Unapologetic from New Orleans

Allen Boudreaux

why unapologetic? well, mostly because the name was available as a dot-com domain back in march 2001 when I started keeping a weblog. that, and it just sounded like a cool thing to say to a motherf@$%er before I ... oh, whatever -- it sounded cool. i figured it was even kind of ironic -- i was always more the kind of guy who apologizes for things that aren't even my fault. but over time it's become kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, something I've come to aspire to in my writing and maybe even in my day-to-day life -- being unrepentantly true to myself.

so let's get to the getting to know you: my name is allen boudreaux. half colombian-american, half cajun. I'm twenty-nine -- thirty in july, which scares the hell out of me. single, which, taken together with the turning 30 thing, is slowly becoming a frightening thing in itself. I live alone in an apartment on the streetcar line on saint charles avenue in new orleans. I'm a graphic designer at a small agency/film production company in the suburbs -- not what most people do after law school, but I tried to make the law thing work for nearly three years, and suffice it to say that after a really tough transition year, I'm happier now than I was before, by whole orders of magnitude. I love my work, something i've found that not too many people can say, and fortunately, i'm damn good at it, too. I still can't believe I actually get paid to be creative. on that note, i've got a few of the standard issue young-creative-type bugs -- i'm a compulsive early-adopter and a pretty big indie music geek. "geek" hopefully not being the operative word there, but what can you do?

unapologetic's pretty general as blogs go -- it's just my life and thoughts. I write for myself, mostly, and for my friends to know what was going on with me -- and I'm continually surprised that there's an audience out there that seems to enjoy reading what I've got to say. I try not to get too sappy or confessional because whiny bloggers are a dime a dozen, and who really cares? I try not to wax poetic because I don't want to sound pretentious; and I try not to get too much into politics or religion because I've never felt the need for a bully pulpit for my personal opinions. I fail at avoiding most of the above pretty regularly.

so it's spring now, which in new orleans means the few short weeks when summer hasn't quite gotten its shit together yet and the heat and humidity are still gathering steam. it won't last long, which I guess is why we louisianians try and fit in as many festivals as humanly possible into April. The french quarter festival was last weekend, the angola state penitentiary prison rodeo is this weekend, and the new orleans jazz and heritage festival is coming up next. no lack of food and music around here, but then there really never is. did i mention it's the peak of crawfish season? last thursday on my lunchbreak i bought three lbs. of boiled crawfish and two blue crabs and had a picnic on the levee near lake pontchartrain, all by myself. does it count as a picnic if you're alone? Sigh.

i love new orleans, and I guess I spend a lot of time writing about that here, too. it's a magic place with an economy so depressed I'm surprised we leave knives lying around -- and I feel a constant pressure to get out of here, to escape to a city where graphic design and advertising are more lucrative and challenging. most of my friends from high school and college and law school have moved away, gone on to bigger and better metropoli -- but for some reason, whenever I resolve to leave, the thick inertia that seeps up through the sidewalks here grabs hold and doesn't let me go.

i was born and raised in NOLA, but I don't think I really appreciated how unique a place it is until I went to college in memphis, and realized that some cities are alive and some aren't. new orleans has a palpable heartbeat that you can feel in the humid air, it heaves and it sighs and it breathes and its breath smells like the mississippi as it enters the gulf all silt and salt and sex -- surprisingly human.

new orleans is an easy place to live -- I don't like that moniker, "the big easy" -- but it is apt. besides being inexpensive, historic, and on some nights just hauntingly beautiful, it's a nurturing place that makes you want to create and share and find some way to express or channel it so other people will understand and not think you're a loony for being so in love with a place. I've painted it, photographed it, written about it... but never come close to really expressing what I know this city to be. i guess the best i can dwell, i suppose that's enough for now, and i haven't even gotten a chance to really talk about what's going on lately with me, but i suppose there's plenty of time for that later. One quick thing, though -- if you're not listening to andrew bird's new album, the mysterious production of eggs, you really ought to be. It's the best album i've heard this year, and i'm fairly obsessed at the moment. beautiful, whistley, violiny, quiet, catchy pop. just great. anyway. nice to meet you.

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