Snake & Jakes Christmas Club, Man or Astro Man, and We All Die in Order
Day 3: New Orleans, LA to Natchez, MS
“In a tiny house lit by Christmas lights, America is still America—accepting, weird, and wildly beautiful. Welcome to Snake and Jake’s…”
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My band used to come through New Orleans to play back in the 90’s. Tipitina's and Muddy Waters are the clubs I still remember. I think Tipitina's is still around - I’m not sure about Muddy Waters. But there was one time we were in town when in addition to getting robbed, we had an epic night that seemed to have several unending different acts. First we played a show somewhere. When you’re out on the road, you get to know other bands who are also out on the road — when you open for them or they open for you, or when you play festivals, etc…. There was a band called Man or Astro Man that we’d met - or someone was friends with one of them - or something. It’s hazy. But after we played our show, we went to their show, which I remember being awesome. We had a blast. They probably finished playing at 2am or something. After they’d packed up, they (or at least one of them) took us to a dive bar called Snake and Jakes Christmas Club, which turned out to be a portal into a night of weirdness that was so varied and fun that thirty years later I still remember it fondly. It’s a tiny dive bar in a small garage in a residential neighborhood a few blocks from Tulane. It makes zero sense. There are single family houses on either side. How did the zoning commission allow this place to exist? There’s some neon in the dingy windows and a sign that indicates it’s not a single family house, but just barely. You can’t see in through the windows and it’s the kind of place that you have to muster up a bit of courage to open the door and walk in. It’s impossibly dark lit only by red Christmas lights lining the walls near the low ceiling. I’m something of a connoisseur of dive bars and this was one of the best I’ve ever had the pleasure of occupying. And occupy we did. We made friends with everyone in the place, a varied mix of college kids, locals, old drunks, young drunks, a mix of races and a plethora of vague gender distinctions were represented. In other words, this is a place where America can be America in all its glory without looking over its shoulder scanning for ICE agents or feeling in any way self conscious about being what this country is supposed to be. A messy overflowing melting pot where anything goes and whoever or whatever you are is encouraged and celebrated and anything is acceptable as long as you don’t hurt anyone. We don’t need DOGE. We need a Department of Snake and Jake’s Christmas Club. (I’m all for efficiency. DOGE is not about efficiency.)
For the next five or so hours we were the stars of, or had bit parts in, a hundred different dramas. Lifelong friendships were forged which all evaporated the moment the sun came up. It was an epic night that I will never forget which is surprising since I may have been in blackout for some of it. There exists some video of me in our van that morning in a grass parking lot across the street. This was a time before having a video camera in your pocket. No one had them. I had borrowed a big clunky camera from the Richland Arts Commission (I knew a guy.) If I can find it, I’ll put it in the video for this day. A lot happened at Snake and Jakes that night. A lot. And I haven’t been back since. That was probably 30 years ago now. One of my daughter’s friends went to Tulane - and I begged her to go check out Snake and Jakes and she never did. Kids these days. I have to do everything myself.
In Thelma and Louise, Louise refuses to go to Texas because something bad happened to her there. Miami and New Orleans are my Texas. I’ve been robbed in both multiple times. I thought about this as I began the 40 minute walk from my hotel to Snake and Jake’s. Just like the flooded road, I went back and forth multiple times before deciding that a ten dollar Uber ride might be the best idea.
The grass lot where we parked the van is still across the street. I stood there trying to remember if I’m the same person I was the last time I was in this particular spot. I am and I’m not. The entrance is still foreboding but impossible to resist. And Snake and Jake’s Christmas Club is still the best dive bar in America. Everything is exactly the same. There are only a handful of people here tonight because it’s summer and schools out, and it’s a Monday - but it’s still quite a varied bunch. It’s going to be more difficult to make friends because 80% are staring at their phones. Just like me as I write this. Phones suck. I bought my first smartphone in 2007 and the 40 years prior were better. I’m so thankful to have had those years. Boredom is the dirt that anything valuable needs to grow. And boredom is dead.
