Jacque-Nik in New Orleans

Jacque-Nik in New Orleans
Originally uploaded by thegreatplotnik.

There are happy photos and very happy photos and then there are the photos where the room is tippy, the colors on the walls are vibrating and the lens can barely stop laughing long enough to snap, because the people in the photo are having the time of their lives in their favorite city in the world.

The Great Ducknik took this picture in May, 2002, the evening before The Great Wedding. In the photo we see Jacque, The Great FiveHead, The Great PunkyDunky, The Great BeezieWeezie and the photo director of the shoot, Proud Papa.

But this morning, August 2005, Jacque-i-Mo's restaurant is probably under six feet of water. Jacque-Nik, the chef/owner posing here as the drunken carouser in the white jacket, is most likely staring at wreckage, though we don't know that yet. One good thing: you can probably get a table in under an hour now.

The Great Plotnik and family have gorged themselves through many wonderful evenings in Jacque-i-Mo's, especially before they took out the piano, so Plotnik could play for Bushmill's, which Jacque would drink as he sang along to 'Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans,' though there was a lot of Bushmill's and it's all a little hazy.

It seems to TGP that the key to life is making time stop, to have photos of these marvellous moments so deeply embedded in your memory that you can roll yourself back into the picture whenever you feel like it, kind of like putting a favorite photo up on the wall of the restaurant in your head.