February 2009 – Page 4 – Suffering The Benz

Originally uploaded by Suffering the Benz

Last week, I was in New Orleans. And as is always the case when I hit the Crescent City, I made my way to the Dungeon to bloody my eardrums in walls of metal music and goth darkness.

Some of the best — and strangest — times I’ve had in New Orleans took place at the Dungeon. Last Thursday definitely ranked right up there. But I definitely felt like an escapee from the old Sesame Street song, “One of These Things is Not Like the Others.” Among all these pierced, tattooed goth kids sat two oversize middle-age entrepreneurs in suit jackets. But we were banging heads with the best of them …

I shot this photo using existing light (such as it was) at the bar upstairs.

driftwood.jpg

Originally uploaded by Suffering the Benz

It was beautiful on Sunday, so we took the bowrider out for a while to motor around Fort Loudon Lake. After picking up Tom and Jenny, we spotted an amazing piece of driftwood on the inside corner of Park’s Bend.

Tom is an avid driftwood collector, and his efforts have resulted in one of the coolest railings I’ve ever seen. When he saw this piece floating in the lake, he knew he had to grab it. But there was an iceberg effect going on here, with only a small part of the wood poking above the surface. We couldn’t pull it aboard. So we lassoed it with a line and pulled it back to Tom’s dock at idle speed.

Once we got it ashore, we realized it was even larger than we’d thought. Can’t wait till it dries out and Tom incorporates it into his driftwood magnum opus …