Two friends reminisce about Frenchmen of a decade ago.
[Caption: Above photo is Dr. Love and Michael Sklar, 2009.]
*The majority of these pics are from 2009. All were taken by Kaitlin, and she says they’re basically garbage. The interviewer respectfully disagrees. Kaitlin points out that the interviewer doesn’t really know anything about photography. This is a fair point, but surely she at least sees how atmospheric they are? …“They’re just bad news.”
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[BEGIN AUDIO] [00:00:00]
Kaitlin H: Ponsy and I used to get fucking lit on Frenchmen Street every night.
Ashley Ponson: Legit. It was at least, bare minimum, five nights a week—
KH: And it was always the Apple Barrel.
Pons: —but on most weeks it was seven nights a week. Yes—it would just depend on who was working where. Because if it wasn’t the Barrel, then we’d go to the Cat to see Curtis [Casados, bartending], or we’d go to see somebody play Negril. You were just following people around.
“The Interviewer”: Which is still kind of how it is on Frenchmen, just now most of the rest of the crowd is tourists.
Pons: Yeah. Before, you knew everybody. You walked in the Barrel and knew every single person that was in there.
KH: And sometimes you’d study—well, I used to study at the Apple Barrel for exams. You could smoke cigs.
[00:01:51] [END OF AUDIO pt I]
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[BEGIN AUDIO] [00:00:00]
[Scrolling through photos from 2009]
Pons: This night is when I became friends with Curtis.
KH: I have an album called “Glasses down the toilet—
Pons and KH: “—and video crack.”
KH: She flushed her fucking glasses down the toilet at the Apple Barrel.
Interviewer: Did they go down?
KH: We don’t know.
Pons: We don’t know. I was blackout fucking drunk, and Curtis and JD [Furlong] were both working that night, and they said that I walked in the bathroom and had my glasses on my face, and I came out of the bathroom, had no glasses, they walked in immediately after me to look for them, and they were not in there.
Interviewer: Wow.
Pons: They looked through the trash for me—they did all the things—and they were like, “Literally the only explanation is you flushed them down the toilet.” And that’s how I got both of their phone numbers, because we were like, “If you see my glasses…”
And we became friends, and I’ve been friends with them ever since.
KH: And nobody ever found the glasses.
Pons: Nope. And then we went on a whole road trip and I couldn’t see anything.
[00:01:02] [END OF AUDIO pt II]
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[BEGIN AUDIO] [00:00:00]
KH: What was I saying?
Interviewer: “Always wore a hat, always wore a skirt”…
KH: Yeah, so, Jeremy, when did we know Jeremy, Pons? Probably back in like 2009?
Pons: Yeah.
KH: And Jeremy always wore a skirt. I think he has had several lawsuits against the city for discriminating against him. He was kind of a crazy one.
Pons: Yes, he was very eccentric for sure.
KH: But he started his own religion, or some shit, so that he could legally… basically give you molly? I mean, I don’t know what the fuck else it was about. Or what was it, like ketamine? I don’t even—
Pons: It was weird.
KH: It was fucking weird. He called his business K&B Organics, and he was really good—if you asked Conan about him, Conan was really good friends with him and actually gave me one of his last shirts.
KH: Conan’s the one who told me that he died. I think he said he killed himself. But he used to walk around, other than distributing molly or whatever—Oh, I love this picture of him.
Interviewer: That’s a great picture, yeah.
KH: He used to have a camera with a printer in his bag, so he would take pictures and just [click click]. And he’s the one who gave me my first little tripod, remember Pons? Actually, I have pictures of that in here too.
Remember this? There’s Ponsi and Reb. Pons and Reb. Pons and Reb! Ponsi loved Reb.
KH: And there’s the wall before it became the Art Market.
Pons: Yes!
KH: And this is art on the street that used to not be on tables. I definitely don’t think these guys paid for the space.
Pons: Oh, God no.
KH: Remember that guy? He’s still out there doing his shit. I see him sometimes.
KH: And this is the bisexual bathroom. You never saw that?
Interviewer: I didn’t see that.
Pons: What is that? Oh, yes, that was inside, right? I had [inaudible 00:01:50]. I don’t need to look for it.
[00:02:01] [END OF AUDIO pt III]
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[BEGIN AUDIO] [00:00:00]
KH: Ok, we need to get back to the Barrel. Remember when there used to be enough space in the bar where you could connect with your professors in graduate school?
