I Feel Big

It sure has been a while; look at the date on that last post, holy mackerel that was a long time ago, I’ve lost so much money since then. Financial crisis aside, everything’s been pretty awesome since last I graced this URL. I had been leaning in and looking forward to the entire month of October since, let’s say, Labor Day, and it didn’t disappoint.

I started out the month working, staying at one of the nicer hotels in Texas but was working to hard to really enjoy it, I didn’t even know they had a pool until one of the last days I was there. The work I was ding was really cool and bigger than most people work on in their entire career. I was almost completely in charge of the whole operation which was insured for around $150M. It was bases loaded, bottom of the ninth stuff and if I hadn’t performed it would’ve been a catastrophe. At one point after being up for almost 20 hours my boss told me to go back to hotel to sleep. Not two hours later I got a panicked phone call asking me what to do. It’s nice to feel wanted, but at that point I just wanted to sleep.

After three weeks of 12-20 hour days with only two days off I was badly in need of a vacation. Fortunately I had already planned one. I flew up to North Carolina to visit my brother on a Saturday evening and was picked up by my brother and his bride-to-be and driven directly to the bar. This same sports bar my brother has been frequenting since it opened ten years ago is the same bar I worked at the summer after my sophomore year of college. There’s a lot of turnover, so not all the staff knows him by name, but I’m pretty sure all of the regulars do. Anyways, we watched some college football and if I’m not mistaking it was game 1 (maybe 2 I forget) of the Sox vs. Rays series. My brother’s friends trickled in as the beer and other assorted booze trickled into our bloodstreams. We went downtown to a club that was mostly lame and then went to a nearby Mexican restaurant which is awesome and even more so at two in the morning. After everyone had retrieved their cars from various places around town, and those that weren’t allowed to spend Sunday further poisoning themselves had been corralled, we went back to the bar (same one, you can walk there from my brother’s place.) Sunday Funday as it’s called started with a few rounds of beers, entertained by NFL’s finest galoots, and was rolling along rather smoothly until my brother ordered what was to be first of numerous rounds of Jaegerbombs. Though I doubt Jaegerbombs were what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they penned the Declaration of Independence, I’m sure that’s only because Redbull hadn’t been invented yet. Needless to say it’s a slippery slope when you’ve been drinking beer all day. Around the time the afternoon games ended, everything gets really fuzzy around the edges, but the other day when I was doing laundry I found a couple ATM slips for withdrawals that night at a place called “Raleigh Restaurant Concepts,” which I can assure you is not a restaurant, one at 10:30pm and one at 1:30am.

Monday we packed the cars and drove to the beach. We spent the next few days lounging in a huge mansion on one of North Carolina’s lesser known barrier islands, drinking beer, fishing, and jumping back and forth between the hot tub and the swimming pool. The hot tub was a steamy 104 F and the swimming pool was whatever temperature makes the mountains turn blue on the Coors Light bottle. Thursday we drove back to Raleigh to pick up the Tuxedos and for tailgating and to watch the first half of the NC State vs. Florida State slugfest, after which we went back to tailgating. I convinced two different people to hit my brother in the face with a pie. His retaliation was to peg me snowball style with a handful of mashed potatoes.

My one job for Friday was to get my brother, the groom, back to the beach in time for lunch with the grandparents and the wedding rehearsal. Lunch was fun, I sat with the bridesmaids, the brides aunt and uncle, and the other best man. I don’t think there were too many jokes made at our expense, as we had been up late the previous night celebrating a game no one knew who won. The rehersal itself was a breeze, the main topic of conversation being how much or how little everybody wanted to get to the party that would soon be taking place at the aforementioned mansion.

At the party, I was tapped to play bartender, which in retrospect was probably a bad choice. It was only after going through two handles of vodka that I noticed that it was 100 proof. In attendance was a good portion of my father’s side of the family, and two of my mother’s brothers. Additionally, there was a large assortment of my brother’s knucklehead friends, one I’ve known my whole life, and some of whom I met for the first time when I was like fourteen. For the actual wedding a few of his highschool buddies showed up, including one whom we went to my first Phish concert with Thanksgiving 1995, I was 12.

The wedding itself was perfect in every way, with the notable exception of the minister butchering our last name, but he’s not the first and once out of the like ten times he had to say it isn’t bad. My virtuosic cousins provided the ceremonies music and my mom sang a hymn that had so many amens at the end I wondered if it had ended and my mom was trying to delay the nuptials as long as she could. Both the ceremony and the reception were at the Aquarium, so after the kissing of the bride and recessionaling we made our way to the shark tank for pictures. Lighting the pictures in fornt of the shark tank turned out to be more difficult then the photogs had thought and it was quite a process to get everything taken care of, but we had people bringing us little delights like salami wrapped cream cheese, and mini Cuban sandwiches and cold Miller Lites and stuff like that. Dinner was equally delightful, with seared Ahi and the top your own mashed potato sundae bar being the star attractions.

After dinner it was time for the couples first dances, my brother and sister-in-law danced to the Aleisha Keys song about how it will only get better, the bride danced with her father to a slow country song about fathers and daughters, and my brother danced with my mom to Paul Simon’s American Tune and my eyes welled for maybe the third time of the evening.

Then came the much hyped toasts. I should’ve worked a little harder on mine. Had I put a little more effort into it, I would’ve noticed my plan involved an f-bomb, which f-bomb I will regret until I die. I also boneheadedly missed a perfect opportunity to score points with in-laws. The bride’s father and consequently a portion of the bride-side guests were Marines, and one of my standard toasts is to “our Brothers and Sisters overseas.” I’m an idiot, oh well, live and learn.

After the wedding it was back to reality for yours truly, but October was only part of the way done. I came back to New Orleans and one of my best friends was visiting, that weekend was Voodoo fest, where we saw Lil Wayne(!!!) and Mars Volta who if you’re not familiar is basically a Mexican Led Zepplin, and some others. The weekend after that was Halloween, which is going to require its own post. The next week, I voted for the first time and we elected the first non-white-male president in the 232 years of our United States. It’s been quite a ride.

The Only Political Post I'm Going to Write

I watched part of the McBama debate last night and I was once again struck by how little I liked either candidate. I was only 17 in 2000 so I can blame HangingChadGate and 9/11 and Iraq on everyone else, but in 2004 I was so distrustful of both candidates that I didn't vote. Now what with the economic downturn fully-fledged into an economic crisis, I wish I had voted for Kerry so I could legitimately complain at how bad W had fucked up this country. But that's not what I want to talk about...

I've been called a homophobe more times then I've been called good looking. I've been called misogynist more times than I've been called tall. Where am I going with this? As much as I don't trust Obama, I can't possibly vote for anyone in a party whose taken an official stance against abortions or gay marriages. In the preamble of the Declaration of Independence, the framers made clear the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Life's a tricky one when your talking about abortions especially late termers, but the liberty for a woman to choose is pretty clear, and if that child will hamper her pursuit of happiness, then that's 2 to a shaky 1. When it comes to gay marriages, I'm going to paraphrase Jon Stewart because I don't remember the exact quote: I'm against gay marriages, that's awful, oh wait, you mean I don't have to marry a dude? Then why would I care? If someone finds comfort in the arms of someone with matching genitalia, then that sounds like pursuit of happiness to me, to say nothing of liberty. We hold these truths to be self evident, unalienable rights, life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. I can't figure out why that's so hard to understand.

It all goes back to religion and religious extremists. As near as I can figure, the only people who really get fired up about pro-life and against gay marriage are the extreme Christians (I'm looking at you Southern Baptists)who spent a bunch of time looking through the bible trying to find something that they could interpret to mean that stuff that they don't agree with is immoral.

Anyone who lets their fear be mongered by Hannity or OReilly and the rest of the Fox News crew is an idiot. I don't care if you're a world famous economist, if you're a Grammy winning artist or a successful entrepreneur, if you watch more than 5 minutes of Fox News on a regular basis and do anything but laugh at it, you are a victim of brainwashing and I feel sorry for you.

