What's the joke about "copies for Pete"? Pete was known for "selling" (and giving away sometimes ... if he liked you) copies of random memorabilia, sketches, and notes he gathered from the—probably thousands of—friends and celebrities he met throughout the many nights he spent in the Quarter. If you were a good friend, he'd ask you for money for copies so that he could go down to the closest "Kinkos" (now just FedEx) to keep his "business" going. When asked how much he made from selling his copies, he'd say, "Sometimes one dollar, sometimes nine dollars—just help me with the money, I have a business to run!"

I met Pete several years ago while working in New Orleans, and we became friends. He was quite a fixture in the French Quarter, and I stayed in touch with Pete through the years. No longer in New Orleans myself, I still kept in contact with him, and later they moved Pete to a nursing center in Franklinton, Louisiana. I talked to Pete probably once a month. On September 23, 2025, I got a call around 1:30 in the morning that Pete had passed away and that he had no family listed. They said, “If anything happens, call this number.” So they called that number, which was mine, and was an honor to me. It meant a lot that he thought that much of me and had the belief that I would do my best to take care of him if something happened.

Pete's friend,
Jack