Of course, the major problem with all this was that I was a horrid guitar player, I couln't carry a tune in a glad trash bag, and I couldn't write really angst-ridden songs.

I certainly hung out with all the right people; quarter rats, as they were called. The slightly soiled, teenage population in the French Quarter. Most were children of street artists or performers. Some were actually the kids of very successful uptown doctors or lawyers or car dealership owners who just liked hanging in the "Vieux Carre Scene". I was more like the latter, but at least I lived in the Quarter.

Which brings us back to angst. It's difficult to work up a really good case of emotional distress living in a place so apparently overrun with happy drunkenness. The French Quarter exudes an apparent air of insouciant wagishness. But it is inconceivably more dank and dark than first impressions, and teenage minds can envisage.

It was this dark dankness, or perhaps more the dank darkness, that we all outwardly sought. Hanging around in putrid alleyways and gnarly coffee houses belching incense and sporting the latest junkyard piece of unmatched furniture, was our way of settling into the dankness and darkness. Did it work? No, we were still posers in the world of teen angst, but for a little while we could almost convince ourselves otherwise. And during those moments of alter-reality, or hyper-non-reality, I would suddenly glimpse myself anew: Daniel Stephens, angst-ridden, guitar-slashing, musician. Hear the groupies roar.

Tomorrow's installment in this multi-piece essay will hopefully clarify some of today's ramblings, and then, once clarified, confuse you anew. Don't forget to check out the new Left is Right mp3's in the OtherZaninness section.