Rant over, I do have one positive thing to say and that is it appears that both energy independence and sustainability have become priorities on both sides of the aisle. I occasionally get these chainemails from the Hannity types talking trash about Al Gore and how his scientists lied and all sorts of other bullshit about how people that can't afford our ridiculously priced healthcare system don't deserve it. But, it seems, saying that global warming isn't real has become political suicide, which is great.

Always Evacuate to a Place that has a Hot Tub

I try not to worry about things. Worrying only begets more worrying and the next thing you know you’re having a seizure and ruining your favorite t-shirt. The thing about worrying is, if something goes wrong it’s either your fault or it’s not. If it is your fault then maybe you should of done something about it instead of worrying, and if its not your fault, that what purpose did the worrying serve except to upset, stress, or cause you to throw up on other people.

In the middle of a ferocious hurricane season, it’s easy to tell the natural born worriers from those that aren’t. Surprisingly, it seems the ones who print out the latest spaghetti models and post them outside their office are actually the calmest. It’s the one’s who refuse to admit that they know what wunderground.com is, that are in the most danger of soiling themselves or elsewise acting irrationally.

When all the computer models are pointed at you though, I suppose you are allowed to freak out a little. Such is not the case with Ike (I like Ike, but how do you get that from Dwight?) The latest models all show Ike hitting around Corpus Christi, TX and the people of New Orleans will be spared another mass evacuation. Someone told me only 10,000 people didn’t evacuate for Gustav, the storm our Mayor, Governor, and National Weather Service called The Storm of the Century. Katrina gets to keep that title for now, and will probably keep it longer than C. Ray stays in office, but that’s neither here nor there.

We evacuated the Saturday before Gustav was supposed to make his late Monday/early Tuesday landfall. I packed 4 days of clothes, 3 books, the highly portable electronics (laptop, MP3), my guitar and cooler full of water, Gatorade and string cheese. I cleaned out anything that I didn’t want to find in my refrigerator an unrefrigerated month later, started the dishwasher and headed for higher ground. I-10 was a parking lot until we got past Gulf Shores, and between three people we smoked an entire pack of cigarettes before we passed Jazz Land. By 2 in the morning we were still shy of Tallahassee so we stopped for the night in a shabby Days Inn with no pool and a lying sign about free wireless internet.

We got up early, ate Burger King breakfast and hit the road with spirits considerably higher than they were when we had stopped the previous night. I wiled away several hours reading aloud a pretty awesome book called The Diamond Age by my second favorite author. Keep in mind at this point we were still visualizing disaster scenarios and wondering when we’d see home again. We hit Orlando and stretched our legs right to the TV to turn on CNN. I unpacked the booze and made a strong drink, and didn’t worry about the storm again until after a long day of drinking, after everyone else was in bed, I smoked my last cigarette and checked the models and saw them all headed straight for Cocodrie, 50 miles west of the city, downgraded to a category 1, and wondered what everyone had been so worried about.

HEARTBREAK!

Gold medal favorite in both the 100M hurdles and my heart, Lolo Jones clipped the second to last hurdle with her toe allowing the rapping Dawn Harper to assume the lead and take the gold for the US of A. Lolo crumpled to the ground after finishing 7th and punched the track while tears streamed down her face.

Phelpsed- v. To dominate completely

As of right now golden boy Michael Phelps has more medals than Poland, Kenya and Denmark, and more gold medals than Italy, Ukraine, and France.

Awesomest Thing I've Seen Today

Anybody need a butler?

I haven’t really written anything since Jazz Fest, but you haven’t either so go fuck yourself. And besides I didn’t finish writing those Jazz Fest posts until like three weeks afterwards so really it’s only been like a month, or two. Holy shit, that was like two months ago. It’s amazing how time flies when you have actual work to do. I’ve been working on this project for a little longer than two months now, which come to think of it is why it took me so long to get around to the Jazz Fest posts. When I was writing them one of my friends asked me how I could possibly remember all the stuff that happened. The answer is easy, I could write more about those four days three weeks later than I can about the last two months right now. Let’s see, I went to the beach and hung out with the fam, it was cloudy and cool one day but we got wasted anyway, Saturday was nice and we had an awesome dinner with shellfish appetizers and baked Salmon and garlic bread. My parents came to visit the dirty and found the heat oppressive. On my birthday I bought a white linen suit and wore it to a fancy French dinner and then we got drunk at the art museum where we did the cupid shuffle with Big Sam and his Funky Nation. Tha Carter III came out. We went up to my buddy’s family farm in east bumblefuck Louisiana. His little sister’s friend still creeps into the naughty part of my brain at weird times. My advice to them was: having a real job is waaaayyyy overrated. For the Fourth of July we had a kegger at the St Charles house and set off fireworks in the neutral ground, natch. The next day we ate left over ribs and watched concurrent terrible movies on USA and TNT all day. I got Guitar Hero and I’m ¾ of the way through it on expert, I’m pretty awesome. There’s a lot of other drunken random shit in between all that, but even if you pick out the four best days, it’d be hard difficult to beat the second weekend of Jazz Fest.

I guess my point though, would be how easy it is to fall into the rhythm of the day to day, I call it cruise control. It’s fucking draining though. Cruise control was a better term for it in college when you’d wake up one day after celebrating midterms and it would be finals time. Now it’s like everyday you have to do the routine, snooze alarm, breakfast, shower, teeth, drive, sit, coffee, etc. and then the next day you wake up and you’re forty? Fuck that man, without music, my favorite neurotoxins, or if I didn’t love my job I would’ve flipped a long time ago, not that long, I'm two weeks shy of my two year anni. They say the key is to get more sleep, which I’ve been on a campaign to do. But yeah, bitch fest over, real job = overrated.

Time has always been one of my favorite things to think about. Assuming I’m not insane, you’ve noticed that first time you drive somewhere far away it seems to take longer than the return or any subsequent trips. This has to do with my theory of relativity which borrows slightly from Einstein’s. It has to do with frame of reference, and it goes something like this: a ten year old and a twenty year old experience the same moment, say the moment right before a sail boat tips, when you know it’s going to but it hasn’t quite yet. That moment, however brief, will feel twice as long to the 10 year old because his frame of reference, or the collected sum of his experiences is half as long. Relatively speaking the fraction of his life up to then that he spends in that moment is twice that of the twenty year old (really it would be thrice because no one remembers being five.) On a larger scale, and to take it back to school, how much quicker did your senior year of high school feel then when you were a freshman? On an even larger scale and to bring it back to my rant, as we get old, each day feels shorter.

Once when I was a little kid I asked my mom what it meant to stop and smell the roses, this is a true story, I honestly did not get the point of that saying, she said, honest to god, she said, one day when you’re older you’ll understand.

aka Mr Lemonhead

Sticker Cars Part One

Presto

This is pretty sweet

In case you were wondering...

In case you were wondering how one gets the nickname Shorty...

Jazz Fest Part II

I've been lallygagging the shit out of writing this post but I started it this past weekend and I figured I'd get it out before it had gone the way of the AP Chemistry and European History.

I left off Friday night dancing to four nerdy white guys at the Bon Temps until sunrise...

Saturday I chose not to go to the festival, missing the Roots and Steel Pulse, a sacrifice I was willing to make in order to save up (and by save up I mean sleep until 5pm) for the big Saturday night -> Sunday push. I drank a few beers watching Under Siege waiting for those who made it to the fest to return. We then went to one of my favorite New Orleans eateries, Dick & Jenny's, and got in line for a table at around 8 o'clock. We then went around the corner and I had a few Gin and Tonics. When we finally got our table around 11:30pm, I was a little drunk, to say nothing of the rest of that party who had drinking steadily since noon. The food was obviously out of this world and dinner was otherwise fairly unremarkable, except for the part where we got free dessert for leading the dining room in a Journey sing along. It is fair to say I didn't stop believing how good my tempura soft shell crab in Thai curry sauce was.

