Michael Murphy - Fear Dat New Orleans: A Guide to the Voodoo, Vampires, Graveyards & Ghosts of the Crescent City

Fear Dat New Orleans

Copyright 2015 by Michael Murphy

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ISBN: 978-1-58157-275-9

ISBN: 978-1-58157-626-9 (e-book)

To write something you have to risk making a fool of yourself.
Anne Rice

I dedicated my previous book, Eat Dat, to the city of New Orleans, which I said feeds me every day. For Fear Dat, I again dedicate the book to the city of New Orleans, which seduces, baffles, excites, and sometimes tests me or scares me on a regular basis. In writing Fear Dat, I have met many new-to-me psychics, cemetery guides, and ghost hunters. Through these unique people, my love for New Orleans has grown even deeper.

Last Ride

AMY BRASSETTE

Jackson Square

ROB WEBSTER

Fear makes us feel our humanity.

Benjamin Disraeli

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Eleanor Roosevelt

L ike more and more of us, I work multiple jobs not so much stay afloat as to drown at a more leisurely pace. My pay-the-electric-bill job is working behind the concierge desk at a large hotel. At least once a weekand usually far more oftenguests new to New Orleans will ask me, Is it safe to walk around? or a companion question, Where should I not go? My pat, failed attempts at humorous answers are, respectively, Just HOW do you walk? and Chicago. Then, I will mix in some partial truths to comfort them. New Orleans crime rate was down 20 percent last year (true, if you believe the numbers the city police put forward). The year before, we had only the 13th-highest murder rate among US cities. Nothing to be proud of, but at least were not in the top 10.

Behind my bad jokes and patchwork facts, I am seething. I love New Orleans. I hate the way the media creates a false image and then feeds it with further half-truths in order to prop up their created misinformation.

Several years ago, two street punks were shot to death here on Halloween night. National headlines the next day read, Two Shot Dead in New Orleans Halloween Night. The same night, five were shot dead in Washington, DC. Nothing.

Colin Cowherd, the ESPN spew-caster who was voted Asshole of the Year and Douche Bag of the Year by two different polls and in two different years, descended into an on-air rant when the NFL was considering moving the Pro Bowl from Hawaii to New Orleans. He raged that New Orleans was a terrible choice because its the Murder Capital (wrong), and since the Pro Bowl is in early February, youd never want take your family to New Orleans during Mardi Gras (also wrong).

Often I feel the best way to engage with idiots is not to confront them, but to seduce them. So, I got my hotel to agree to provide Colin with free accommodations for Mardi Gras, and I approached the Krewe of Barkus, an annual Mardi Gras parade of dogs in costume, to have Colin Cowherd as its grand marshal. He could ride the parade inside a much deserved doghouse. I felt that if he actually experienced New Orleans in Mardi Gras season, hed have a much harder time holding to his bogus beliefs. Unfortunately, Colin failed to respond to my several requests that he join us. Why let real life get in the way of wrongly held opinions?

One of my favorite moments in TV history was watching the Weather Channels storm tracker, Jim Cantore, get exposed. He was huddled inside a hooded parka, seemingly battling hurricane-force winds and barely able to stand in one place. Then, two people in bathing suits casually sauntered behind him, giving the camera their best WTF looks.

So, on the one hand, I want to be the bathing-suited saunterers and convince would-be visitors that New Orleans is safewell, relatively. As in any American city, you can get in trouble here. But statistically we are safer than Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Oakland, Tampa, Memphis, Oklahoma City... I could go on. I doubt if concierges in Tampa and Oklahoma City are asked on a weekly basis, Is it safe to walk around?

On the other hand, I do want to lure a certain type of visitor to New Orleans because we do have seductively dark corners to explore. We may not be the Murder Capital of America, but we are the Ghost, Voodoo, and Vampire Capital.

At the beginning of Eat Dat, the first of my New Orleans travelers trilogy, I wrote: At the risk of annoying every potential reader who doesnt live in or currently love New Orleans, Im going to open by stating when it comes to food, New Orleans is the greatest city in America. Now Ill begin Fear Dat with a similar claim. When it comes to woo-woo, psychic, spiritual, otherworldly experiences, New Orleans is off the charts the woo-woo-iest city in America.

In Eat Dat, I cited endorsements from Anthony Bourdain, Mario Batali, and Saveur magazine to back up my claim of New Orleans being the #1 food city in America. Here I will again use others to support my woo-woo-iest claim.

Gina Lanier, dubbed the Ghost Hunters Ghost Hunter, is a well-established and nationally recognized paranormal investigator. When asked in an interview on her website, Where is the most haunted city in America? she replied, New Orleans, Louisiana, by far. I have traveled the United States and it seems that southern ghosts are more apt to come out and show themselves more readily. Southern haunted hospitality, I guess.

Maria Shaw Lawson moved to New Orleans from Detroit because she and her husband, Joe, a paranormal investigator, were drawn in by the psychic energy of the place. Shes now an internationally renowned psychic, founder of the annual Psychic Fair, and has ongoing gigs as the psychic scribe for