Mole People
So, the whole bridge thing…
It’s right in that part of central city where Claiborne goes into an overpass around the interstate exit.
And you can drive right under Claiborne and a lot of people usually park around there.
It’s right off a side street between these two dumpsters. Bands just bring a generator and set up and play.
It’s totally illegal, but there was a cop with its lights on across the bridge pillars the entire time, and he didn’t seem to care.
Still, it makes the whole thing so much more fun. Every time a light flashes everybody jumps, cause we all half expect the cops to show up.
The crazy part about last night is I had never been to this place before. All I knew was it was under the Claiborne bridge by Julia St. by the Superdome.
So I got in my and I drove down St. Charles to Lee’s Circle, and I took a left down Julia.
I got totally turned around. I thought I was going toward Claiborne, but I was going toward Earheart.
So I park on Loyola by the bridge, and I’m thinking it’s Claiborne, but it isn’t.
I look around. The Superdome’s right there. I just got off Julia. I’m thinking this must be the place.
There’s a whole bunch of cars under the overpass right where Loyola crosses.
I walk over there, but it’s clearly not a show. No bands. All black crowd. Not a punk show.
There’s a bunch of tents that homeless people live in.
It’s pretty sketchy, but I’m like, whatever, this is hard core.
So I go under the bridge and just start walking toward the direction of the superdome.
Now. There’s something I never knew about the Earheart bridge.
Where the overpass is “lifting off” so to speak… where it gets too low to park a car under…
You can still walk under there.
And it’s actually an extremely large area of space where the barriers block of the sight from the neighboring streets.
This is like right behind the train station.
I’m thinking as I’m walking into this:
A) This is really sketchy and obviously dangerous
B) I don’t think I’m in the right spot
the fuck?
What are those sunglasses doing?
But I kept walking because I saw two small points of light in the distance.
Keep in mind, this is at about 8pm, pitch black outside.
Under a bridge that is for all intents and purposes underground.
You’re basically in a giant room of concrete.
I start walking toward these two points of light and a dog starts barking and running toward me.
So I’m pretty sure I’m about to die.
Now, I’m really freaked out for a few reasons.
But anyway, I’m like, “Hey dog calm down calm down!!”
And this guy comes out from the light and is like, “Here boy here boy.”
Anyway, this middle aged, kind of portly, very polite well-spoken gentlemen apparently lives under this bridge.
And he’s with this old guy with a long white beard who never says a word.
And somebody else who I never talked to.
They have a tent under the bridge where you can’t see in from outside.
And– I shit you not– they play scrabble by tiki torch light.
They had a little desk with a scrabble board.
And a clothes line with laundry on it hanging from the bottom of the bridge.
Fucking MOLE PEOPLE!
MOLE PEOPLE LIVE UNDER THE EARHEART BRIDGE!!!
I discovered them and lived to tell about it.
I just can’t even begin to wrap my mind around it.
I guess it’s not that weird that homeless people live in tents under a bridge.
But you have to see this area.
you cannot see into it from outside.
And then you get out from under the bridge and you’re on this side road right behind the train station.
And you look at the bridge in front of you.
And it touches down just a few feet ahead.
But when you go under the bridge, it looks like there could be miles of more ground down there.
I want to go again, but I want to be in a BIG GROUP with at least one pocket knife.
That shit is no joke.
I was unbelievably frightened.
The scrabble guy offered me weed and asked me if I wanted to play scrabble.
He thought I was smoking weed cause I had a hand-rolled cigarette.
Smoking weed was the last thing I wanted to do in that situation.
“Let me do something that will make me even more frightened.”
But seriously, I wanted to see how far down it goes.
I have to show somebody. It’s madness.
If you look at it from the outside, you’d think the bridge must just end right up here.
But you go under the bridge, and it just keeps going.
We need to go but we need a big group.
We need to leave our wallets and cell phones behind.
Maybe keep like ten dollars of bribe money on us.