If I were being true to this place I would have ordered a Schlitz. But Jesus, life is short, so I didn’t. Sly Stone died today so we are listening to Sly Stone. We all die in order. Unfortunately we just don’t know which order. The bartender just asked me if I wanted a shot of whiskey in honor of Sly. I responded in the only appropriate way. I wonder what Sly has been up to for the last 50 years. My new friend Ian the bartender tells me that this place has been a bar of some sort for 50 years. Behind me a tall skinny guy slurs, “fuck that-my grandpa came here 70 years ago!” I have now acquired two friends. The current owner has owned the place for this 50 years. The owner first had a bar down the street, and this building was a garage where he’d thrown a fake Christmas tree and threw up some lights. When the original bar would close, people would come down to the garage to hang out some more. I asked how it’s possible that this place exists in this neighborhood. The answer - the owner bought the surrounding houses and rents them out with a don’t complain about the noise clause in the lease and has fought off developers and tons of cash to keep my band from the 90s parking spot freer and clear all these years. I like the owner of this place. the bartender told me about Naked Night from fifteen years ago. If you showed up naked on a Tuesday night, you drank for free. “Did people show up naked?” “Yes, and from what I hear, naked people are horrible tippers.” Places like this have their own history, legends, heroes, and martyrs. There is no doubt that a version of Trivial Pursuit could be created using only Snake & Jake’s trivia. What makes a great bar is when it’s not just a great bar. On one hand I love innovation and the latest thing. On the other hand I also love when shit stays exactly the same. Snake and Jake’s holds up.
I have no idea what the moral of this story is. Be open to experiences? Try to revisit them to see how they hold up? A woman at the bar tonight said, “This bar is better than Catholicism.” Maybe the moral is, find something in your life that you feel is better than Catholicism. Shouldn’t be too tough.
I took the bridge across Lake Pontchartrain out of New Orleans. That is a long long bridge and I felt like I was on the way to Key West. An hour or so in I stopped at Giddyup Coffee House in Folsom for a cup of hot coffee and a piece of ham and cheese quiche to soak up last night’s whiskey. It worked well.
The ride to Natchez was uneventful other than a few periods of rain. Nothing too bad and it cooled things down a bit. I avoided the interstates and instead enjoyed the great country meandering roads through rolling farmland and dense forest. A bit outside of town I stopped at the Grand Village of the Natchez Indians which featured three prehistoric burial mounds, much like the ones you’ll find in WNC. I did a video years ago about a Cherokee mound in Franklin. Not much to see really, but walking around knowing that folks were also walking around in the same spot in AD 700 is kind of cool. An older bearded gentleman walked up to ask about the bike and proceeded to tell me everything I ever wanted to know about the area. I thanked him and pulled out - and somehow five minutes later he was in front of me. He pulled over and when I got beside him he pointed to an old antebellum mansion and said, “My people were enslaved there.” Wow. I can’t even imaging staying in the same town I grew up in - forget about the same town where generations of my family lived. I think that would be cool to have so much deep family history all around you. I followed him into town and he stopped to point out the presbyterian church that housed a photography exhibit, an African American museum he said was awesome but was closing soon, the old Enola hotel and several other historical places. I thanked him again and first headed down to the riverfront to see what there was to see. There were two giant riverboat cruises parked with buses taking passengers into town. The Mississippi is even scarier than the Ohio River to me. It is just not a thing you want to take lightly. I rode up to the church and parked and went in and up to the second floor. The photographs were amazing and there were lots of them fro the mid 1800’s up to 1910 or so. Lots of paddle wheeled river boats and colorful characters that made you look to see if Mark Twain was in any of them. Natchez seems to have been a major stop for river traffic.
I explored the town a bit - it reminded me of Waynesville, NC with a river. I stopped at Fat Mama’s for some tacos on the old guys recommendation. I sat in the AC and checked emails trying to put off setting up camp in the heat. Finally I rode the 20 minutes out of town to the state park where I’d sleep for the night. Pretty uneventful day.
I want to thank MotoCampNerd.com for sponsoring this trip. If you’re looking for gear, get it from these good folks.
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