Carondelet

[Verse 1]

There's a little black cat with a little white splash on his neck

I see him sitting on a patch of grass at the corner of Erato and Carondelet

And when I pass sometimes he lays there sleeping not even the milk trucks rolling by will startle him

And other times he gets up and follows me along pawing at my leg and we walk until we get to Calliope

And he sees all the traffic and he stops and he's got a look on his face that says “nope”

And I walk under the bridge and I give 20 dollar bills to the homeless

And I go to the market pick up green cabbage and some pasta and maybe some bottled water

Then I come back to my room that I keep somewhere around there not far from St. Charles

[Verse 2]

There's a girl I sometimes see walking down Baronne or Carondelet

I wonder if she lives around there but I've not had the courage or the stupidity to ask her yet

Which is better because my life's good and I don't need the hassle or the trouble

Gonna go back to my room lay down with my girl and watch the movie 'The Boy In The Plastic Bubble'

And back in my room I can't find it or see it but somewhere around there

There's a water fountain that runs all night

And sometimes the sound of it drives me fucking crazy I swear

And there's a mountain of tour dates piling up that I'm really supposed to be paying mind

But sometimes I don't feel like it so I pick up my guitar and put if off to another time

[Verse 3]

Sometimes at night I like to take walks through the path and the low hanging limbs at Coliseum Square

There's a cafe I like on Lower Magazine and there's a guest house that used to be old infant asylum over there

And a Vietnamese restaurant I like and also the famous Flying Burrito

And in the summer when I walk back through the park with short sleeve shirts I get eaten up by the mosquitoes

And I come back and I watch channel 99 dedicated to cleaning up New Orleans crime

And I'm gonna think about that old St. Vincent infant asylum on Lower Magazine a lot of the time

And I turn on the news and there's always shootings at a school or the threat of wars

Somebody killed somebody's innocent people and now their gonna kill yours

[Verse 4]

There's a place I walk past just a block away from Carondelet

Friday Nights Boxing Gym and sometimes

Me and my girlfriend we like to walk down there and gaze inside of it

I watch their sloppy right hooks their awkward footwork and their clumsy lead lefts

They're just getting started buy hey I gotta say I've always been envious of athletes discipline and their work ethic

I used to wrestle from when I was a kid for a bit but I wasn't very good and I quit one day when I got pinned

But I clowned around on a movie set later with Noah Taylor in Almost Famous and we were sparring and

I caught him right smack dab on the chin

That motherfucker can act and if you haven't seen him watch Vanilla Sky or Flirting or Max

He played a young Hitler trying to sell his paintings to an art dealer played by John Cusack

[Verse 5]

Noah chain-smoked Marlboro Reds and he had announced 'Stillwater' and yelled into the mic so loud that his throat bled

We all got habits and I like chasing extras around the set and bringing them back to my trailer bed

There's a lot of down time on a movie set and you gotta kill it one way or the other

We go hang around Venice Beach or Tijuana or North Hollywood me and Noah we got along like brothers

We used to walk around the Santa Monica Pier and eat seafood and smoke cigarettes with our girlfriends

Emily and Jeannine and when I think about those summer days I get a little choked up cause I was 32 and in my prime then

Noah was the closest friend on a movie set that I've ever had

I hope to see him one day again but if I don't I'm just happy to have passed through this life and for a time to have befriended him

[Verse 6]

The last time I saw him I played Scala in London and we walked around Hyde Park 2004

But I'm sad to say that since then I don't hear from him or his lady friend much anymore

I heard he had a part in HBO's Game Of Thrones

He's a bad-ass actor a secret weapon in any cast and any good movie director out there really oughta fucking know

[Verse 7]

Oh man oh man, oh man oh man, oh man oh man

Oh man oh man, oh man oh man, where does the time go

I'm feeling down all the sudden and I don't know why and I'm running out of words so I'm gonna send my engineer home

Gonna go home today lay down in my bed keep up on this bad news Baltimore news story

Then I'll watch the Charlie Sheen Roast for some laughs or maybe the one with Bob Saget because they're both so fucking funny

Bob took a lot of shit but in the end you gotta admit he had the best bit

When he said “All you stupid motherfuckers suck my hundred million dollar dick”

And Charlie Sheen I love the way he doesn't give a shit and sits there grinning

And how they won't let him off about when he said “I'm fucking winning”

There's a little black cat that I see sitting on the corner of Erato and Carondelet

I see him sitting on a patch of grass when I come home from Rouses market

He's got a cute little patch of white on his little black chest

Funny how nothing bothers him not even the passers-by or the noisy milk trucks that roll in