Posts Tagged ‘NOLA’

After thinking about the Gulf so much I decided to I needed a little communing with the the Aquarium of the Americas…

Moving quickly past the smiling sting rays…

and the Lionfish being stalked…

beyond the curious penguins plotting their escape… Read the rest of this entry »

It’s that time of year again- just enough time has passed to get over Carnival and get ready for our next round of visitors- Jazzfest! The first day of the weekend was a washout but Saturday and Sunday weren’t bad. Not that it matters- the rain just doesn’t seem to drive anybody away, they just stay and splash around.

Last week Rob was in town, and we were graciously invited to come down to One Eyed Jacks to watch him and Exodus (with GoatWhore opening. Really.). They’re out on the road with Megadeth but had an evening off and decided to make a pitstop in a more intimate venue.

A show that starts at 11:30 on a weeknight? Wow. That’s a rough night for the olds. But Rob had kindly scoped out a spot out of the fray, so Charlie and I took our Geritol and headed out, happy to see him regardless of the hour.

Backstage at the club was about what you’d expect:

Not exactly the lap of luxury, but they guys got in late afternoon and took off right after the show, so nobody really cared.

How was the show, you ask? Well, too loud for my poor camera, which in thrash metal= excellent:

The club’s small, but the audience was dedicated- still going strong at 1am on a Wednesday night. The band was impressed, but then again they hadn’t been through New Orleans since before Katrina, so I think the fans would’ve stayed all night, they were just so glad the band was here.

And with that ::poof:: they were gone, on the bus and outta there after signing a few autographs and packing up, hopefully to return soon on a longer, more social visit.

This is another eBay ‘slide.’ It was listed as a group of older New Orleans slides, but they arrived burned onto a CD with no originals and I discovered he sells them over and over, retaining the rights. So while I don’t actually “own” this, it seems to be okay as per the TOS to post as long as I give credit and don’t get paid. I surely don’t get paid for the blog, and here’s the link to the seller.

I’m not really sure how I feel about this whole process, but I will admit I haven’t seen these pictures anywhere else, and there are a few that are just amazing and really worth sharing.

The temps have been all over the map these past weeks, but overnight it was damp and the temps shot up, so I headed out before sunrise to see if I could capture some of the season’s last fog:

One of the reasons d’Etat’s one of my absolute favorites (other than their scathing wit, of course) is their embrace of the old fashioned grotesqueries. In a time when everything has got to be perfectly scrubbed and lovely it’s nice to have a bit of the flavor of what it was originally about. A little danger, a little mortality reminds you to really enjoy the fun on offer.

More d’Etat here.

I was floored by the coverage of the last few weeks.

First off, I won’t even get into all the Manning worship because, annoying as it was, maybe it actually played in our favor:

The Colts won’t say this and Colts apologists won’t admit it, but I’m convinced the Colts believed their own pregame hype; that they were gifted this game. The arrogance started at the top of the organization with president Bill Polian blowing off media day and former coach Tony Dungy saying the Colts would win easily and all of that cocky chatter and behavior filtered all the way down to the bottom.

“I can’t say I saw this coming,” center Jeff Saturday said of the 31-17 loss.

Then he later added: “We had the team to beat.”

See what I mean. They had the team to beat? How?

Manning was caught up in such lunacy as well. Manning heard and believed too much of the talk that he would be anointed the greatest quarterback of all time if he won.
—
Then Manning said this when asked what the Saints defense did to slow the Indianapolis defense down.

“Their offense staying on the field kept us off the field,” Manning said.

It was a subtle shot at the Indianapolis defense. Subtle throwage under the busage, to me. In reality Manning did at times look greatly confused.

-Mike Freeman, CBSSports.com

But the Mannings are a real fixture here in the city- their clan’s stature as a whole took a hit here when Archie Manning said there wasn’t a single shred of himself that wished the Saints well. Okay, I get it- your boy’s playing, and you’re loyal to him. But add it to Peyton and his coach stalking off the field without shaking hands and it all seems very petty, affected, and spoiled.

Then again maybe it’s a part of an unforgiving culture that’s so much different from New Orleans that I just can’t comprehend it. Even when the Saints lost to one of the worst teams in the country thousands of fans met them at the airport to support them. Even if they’d lost the Superbowl 56-0 we would’ve been out there to welcome them back . The parade would’ve been a madhouse no matter what.

11 people met the Colts when they got back to Indiana. Eleven? Seriously? That’s… unconscionable, really. They played their hearts out, and did a hell of a job all season. Their fans clearly adored them before- they spent a crazy amount of time on the Saints’ fan boards talking trash about how weak we were… and then they just disappeared with nothing to say, and certainly no congratulations on offer.

Maybe it’s just because we’re used to losing- as a people we’re good at it. We know how to be gracious in defeat after years of practice and we know that sometimes it really is the thought that matters and the effort that counts.

Words cannot express how amazing this was. It was freezing, nobody cared. It was mobbed, everybody was thrilled. It was phenominally loud, noone expected anything different.

Cars waited for three hours in traffic to get into and out of the city-crowd estimates were 800,000+, pretty amazing when the metro population is around 300k. School bands from all over the state had learned to play Saints anthems and the players themselves were having a fantastic time.

When it was all over the Saints disembarked at Mardi Gras World and disbursed to all points. Drew Brees actually headed to a local dive that’s right around the corner from my office. Sigh. If only we’d known. He hopped behind the bar and took over, ultimately teaching the crowd his chant:

Is he just the nicest, most down to earth guy ever?

Bless you boys. It’s a great time to be in Nola!

(oops. I just realized this never got moved out of drafts. Publishing now, though late. Mea Culpea.)

Last week Charlie and I lucked into seats at the Prytania Theater for the big Saints-Vikings game. This was huge. It was the first time the game was being shown at a movie theater in New Orleans and we just happened to show up to watch a movie the night they put the announcement up.

The Prytania is the last single screen, independently owned theater in New Orleans. It rocks. The owner’s always around, wearing his crazy ties and keeping his eye on everything. The balcony is small but cool, and an old organ still sits up front, beside the screen.

They’d decided to open the theater up for a viewing of the big game on the huge screen- for free. They were under the impression that as long as they didn’t charge they weren’t violating any rules, but since then the NFL has stomped on them, which is utterly ridiculous. They’ve hit them with a cease-and- decist order among other things and things aren’t looking good for a repeat for the Superbowl.

At any rate the Prytania hadn’t ever taken as much abuse as it got that night with stomping feet, screaming and running around. The Who Dats shook the walls.

And when they won? forget it.

At that point it was decided we should head down the the French Quarter and see what it was like. Not surprisingly, it was like this:

This place is going to be insane for the next two weeks. More insane, I mean. Come for a visit if you can- the real party’s gonna be here, not in Miami, and surely not in Indy.

(Okay, so Twelfth Night was a couple of weeks ago. I’m catching up now.)

The Phunny Phorty Phellows kick off Carnival season in style- with a streetcar ride, tossing beads as they go. I hadn’t gotten out to see them on their ride before, and was surprised that they don’t set a slow, maximizing sort of pace, but the typical “now you see us, now you don’t” streetcar speed.

There weren’t huge crowds for this one, but they always had people around because drivers on St. Charles Ave would see them, do a quick whip around, get ahead of the streetcar, park, and run over.

I have to say, they looked like they were having a hell of a good time: