Phone Message Transcript: Feb. 13, 1997
[appearing on Anne's fan phone line]

"Good morning everyone, this is Wednesday, February 12, it's Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, Mardi Gras is over, officially; but I wanted to tell everybody how much I enjoyed it and I want to thank New Orleans for giving the greatest party on earth. Monday night before Fat Tuesday I rode in the Orpheus Parade as the Literary Muse, and I've never had so much fun in my life. We rode in an El Dorado convertible and when we got to the street with the barriers holding people back, we went sort of zig zag back and forth across the street so we could throw lots of throws on one side of the street and then lots of throws on the other side of the street. It was absolutely wonderful, I was so honored that Orpheus had selected me their Literary Muse, I never had so much fun! We threw all kinds of trinkets but I have to say the one that seemed to get the biggest surprise out of people had to be our golden rats. We had a lot of little golden rats and sometimes people would catch these rats in a crowd and there was a scream and drop the rat!!! (laughing) And some people would grab the rat and hold onto it for dear life. So I think our rats were a success. They were just a little joke of course, connected with Interview With The Vampire the movie, I know how many rats there were in that movie. I hope everybody had a good and safe time I haven't heard anything but good vibes about Mardi Gras, I haven't heard that anything bad happened, it seems that we pulled off a New Orleans party in grand style, as we always do, and I couldn't be more thrilled and more proud to be a citizen of this city.

I do have a little bit of news but not much. We did finalize, not finalize, well pretty much finalize our purchase of Cafe Lestat up on St. Charles Avenue. It's a building quite a distance away from Mr. Copeland's building, and we'll try very hard when we do it to make it architecturally pleasing and tatseful and make Cafe Lestat a place where people can visit before they leave the city. As you know, I am a very concerned preservationist and I have restored St. Elizabeth's Orphanage on Napoleon and restored a house on St. Charles Avenue and have restored other buildings as well. Even purchased one little building on Constance and Josephine that actually has no one in it. But I preserved the outside of it because it's cadicorner from St. Mary's Church and I want it to look decent and we're gonna get the money together, sooner or later, to fix up the inside and find some intrepid soul who will live there cadicorder from St. Mary's Assumption Church.

In any event, we're proud to be preservationists, and we're proud to be part of the city, and we have a wonderful after-Mardi Gras sort of linger hanging over us but, my God, what a party. I hope all of you had a good time, I hope you had the time of your lives, I hope everything went well for you, and if you weren't here think about coming here in the future, there's nothing quite like it. It's truly wonderful. My love to everyone, oh and thank you all for your many, many, many, many, many calls in support of my position (again I'm regarding Mr. Copeland's restaurant). I deeply appreciate your kindness, I deeply appreciate your words. With regard to Mr. James Gill's editorial in the paper today, if indeed that's what it can be called, I think Mr. Gill is operating under a false assumption if he thinks that Mr. Copeland was the clear winner of a fracas between us regarding the restaurant. Mr. Copeland's retaurant is (laughing) is a monstrosity and I think that speaks for itself, loud and clear, it doesn't really need me to point out how hideous it is. But in any event, I do understand that Mr. Copeland is going to sue me, so we will apparently go on to court. I myself never sue anyone, I refuse to do it, I refuse to use the courts in a frivolous way, to take out anger on people that I have arguments with. So I will not counter sue no matter what Mr. Copeland does. But I will certainly fight the suit, and I hope that if we are, and I believe we will be, if we are victorious, in the lower courts, one after another, I hope we have a chance to go to the Supreme Court of the land and a chance there to have a significant decision, in Straya's vs. Rice or Copeland vs. Rice about freedom of speech. I do believe, absolutely, in the right to express my opinion in the way I think something looks.

Well God love you all, God bless you all, and for those of you out of town, thank you for putting up with all this local foolishness and that's just what it is so much foolishness. Again, Mardi Gras was wonderful, we missed you if you couldn't come, and I'm working away on my book Armand, if I have to become a prison writer, I presume I'll have my little candle and my little computer in there in my prison and I'll be able to write. It'll be very dramatic and interesting and I'll undoubtedly get several novels out of it, where the vampires spend time in prison and in fact I've always wanted to know what would happen if the vampire Lestat were captured by medical (?) people who somehow found a prison strong enough to hold him, maybe I'm going to find out. Anyway, God love you, this has been long enough, I'd like to say Happy Lent, but I don't think Happy Lent is appropriate. Let's just all say that we look forward to Easter Sunday and we look forward to Christ rising from the dead, as always, we look forward to everything that that means and now as we enter into a separate (?) part of our lives we have the joy of Fat Tuesday behind us. God love you, God bless you, God keep you, bye-bye. "