From Dick & Jenny's we walked our full bellies to an even fuller Mae's where the majority of our party cabbed it home to cuddle/pass out. I however had tickets to the Greyboy Allstars back up the street at Tips. The Greyboys always play the last Saturday night of the Fest at Tips and they never start before 3am and it's always sold out. This year, having never been, I bought tickets a month ahead of time. Denson and Walter and the rest of the boy's funked us until about 6:30am at which point I collapsed into bed for a couple of hours and went back out to the fest.

On feet too numb to be sore we made the long walk to the fest for the last time of the year. Liuzza's is closed Sundays so there were no Bushwhackers to be had. In a daze I ate my last Cochon De Lait poboy of the fest and arrived at the Gentilly stage just in time to see Galactic and get the Inspector Gadget song stuck in my head the rest of the day. I ran into an old college classmate who was in town for the weekend and I was regretting not having seen up to that point. I used to do homework at this girl's house and then we'd sit around on the porch and drink beers afterwards. I probably did less than 25% of the homework that was assigned to me throughout my college career, and I'm positive I would've blown off those assignments as well if it wasn't for her. After Galactic we stayed to watch the Raconteurs who played a decent if commercially successful set. It was nice though, to see a rock show in between so much jazz/funk/blues/latin fusion. From there I circled back around the back of the main stage to at least be able to say I saw Santana, a move I immediately regretted when as soon as we cleared a sight line to the stage he promptly started playing my least favorite song of all time, by anyone, evar (Smooth, fucking hate that fucking song.) So anyways we picked up the pace and continued the circle around to the Blues Tent to close out the fest with the Derek Trucks Band.

It would be the third time I'd seen the Derek Trucks Band and I'm a huge fan (obviously huge enough to completely forgo the highly touted Neville Bros. closing the festival on the big stage.) We rolled up right as Keb Mo was finishing up and the aisles of the Blues Tent cleared out like the people could smell us walking in. We posted up front and center leaning on the railing that was in front of the stage. I patted myself on the back for the good luck and began worrying if there would be enough crowd soon enough that I could pee my pants without anyone noticing because there was no way I was leaving that spot. Five excruciating minutes later an usher told us that in the blues tent there is no standing room except at the very back. I jogged to a portapotty line that wasn't 8 deep and got some decent Zen considering the circumstances. After returning to th bak of the blues tent where luckily my krewe had staked out a pretty good spot in the merciful shade and saw what was probably one of the awesomest slide guitar performances in my life. Also, Derek has an sweet jazzflute player who I can't help but idolize. Derek's wife, Susan Tedeschi who's made a career out of opening for acts like B.B. King, Bob Dylan and Taj Mahal, also joined him on stage for a few songs which was nice as she can sing worlds better than he can. They finished up their set and went offstage and the MC appeared to try to tell the crowd to go home which enough did to allow us to move up fairly close to the stage to pound our hands together and scream for what seemed like 20 minutes before they came back on stage and tore off the best version of one of my top five favorite songs of all time I've ever heard.

Jazz Fest is the Best

So that was the friday before this past, the only day I made it out to the fairgrounds that weekend. I'll regret for a while missing Billy Joel, and may regret missing Al Green for the rest of my life. If you'd seen that doppler radar picture though... you'd probably've stayed home too.

I did my best to make up for it this past weekend, and the photos are yet to go up on the official Jazz Fest website, but I'll talk you through one of the longer weekends of my short life.

Thursday I got up early and went to work as if it were any other day, except everyone was surprised to see me as I had made clear my intention to go to the Fest. I put out a couple of fires and then went back home to change out of my work clothes and get into the spirit of things. I drove to my friends' house which we use as Jazz Fest home base, and met my friend and two of her bff's from from out of town. I drank a Maker's on the rocks and listened to Sneaking Sally through the Alley inordinately loud while they got themselves ready. The walk to the Fest from the house googlemaps at 1.7mi, and is way worse on the way home. Along the way however, is a famous bar/restaurant (that may be the first time I've ever spelled restaurant correctly on my first try) called Liuzza's that serves a milkshake-like daiquiri called a bushwhacker that makes the walk tolerable. From Liuzza's we walked along bayou St John to the aptly named Idealmart to buy plastic pocket-sized bottles of alcohol (for smuggling) and other supplies. We (my friend and her two bff's whom she only apologized for like 27 times) then walked along the bayou to the Fest. We made it in time to see the last two Bonerama songs and say hi to some hippies before heading over to the Gentilly stage for Kermit Ruffins. Kermit was obviously stoned and played two too many slow songs but made up for it with his charisma, his musicianship and medley of Top-20 club bangers that his drummer sang and pretty much killed. I'm pretty sure that from there we went straight to the Acura stage and got settled in for good 2.5 hour Widespread Panic set that was broken up by a short Mardi Gras Indians set at about the 1:05 mark. The last time I saw Widespread was probably more than five years ago but I've always been a fan. Their new guitar player (who at least 3 people told me was the greatest guitar player ever) is quite good and I salute his eschewing of the PRS he was playing on some of the songs I didn't recognize for a good old fashion American Strat on the songs I did. By the time the show was over and my love for Widespread was thoroughly rekindled, I was pretty drunk and approaching exhaustion. We walked the almost two miles back to the house where I may or may not've collapsed on the couch. We did however go to a nearby noodlehouse where I set my mouth on fire with rooster sauce and drank a mai tai and don't really remember what I ate. My friends graciously put me in a cab before they headed downtown to my favorite bar to see Rebirth, I think. My destination however, was Tipitina's where I had reserved tickets to see my mandolin mancrush, Sam Bush. If you've never been to a Sam Bush concert, alone, exhausted, and completely shitfaced I'd have to recommend it. He played one of my favorite John Hartford songs called the Good Ole' Days (that my dad informs me he recorded with John Hartford), and then just to fuck with my head jammed it into Whole Lotta Love (which sounds surprisingly awesome when played on the mando.) He then went off stage and came back with Up on Cripple Creek for an encore, that asshole. So I'm falling down drunk, completely alone walking out of Tips, I do what any sane human would do in that situation; I walk to Mae's. Unfortunately, on the walk, I stubbed my toe on one of NOLA's more awesome sidewalks and because my foot and sandal are covered with blood am not allowed into Mae's. I made a few calls and jumped in a cab and rolled over to my buddies' house and administered some first aid We then went to the Maple Leaf and saw some allstar-type funk band including Bonerama's awesome-jawed drummer, Zigaboo's Afro'd guitar player, and the guy who I always see playing the sax at Dos Jefe's. According to my friends I fell asleep at the bar, which I felt bad about until someone told me it happened around 6:00am (or 23.5 hours after I had woken up.)

Friday I woke up around noon and took the truck over to my buddies' house and picked him up and his out of town crew. We rolled over to my friends' house and we did the walk again, including the stop at Liuzza's. Saw Zigaboo and his crew funk it up for a little while and then Trombone Shorty blew my mind. Shorty (and his saxophonist who, were I a chick I would definitely bone) put on what was a definitely a sleeper pick for best show of the weekend. After Shorty we got food, beer, and bathroomed and then got set up to see Stevie Wonder, who spent ten minutes talking about politics in a voice too low to hear and then played three excruciatingly slow songs so we cruised over to Congo Square to see Franti & Spearhead which was awesome. I've become a big fan of Franti since the first time I saw him live, prior to which I had an argument with a dude a saw at the show about how much I disliked his preachy attitude. That was back when Stay Human was the only Franti I had heard and I'm still not sure I'm anti-death penalty. Yell Fire though has some great songs on it, and I'm definitely anti-war so I'm not, for lack of a better word, distracted by the politics in his music. Anyway dude didn't bring up the fact that I once had one of those recordstopscreech moments at his house party when I said I didn't like Franti, which I appreciate because I'm embarassed about it in retrospect. If you've never seen Franti though he is an electrifying presence who stands about 7 feet tall and dances around and speaks from the heart and his band rocks. Every now and then it would start raining and he would come down into the crowd and dance around. Soaked to the core we walked back to my friend's house and I hadn't really been drinking so I drove everybody home and then we met up at one of my favorite bars, Le Bon Temps Roule, and saw Simon Lott and Anders Osborne. Simon Lott is the drummer that the guys from Galactic would rather play with because Stanton Moore is a douche and Simon Lott is a way better drummer. Bills must be paid though so Galactic with Stanton Moore still exists. A few more friends showed up and I noticed at one point that like twelve people that I truly care about were at this one bar and the good times were indeed rolling.

