And now the return of a once weekly feature where we pick a great New Orleans video on Google Video, YouTube, Netscape or any other video sharing service and post it with a link to the original here and a short discussion. Be sure to check back here in the future for another NOLAvid.
Today's NOLAvid is a promotional trailer for a new non-profit theater company in New Orleans, the Cripple Creek Players. According to the video, Cripple Creek seeks to produce dramatic works for the public (all shows are ten bucks of less to get in) to provoke social action and help inspire us to continue to rebuild. Currently they are getting ready for their second season with works by Irwin Shaw, Arthur Miller and others. This company helps build on what New Orleans is all about. Deep down we are a strong and dedicated arts community with a great background in theater, TV, movies, studio art, and music.
If you're looking for something a little out-of-the-ordinary to do this weekend, there's a few different events happening around the Quarter, being put on by some friends of mine.
I already told you how to get your weekend started at the new Friday on the Roch market, but afterwards you can head on down to Lower Decatur because some friends have organized a Texas Hold'em poker tournament to benefit our friend Mark Holmes (aka DJ Nanashi aka Dark Mark). He recently got injured pretty badly in an accident and had to have surgery and spent a brief stint in the hospital. He works in the service industry, like so many people in town, as both a bartender at Mojo Lounge and a regular dj at the Whirling Dervish. And of course, like so many service industry folk, he has no health insurance. He really enjoys playing poker (we have a regular home game at my house), so my boyfriend and some other friends have put together this event to help him with his hospital bills. All proceeds from the tournament will benefit Mark, as will 50% of the drink sales. Various local businesses have been kind enough to donate prizes to be given to tournament winners; they include bar tabs from Mojo Lounge and Flanagan's Pub, clothing from Wicked Orleans, Kulture Vulture and Sigh Co., as well as a fancy brand new poker chip set for the 1st place winner. The event will take place tomorrow evening at The Whirling Dervish (1135 Decatur), with registration starting at 7pm and the tournament beginning promptly at 7:30pm. There will be a brief lesson on the basics of the game at 6:30pm, so it's a great way to get your feet wet if you're a newbie, without risking your shirt at Harrah's or something. Space is limited, and RSVP is requested. More details can be found here.
In other weekend news, I'm also excited to hear about Angie's Impromptu Underpants Party - Take 2! This Sunday night, August 26th at 10pm, bartender Angie is taking over One Eyed Jack's, as it's been declared "too f**in' hot for clothes". (So true, by the way....I'm ready for summer to be over.) Drink specials and djs and underpants movies, oh my! You know you're a New Orleanian when you'll take any excuse you can get to run around in public in just your panties or tighty-whiteys. Sounds like fun to me! Oh, and if you're still looking for something to do on Saturday night, you can also hit OEJ for the Big Easy Rollergirls fundraiser, which will feature Liquidrone and the Fleur de Tease burlesque dancers, plus raffles and a penalty spanking wheel! (This is seriously going to be one crazy weekend, no matter which way you cut it.) Both The Gambit and NOLA.com picked the BERG fundraiser as one of the do-not-miss events of the weekend, but I'll probably be missing it, personally. I don't really like being in One Eyed Jack's when it gets super crowded, and I have a feeling this show is going to be PACKED.
You are not allowed to say there's nothing to do this weekend!
"Are you entertained by deep despair?" the singer asked, squinting at his music stand.
"You're our prophet!" the crowd shouted.
To the uninitiated, Daniel Johnston does not seem like a prophet. And he really doesn't seem like a indie rock hero. A large man with a belly that pushes his T-shirt out, stretching the neckline, Johnston is a manic depressive recluse. He's also a songwriting genius who's compiled over 20 albums during his bipolar career. His childlike singing wanders off-key at times. As he recites his rhymes, his tongue flicks in and out, and his arms shake with passion, fists clenched. If his lyrics weren't so smart, you might think him a little retarded.
