You’re building what? Oh, a hotel?
Wait, and word on the street is that you’ll be developing the alleyways that stretch back to the Warehouse District as well? To create a living, breathing, “hopeful” community where gamblers gather? Oh, and it will be exclusive as well? I gotcha.
(These facts confirmed by the Marketing/Development Director of the local Harrah’s location)

Basically, our city has given much freedom and exclusivity to Harrah’s. They have given them incentives to build the hotel, the ability to be LAND-BASED, and the ability to make civic moves that some would label unwarranted…some.

And as they turn that crane and build the hotel for the money-hungry to sleep between stints of magical sheets of cash…or the contrast, as well…do we agree?

I really don’t mind at all. Bring them…keep giving New Orleans the fraction of glamour you provide…

Why am I so agreeable? When in the past I’ve stood so completely against the loss of local flavor for the sake of corporate growth?

Well, in short, they won me over.
I tripled my money the other night…
They win. Because I won.

My goal for the next 48 hours: Show her how New Orleans is magical. Avoid the quarter at any point past 10:30pm. Hope drunks don’t yell outside my window at 3am after leaving the “WineLoftofMerriment” across the street. To finish that laundry over there.
Be with me. All New Orleans vibes unite and direct your motion toward Julia. Cause Momma’s in Mobile…and she’s coming round the mountain.

But turn your head to the left, follow the tracks around past Cirque rental room inn, and there, mere feet from Exxon’s newest exploit lies our dear, old, beloved Lee Circle Shell.
You can compare the price for unleaded, and almost as if Exxon didn’t exist, the Shell station touts a bounty of 12 cents more…and I’m ready and willing to pull that dime and two pennies from my car’s ashtray/coin hole any day of the week.

I remember moving to NOLA and finding respite in Lee Circle Shell, open all the time…and stocked with some of the most interesting women working the register…I even earned the name “Messy” from one of them. Yeah, “Messy.” Almost like a fortune teller on the square, Maya Angelou behind the counter handing me my Marlboros has yet to explain the nickname to me…

The owner of the place, a woman who when I first stepped foot in the door of the Lee Circle Shell, bitching and moaning because my Dos Equis was way high in the American peso equivalent…said confidently to me, (price list in hand), “So tell me how much you’d pay for that somewhere else, then”.

I recoiled. And I returned.

As Exxon sprouted up, I began to wonder if I could stand the resistance. Almost like a silent protest, loyal Lee Circle Shell customers return..

But there’s more to the story, as I found out in the latest issue of my Human Rights Campaign (BIG BLUE EQUAL SIGN STICKER PEOPLE) newsletter. After affixing the always included yellow and blue sticker to my hatchback proudly, I noticed an article about how Exxon/Mobil removed domestic partner benefits from their corporate policies. Now, I’m no activist of sorts, but that equal sign sticker suddenly related to Lee Circle.

Shell, offers domestic partner benefits. Shell is chosen as the receiver of my soul - my cash. I won’t step wheel nor foot across the street from here on, as the circle truly did come full with the realization that…

I love the locals. I love loyalty. And now, as I pay that 12 cents more a gallon and carry my XX out the door of Lee Circle Shell, I realize I’m now paying…not only to keep a landmark and support the owning couple of the Shell as they continue to charge more to a point that up until now, came with a sly grin of “yeah, we’re the only ones around”…to watching them still do so…and my twelve cents now goes not only to show I care in some awkward way that Shell stay…but I’m paying in protest to a company across the street that thinks kissing boys is just not worthy.

My gas tank has connected to my wallet, my beliefs, my sexuality, my midnight cravings…in truth, Lee Circle Shell has caused everything that is me, to relate backward to the unleaded…and has proven how even the gas station on the corner reeks through and through with the light of nola, the meaning of our city, and when I buy my menthol lights, in essence, the shell station connects to my death.

There’s a lot going on at that Lee Circle Shell…
Not to mention the General Lee parked overnight randomly during the movie month a while back…almost as if Bo and Luke needed some work done…