That was Friday. More to come.

Forever New Orleans

I’m going to drop my usual irreverent tone for a minute and talk about something I really care about.

The first summer I spent in New Orleans, there were five of us. Me and my four friends saw a lot of each other that summer, dining together almost every night and rarely separated on weekends. Of the five of us I am the only one still living in the New Orleans.
Some people are drawn to the west coast; some say it's ingrained in our nature to go west. Some people are drawn to New York; they say one out every three Americans is related to someone who lives in Brooklyn. Others, understandably, leave the country. Inexplicably, some set up shop in the Midwest. While people do come back, most don't.
I'd say of the five people I hang out with most, I'd say I'd be lucky if four of them still live here in a year and three of them in two years. Outside of that, I can count at least four others off the top of my head that are leaving in the next year and two more that as far as I can tell have no intention of staying in New Orleans for the long run. I can’t begin to tell you how sad this makes me. I can't see myself living anywhere else; New Orleans is a part of who I am. I’ve lived here long enough that it’s all I really know; it’s all I really care to know.

As I see it there are two legitimate reasons to leave excluding bankruptcy and other family emergencies and other life shattering events. If you happen to want a career in an industry that doesn’t really exist in New Orleans such as architecture, manufacturing, politics, engineering, finance … I really can’t think of anything we don’t have down here, and if there’s something missing than start your own business in this niche market and your all set (I’m looking at you Burrito Delivery guy.) So I guess there’s only one reason to leave that I’m ok with, and that is Master’s/Doc’s at really, really good schools. If you want to get an advanced degree, it’s my belief that you should do so from a top 10 school, otherwise your better off working and gaining experience in whatever you’d be “learning” at school. If you want to move to Boston to get your Ph.D. at MIT or at UT Austin, or U Cal Berkeley, rock the fuck on and best of luck to you, if you want to move to Baltimore and go to med school at Johns Hopkins, I’ll give you a ride. But if you want to get a masters in Engineering and you don’t get in to Ga Tech, UTA, or A&M, just go to UNO at night after work, you’ll be a much better person for it than if you spent all your free time teaching or lab ratting it up at BU or Vanderbilt (both of which have excellent top 50 engineering schools that I’m using to make a point, not berate, which only reminds me how off topic I’ve gotten.)

As a young urban professional in New Orleans I have no shortage of resources except my friends. I have a long history of forgetting and eventually losing friends I do not see on a regular basis. Some blame it on my short attention span, some call it “out of sight out of mind,” some call me a huge asshole. My point is only that every time someone leaves New Orleans it’s one less reason fro me to stay, and I don’t want to go; I love it here. I have a career here. I can see myself raising a family here, assuming I get around to that. I live here, New Orleans is my home.

A college friend sent me this video recently looking for some free pub:


If you’re not Youtube capable, it’s a promotional video from the visitor’s bureau featuring Kermit Ruffins (co-founded Rebirth in 1983 and is probably the most energetic and charismatic trumpet player working in New Orleans) singing about New Orleans while the video highlights various attractions including a trip through the Jacque-Imo’s kitchen, pounds from a server at Camellia, and various other restaurants and attractions from around town.

I agreed to shill the video for two reasons, (and I promise I’ll keep both of these this time) I support the video’s message, which is: you’ve been to the zoo, you’ve been to Columns, you had a great time, come back. The other reason is that I’ve been meaning to write this piece about people leaving for some time, and a little motivation goes a long way.

So, next time you get the chance, come to New Orleans, I’ll be here, you’ll have a great time, I promise.

Of course that is all assuming that Al Gore doesn't drown us all in the meantime.

Facebook's Lexicon

Facebook's Lexicon program counts the occurence of words written on walls and if used properly is full of interesting information.


Gen-Y LOVES Obama.
This one's funny and can be interpreted thusly: the regular cycle is weekly, the first peak is Holloween, with lots of parties and only a slight rise in hangovers, while the second peak is New Years with about as many parties, and a huge spike in hangovers.
This one shows what Gen-Y really cares about, the spike in beer is St Paddy's.

Discussing the Merits of Terrible Movies

You may notice the poll to the right has changed to something a little more relevant to today’s topic of discussion. I chose “No” but in the interest of full disclosure must admit to having seen Broken Arrow somewhere on the order of ten times, maybe even fifteen.

For those unfamiliar with the film, allow be to briefly synopsize (or you could just watch this video and get dared by me not to laugh). Two Air Force pilots are out on a training mission in a new top secret bomber over Utah. They are carrying nuclear tipped missiles for whatever reason. One of the pilots (Travolta), in turns out, is in cahoots with some terrorists and he steals the missiles, crashes the plane, and thinks he’s killed the other pilot (Slater) but hasn’t, and he (Slater) tracks him down and saves the day, with the help of a comely park ranger (Samantha Mathis, whose name sounds more familiar (oh, not Samantha Morton) than it should considering her only other role of note is as the voice of Crysta the fairy in Fern Gully the Last Rainforest, although to be fair she did play princess Daisy in the Super Mario Bros. movie alongside Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, and Dennis Hopper, lol.) Rounding out the supporting cast is some allstar talent: Delroy Lindo (who I was suprisingly unable to find a picture of wearing COOGI, but this will go), Bob Gunton (“I believe in two things: discipline and the Bible. Here you'll receive both. Put your trust in the Lord; your ass belongs to me. Welcome to Shawshank.”), Frank Whaley (says what again, gets shot), Howie Long (Son Chris Long will be a top 5 pick in next week’s NFL draft, thanks HGH), Vondie Curtis-Hall (Plays “Captain Prince” in Baz Luhrman’s Romeo+Juliet), Shaun Toub (plays the shop owner who shoots the little girl in Crash), Daniel Von Bargen (Got caught fucking his cousin in ’72), James MacDonald (if you haven’t seen Tigerland, you should), French Stewart (Spokesman for Clamato, presumably because they’re both weird and slightly nauseating?) and Kurtwood Smith (Red Foreman).

So in the course of arguing whether Broken Arrow is a good movie or not, I kept trying (and daring others) to come up with a good quote from the movie. Despite my certainty that a movie starring John Travolta and Christian Slater would have some awesome one-liners, and other’s certainty that they could think of one, no one was able to come up with so much as a character name. (This including a friend who can name like 15 actors from the movie Heat off the top of his head, not that that’s hard, Pacino, De Niro, Kilmer, Judd, Brenneman, Portman, Azaria, Voight, Sizemore, Trejo, Fitchner, Tone Loc, the President from 24, how many is that?) However, in case you’re like me and crave quotes from terrible movies:

Slater: You know - these exercises are fantastic. When the day comes we have to go to war against Utah, we're really going to kick ass, y'know?


Travolta: I do appreciate the money that you and your associates have invested in this operation, but it IS an operation. It's a military operation. And you don't know dick about that.


Travolta: Battle is a highly fluid situation. You plan on your contingencies, and I have. You keep your initiatives, and I will. One thing you don't do is share command. It's never a good idea.


Slater: You're out of your mind.
Travolta: Yeah. Ain't it cool?


Brett from Pulp Fiction: I don't know what's scarier, losing a nuclear weapon or that it happens so often there's actually a term for it.


Mathis: Clyde, what exactly does a suspicious truck look like?


Slater: Endangered dirt. That's a new one.


Travolta: Would you mind not shooting at the thermonuclear weapons?


Gunton: It's still my money.
Travolta: And if we succeed, you and your associates will get a ton of it.
Gunton: *IF* we're successful?
Travolta: Look, Mr. Pritchett, I will deliver the weapons to the destination. But I can't depend and I can't guarantee that those assholes in Washington won't do something stupid like... not pay.
Gunton: What if they don't?
Travolta: Well, if they don't, the southwest will be a quiet neighbourhood for... about ten thousand years.


