Old Hippie Royal Watcher
The Coronation was on the hotel TV and I watched half-heartedly while I got dressed and brushed my teeth. The robes, the heavy jewels, the dead-pan everything. I laughed when I recognized that I’d booked myself in the new Virgin Hotel—the proudest and loudest of British brands?—with no idea how British the weekend would be. Mal texted to say the baby waved back at Charles and Camilla as they retreated from the palace balcony. Mal, and therefore the baby, are Canadian. They’ve got an excuse to care a little bit.
I put on a Taper’s Choice t-shirt, my first and only tie-dye garment, while getting ready for the day in New Orleans. I caught myself in the full-length mirror on the back of the hotel room door as I was about to leave. Wait. Do I look like a dipshit? I stood there a minute to consider whether I might be dressing outside my age.
Beyond the shirt, I had on white Nikes with gum soles and yellow laces, and the yellow was conspicuous. My pants were sorta baggy. Having some awareness of proper leg fittings for our times, I’ve replaced my slimmer stuff with a looser cut, but were these too comfy? Too current? I was confused by the red-frames of my glasses, the haircut-to-baldness radio, and my wristwatch. Worse than the ‘Hello there fellow youths’ vibe, was I fully and firmly agingmusicbizdickheadcore?
It would probably be fine without the tie-dye, which was the loudest piece of the ensemble, and the most fraudulent, too. I considered switching to a plain white shirt, but stopped overthinking; gave my reflection a shrug. It was only a few blocks to the grocery for some breakfast fruit, then right back to the room. Low stakes, and it was New Orleans, after all. Wild freaks everywhere, who cares. The weather app threatened rain, so I grabbed the hotel umbrella from the closet and headed out.
The bellman said, “Love those frames,” and I thanked him, more than he knew.
On the street, an old guy with cut-off sweats and an open button-up shirt rode by on a squeaky bike. “Dig that shirt, man,” he said over his shoulder.
Outside the grocery store, a crumpled burnout sitting up against the wall was like, “Love the dye, dude.”
Just inside, a woman weighed down with plastic bags of food on her way out gave a nod toward my chest and a smile. She had a long gray braid going down her back and past her butt.
It’s a zero-percent chance that three people in downtown New Orleans knew Taper’s Choice. Very cool up-and-coming band, but not Randos-on-the-Street level yet. The shirt is made to look like the LA Laker’s logo, so maybe they’re all basketball fans, missing the nuance of the T and P in place of the L and K in the design. The playoffs were happening, but my knowledge of the NBA is like that of jambands, and I had no idea if the Lakers were still in it.
Next, a guy in golf shorts and a white baseball cap with his own tie-dye came around the corner in the produce section while I was groping Honeycrisp apples. “Right on, brother. See you at the show!”
OH NO. Dead & Company were the headliners at New Orleans Jazz Fest later that day, and I was out here in a hippie shirt. A brutal miscalculation, my poser position really ramped up. I would need to get back to the hotel and change immediately. I bailed on the fruit and headed for the exit.
Outside, it had started pouring rain; big fat morning drops. There was a lightning flash as I stepped outside, but no thunder with it yet. I debated whether opening the umbrella made me more likely to be struck, but was motivated to pop it and give the shirt some cover. It had a huge wingspan, and as it opened, the umbrella revealed a Union Jack covering its arching underside. Just a few long blocks back to the Virgin Hotel.
tapers choice represent!!!