Two Hearts Are Better Than One: A Valentine to the
SF Bay Area and Acadiana
(02/09/04) It’s been almost two weeks since I “left
my heart in San Francisco” and moved permanently to
Lafayette, Louisiana. Even while I looked forward to living
in Southwest Louisiana, the first place that fully captured
my imagination since moving to the Bay Area over 20 years
ago, saying goodbye to my home, my friends and my neighbors
was a much more emotional experience than I expected.
Driving east on I-580 into a Maynard Dixon sunrise brought
tears to my eyes which were later counterbalanced by the
grin on my face as I crossed the Louisiana state line three
days later. Sitting in my empty house after the movers had
taken everything away, the echoes in the rooms seemed to be
whispering to me reminders of the people and events that
had taken place between its walls. Since the late 1980s
many of those memories were accompanied by a soundtrack of
Cajun, and later zydeco music, and overflowing with the
friendships and sense of community, first in the Bay Area,
and later in Louisiana, that my involvement with this rich
and welcoming culture brought to my life.
I remember so many things. Before I had the nerve to start
dancing, I became a Beausoleil fan after first hearing the
band on a movie soundtrack in the late eighties, and
subsequently went to the “Jambalaya Jam” in 1990 in
Philadelphia while on a business trip there. At that
festival I also saw Zachary Richard, whose CD I purchased
from the side of the stage. After that I went to several
Bay Area festivals in various locations (Mills College, San
Rafael Civic Center) organized by Franklin Zawacki. I
remember not being able to understand a word one of the
musicians was saying as he told stories between songs from
the stage (I think it was D.L. Menard). I brought some out
of town guests to attend a broadcast of West Coast Live,
where Motor Dude Zydeco played, and dancing in the aisles
were people, who, several years later, become good friends
of mine. Also at this time, Beausoleil regularly played at
the Marin County Fair on July 4th and one fateful year I
dragged my friend Peter Schiller to see them with me, which
I think sparked his romance and subsequence marriage to
dance instructor, Diana Castillo. An invitation to their
wedding introduced me to the music of Danny Poullard, where
I danced my first awkward waltz with Ed Jones, who then
told me about the local Bay Area Cajun and zydeco dance
community and how Diana was his dance instructor. I
mentioned this to Diana at the wedding and she sent me an
invitation to attend dance lessons at Fort Mason. On an
impulse I decided to attend her 4-week beginning dance
class there, and from that moment on, I was hooked on
dancing. The friends I made in that class were just a hint
of what was yet to come. Some of us carpooled to check out
the regular Friday night dances at Eagles Hall which at the
time showcased Motor Dude Zydeco, and a kind hearted guy
took pity on my struggling dance moves… that’s how I met
Dana DeSimone, whose dance classes I subsequently signed up
for. Another dancer, Don Webb, also took me under his wing
and showed me the pure joy of being in the groove and on
the dance floor.
During that first year, I met people who would become
lifelong friends – too many to mention and y’all know who
you are. I started attending house parties, potlucks,
helped put on a wedding. For several years the ONLY place
to be on New Year’s Eve was Ed Jones and Linda Castle’s
house party. All the furniture in the house was put into
the garage, our local musicians (RIP Danny Poullard and Ed
Luckenbach) set up in the living room and played for tips,
the tables teamed over with food brought by friends, and we
all passed a good time. Linda and Ed put on summer parties
as well and we were all blown away the year Jimmy Breaux
showed up and played accordion with our local musicians.
Another memorable event for me was the Rounder Records tour
that featured Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys, Beau
Jocque and the Hi-Rollers and Marcia Ball. Beau Jocque,
with his enormous physical presence and powerful voice and
accordion playing just blew me away. Three weeks later I
decided I had to fly down to the Long Beach festival to see
him again. It was the first time I traveled from the Bay
Area to dance, and after that, I realized I was really
hooked. I also discovered I was not alone in my new
obsession. I met folks from Southern California, Denver
(say hey Reverend Jim), and other parts of the country that
weekend. Within a year, I was heading down to New Orleans
for Jazz Fest, and then back again less than a year later
to the Plaisance Zydeco festival and Festival Acadiens in
Lafayette. These were my first trips to Louisiana. In 1995
I started up my website and started keeping written
journals and taking photographs of my adventures. (All the
stories are still archived at sfbayou.com). The more I
visited Louisiana, the more I fell in love with the place.
The years that followed included an obsessive amount of
dancing in the Bay Area, 5 or 6 times of week for a while,
at such venues as Demarco’s 23 Club in Brisbane, Bobby’s
Back Door in Richmond, Eagles Hall in Alameda, Ardenwood,
Louisiana Sue’s festivals around the Bay Area, Ashkenaz in
Berkeley, as well as frequent trips to dance in Southern
California, and out of state.
Fast forward now to April 2002, which was the month I spent
in Louisiana to test the waters see what it might be like
to live there full time. During that period I attended my
first Dewey Balfa Cajun and & Creole Heritage Week,
organized by Louisiana Folk Roots. This event put me over
the top in some ways. I started wanting to learn to play
the music that year … first triangle, and later, guitar,
and discovered a whole new dimension to relating to the
music and the folks involved with it. The weekly jams in
the Bay Area at Blair Kilpatrick’s and Steve Tabak’s house
cemented this newfound pleasure, and I made great new local
friends during these wonderful music-filled evenings, which
were often made even more special when folks from Louisiana
stopped by… Jesse Lege, Ed Poullard, members of the Lost
Bayou Ramblers, Courtney Granger from Balfa Toujours, among
others. When I started telecommuting for my day job, I
gained the ability to live anywhere I wanted, and so, 2
years ago, I looked for a place to rent part time in
Lafayette, Louisiana. I found, to my delight, an ideal
living situation in some furnished rooms provided by a
musician friend in an older part of Lafayette, which is
where, in fact, I am nostalgically writing this article
now.
Two years of driving back and forth twice a year, and
leading a divided life, proved to be too much, and so, when
I had to choose, it turned out to be harder for me to
imagine not living in Lafayette than not living in San
Francisco. And while I am not immune to badly missing my
Bay Area friends at times, my everyday life is just so much
richer and easier here (please hold the weather and
mosquito jokes). I plan to share impressions of my new life
here in future journals.
And so, while leaving the Bay Area is bittersweet, I
gratefully thank all my old friends for the wonderful times
we’ve had and joyfully welcome my new friends and the path
that lies before me. Life is an adventure. My life is only
fuller for my residence and friendships in two of the most
extraordinary places in the United States… two hearts are
better than one.