Guy from Crash: You probably thought I was a computer nerd, didn't ya? Ha-ha-ha, wrong! I was a Navy SEAL, lady. You really should see what I can do... with just my thumb.


Travolta: You know, Hale, I considered asking you to come in on this. Know why I didn't?
Slater: Because I would have said "no"?
Travolta: Nah, if you had said no, I'd have just killed you. I was afraid you were going to say yes. Because you don't have the balls to go through with something like this, we both know that.


[last lines]
Mathis: You know you're still under arrest, Captain.
Slater: [holding Terry's hand] Well, looks like you're gonna have to take me in.

Jail Bait Likely Headed to Jail, SWIS, Crazy Chirren

Six teenage girls (all technically minors) are in custody and may be tried as adults with felonies battery and kidnapping. The girls allegedly lured a fellow cheerleader who had been talking some e-trash on MySpace and took turns punching her in the face. The victim was left with two black eyes and loss of hearing in one ear. One of the future crack whores video taped the whole thing and put it on the internet expediting their trip up shit creek. The girls were rumored to be joking while in their jail cell that they wouldn't be making it to cheerleading practice.

Now before you watch the video, see if you can guess where these little darlings are from. Could it be Texas, the land of the Cheerleader? Could it be Los Angeles the land of the privileged crazy bitch? Or is it Florida, the land of white trash and eight year old kids on a bicycles with a guns?



Update: According to the news this morning there is a significant amount of this tape that has not been seen by the public. Prior to the part shown above there is allegedly a scene where the girl's head is slammed against a wall and she is knocked unconscious.

Not too long ago we had the tale of the girl who commit suicide because of MySpace trash talking. A co-worker of mine mentioned the other day that he checked his 14 year old's MySpace routinely for any sort of funny business. When I was 14 I had about three different email addresses, (none of which were accessible by my parents) supplying myself with various degrees of anonymity, two different AIM accounts, a rudimentary web page that was nothing more than downloading station for a live Moe. show and pictures of some models I had crushes on (Kate Moss, Tyra Banks lol!) I knew one kid who had a video camera, we used it a few of times to try and spy on each other hooking up with girls, which worked exactly 1 time. My high school had a social networking program called SWIS that was kind of like an intra-net based facebook with IM. Back then it was about as addictive as facebook mixed with crack. There were a few ways to fuck with people, chat invite bombing, logging in as someone else and doing stuff they wouldn't do (sorry Alyssa), other mostly harmless stuff, but the penalty for getting caught doing anything more than slightly innocuous was fairly steep and so most pranks were kept pretty tame.

There's an awesome facebook group called "Overheard at Tulane" where people post things they've heard around or nearby campus. The comments range from hilariously ridiculous statements about sex or drugs, to things that are beyond hilariously moronic. The more they are taken out of context the better. I bring this up because the kids who are writing on this board are not significantly older than these girls in sunny FLA. I however, can remember things that happened to me in 1990, the year that most of this year's high school seniors were born. Which is a round-about way of saying that I'm old and as such can say:
WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH KIDS TODAY?

You Do NOT Fuck With This Dude's Elephants

Tony Jaa from the movie The Protector:



This continuous shot took like 5 takes, and the first one they had to stop like 2/3rds of the way through because the guy carrying the steadycam couldn't keep up.

And this is the scene where he gets really pissed and just starts breaking shit:

Fazz Jest

The Jazz Fest block schedules are up and I'm more excited than a pedophile at a swim meet. Let's make a preliminary plan:

(First) Friday April 25th – There’s always two bands you want to see playing at the same time, and that trend continues with Leo Nocentelli’s super group at Congo Square competing with Robert Plant & Allison Krauss on the Acura stage. A dilemma to be sure, followed closely by Burning Spear on the Congo Square stage with Ozomatli w/ Chali 2na on the lawn over at the Gentilly Stage. Late Night: Dumpstafunk at Howlin’ Wolf

(First) Saturday April 26th – Piano day: Jon Cleary > Dr. John > Billy Joel, all at Acura Stage, get a spot and post up. Late Night: Bonerama at the Maple Leaf

(First) Sunday April 27th – This is going to involve some leg work, but I think I can get from Irma Thomas at the Acura stage all the way over the Fais Do Do for some Del McCoury roots music, swing by the Gentilly Stage for some Allen Toussaint and Elvis Costello, all the way back to the Acura to catch maybe five minutes of Tim McGraw for research purposes, then settle in for the duration at Congo Square with Al Mother Fucking Green. School Night.

Wednesday April 30th – Soulive at One Eyed Jacks.

Thursday May 1st – Widespread on the Acura stage, preceded by PBS and Bonerama, probably another get there and post up day. Late Night: Sam Bush and Trombone Shorty at Tips or maybe Rebirth and Page McConnell at some place called the Sugar Mill.

(Second) Friday May 2nd – Another competeing problem with Stevie Wonder on the Acura stage and Franti at Congo Square. On the surface this is a no-brainer but I’ve seen Franti outdoors and in, and the former is way better. But when am I ever goiong to get the chance to Stevie Wonder again? Probably never. Late Night: Soul Rebels at the Balcony Club or possibly Gov’t Mule at the CAC.

(Second) Saturday May 3rd – I’ve never been a huge Jimmy Buffet fan, so I can skip him and choose between Diana Krall on the lawn, Steel Pulse at Congo Square, Irvin Mayfield in the Jazz tent or (most likely) Kenny Wayne Shepard in the Jazz Tent. Late Night: Franti and Greyboy Allstars at Tips.

(Second) Sunday May 4th – More competition, but as much as I would like to see the Raconteurs (as much as I make fun of him, Jack White is as incredible musician) I think Santana is going to have to take precedence, then Derek Trucks at the Blues tent for a little while before rolling back to Acura for the Neville Brothers. Late Night: collapse in total exhaustion.

More Saints Rumors

I've been kinda busy/lazy of late but here's a few Pro Football Talk rumors that have me salivating but are probably never gonna happen.

1) Pac Man Jones- The subject of many a joke, Tennessee Corner Back Adam Pacman Jones (Pacman because he gobbles up balls, I guess) sat out the 2007 season for off the field issues involving strippers, a paralyzed bouncer, and Nelly. He was scheduled at one point to make an appearence as a professional wrestler, but the Titans decided that would be breach of contract. Although a bulk of the rumors have him going to the Cowboys, Pacman is an elite corner, of which the Saints are in dire need. He also proved himself as an elite kick returner, which Reggie Bush has not. As far as I can tell his only downside is that he's young, rich and loves strippers, which when you think about it, makes him a pretty likable guy. Getting Pacman for a conditional second round draft pick would be a steal.



2) Jeremy Shockey- Former UMiami standout TE and current broken legged Giant Jeremy Shockey is supposedly on the market, and is one of the top ten athletes in the league at his position. For those not familiar with the way the end of last season played out, you may be interested to know why the Giants would be so interested in getting rid of such a player. The answer is, as soon as Shockey broke his leg the team started playing better and went on to win the Super Bowl. Shockey is a brat who whines if he doesn't get his looks, and has a tendency to cause unrest amongst the troops. Supposedly, the Giants want too much in return for Shockey which doesn't seem hard to me because I wouldn't trade my third string left tackle for him.

Overheard Quote of the Century

"Am I old or something? Isn't it... taboo/or whatever to wear the shirt of the band who's show you're at? Have these... children ever seen PCU?

diePhone and the Fuzz

As much as it pains me to say it, the iPhone sucks. I was an early iPhone adopter, with an excuse. At the time the iPhone came out I was living with a Cell Phone and an MP3 player that had broken screens, but I had been using them both for long enough when their screens broke, that they were still fairly useful (assuming the person I was sending a text message to knew that I had no screen and therefore was relying solely on T9 to get the right word.) My other excuse was that the day the iPhone went on sale, I was 8 days deep into a construction support stint in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico with no better way to pass the down time than watching bootleg movies and reading blogs and waiting for the iPhone sales countdown timer, and nothing to spend money on except poker losses. A few weeks later when it arrived, I stayed up all night playing with it, and had to take the next morning off.