But he's not retarded, just a little crazy and a lot lonely. Obsessed with unrequited love, Johnston hits a place in the heart where few dare to tread. "Hold me like a mother would, like I always knew somebody should," he sings, the melancholy before an upbeat chorus: "This is life/ And everything's all right/ Livin' livin' livin' livin' livin'." And who can dispute that "Love will wash your brain/ Hug you like a ghost/ It really is the most"?
Thanks in part to the 2006 biographical film The Devil and Daniel Johnston, he's gotten enough of a following to play at the House of Blues. After a solo set on both guitar and keyboard, he was then joined by local rockers Big Blue Marble. Before the show, he asked them to make a playlist of their favorite songs of his, and together they played "Casper," "Speeding Motorcycle," and "Love Not Dead." With five strings, including a lapsteel and a violin, along with piano and drums, Big Blue did both the gentle folky thing and the balls-out rocker thing with Johnston.
According to my sources, Johnston looked better than he had in quite some time, smiling occasionally and even coming out for an encore. The meds must be working. "True love will find you in the end," he sang before bidding us farewell.
The whole performance was a little over an hour, but what an hour it was. Afterward, we fans tried to hang out on the dance floor, basking in the post-rock vibe, but the ever-corporate HOB sent its minions to literally sweep us out into the night. And so goes life in America, where even a deep-down genuine weirdo can bust into the corporate music world by singing about Casper, the friendly ghost.
[Recovery Pen is a blog devoted to the addiction that is New Orleans.]
It's the classic New Orleans experience: you greet the day with a throbbing head, a dry throat, and a stranger in your bed. You resolve to quit drinking, today, a resolution which lasts for the four hours until your next-door neighbor invites you over for beer bongs. Although the best cure for post-drinking angst is more drinking, sometimes a good laugh can help. As self-admitted attention addicts, the four men who comprise The Comedy Addiction Tour don't care if you're a drunk, as long as you show up and laugh.
But if you're committed to your alcoholism, you might want to skip this show, which allows all four "friends of Bill" to relate their addiction and recovery experiences with disarming honesty and hilarious detail. Billy Robinson, who grew up in the projects in Ohio, describes an early AA meeting when he confused a reference to "the highest authority" with the Housing Authority. Starting off the evening, Jesse Joyce spoke of his many injuries he suffered from drinking, and how he lied about them, such as blaming a broken ankle on a game of basketball. "But that doesn't work when you forget and lie to the guys who saw you drunk," he explained, saying that his friends who watched him puke on himself and then fall down three flights of stairs didn't buy the basketball story.
All of the men discussed their other addictions: food, sex, women, endorphins. Not only are all of them different manifestations of the same addictive drive, but they're all funny. In regards to his compulsive eating, Mark Lundholm asked the audience if anyone else ever ate food off their own shirt. "Off someone else's shirt?" he added. And although Kurtis Matthews confessed to being addicted to women, he made a point to interject at numerous times that he'd never gone to a hooker. "Although I probably should have," he said, alluding to a marriage gone wrong.
First off, let me say I should have 'turned down my tv and turned on WWL," but I don't have a radio in the same room as my TV so I couldn't listen (though I could have listened to the simulcast online via WWL.com, but you can't do that during the regular season) during tonight's New Orleans Saints game. As soon as the game started I should have known better, Bryant Gumble kept doing this great job with interviews and questions and real commentary that actually had to do with the game, but that moron next to him in the booth would not shut up the entire game. Ugh. Cris Collinsworth has NOTHING to contribute to a game. His commentary was endless and pointless. His interview skills are severely lacking. When Michael Irving was in the booth he would go on a long tangent and then not even ask a question (again, thank goodness Bryant Gumble was there). About halfway through the first quarter his comments turned into a monotonous drone that I tuned out. Of course I couldn't ignore the commentary the whole time because the NFL Network doesn't seem to know how to broadcast a Saints game. They kept ignoring the game and showing the idiot in the booth next to Gumble and replays from old games (which didn't bother me when they had to do with the new hall of famers, but otherwise...). As far as I know, this is the only live game on NFL Network for the Saints for the rest of the year so we won't have to suffer through another. FYI, NFL Network the preseason is more important to see because the fans will get to see what our team may look like.
