New Orleans: Veni, Vidi, Victimized

mod (Andy) note: "Blast from the past - Best of Eddie" If there's an old post from Eddie you'd like to see up again shoot me a message.

It's official: two years in Paris has made me soft.

I always just took for granted that I could maintain a professional level of gluttony and intemperance, and that my staid lifestyle in the City of Lights was merely the calm between intermittent storms of debauchery. Unfortunately, my week in New Orleans taught me the hard way that excessive consumption is a muscle like any other, and it atrophies from disuse.

After a grueling day of travel where Air France did their dead-level best to ensure my discomfort (c'mon guys, I'm travelling with a 5 & 6-year old and you're going to give me seat assignments in 3 different sections of the plane? Seriously???), I was ecstatic to pull into the Daiquiri's drive-thru. That's right, kids. The drive-thru.

New Orleans has a lot of funny drinking laws, but the drive-thru exemption has to be the best. You can order a drink made with Bacardi 151 (as I did), have them add a couple shots for good measure (as I did), pay for the drink and drive off without ever leaving your car. It's legal because they don't put the straw in it for you. If you put the straw in it (as I did), well, then you've broken the law but they haven't. Beautiful.

I guess the coolest thing about being in New Orleans is that you don't really feel like you're in the U.S. While pretty much everywhere in the States is just like everywhere else, New Orleans is in a class by itself. They call it the city that care forgot for a reason: nobody really gives a shit what you do as long as you don't hurt anyone else. The people are friendly, the food is some of the best you can find in America, and the party is non-stop (it's true - many bars never close).

My first night out began auspiciously enough. My buddy and I went into our favorite dive bar and ordered a couple beers ($1 Bud Lights at Happy Hour, $1.50 regular price). We decided to each drop $20 into a video poker machine for old time's sake, and a couple minutes later we cashed out a ticket for $180. Looks like we're drinking for free tonight.

It quickly became evident that I'm way out of practice, though. I tucked into a couple pounds of boiled crawfish and then couldn't say no to a couple pounds of boiled shrimp. The whole time I'm chowing down this 4-alarm fare, I'm keeping the flames at bay with cold Bud Lights. After 4 hours, 3 or 4 pounds of seafood, and a dozen or so beers, I'm spent. And my buddies are looking at me like I've got three heads.

They're just gearing up to "go out" for the night, after a four-hour pre-flight at the dive bar. They're ready to get on the hard stuff and chase some tail, and I'm ready to crawl into bed and die. One of them cashed a 7-figure bonus check about a week earlier, so you know he was ready to go light the world on fire. The sad fact was that I could no longer hang. I vowed to man up the next night and wrote off my reticence to jet lag, but I knew the truth. My life is no longer about all-night beer blasts and running around until the sun comes up. And that saddens me. Profoundly.

The next morning I decided to try out the City Diner for breakfast, on my brother-in-law's recommendation. Like my flame-out at the bar the night before, there was no way I could prepare for the 2,500-calorie breakfast the waitress brought me. I ordered a short stack (3 pancakes) for my boys to split, and they were so huge that my 5-year old actually started crying because he knew he wouldn't be able to finish his share. So I wouldn't have to decide between ham, bacon, or sausage, my breakfast came with all three. Along with hash browns, toast, and pancakes. And a couple fried eggs thrown in for decoration. All for $9. Ridiculous.

The rest of the week was a blur of ice cold beer, flaming hot food, 100° days broken up by afternoon thunderstorms, good friends and family. If I still have a New Orleans professional drinker card, it's an honorary title these days. While I can still drink most people under the table, I'm simply overmatched in the Big Easy.

I scampered back to Paris with my tail between my legs, taking small comfort in the fact that I was probably leaving behind cirrhosis and adult-onset diabetes. When I stepped off the plane it was as if the whole world lost 50 pounds and started dressing better.

I had a few drinks with a bestselling travel writer a couple weeks ago, and the conversation turned to New Orleans (where he also lived for a time). I told him I thought that once you've lived in New Orleans, you weren't fit to live anywhere else in the States and he grudgingly agreed. Where else can you leave a bar with a beer in your hand, walk into another bar, and sit down and finish the beer you bought at the last bar? New Orleans has a libertarian bent that borders on the libertine. Once you've experienced that level of freedom, nothing else will really do.

Here's the takeaway, guys: Party your asses off while you're young. Once you're married with kids, and your "partying" is restricted to rum on the rocks and Madden 2010 after everyone else has gone to bed, you will lose your edge. And if you manage to party as hard as I did for as many years, that will be a minor tragedy for you.

In other words, when it comes to work and especially when it comes to play: Leave it all on the field. One day you won't be able to, and you'll be glad you did. Nothing makes me smile more often than my memories of excessive ridiculousness.

And if you haven't been to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, you really owe it to yourself to rectify that situation. Take it from a 7-time Mardi Gras vet. You won't find a better party in the States.