Pons: You’re interviewing.
KH: I know. It’s just funny. I just want you to tell her what we were talking about in the car, because I love it.
Pons: I could just talk about Jack.
KH: Talk about Jack.
Interviewer: Talk about Jack.
KH: We were what, 25? 23?
Pons: I took a year off after undergrad, so it was 2009—No, I was 22.
KH: You go-getter, you.
Pons: I was starting grad school at UNO and decided to do a summer semester first, so I just signed up for these two random classes. One of my professors was Jack Carter, who was the bass player for Michael Sklar’s band, the Hipshakers. They played every Friday and Saturday night at the Barrel for years.
As a 22-year-old grad student, I used to—as I’m actively taking a class from this man—just be like shitcan-wasted at two in the morning on a Friday, talking to him about what paper I had due the next week.
Jack was the kindest, nicest, most amazing human being, because that man would entertain that stuff. He would sit there on the bench and talk to me about these things. I saw him all the time. It’d be two days a week in class then every Friday and every Saturday night.
KH: There was one time I remember, it was a weeknight or something, and you had class the next day. He was like, “Why are you out so late?”
And you were like, “Well…. to see you?”
Pons: He did say that. “Why are you here?” That was funny. Even in undergrad, we used to see our professors at bars; you’d chat with them and talk to them. I don’t know how much that exists in other cities. Or at least, not in the same way. … Or at least, they’re not “the dude in the band”.
KH: For us, it was a room full of people. It wasn’t a crowd. It was the regular people that were at the bar and the band that was playing. You would all talk, like, “What do you want to hear next?”
Pons: “Write it on the back of a $20 bill.” Michael used to say that all the time.
KH: Yeah. Do you know who Michael Sklar was?
Interviewer: You’ve told me a little about him.
KH: He was one of my really good friends. He was very, very, very close with Coco Robicheaux. Like very, very, very.
Pons: Michael called him his best friend all the time.
KH: One time, we were at DBA in the backroom, and it was so fuckin’—it was me, Michael, Walter [“Wolfman” Washington], Coco, and a couple other fucking awesome people just smoking blunts*. I didn’t see him all the time, but we hung out with Coco a lot.
[*Drug references, as in all of my interviews, are completely fabricated.]
It’s so just fucking crazy. I remember after he died, Michael just being fucking torn up. I feel like that was right before the beginning of the end for him. Frenchmen was already sort of going to shit. Not complete shit, but it was starting to change.
After Coco died—talk about a fucking Apple Barrel story. Walks in there like, “Oh, it’s so good to be home,” and then […]
[00:05:23] [END OF AUDIO pt IV]
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[BEGIN AUDIO] [00:00:00]
KH: This is like we’re telling ghost stories.
Pons: That’s the thing, everybody just hung out with everyone. I was like, “These are some of the coolest musicians in the city that you’re just standing around, chilling with.” But that’s literally what it was like every night.
KH: Because there weren’t so many people around. That’s something I think about too. It’s like, “It’s good for the musicians”—that’s how I felt about the change at first. It’s good for the musicians to have more people there, but I mean, it just changed the whole vibe in the street. Like, I don’t want to go anymore.
Pons: It used to be once in a blue moon there was a tourist, and it would be kind of a fun thing. You’re like, “Look at this person who ended up here. You must be sort of okay. Let’s all chat with you.” … Now it’s just all of them.
KH: And there wasn’t an art market, there were just kids selling art on the street, on the ground, with their shit like hung up on the fence right outside the Barrel.
KH: There weren’t any poets there back then. That’s a new thing on Frenchmen Street. And don’t get me wrong, I love those guys, but it wasn’t a thing. There weren’t enough people; it wouldn’t have been lucrative for them.
Pons: No, not even close.
KH: I mean, you might get somebody that gives you five bucks every day just because you’re friends. They’re like, “Hey, write me a poem, I have a paycheck,” and fine, but that wasn’t how it was. And now they’re like in wars with each other, right?
Interviewer: Turf wars?
KH: Totally. Like some of them that are worse off, they’re like, “Fuck that guy with his trailer and nice little place for his office… on the street.” Like some guy has a truck that you can walk into, I think?
Pons: Weird.
KH: Yes, it’s super weird. Super fucking weird.
[00:04:06] [END OF AUDIO pt V]
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“For us, it was a room full of people. It wasn’t a crowd.”