Looks like I was right about local NBC affiliate channel 6 WDSU testing their high definition over the air (HD OTA) feed a month ago. As of August 1, 2007 they are back on the air and broadcasting that wonderfully free HD signal to those of you who (like me) refuse to pay for cable or satellite. NBC has primetime Sunday night games and (last year at least) a number of playoff games, so I'm pretty sure this was pushed so we could see everything in HD that COX Communications is denying its customers. I can't wait to see all my football in high def and all the extras widescreen has to offer.
It's time for the thirtieth Blogging New Orleans podcast. Each week I record a podcast about all things New Orleans on Tuesday evening and upload it for all of you to listen to on Wednesday afternoon. Comments, questions, concerns? Comment on this post or contact us via the tips link on the site. This week we'll talk speeches, governor's race, the World War 2 Museum, and rollergirl calendar.
This podcast is almost a 'betacast' and should be treated as such. We don't have theme music yet, but in the future we hope to have that and interviews with movers and shakers from around our fair city. If you would like to be interviewed on the podcast feel free to contact us via the tips page or the comments below.
SUBSCRIBE to the Blogging New Orleans podcast in iTunes LISTEN to the podcast now ADD the Blogging New Orleans podcast feed to your RSS aggregator
Over the weekend Comic-Con in California revealed some new information about who will be featured in the Heroes:Origins spinoff series on NBC. Origins will be a limited series of shows featuring a bunch of new hereos that the audience will get to pick from to add to the main Heroes cast at a later date. According to our big blog sister TVSquad the only Origins character named so far is Monica from our fair flooded city. HereosTheSeries.com says the actress who plays Monica will be Dana Davis of Iowa (strange considering the size of the acting community here and they couldn't get an actual New Orleanian for the part). Buddy.tv was at the NBC panel and was unable to confirm this, so its possible the show has chosen another (hopefully the accent won't be to fake and hopefully the character will be from NOLA in general and not only from the ever popular Ninth Ward (though her poverty could be part of her backstory and then either she would be 9th wardian in the minds of all outside of the area).
I was talking to a friend about this when I heard and their reaction was mixed. Is this a new trend? Will New Orleans be the new downtrodden crutch of TV? We were shown on Boston Legal, Law and Order, and a number of other shows are poor or taken advantage of last season, will we hold our own in the future?
It's time for the twenty-eighth Blogging New Orleans podcast. Each week I record a podcast about all things New Orleans on Tuesday evening and upload it for all of you to listen to on Wednesday afternoon. Comments, questions, concerns? Comment on this post or contact us via the tips link on the site. This week I'm talking about football, a new blog sibling, Pou and Vitter.
This podcast is almost a 'betacast' and should be treated as such. We don't have theme music yet, but in the future we hope to have that and interviews with movers and shakers from around our fair city. If you would like to be interviewed on the podcast feel free to contact us via the tips page or the comments below.
SUBSCRIBE to the Blogging New Orleans podcast in iTunes LISTEN to the podcast now ADD the Blogging New Orleans podcast feed to your RSS aggregator
To add to Kelly's blog about the Francophilian festivities tomorrow, the Faubourg St. John Merchants Association will also be celebrating Bastille Day tomorrow evening. Head over to the 3100 block of Ponce deLeon (between Liuzza's By the Track and Esplanade Avenue) between 5 and 9 pm for this free event which will include gustatory delights, plenty of French wine, kids' activities, and music by Va Va Voom, which I believe is French for "Yee-haw!!"