The first thing that went wrong with the iPhone started happening after I’d had it about a month. While browsing the internet or whatever, it would just boot you back to the home screen, but that seemed to stop after the first firmware update. Also for some reason they messed up the headphone jack so sometimes when you pulled the headphone plug out, it wouldn’t realize and the regular phone speaker would appear to be dead when in call mode. Then after a few more months it would occasionally lock up and it would need to be rebooted. This was when my enthusiasm for the iPhone started to wane. Crashing is a perfectly acceptable and normal phenomenon for any computer, but when you take your phone out of your pocket and are in dire need of making a call, your phone needs to make the call and having to restart your phone is simply unacceptable. Apple then updated the firmware again which not only seemed to solve that problem (except in one bar where it would always crash.) They also added a few new features which in retrospect should have been there from the get go (multiple recipient text messages? That’s fucking genius! Being able to move the buttons on the home screen? Take that Blackberry!) I thought that the new updates were cool for about a week or so until I noticed that there was about a half inch strip at the top of the screen that no longer responded to touch. Now, to be fair, I must say that the deadening of the screen happened somewhere in the two weeks before Mardi Gras, and it’s a chore to keep your phone for those two weeks to say nothing of keeping it out of harms way. Regardless, I was able to go online and find others who reported not only the same problem but even the same area of the touch screen.

At this point I called customer service and they were very helpful and sent me a box to return the phone in so they could check it out. They returned it unfixed because of a faint dimple where the case I use has a metal snap. I pleaded my case to customer service stating that the dent was the result of normal use and not a drop nor had the phone been misused, and was told to take pictures of the case and phone and they’d think about it. I put off doing so because I’m kind of a lazy person and I had figured out how to squeeze the most out of the phone without that top say 25% of the screen.

Yesterday I woke up and attempted to make a call only to find that where the phone normally says how many service bars it was registering none. Worried that I may have forgotten to pay my cell phone bill, I popped out the SIM card and put it into my old phone (the one with the broken screen that my iPhone-spoiled fingers can no longer type blind text messages on) which worked fine allowing to make calls from the very same location that the iPhone reported no service.

I promptly took the pictures that the customer service guy requested and am currently getting all the venom out so I can send them to him with an accompanying email that is as polite as possible.

In an unrelated story, I locked myself out of my apartment the other day and had to break in by busting a window and unlocking it, then crawling through. At some point in the process, unfortunately, someone called the cops on me. Maybe it was the guy who walked by me, to whom I commented: “You know, it turns out these apartments are wicked hard to break into.” Or, maybe it was someone else. Anyways, the cops rolled up three deep as I was sweeping up the broken glass, and asked only to briefly see my ID. I’m almost positive that if I had been doing anything other than sweeping glass when they showed up they would have run my ID through the computer, the results of which would be interesting to me and possibly them. Yesterday I saw a black seventeen year-old who got sent through the computer and then (illegally) searched for no reason in the middle of Canal St. In a few months he's naming his first daughter Justice. I hope he keeps his optimism almost as much as I hope Justice lives in a better world than he does, but I doubt both very much.

Saints Update

So over the weekend the Vilma trade was finalized for a conditional 3rd/4th rounder in '09. Conditional meaning that if he reaches certain (undisclosed) performance benchmarks, the Jets get the 3rd round pick but if he doesn't they get the 4th.

Also signed was Patriot's corner Asante Samuel Randall Gay. Any day now NFL.com will take "Gay" off the list of things you aren't allowed to get on the back of a customized Saints jersey. Saint's GM Mickey Loomis: "Randall is a player we targeted early on in this free-agent market, and we're extremely pleased to have him on board." Which I'm pretty sure is exactly the same as what he said about Jason David this time a year ago.

The Saint's re-signed Aaron Stecker, who will back up the dynamic but injury prone duo of Deuce McAllister and Reggie Bush. This is a good move, as most teams would be lucky to have Stecker as a 2nd string HB. Add in sophomore Pierre Thomas and stud fullback Mike Karney and you have a backfield capable of 2000/1000 yards rushing/recieving.

Another big time signing is Bobby McCray now formerly a Jaguar. McCray is one of what I like to call "Florida Freaks." Florida Freaks go to different ACC and SEC schools in Florida and elsewhere, sometimes you see them on Big 12 or Pac 10 teams, but they're generally around 6'-6" and 260lbs and can do standing backflips. Jevon Kearse is the prototype Florida Freak, at 6'-4" 265lbs, the story goes he went in to Titans training camp and they wanted to test his vertical leap, they told him to jump up and reach as high as he could on the measuring stick, and he replied "You sure?" Kearse then put his hand through the ceiling.

Saints News

John Clayton at ESPN's reporting that the Saints are in the final negotiations for a trade that will bring John Vilma to New Orleans. John Vilma is 25 years old, won the Defensive Rookie of the Year Award in '04 and is one of maybe five elite middle linebackers born in the 1980's, that is to say, way better than Mark Simoneaux.

Profootballtalk.com, a notoriously inaccurate rumor mill also suggested that the Saints were on the top of the list to get Asante Samuel's services at corner. Asante Samuel is one of only two people ever to return two pick-sixes in a given year's palyoffs. This morning's reports however say Asante's first stop will be Philly, who are rumored to be trading their shutdown corner, Lito Sheppard.

I on the other hand am hoping the Saints take a chance on Pacman Jones, who before he got suspended for an entire year for an incident involving strippers, money-rain, a now paralyzed bouncer, and Nelly, was widely considered the best young corner (and return man) in the game. Some people might say that New Orleans would be a bad environment for Pacman, whereas I say he'd fit right in.

As happy as I am to hear that the Saints could get Vilma, their most pressing issue is obviously the dust-eating, consistently burnt Jason David. I'm pretty sure I could beat Jason David deep and I haven't ran since that time the cops saw me getting a blowjob from Jason David.

xkcd.com

CP3

This fellow is Chris Paul, aka CP3:

CP3 put up 25pts and dished 15 assists(!) in tonight's Hornets win over the Suns of Phoenix 120-103.

Someone suggested to me today that CP3 was a homosexual (not that there's anyhting wrong with that.) This picture neither supports nor does it detract from that theory.

Chris Paul can have sex with whoever he wants, and I'll keep saying CP3 for MVP.

Are you ready for Da Carter III?

Because I sure am.

Say Hello to the Right Arm of the Free World

From Wikipedia:

The Fusil Automatique Léger (Light Automatic Rifle) or FAL is a 7.62x51 NATO self-loading, selective fire rifle produced by the Belgian armaments manufacturer Fabrique Nationale de Herstal (FN) during the Cold War, and adopted by many North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries. It has also been adopted by many other nations for their armies as well as being a popular civilian rifle. The FN FAL was also produced under license in many of the adopting countries. Also because of its prevalence and widespread use among the armed forces of many Western and other non-Communist countries during the Cold War, it was nicknamed "the right arm of the Free World".

I mean, Hidalgo?

So, I'm not sure who died and made Viggo Mortensen the go-to bad ass, but when Cronenberg shows me someone's penis, I usually investigate. Cronenberg was of course the director who brought us the first Crash, that is to say the one where they get turned on by car wrecks, not the one where Thandie Newton gets in a car wreck only to be saved by the same cop who had molseted her while, at the same time, her husband is saving Ludacris from a life of crime. I don't recall if we get shown David Spader's penis in that movie, but if you can find someone who would describe David Spader as a bad ass, I'll show you someone who LOVES quiche. Cronenberg's two most recent films are of course, A History of Violence, which of course was sweet, and Eastern Promises which I just finished watching (on a now defunct technological format I might add, there are people who still rent VHS tapes and my HD DVD player is gone the way of Beta? Fuck That. Actually I'm ok with it I was planning on buying a PS3 anyway, and I just got like 10 HD DVDs for like $10 a piece so I guess I'm not really complaining.)