Anybody trying to rob us down there will settle for cheap.
Ten bucks is a rock. Hell yeah a rock. Let em go.
I want to go back soon.
Preferably during the day initially.
I might go drive around there in a minute.
Just to make sure I still understand how to get there.
The thing about this was, after I found it.
I was so turned on by everything.
I liked everything I encountered for the rest of the night.
Every band at the show RULED.
They were probably shitty punk bands.
But they ruled!
Mikhails’s Campaign to Keep Live Music Out of Siberia
Mikhail’s petition to the New Orleans Department of Revenue to “Keep Siberia’s Live Music Permit Suspended”:
So this guy from So-Cal thrash-punk / noise band NASA Space Universe emails me and he’s like, “Yo, U.S. Nero is the shit. We’re coming to New Orleans and playing Siberia. Try to get on the bill.”
So I’m like SHIT YEAH and I message Siberia and they straight up ignore me. Finally, about ten days before the show, I get desperate and I message them: “U.S. NERO AND NASA SPACE UNIVERSE ARE GREAT FRIENDS. BOOK US FOR MAXIMUM ROCK N ROLL.”
And I guess the sound guy or something– Mark, I think… Jesus, it’s a tiny city, You’d think I’d know a few people’s names– messages me back like, “You can play if you start on time and keep it to thirty minutes.”
Fine by me! So we get there, and he makes us go on at exactly 9, which is ridiculously early for the Marigny. Not only that, but he tells us to KEEP THE VOLUME DOWN because THE PEOPLE HERE RIGHT NOW ARE EATING AND DON’T WANT TO HEAR LIVE MUSIC.
The fuck?
He hadn’t said ANYTHING about playing quiet in the email. He threw that at us last second. And why make us go on for people who he specifically said do not want to hear live music?
“This guy doesn’t really want a back massage, so just rub his back really softly.”
They don’t teach you that in massage school.
What really gets me is we were playing with all these art punk bands, and the thing to do there would have been to say FUCK OFF and unleash my inner suicidal teenager and just blast everything with noise and corruption until the dumb shit sound guy physically tore us from our instruments. But instead we were polite and played a mellow set of just our quieter, poppy stuff. People in the other bands were kind of scoffing at us and telling us we sounded like ELO for the rest of the night.
I’d rather be gagged with Satan’s rusty pubes than be told I sound like ELO.
But what REALLY pisses me off is the next act was ROOM 101, this one-man-band guy who plays guitar and sings over pre-recorded drum loops while a projector screen plays footage from September 11.
His shit was TITS.
But, like, my band is only two people, and none our instruments were mic’d. Room 101 had this elaborate stage show that took over an hour to set up and… GET THIS… he didn’t even show up until AFTER we left the stage.
So, obviously, we could have gone on later and done A REAL PERFORMANCE which is all we wanted to do. The stage had enough space for us to play with ROOM 101’s extensive stage gear already set up. But that would have involved letting us actually play!
When I talked to the mouth-breather they had on the sound board, he just kept saying, “I did the math. I did the math.”
I fucking see why you’re a sound guy and not a particle physicist, asshole.
He also told me complaining after the fact wouldn’t do me any good. So in response, I say:
HA HA! YOU GOT SHUT DOWN! – U.S. Nero
Siberia’s Response to U.S. Nero:
“Another crappy band in the garbage can!! Welcome to the 86’d list US NERO!! Good luck with your future musical endeavors and don’t come around here anymore. You are not welcome as either performer or patron.”
– the MGMT.
Mikhail’s Response:
They’re a bunch of dumb jock buffoons. I mean, it sucks that they’re getting shut down. New Orleans is a music city and all, but seriously, they suck as people. It was always an unpleasant venue to be in. The door guys are all rude by default. The sound guy stands there looking at the band like they just slapped his mother. There’s fuckin’ deer heads and hunting trophies everywhere for some fucking reason. It’s definitely one of those venues where there’s at least twice as many people standing outside than actually standing inside watching the band. And everybody I respect in the punk scene has some story about them skimming way too much money off the door from touring bands and people getting equipment stolen and shit.
