Introducing: The Jesus Junkies.

I guess you could call this pt 1 of "Crazy Hoes I Used To Know"

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I met Danny & Mikey, the original Jesus Junkies, way back around December  1996, when they rode with me on the first of a series of legendary Mexican twirls (all of which ended w no one makin money because of our mutual addictions, but that's another set of tragic stories).  They were from similar middle-class white backgrounds, although Danny was from South Louisiana & Mikey was from Pennsylvania someplace. Danny was the "pretty" one: naturally tan skin & deep brown eyes with sort of chestnut hair in a wedge cut, straight white teeth & a set of dimples to die for. Mikey was skinny with dark brown hair & sort of close set eyes with a fairer complexion, as well as a rather, shall we say, unfortunate nose (he later got this fixed). Mikey was definitely the sassy one, while Danny tended to be sweet & cute most of the time. My friend Matty later identified this paradigm in gay couples (whether lovers or not) as "The Bitch & The Bait."

At any rate, one night after we got back from Mexico, Mikey asked me for a ride to a hotel. He told me he'd met this guy named Ron at a bar who had some X pills he wanted Mikey to try out. Mikey told me he wanted me to come in with him just in case this guy turned out to be crazy. Well the guy did turn out to be crazy, but little did I know the depth of the madness until later. So we get up into Ron's hotel room & try out these tabs. We stayed up in the room, with Ron making like an Amway style drug dealing recruitment speech directed towards Mikey. The pills made us feel good & definitely got us both on board with him. As we got to know Ron, we found out that he was originally from a very religious background. I noticed he had a tendancy to sort of preach about people he formed opinions about. Before long, Danny & Mikey were living with Ron in a big house Uptown some place as the money started rolling in. I remember visiting them at that house a few times & Ron & the boys liked to take psychoactive drugs like Special K, LSD & X & read the Bible. I couldn't see the sense in all of this. I enjoyed all the drug bit but I really didn't think it was time for a prayer meeting. My reluctance to take part in this sacrilege led Ron to decide that I was possessed by demons. On more than one occasion he and/or the boys tried to get all serious with me & give me some sort of  "exorcism." According to them on one of these occasions (I think we were in the House of Luv, actually) my eyes turned red & a light bulb exploded. Let me stress to you that such a thing never actually happened.  What actually did happen was one night I was out upstairs at the Bourbon Pub, dancing on one of the boxes waving around this riding crop we'd bought in Mexico. I'm sure we were all on a bunch of drugs, & I'm not exactly sure what Danny & Mikey saw but they were staring at me as I was dancing & then they dragged me out on to the balcony & tried to tell me that I was directing the crowd's energy in a malicious way with the riding crop & I had to give it to them at once. I said, you gals are insane & tried to get up off the bench where we were sitting to go back inside but no. They had been standing in front of me & each one of them grabbed an arm & a leg of mine & pinned me down to this bench, saying things like "Come out of Him. I cast you out in the name of Jesus." Please understand this is like Saturday Night on Bourbon Street at Prime Time. There are like at least 20-30 ppl around us on this balcony, not to mention security guards & the whole time I remember thinking "This cannot possibly be happening. If all these people were really seeing this some1 would surely intercede."

Evidently Not.

I remember these deranged hookers pulling & tugging at me & berating me & somehow I managed to stand up & not let them throw me off the balcony. I don't really remember how this particular night ended (they really didn't seem to ever end, they blur together so quickly) but I know that we had a series of encounters after this, both business & personal. It all came to a head one day when I told Ron to take his bunk pills & phony religion out of my house or I was gonna call a cop & he pounced on me & the boys held me down while he punched me a few times. They all took off right afterwards & I filed a complaint with the police. They didn't know about all of that when they called me up the next day, all apologetic & wanting to give me some free drugs to make up for how mean they were. I told them to come over & called 911 when I saw their car pull up. I let them in but kept my distance with a pair of scissors hidden up my jacket sleeve until the cops got there & I had them all arrested for assault. They told the cops that the tabs in their pockets were ginseng pills & the cops just dropped them in the grass next to my place & put them in the patrol car. I never went to court over it, so I suppose the charges got dropped.

I remember picking up all those pills & having to go to the Zoolu rave that year, feeling like a battered housewife, wearing my big sunglasses to cover up the black eyes w the busted blood vessels in my eye. I'm pretty sure I made big money at that party, but Who Can Say?  Eventually they all got out of jail and before long the 3 of them had a falling out and Ron tried to recruit me. I was all in & then dodged paying him. I think it is only in New Orleans you can get away with some of this stuff. I'm pretty sure in NYC or something you would get shot over this. I guess I counted on him believing in "Thou Shalt Not Kill" or something.

Anyway, Ron eventually left town to go back to Lake Charles or something & the Jesus Junkies remained. They eventually found another pastor, Dick Crayford, but that's another story for another time....