The oldest movie I can remember seeing Viggo in was Carlito's Way, where he turns in a small but convincing roll as a wellchair-bound convict out of jail to get dirt on Carlito. Then of course is his his role as WEAPS, the unsung hero of Crimson Tide, which come to think of it, is in a lot of ways, Enemy of the State but in a submarine (both are Tony Scott's and star Gene Hackman opposite a big budget black actor, other than that it's just a joke.) Then, a few projects later he was in G.I. Jane where I think he was the bad guy, but I couldn't say for sure, I only saw it once and I'm assuming because I don't think there were really any good guys; whatever.

From SEAL to Ranger (you like that?) Mortensen's next big role was Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings. Unrelatedly, the Tolkein family is still waiting for their roalty checks, true story. Peter Jackson just got paid for that shit like yesterday.

I guess, doing the Rings caught the attention of Cronenberg because I highly doubt he saw Hidalgo and was like: "Yes! This is exaclty who I'm looking for to realize the Bad Assness missing from these two awesome projects I'm developing."

Setting the Record Straight

Some people out there may be wondering if I did a jaegerbomb with Dirk Nowitzki. Other people are questioning whether I even saw Dirk Nowitzki. What follows is the truth in as much detail as I can remember.

Typically when I get out of work on Friday, all I want to do is party. This past Friday I had big dreams of going down to the casino and playing poker on Friday, and hopefully, finding some schmuck in town for the NBA All Star weekend who wanted to give me all his money. Instead however, I received nothing but massive threats as to how long it would take me to get downtown, so I went to Cooter Brown’s to see one of my favorite bartenders, Laurie. Laurie was her usual self, effervescent, effusive, and making drinks that were strong enough to peel paint that still tasted delicious. After one double cocktail I was no longer good at pool, after two I was no longer good at standing. Laurie’s shift ended and she came and shot the shit with us and we had some dinner and a few more (considerably less strong) drinks.

After we had enough of Kevin Durant’s shoes on the big HDs we rolled to my buddy’s house and he showed us his haunted attic. We then went to one of the swankier uptown bars and drank expensive Irish whiskey until after the jazz band stopped playing and it became clear that the waitress I had a crush on wanted nothing to do with me.

We rolled out and met up with some friends at the Kingpin. Now, for those of you who have never been to the Kingpin allow me to describe it for you. The Kingpin is a little dive bar hidden away uptown and not really near any sort of legit streets. It’s the kind of place where a member of the biggest pop band from New Orleans (Better than Ezra) sits next to the biggest drunk in NOLA (yours truly) but is left alone because I’m talking to my friends who are: 2 law students, 1 med student, an English professor and her Architect boyfriend. They also have shuffle board and Ms. Pacman, both of which are more fun than cracking “it’s been good _(verb)_ing with you uh-huh” jokes.

After a while, my ride home was leaving but I was having a little trouble finding my hat. I did a circle of the bar trying to find my hat. I had just given up when who do I see has taken a seat at the end of the bar but Dirk Nowitzki, the reigning NBA MVP. Now, it’s not easy to lose a hat in a bar the size of a Quizno's (it is however impossible to miss a seven-footer) so I’m not 100% sure that this is the way it went down, but I’m pretty sure it went something like this:

Crazy Drunk American: Oh hey Dirk, do you have my hat?

Seven Foot Tall German: Huh?

Crazy Drunk American: (laughing) Nothing man, enjoy yourself. (Walks out the door)

I then called half a dozen people and told them that I’d just done a Jaegerbomb with Dirk Nowitzki.

Hooray!!!

Because this is my blog's 100th post I'm going to make it an extra special one:



Actually, I was going to post this anyway I just noticed that it was #100 when I logged in. I've been watching this on repeat for about 5 minutes.

The One Guy I was Looking for Seems to be Something of a Mystery

So the one person I was most interested in wisearchingki is a complete e-ghost:
Ode to McDonogh
By Myrrah Font (December 29, 1898)
Edited by G. Leighton Ciravolo (May 5, 2000)
I.
O wake the trumpet of renown
Far-echoing a hero's name;
O bring the shining laurel crown
That marks the glow of honored fame.
McDonogh, let the trumpet sound,
And with the laurels twine his brow;
Extol him with your voices now;
Praise to him, all praise to him!
II.
He sought not paths where glory shone,
Nor dreamed of fame in southern lore;
Twin cities claim him for their own -
Our Gretna and fair Baltimore.
He gave his wealth to educate;
He lived that end to consummate;
His mem'ry shall perpetuate;
Praise to him, all praise to him!
III.
McDonogh, unto thee we rear
A monument of fairest art,
In mem'ry of thy high career
Enshrined within each grateful heart.
Now ready hands your offerings bring;
Now youthful tongues laudations sing;
Now the heavens with echoes ring
Praise to him, all praise to him!

Apparently, John McDonogh was some rich dude who's only claim to fame was donating a crap load of money and land to build public schools in New Orleans and Baltimore. I do not know where the money came from, but he had tons of it.

Oh and in case you were wondering why I was so interested in this McDonogh fellow, its because McDonogh #35 and John McDonogh High School have two of the best marching bands, although the St Aug's kids probably marched by me at least 8 times over the course of the Mardi Gras season.

Wikipedia is the best

I started out reading an article about how Chavez isn't going to sell any oil to Exxon because he (Venezuela) owes them (Exxon) $12bil. Anyways, it appears that the Chalmette refinery is exempt from this embargo because it is co-owned by Exxon and, that's right, the Venezuelan national oil company (PDVSA.) Anyway in the process of (more like after giving up on) trying to find out what percentage Exxon and PDVSA owned, I started reading Wikipedia's offerings regarding our fair city, and that is why I give you:

Notable New Orleanians (myself excluded, and in no particular order, natch):
A. Baldwin Wood - Tulane Engineering grad., invented the pumps that keep our bowl dry from filling.
William Seeman - sailboats something something seamen joke
Emille Lamm - May have invented the "grille"
Andrew Higgins - Invented D-Day beach boat. Ingenious because if someone's shooting at you when the door drops, you HAVE to get out of the boat.
Josef Lascaux - Invented Cotton Candy
James Longstreet - Robert E. Lee's "Go-to" general, told Lee at Gettysburg that Pickett's charge would be unsuccessful, seeking a pardon after the war, Prez. Jackson replied: "There are three persons of the South who can never receive amnesty: Mr. Davis, General Lee, and yourself."
P.G.T. Beauregard - Robert E. Lee's #4-5 General, defeated Union at 1st Battle of Bull Run, got ass handed to him by W.T. Sherman, invented the cable powered part of our streetcar. Memorialized on a horse in Beauregard circle, where Esplanade hits City Park.
Carl Weathers - St. Augs grad, Apollo Creed, also Chubbs in Happy Gilmore
Reese Witherspoon - Sings better the Joaquin
Richard Simmons- "Entertainer" (I refuse to click on his link)
Cheryl Holdridge - Original Mouseketeer
Ellen Degeneres - Born in Metairie, brother is in Cowboy Mouth, has a hotter girlfriend than most guys
John Goodman - Was slated to play Ignatius J. Riley in a scrapped feature film.
Patricia Clarkson - If you havn't heard of Ashecliffe yet, don't worry, you will.
Lee Harvey Oswald - According to a 2003 survey, 7% of Americans polled thought LHO had 0% to do with the assassination of JFK.
Carlos Marcell0 - Sicilian, "Godfather of New Orleans," likely the one who set up LHO and had JFK offed after RFK had had him deported to Guatemala, his fake place of birth, known associate of Jack Ruby
Jules Alciatore - Chef of Antoine's, invented oysters Rockefeller (aka my hero)
Owen Brennan - Founder of Bacchus
Al Copeland - Founder of Popeye's Chicken and Biscuits
Emeril Legasse - Born in Fall River Mass.
John Besh - Born in Meridian Miss.
Paul Prudhomme - Born in Opelousas LA.
Truman Capote- wrote Breakfast at Tiffany's, in Neil Simon's Murder by Death (which is a must see) his character had ten fingers but no pinkies
Elmore Leonard - Out of Sight, Get Shorty, Big Bounce, 3:10 to Yuma
Anne Rice - has also published adult-oriented fiction under the pen name Anne Rampling, and has written explicit sado-masochistic erotica as A.N. Roquelaure
John Kennedy Toole - Tulane grad., killed himself in 1969, received Pulitzer in 1981, posthumously
Tennessee Williams - Born: Thomas Lanier Williams III in Columbus Miss.
Louis Armstrong - Satchmo, pretty much invented Jazz as we know it
Phil Anselmo - Pantera frontman
Sidney Bechet - first saxophonist to improvise, apparently beat Armstrong to the studio by several months, so I guess he invented Jazz as we know it
Birdman AKA Baby- fly in any weather
Terence Blanchard - Jazz Messenger
James Booker - Recorded with/for Fats Domino, B.B. King, Little Richard, Wilson Picket, Aretha Franklin, Jerry Garcia, John Mayall, taught Harry Connick Jr.
Harry Connick Jr - Narrated 2000's My Dog Skip, did that commercial where he drops off the crawfish, Did the entire double platinum soundtrack for When Harry Met Sally
Fats Domino - Cosistent chart topper from 1955-1963 when the british invasion invaded, 25th on Rolling Stone's 100 greatest list, after someone spray painted RIP Fats You Will Be Missed on his house in the Katrina aftermath, he and his family stayed in Baton Rouge with future #1 overall draft pick and Fats's granddaughter's boyfriend JaMarcus Russel
Lee Dorsey - as in everything I do is funky like____, recorded with Allain Tousaint
Dr. John - Jesuit alum, recorded with the Rolling Stones, Carly Simon, James Taylor, and Van Morrison, sings the Popeye's jingle and the theme songs fot the TV shows Blossom and K-Ville.
Master P, Juvenille, B.G. - There's like fifty more
Lil' Wayne - swagger right, check. Game tight. And you gon' R E S P E C T me.
Professor Longhair - widely acknowledged as having invented funk
The Marsalis Family - It says Branford was born in Breaux Bridge but the rest say NOLA. I remember watching some movie with Wynton in elementary school.
Irvin Mayfield - Los Hombres Calientes
The Meters - Art, Aaron, and Cyril Neville, Leo Nocentelli, George Porter Jr., Zigaboo Modeliste, were Allain Toussaint's house band, opened for the Rolling Stones for their 1975 tour of America, last played with all original members at Voodoo fest in 2006, after which Aaron, Leo, and Porter joined the Red Hot Chili Peppers on their stage for an encore that can only be described as EPIC!
Wardell Quezergue - pronounced quezergue, wrote Mr. Big Stuff and Groove Me
Jelly Roll Morton - first jazz composer
The Neville Brothers - mysteriously appeared right when the Meters broke up
Earl Palmer - Fats Domino's drummer, pioneered modern rock drumming
Louis Prima - Just a Gigilo
Allain Toussaint - Producer and songwriter has worked with or written songs performed by: Irma Thomas, Art and Aaron Neville, Lee Dorsey, Otis Redding,The Who,Robert Plant & Allison Krauss, The Meters, Dr John, Wild Tchoupitoulas Mardi Gras Indians, Robert Palmer, Mylon LeFevre, The Band, Boz Scaggs, Patti Labelle (wrote Lady Marmalade), Elvis Costello
Better Than Ezra - it's been good, writing for you uh-huh
Zebra - Who's behind the door = awesome
Clyde Austin "The Glide" Drexler - 1/3 of Phi Slamma Jamma at U. of Houston, 10 time all star
Marshall Faulk - Only NFL-er with 100+ rushing TD's and 30+ recieving (a club that won't take LT too much longer to join) 1994 Off. Rookie of the Year
Michael "Beer Man" Lewis - Set NFL record for total return yards in a season, shook my hand at the Arena Bowl last summer, has huge watch
Archie Manning - Born in Drew Miss. career passer rating 67.1, 125/175 TD/INT
Elisha Manning - #1 Overall draft pick, after huge upset victory in superbowl XLII was quoted as saying "golly, I need a juice box" and "now Nintendo season starts," all jokes aside: "Eli's hobbies include antiquing in the off-season with his mother and fiancée." reference: NYTimes
Peyton Manning - (This is the only time I'm using a reference other than wikipedia for this post, but this is from ESPN's TMQ) After four seasons, Eli Manning is 36-28 as a starter and has a Super Bowl ring; after four seasons, Peyton Manning was 32-32 as a starter and lacked a playoff victory.
Tory James - Had eight picks for the Bengals in 2004, the only year in recent memory that the Bengals even played defense
Kordell Stewart - Born in Marrero, inspiriation for my theory regarding the statistically higher coincidence of homosexuality on the west bank.
Reggie Wayne - Ehret alum (ibid)
Aeneas Williams - was accepted to Dartmouth, instead went to SUNO, didn't play Football until his senior year, tied I-AA record for interceptions, had two picks in Arizona Cardinals only playoff win ever, delivered hit that ended Steve Young's career


all facts are either jokes or are paraphrased/copied outright from the annals of the venerable all knowing Wikipedia

It's my blog and I can post what I want to...

You'd do this too if you loved amostporn swimsuits as much as I do.

Allow me to introduce Bar Refaeli, who it turns out is dating Leo DiCaprio... shit. Whatever man, it could be worse, Marissa Miller is married to this abomination.
And this little darling is Irina Sheik, a 22 year old sophmore from Russia:

I know what you're thinking and the answer is:

Yes, that is painted on.

Its not plagarism if I tell you I didn't write it.

This is a facebook post that a friend of mine wrote, she's way more serious than I oculd ever be, so I thought I'd share:

thoughts from the Mardi Gras visit

watching the snow fall from the sky, blanketing the earth, muffling my world (it needs to be quieted sometimes). how cold and dark it has become, but i remember this from when i was a kid, and i know that come spring, everyone will be reborn and the greyness of winter will feel like nothing more than a bad dream. it does make me more contemplative however, especially after being in the troubled warmth of the south. and yes, i've been dreaming of Mardi Gras and that feeling it fills me with (i think they call it "temporary insanity"), but more than that, i've been dreaming of them. my heart aches (it's a good hurt) when i remember all the times we've had: random thursday, poker night, trips to the bay house, the fly, sunday football, 50 bars in 30 days, cinco de mayo, crawfishing, White Colla Crimes, human bowling, Ms. Mae's, Balcony bar, kickball, date night wendesday, all the birthdays, and the many other good times. i dream of that utopian time after the storm that lay a blanket of hope over all of us; that perfectly chaotic time where nothing but the moment mattered, and we celebrated that we were alive, together, and that our city would not go down without a fight. for those of you who weren't there, there are not enough words in my vocabulary to fully explain that feeling of triumphant unity, that sense of oneness, that was felt throughout the people of New Orleans. we had survived. and we were ready to party like we had been reborn.

alas, reality has set in and the times, they've changed and are a changin' still. the city is still struggling, opportunities are scarce (unless you're in the superhero business, but that takes a different toll that many are not willing to pay), and we've grown restless. that blanket of hope is tattered and worn, full of holes and frayed at the edges (although some of us still wrap it around ourselves). tensions are high and the drama of life lived in a disaster zone will eat away at anyone, given enough time. for the record, out of all of the drama i could have to deal with, i'll pick the drama of New Orleans any day. i chose to leave, and it was the right choice for me at the time, but Mardi Gras (my first return home since i left) made me more convinced than ever that i will return, and the next time around i will be more prepared and able to help those who truly need it. i still have an eternally optimistic hope for the future of the city, and faith in the goodness of people. the times have changed and will never be the same, but in happening they've given me a chance to grow up. i know what i want and i'm willing to put in the time and the work to see if i can make it happen. without the disaster, without the friends during the recovery, i'd probably be living in California, studying to be a marriage counselor. food for thought. keep the faith party people. salud.

D, if you want me to take this down I will.

I promised a post on cartoons...

and I'll write it later but for now, enjoy these classics. I quote all of these and a few others on a pretty regular basis, and usually end up getting stared at. I simply do not understand how it is possible to have grown up post-1950 and not seen these cartoons millions of times.