So I figured enough people would think it was a funny gag to make an “actually, maybe the city of New Orleans made the right call on this one” petition for it to be worth it that I’d get black listed from at least one, if not several, venues.
I’m having trouble seeing the point of pushing the petition any further though. The people who will get a kick out of it have already seen it, and I don’t want to give the impression that I actually want to see anybody shut down, no matter how dumb they are.
Anyway, I’m thinking of literally finding their dumpster and playing behind it.
(Also, use this petition to get in touch with some of your old New Orleans friends. Encourage them to share their own personal anecdotes regarding Siberia’s shittiness.)
Acid Dad episode
The first scene is Acid Dad and his son watching television. You see the show from his son’s eyes, and it’s just some episode of GOOD TIMES. But then you see it from Acid Dad’s eyes, and he’s tripping really hard on some acid, so he sees this completely different shit. He sees this black comedian on stage with this insane routine:
“Man, white folk and black folk, they different, they different. A white couple have a chirrun, they want to FEED that chirrun, CARE FOR that chirrun, LOVE AND NURTURE that chirrun. It ain’t like dat wit some black folk, no. YOU KNOW YOU KNOW. A black family have a chirrun, EAT DAT CHIRRUN. EAT DAT CHIRRUN.”
And then it cuts to an audience member eating this baby made out of chocolate.
So Acid Dad is appalled by what he sees, and he’s like, “THIS IS WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE WORLD TODAY. PEOPLE ACT LIKE MANIACS. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE.” But his son sees what’s really happening, and it’s just a normal episode of Good Times, so he’s like, “Dad, what do you mean? This is wholesome, classic television?” And then Acid Dad is just toally shocked and starts telling his he’s going to take him to the hospital:
“Oh you’re sick. You’re the sickest of them all. I can’t have my son being that sick. We’re going to the hospital.”
“But dad, I’m not sick or injured.”
Then Acid Dad breaks his son’s leg. “You are now.”
So Acid Dad throws his son over his shoulder and drives to the hospital.
When they get there, Acid Dad is just hysterical and doesn’t know what to do, and all the doctors think it’s because his kid is in critical condition, but it’s really because he’s tripping on acid. So they take his kid away, and he’s just sitting there. I guess for a while right here, it will just be him at the hospital tripping out about a bunch of stuff.
Then, in the middle of the trip, he sees some doctor undressing, and he realizes that he’s having gay sex with one of the doctors. So he quickly punches the doctor in the face and takes his clothes. (I MIGHT CHANGE THIS TO SOMETHING THAT MAKES MORE SENSE, BUT IN THE END, HE WILL BE DRESSED LIKE A DOCTOR)
So Acid Dad walks around the hospital pretending to be a doctor. He walks into this pregnant woman’s room, and she has an ultra sound on, and you can see her baby. So Acid Dad pulls out this giant heroin needle and sticks it in her stomach Then he looks at the ultrasound and sticks the needle into the baby. Then the baby starts acting all heroined out.
Then Acid Dad finds his son’s room, and they gave his son all these pain killers, so he’s all drugged out. So he steals his son from the hospital bed and brings him home and tells his wife that his son is DRUNK, and that’s how he broke his leg.
“LUCKILY, I WAS ABLE TO TAKE HIM TO THE HOSPITAL BEFORE HE DIED.”
Then his wife is all proud of him, and they have sex and Acid Dad snorts a bunch of coke.
THE END.
The Mole People of New Orleans
So, the whole bridge thing…
It’s right in that part of central city where Claiborne goes into an overpass around the interstate exit. And you can drive right under Claiborne and a lot of people usually park around there. It’s right off a side street between these two dumpsters. Bands just bring a generator and set up and play. It’s totally illegal, but there was a cop with its lights on across the bridge pillars the entire time, and he didn’t seem to care. Still, it makes the whole thing so much more fun. Every time a light flashes everybody jumps, cause we all half expect the cops to show up.
