Oliver Moss

Arriving in Chicago:



One of the good things about coming into Chicago on a roommette, you get to have this before facing the city:


Only some Amtrak Stations have metrolounges, and none have anything on Chicago's.

I went outside and the city hailed my arrival, literally. It was a lovely mix of cold rain and hail out there. Just as I left the station I saw someone in a nice suit and haircut, yelling into his cell phone about trying to figure out how to get around the fucking train station. There was just a cadence to his speech and how he used swears that was just so familiar. Chicago isn't the east coast, geographically it's clearly not. But the way people talk, the Dunkin Donuts everywhere, the type of buildings and sidewalks, it just feels very similar culturally. It felt very comfortable, and also very cold.

I walked in the rain and hail for a while waiting to be able to check into my fucking hotel. My fucking hotel never sent me a confirmation code, they were just very condescending on the phone and told me I was booked and everything was fine. I did not like not having a reservation confirmation email. After a bit of walking in cold rain I just want back to the station because I had lounge access for 24 hours and the lounge was dry and had free soda and snacks.

I checked in and dropped my main bag, thinking my hotel issues were over! My booking existed and they gave me a room. What could go wrong?

The room was tiny. Rather than shoot the room, here is a detail for you:



See that weird set up where one doorway leads to two doors? Every room was down one of these. It's because the hotel split all the original hotel rooms in half to make two small rooms. They doubled their rooms without an expansion.

The thing I wanted to do more than anything else in Chicago was visit The Wild Mile. It's a floating park on the river with native plants and it creates space for wetland type plants that were probably there in pre-colonial times, roots and muscles underneath help clean the water. It's cleaning pollution, had created new park space and gives unique views of the city.

Getting there was a adventure. At one point the bus driver pulled the bus over, jumped off and was gone for ten minutes. The engine was running and door open, so me or anyone could have just kept driving. I never saw what was up, but at the next stop a lot of transit employees got on. Most people didn't react. I felt like I was in one of those group behavior social experiments.

Eventually, I got to my stop. Then, I relied on google to guide me to the park. It told me to just go down this alley:



I did, and I could see some of the floating islands you couldn't walk on, but not the entrance or even where the accessible portion was. So, I walked behind various buildings, like a paint factory, walking north and south hoping to find my way in. I finally saw it!

I finally got there and... the sky starting dropping hail on me again:



The islands creating space for duckweed and other plants that probably used to exist here:









After a while, I was soaked and hungry, so I went to a Whole Foods to grab some lunch. I couldn't find anything ready to eat, so I grabbed coffee, chocolate, french bread and some salami. I went into the seating area and just spread out my soaked gear. Then I started tearing off chunks of bread and making little salami sandwiches. I love salami, but almost never have it. I particularly like it with bread, coffee and chocolate as a meal. So, for me this was great even if I was tearing bread off in chucks next to my wet gear like a goblin.

Then I went back to the hotel to dry off. I really, really wanted to take pictures of trains that night. I was near some of the stuff I wanted to shoot, a wet night would have been perfect, but I was dead. I was pretty crushed because the photo that got me back into photography, started me towards doing paid photography articles for a good long while, was of trains in Chicago. But, I'd been going hard in the heat and then in the cold. So, I stayed in and just slept. I actually kind of fell over for 5 hours, then woke up for dinner and went back to sleep.

The last day of the very short con. I hope it becomes a yearly thing. The con was short notice, most of the guests not finalized until very close to go time, and yet they sold out of a lot of the official merch. I was surprised! I didn't think any of the T shirt designs would sell out, but some did completely and other had very limited sizes left.

I wandered out for a chunk of the day, and quickly had regrets. I'd brought face sunscreen, body sunscreen and a very good sunscreen lip balm, but I wasn't also wearing a hat on con days. The hat, oof, it made a difference. I wound up just sitting in the 'soda shop' at the WW2 museum with a Diet Coke and scrolling Insta.

I hadn't packed my lens cleaning kit, so I mostly just used my cell a lot, which isn't great. There was just so much floating through the air at the cemeteries that my lens got really dirty and I was trying to not use it so I could get a few more shots out of it if I really had a great shot. Eh, I should have just used it until it was unusable.

