Oh my God! I Live In Louisiana!

"I want to play white trash. I swear to God!"

-Joan Van Ark

Yesterday marked my second trip to Angola Penitentiary as part of a tour group from New Orleans to take in the sights and sounds and indeed the smells of the Angola Prison Rodeo, which is the largest prison rodeo in North America, and possibly the world. The bus trip is beautifully organized by Lance Pippen, our bartender at Tubby's Golden Lantern as a fund-raiser for LSGRA, (Louisiana State Gay Rodeo Association) and included about fifty homosexuals from New Orleans. Oh, what a time was had! What is the allure, you may ask? Well, a busload of homosexuals being served cocktails en route to see hardcore prisoners cum cowboys get the shit knocked out of them by charging bulls for a couple of hours of course.. It does sound appealing, I know. We boarded the bus around 9 a.m., leaving behind the City of New Orleans and began drinking cheap cocktails all in the name of charity. Of course, drinking without cigarettes kind of diminishes the pleasure of drinking in the first place, as no smoking is allowed on the bus. Needless to say, by the time of our disembarkation, I was ready to kill. Surly with drink, what better way to enter one of the most notorious maximum security prisons in the world? I can't think of another. It's a good thing I was reared to know how to behave when you are a guest in someone else's home, or my desire to become a pen pal with a prisoner may well have been as simple as passing a desperately scrawled note to a no doubt handsome recipient in the cell next door. A cig and something to eat were truly my only desires at this point while rain sheeted on the terra-cotta clay of Louisiana.

Upon entering the gates there is an instant sense of malice when you realize that these guys did some pretty bad stuff to get to spend time, all of their time here. They didn't just pass a bad check or run out on a cabbie without paying the fare. What astonished me most was how this is considered to be highly anticipated family entertainment in Louisiana.And Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi. Some families drove overnight to attend the event. When I say "families", I mean Mom, Dad, Gramma in a Hover-Round, pre-teens, toddlers, babies and one on the ways. My family didn't take vacations when I was a child, but I can't imagine that I would have considered communing with pure, unadulterated white-trash to be all that glamorous. I had to wait until adulthood to experience that pleasure. Dear Readers, let me assure you that if you thought that inbreeding was some colossal outhouse joke relegated to Appalachia, let me assure you that it is alive and well in the State of Louisiana. Never in my life have I seen so many eyes spaced so close together, nor have I seen so many ears spaced so far apart. Women with beards, pregnant 15 year olds and more morbid obesity than you can shake a stick at. Want some Fried Coke? Get it and alot more at the prison rodeo, my friends.. After entering the stands to watch the rodeo, I was often distracted by the spectators, and didn't raise my eyes to the action in the ring until the crowd let out a mighty roar as a prisoner was trampled by a Brahma bull or thrown from a horseI didn't miss out on much. My glamorous houseguest will confirm that I ritually seek out the vile and repugnant on the internet, so I indeed had a visual feast as I scanned the crowd for contestants in my quest to see if I recognized anyone from http://thepeopleofwalmart.com/. It's that fantastic.

One of my favorite features of the rodeo is checking out is the hobby-craft portion of the affair. This is how these guys spend the copious amount of time behind bars. Aside from the hand-tooled leather Bible cases and belts, there is a plethora of furniture that only has it's place in rural Louisiana. Double wooden rockers with a table between to hold your favorite beverage while you watch the gnats rise in great clouds from your back porch. My favorite things are the bits of furniture designed with small children in mind. There are wooden potty chairs emblazoned with both the logo and the image of Hannah Montana in all her pure, virginal sugary goodness that I can't help but imagine that some convict has masturbated over. Likewise with the hoochie images of The Bratz, or Dora the Exporer for that matter. There was a line of wooden coin banks that looked like fairy-tale wishing wells with handpainted representations of the Disney Princesses on the front. One passenger on our bus actually purchased one that presented a likeness of Cinderella, but with enormous boobs and crossed eyes. "Someday My Prince Will Come". Not for you Cindy, but probably from the $10 tuggie you'll give him in the parking lot.

Louisiana is a Sportsman's Paradise. This was reinforced by my witnessing people proudly walking away with beautifully hand-carved representations of mounted catfish and (my design friends will love this) a circular saw blade with a stag's head painted on it, mounted to a piece of wood. I mean, the image was very true and realistic to what a ten-point buck looks like, but it's painted on a circular saw blade. What must the interior of your home look like for this to blend in to your decor? I'm picturing full gun racks, stained recliners, everything Budweiser and an old Community Coffee can to spit your chaw into. As we were leaving the prison grounds, high above most people in our chartered bus, I got to witness a pick-up truck with two LSU rocking chairs in the bed with guys sitting in them ready for backroads travel. I hope they waited until they left the prison grounds before popping the tops of the PBR cans they no doubt had in the ice chest between them. Even though the things I saw were completely foreign and bludgeoning to my personal aesthetics, I couldn't help but envy the carefree way these people found such pleasure in such simple things. If I wasn't raised with the specter of being aware of what people thought of me, I too may have been perched on a chair in the bed of a pick-up truck, happily imagining where my new LSU chair might look best while feeling the wind in my face with a cousin next to me, sharing the same idea.

The skyline of New Orleans had never looked so beautiful as we approached the city from the freeway. We disembarked from our adventure, sleepy, tired and dirty and went our separate ways. I arrived home in need of a hot shower and a cold drink. Sleep came easily with my dreams full of wooden cabinets with separate bins marked "Bread", "Onions" and "Potatoes". Actually, I think my mom would have loved that one.