The crazy part about last night is I had never been to this place before. All I knew was it was under the Claiborne bridge by Julia St. by the Superdome. So I got in my and I drove down St. Charles to Lee’s Circle, and I took a left down Julia. I got totally turned around. I thought I was going toward Claiborne, but I was going toward Earheart. So I park on Loyola by the bridge, and I’m thinking it’s Claiborne, but it isn’t.
I look around. The Superdome’s right there. I just got off Julia. I’m thinking this must be the place. There’s a whole bunch of cars under the overpass right where Loyola crosses. I walk over there, but it’s clearly not a show. No bands. All black crowd. Not a punk show.
There’s a bunch of tents that homeless people live in. It’s pretty sketchy, but I’m like, whatever, this is hard core. So I go under the bridge and just start walking toward the direction of the superdome.
Now. There’s something I never knew about the Earheart bridge. Where the overpass is “lifting off” so to speak… where it gets too low to park a car under… You can still walk under there. And it’s actually an extremely large area of space where the barriers block of the sight from the neighboring streets. This is like right behind the train station.
I’m thinking as I’m walking into this:
A) This is really sketchy and obviously dangerous
B) I don’t think I’m in the right spot
C) What are those sunglasses doing?
But I kept walking because I saw two small points of light in the distance. (Keep in mind, this is at about 8pm, pitch black outside.)
Under a bridge that is for all intents and purposes underground. You’re basically in a giant room of concrete. I start walking toward these two points of light and a dog starts barking and running toward me. So I’m pretty sure I’m about to die. Now, I’m really freaked out for a few reasons. But anyway, I’m like, “Hey dog calm down calm down!!” And this guy comes out from the light and is like, “Here boy here boy.” Anyway, this middle aged, kind of portly, very polite well-spoken gentlemen apparently lives under this bridge. And he’s with this old guy with a long white beard who never says a word. And somebody else who I never talked to. They have a tent under the bridge where you can’t see in from outside. And– I shit you not– they play scrabble by tiki torch light. They had a little desk with a scrabble board. And a clothes line with laundry on it hanging from the bottom of the bridge.
Fucking MOLE PEOPLE! MOLE PEOPLE LIVE UNDER THE EARHEART BRIDGE!!!
I discovered them and lived to tell about it. I just can’t even begin to wrap my mind around it.I guess it’s not that weird that homeless people live in tents under a bridge. But you have to see this area. You cannot see into it from outside. And then you get out from under the bridge and you’re on this side road right behind the train station. And you look at the bridge in front of you. And it touches down just a few feet ahead. But when you go under the bridge, it looks like there could be miles of more ground down there. I want to go again, but I want to be in a BIG GROUP with at least one pocket knife. That shit is no joke. I was unbelievably frightened. The scrabble guy offered me weed and asked me if I wanted to play scrabble. He thought I was smoking weed cause I had a hand-rolled cigarette. Smoking weed was the last thing I wanted to do in that situation. “Let me do something that will make me even more frightened.” But seriously, I wanted to see how far down it goes. I have to show somebody. It’s madness. If you look at it from the outside, you’d think the bridge must just end right up here. But you go under the bridge, and it just keeps going.
We need to go but we need a big group. We need to leave our wallets and cell phones behind. Maybe keep like ten dollars of bribe money on us. Anybody trying to rob us down there will settle for cheap. Ten bucks is a rock. Hell yeah a rock. Let em go. I want to go back soon. Preferably during the day initially.
Oh, and the thing about this was, after I found it. I was so turned on by everything. I liked everything I encountered for the rest of the night. Every band at the show RULED. They were probably shitty punk bands. But they ruled! Mole People Magic…
(I was too afraid of taking photos of the actually Mole People so when I was walking out I photographed this… seems they have an aquatic strain.)
I hope to be remembered for my atrocities! 