her and started off into the night, not caring if our preppy suits were getting wet. it was time to go... we had overstayed our welcome.