But a few Warehouse Arts District pics for the vibes:







The Leverage panels were last, probably because that's the biggest property there. I wonder if that was Aleyse's fist con? We saw the first part of Season 3 Episode one, which I posted about over in the Leverage comm. I might also drop a few pics over there.

Then, after the con I... went into the French Quarter again. When I'd given google maps the address for the exterior of the Leverage HQ, it had shown a spot way out in another part of town. Turns out, google maps isn't just unreliable in Oregon! It gave me a few problems on my trip. Anyway, turns out it's in the French Quarter, down a side street with no shops. So, once again...



Short video panning up and down the street

And, with that, I had my list of trip objectives done! One had been to shoot the 'skeleton house' house that has an amazing display of skeletons every year, but as we passed it on the street car I heard people exclaim 'it's the eras! OMG it's all the eras!' So, I assume this year was Taylor Swift themed and skipped it. Other than that, everything was checked off.

If I'd had another day, and lens cleaner, I could have gotten some stunning pics. I knew my way around and what shots I'd want and might linger for / hit at certain times of day. And... I still haven't gone and cleaned my camera. I need to go do that.

Day four got off to a slow start. I went to a tourist info booth to double check that the 12 can be boarded from a certain station on Canal, like what google says. I'd been at that station a few times and never saw a 12. But, even though there were few people ahead of me, the agents were selling them on various tours and after twenty minutes I just went to the station. At the station, I kept seeing 47s and 48s, and eventually I gave up and hopped on a 48 which goes to City Park. I wanted to go to City Park on my trip, but I am pretty sure that this was going to drop me far from where I wanted.



City Park is huge, and yeah it was a 2 mile walk from the station to where I wanted to go. It was a nice ramble, though. The park has a bayou, ponds, bridges, a Cafe Du Monde location (coffee and beignets), people who have set up camp to grill in long grass while watching the game on a portable TV, etc. There is a lot of nature and culture there and having gone sooner, and properly supplied for a day outdoors, would be a great way to spend a day there. There's a lot of cool stuff I didn't even see there, because I was trying to get to the Couturie Forest Trailhead, a 60 acre bit of forest that is just a small part of park.

When I got there, I saw that the area was 'being restored'. Most of what I'd been pictures of was blocked off by 8 foot tall chain link fences. One lovely wide trail with overhanging trees I'd wanted to shoot... now has 8 foot tall chain link fences on other side to keep people from going off-trail.



Still glad I went, just wish I'd planned that for the day and had gone to different bits. If 'well this wasn't what I hoped, but rolled with it' seems to be a theme of the trip, yeah, I wound up saying those words a lot the following weekend.

Then, I went back to the hotel to get cleaned up to do early badge pick up for the con. I had a tour early the next morning before the con started, so I really needed to get my badge early. Also, I'd feel better once I had my badge and schedule and everything.

So, preface to this whole mess: I had a great time with fellow fans the rest of the weekend. Creation Cons just pull out some very weird behaviors from people. Most of the people at early pick up were getting meet & greet tickets, had bid on specific seats or access... not bought, bid. Some of the people at this con spent between $3k to... let's be conservative and say $6k on just the convention. Not the trip, just the con. Some people spent thousands for just like 20 minutes of attention, some photos and autographs. I am not trying to be judgey of paying for fannish experiences, it's just that when you are spending so much on so little it becomes a big, intense deal whether it's 20 minutes of attention or maybe getting 21 and you feel in competition with other fans. I personally don't get involved in all that, but I still had people sizing me up like potential competition.

The line was full of assholes. One lady just shoved her way directly in front of me in line, then spent the rest of the weekend trying to come up and be all friendly to me. She was there solo and just kept going up to other solo people trying to make friends. I just stared at her silently each time. We all had assigned seats, there was literally zero reason to forcibly cut me in line.

The people behind me didn't consider me part of the fandom because I hadn't been to the Wizard World Cons in Chicago and it's like... Okay, let me be blunt. If I decided to engage in 'real fan' pissing contests with them, it would go very badly for them. When I did mention I was from Portland one of the fan-husbands activated and started talking loudly about how he comes to the con to make sure the East Coast Girlies get their fair share of attention at events, protects them from those aggressive West Coast Girlies. He was trying to impress upon me that he'd protect 'his girlies' from... me? I was like... I don't know what drama y'all are talking about and I don't care. Please stop.

