A few weeks back I was out at a concert at Preservation Hall with some friends.

I wasn’t really into it, so just as the Dixieland band of geezers started playing I slipped out for a smoke. I stepped into the street and almost bumped right into Chantal, a friend of a friend I’d met a few times.

Chantal was a wacky artist chick with pale skin and Morticia Addams hair. Her real name was Susan, and underneath all that goth was a suburban girl from Michigan. While some of my friends made fun of her, I thought she was incredibly cool and sexy. That night she was wearing a little black dress that hugged every part of her.

We shared a smoke and she told me about some pieces she’d been working on. “You know I live around the corner, right?” she said. “If you want to come up for... Read More