Basin Street is the street where the elite all meet. Not anymore they don’t. A curvy barmaid is my source of reference. We were seated at a long bar in a noisy, boozy joint on Bourbon Street. It was August 1963. I was in New Orleans with friends Tony Jones and Murray Paddick. Earlier, we had walked the pulsating streets of the French Quarter, seeking jazz music and a cooling drink or two. It was a steamy, humid summer night. We had made a couple of dry runs past various Bourbon Street bars featuring jazz music and strip parlours. However there were huge queues outside places advertising such luminaries as clarinettist, Pete Fountain and trumpeter, Al Hirt. Even less luminary jazz musicians had crowds outside, waiting to get into their venues. So, it is not surprising that in order to quench our thirst, we entered a neon lit bar that boasted as the star attraction a Miss Fifi La Rue, Paris’ Sweetheart. There were no crowds waiting to get in.
We ordered some cold beers. After a brief chat about the sad demise of “Basin street” with the bar girl, who said she had never heard of it, we settled back as the lights dimmed and the show began. It was a long bar, mirrored at the back. Where a normal bar would stock its booze, this one had a mirrors and a narrow runway. In other words the performers came out and entertained at eyeball level with the patrons. The mirrors gave us cold cash patrons a bird’s eye view...and then some.
Fifi, the sweetheart of Paris , was not the first act to come out. What came out was old enough to be Fifi’s mother, make that grandmother. The bumps and grinds came out in time to a very scratchy recording of Stormy Weather. By the second chorus, some of the barflies began to express their displeasure at a strip that was mostly tease
Finally, the needle jumped the last scratch at the same time as the lady was making her exit. One man clapped, twice. A couple of drunks jeered. The lady prefaced her exit with a very unladylike sign. At this the two drunks applauded enthusiastically.
After some conversation and few more beers, the lights dimmed once again. Fifi was on her way. Out she came in red, whit and blue shorts, top coat and top hat. The music started. Fifi made her way along the bar, removing some of her accessories as she did so. The drunks yelled. She smiled sweetly at them. As the record player scratched to a halt, Fifi grabbed a hand microphone and, in what we were expected to believe was French accented English, greeted the bar with, “Hi, Y’all. This here’s goin’ to be a swell evenin. Sure glad you all could make it here, this evenin’.
Oh yes, Fifi was French alright. Just like the Tower of Pisa!
The rage of Paris was about twenty years old with a youthful, but experienced figure. After a couple more typical French ballads like “Bill Bailey” and “Don’t fence me “, Fifi once more strutted along the bar. This time though she was throwing her body into the music, throwing various items of clothing to the floor and making very flirty passes at the drunks, of whom there were many.
At last, she was left wearing just a G-string and black mesh stockings. The rest was Fifi’s pure, creamy complexion. Unlike the other strippers, though, Fifi did not finish her act with a climactic unveiling. To her that was just the beginning. The music started again. Fifi shook, shimmied, bumped, vibrated, gyrated, contorted and cavorted for the next twenty minutes. She finished up dancing on the bar wearing only her New Orleans tan.
Sweat bubbles on her chest began flowing southwards. It was obvious that Fifi was tiring. So were we. As Fifi started up another bracket of “French Favourites”, dressed only in her birthday suit, we left the bar and made for the exit. As we left, a bleary eyed connoisseur of fine French dancing yelled at the inexhaustible Fifi, "Take it off! Take it off!" Well, we had to laugh. Whatever else Fifi had to take off could only be removed by drastic surgery.
Ah, yes. New Orleans, the land of dreams.
NOTE: I travelled overseas with friends between 1962 and 1964. While I was travelling I kept a journal. In all, I wrote over 86 000 words about my three year long adventure. Strange as it may sound, I have not read that journal, in full, since it was written nearly sixty years ago. I have certainly glimpsed through it occasionally, usually after I came upon it when I was looking for something else. That's what happened last week.I glimpsed through it and came upon the Bourbon Street story above. Maybe I'll do some more glimpsing in the days to come.