Then things got worse. After registration there was a small vendor's area that was mostly the big table of official merch. The line was supposed to go along the table so everyone walked by everything. There were two people with mobility problems, one in a walker and the other a wheelchair, and people kept cutting them to get right to the T shirt part of the table. I was the first person to stand behind them and get the line back on track. Some people still cut, but most got behind me. Two girls from Germany tried to play the 'no English' card to cut in. First off, no one said anything, they were just pre-emptively like 'theeeese okay right. Sorry English not good'? Second off, this wasn't a large con. They were fluent. We all saw them be fluent. This isn't San Diego Comic Con where you can just randomly pretend 'no English' and not be super fucking obvious. What even were they doing? I only know they were from Germany because I heard them talking later, in perfect English!

After all that, my nerves were pretty raw. The con is for 5 shows overall, but we were mostly there for Leverage and Librarians. At a con that was pretty much for those shows, people were taking advantage of people with mobility problems to cut in line? Just, omg fuck off you assholes.

So, despite how much that sucked, two good things came out of it. One, I knew who to avoid for the rest of the weekend and had a much better time because of it. Two, my reaction to my nerves feeling raw was 'I want a vampire to make me tea with booze in it'. So, once again, I left the Warehouse Arts District and walked back into the French Quarter. Honestly, Warehouse Arts was probably where I should have spent a lot more time, that was my usual, but I just kept going back to the French Quarter.

In the French Quarter I passed lots of people with their tables out for tarot or other readings:



I settled in at Apothecary. My plan was literally to sit there for the night, maybe write on my phone a bit. After a bit I ordered a second drink. Then, I spotted the bartender give someone a card.

That's when I realized my mistake. The info I'd read online about NOLA bars said that there are two vampire bars, one public and one hidden. Since I'd been to two and one said it was 'recently revealed to the mortal world', I assumed they'd dropped the hidden thing due to the pandemic. I was wrong, they now have three bars! The hidden bar is still hidden and I hadn't been yet!

I wanted to go immediately, but 2 drinks is 4x my usual limit. So, I hung out for a bit, and then asked for a card. The bartender was very charming about it, carefully slid it to me with a wink. I also walked walked for a while, just to sober up a bit more.

Finally, I was en-route to Potions, often referred to as 'the vampire speak-easy'. To get there, you need to get a card from one of the other bars, then leave and go to one of the historic jazz clubs. It was packed, there was live music, it was great, but you go through the club and out a back door into one of those old brick courtyards. Then, you have the give the card to the right person and they lead you through a door to a stair case. At this point, you are in a back ally with various stairs and balconies, on the stairs you that are blocked off, there are sleeping cats. I went up and to the door of Potions. It turned out to be a few small rooms with more gothic decor, more overt vampire theming, drinks served in glass potion bottles with corks and it includes one of those iconic second floor balconies, all old wood and vintage iron work.

10/10 - would follow a vampire into a back alley again.

As much as a wanted a nifty drink in a potion bottle, I wasn't sure what I could drink there and also there is a city ordnance about glass on the balconies, so I just got red wine in a plastic cup. Easy, safe, etc. Before I went to the vampire bars I was worried about them being cheesy or using lots of red dye. They are all lovely and make stuff red with either wine or cranberry juice

I didn't take pictures inside, because that didn't seem to be the vibe. I did take some pictures out on the balcony, though. They are terrible camera phone shots, tho.

View sitting on the balcony:



View standing:



I mean, how could it be any better? People were chill and lovely. The journey to get there was perfect. I am so used to being let down by themed bars and experiences and this was just amazing. Even just the bit where you cut through a packed historic jazz club was perfect.

Also, I don't know if this was because of it being mostly tourists, just the local vibe, or what, but yeah, I just felt really comfortable in all the vampire bars. The Portland bar scene is very territorial, and yeah, I guess it's not a me problem. It's not a 'I just can't feel welcome' in spaces thing. Honestly, how great being in some of the bars there was felt very cathartic and validating.

I wish I'd been a little less sloshed going into it, but honestly, Potions completely made my trip.

I got up early for another cemetery tour. This one was very much a mixed bag. It left from a historical train station turned museum with displays of things from Pullman trains like dishware. It was the only way into the oldest still existing cemetery in the city. And... behold the crypt of Nicolas Cage:



While I was there I heard three very different stories as to why he has a pre-arranged crypt in one of the most important historical cemeteries in the US and also a very spendy one to secure space in. I don't know if any of them are true. But, I was told very specifically that he is still alive and is not some sort of undead creature that needs to rest in his native New Orleans soil. Let me tell you that locals are not shy about calling him a nepo baby who tried to hide it with his stage name, though.


The X marks in groups of 3 are part of a ritual prayer to Marie Laveau, but we were assured that wasn't her crypt, the one in the photo below 'logically has to be' because her husband was buried there.


Note some markings on this crypt, but fewer.


(If I could have gotten just a liiiitle wider on that bulging crypt door with the metal cross it would have been amazing, but tightly packed tour group)



The bad: It was about forty minutes instead of an hour, the tour guide kept going on about January 6th and never connected it to the cemetery despite claims that he was being on topic. Then he hassled me on the way back about me not tipping him. He kept being all 'Don't you have any gratuity, I mean gratitude, for the knowledge I just shared?' and I was all 'Oh, I'm sorry, thank you so very much!' I just refused to acknowledge why he was up my ass.

New Orleans has 'tipped minimum wage', which means that people with jobs that get tips can be paid as little as $2.13 an hour. I brought a LOT of cash with me for housekeepers, servers, bartenders, buskers, tour guides, etc. But I am not fucking tipping a MAGA panderer. He rolled the dice that MAGA pandering would increase his wallet and, that probably does pay off more often than not.

Coming from Portland were we don't allow that exception to minimum wage and also our food scene is centered around counter service, this was a huge swing from what I was used to. I was expecting to be dropping cash a lot, but also I have standards.

After that, I took the streetcar out to the Cemetery District. 'To Cemeteries' is a direction in NOLA, which is amazing to me. There is a Cemetery transit center.



I spent a lot time in the first one I saw with an open gate. It was over 90°, no place to sit, almost no shade, the sun was brutal and the humidity was medium, but enough to have an effect. I kept walking until I was just tired, dehydrated and hungry.













So, I called a ride to the Vampire Cafe, the one place that can handle my special diet. And yes, I said that to the driver. She was fun.

For those keeping track: the Vampire Cafe, Apothecary the vampire bar, Potions the 'real vampire bar' and The Dungeon are all different places. The first 3 all have the same ownership. The Dungeon is listed online as a vampire bar, but as far as I could tell it wasn't, but more on that later.

The Vampire Cafe was all old brick and iron work and had a nice bar. I had a plate of raw fish and a lot of water. The bartender was lovely, and again very attentive to my food restrictions. Behind the bar some guys were making up big batches of the cocktails to go in the blood bags for that night, and were talking Elden Ring strategies while they did so. Yeah, the vibes were amazing. At the Boutique du Vampire owned places I felt most relaxed and at ease I've felt at bars.

Then it was dark enough for the journey I had planned for that night. I'd seen something on a tour bus the other day and I needed to go back for the shot. I hopped on a street car and headed out.



Waffle Houses have a weird, liminal space in American culture for a number of reasons, including The Waffle House Index. It would take a while to explain if you aren't up on Waffle House lore, but when I looked over and saw this in the darkness I was just like, I need it.

Then, I went back to The French Quarter. I'd heard mixed things about whether The Dungeon was a cool bar or not, but hey, nothing ventured?



That corridor opens up into a strange area with high windows, a coffin and a bouncer. He looked me up and down and said that they have a no photos policy and take it seriously. I said no problem and he opened the door to a long staircase down. That lead to a very narrow bar with fake stone walls, but nicely done fake stone, and lots of bats and potion bottles and things. The bartender was great, the crowd friendly. I'd have hung out for a while, but I am a light weight and don't want to stay too long on only one drink. So, I headed out and went to bed.