Rumor has it that people will be playing Petanque, a French lawn game similar to the Italian bocce ball, where one tries to throw a ball at another ball. The sort of sport one enjoys in the summertime, outdoors, with glass of wine in hand.
I've been thinking about France quite a bit after seeing Michael Moore's film Sicko, which does quite a bit of romanticizing about France, including scenes where he speaks to American ex-pats in Paris who literally gush about their new home. He slathers the romance on pretty thick, with a montage scene of lovers cooing to each other in a French park, but does so to combat some of our recent Francophobia best exemplified by the term "Freedom Fries." (Those silly French, so foolish as to believe that war in Iraq was - gasp - a bad idea!)
One point Moore made about the French, who daily suffer through the afflictions of universal health care, a 35-hour work week and cheap wine, is that the government serves the people because of the storming of the Bastille. With that event, the French people proved that the people are a very powerful force, to be feared and respected by their leaders. To this day, the French are fond of protesting and reminding their elected leaders of who's really in charge.
In that spirit, let's remember that Bastille Day is about revolution, and I can't think of a better place for it than right here in the NO. Not only do we have our French heritage to bolster the revolutionary spirit, but frankly, the city is still in need of revolutionary changes. We've already got a Reign of Terror here in the States, why not supplement it with revolution?
Personally, I think we should go with Anne Lamott's plan for revolution, which proposes more kindness and libraries. You can read her ideas at this link. So if you do come on out to Bayou St. John on Saturday, be sure to leave your cellphones at home and bring some fruit to share!
According to an article in the entertainment section (of all places) on nola.com, my source for all things New Orleanian, the owner of Snug Harbor, George Brumat has died. He was a young 63, and died of an apparent heart attack.
Brumat also was one of the former owners of perennial favorite beer joint Port of Call. I never had occasion to visit Port of Call, to my knowledge anyway, but I did get a chance last August to finally hit Snug Harbor. After years of wandering down Frenchman Street looking for interesting things to do outside of the French Quarter and looking in its windows my husband and I decided to finally take the plunge.
We ended up using the bathroom and then leaving after speaking with some very nice hostesses about the standing room only in the small performance area. I was pregnant at the time and not much for standing--or smoking, which is still allowed--so we ended up at The Spotted Cat, where the Jazz Vipers rocked (er, jazzed) my socks off.
Snug Harbor was a nice establishment, though, and hearing of Mr. Brumat's death makes me all the more wish I'd stayed that night to see what was what. Names like Charmaine Neville and various Maraslises always grazed the roster for the month, but never once did I give in to my curiosity and attend what is considered by some to be THE place to see jazz acts in New Orleans.
Mr. Brumat's passing only goes to show that you should just do whatever it is now or forget about it. Like the way things were before the Big K, that time will pass and it will be too late.
Mr. Brumat seemed to have made jazz appreciation--especially modern jazz--his life's work. The man had quite a few tricks up his sleeve to accomplish his goals, too. He made it possible for music students to get in for free so they could observe professionals in an appropriate setting for learning purposes. He reopened Snug Harbor as soon as he was able after Hurricane Katrina and took an economic loss just to give musicians a place to play and locals a place to go where they could forget about the chaos.
To me, that is more than dedication. It is the way of life for many folks in the Crescent City. You just don't find people like that anymore, and you generally don't find them outside of places like Nola.
Thus, Nola has lost another of her champions. As the comments on the article note, Mr. Brumat will be mourned and he will be missed. I hope his legacy--of kindness and care for building the culture and the morale around town--lives on through some other willing participant who will take over duties at Snug Harbor and keep it safe and sound until I get myself back down to New Orleans.
New Orleans CW38 is looking to viewers to add content. They want to make their station identification spots unique and part of New Orleans. CW38 is asking the public to submit 10 second video clips that end with the "Free to be..." slogan. All clips will be available for public viewing on the CW38 website and the best will be formatted into station ID commercials on television. They say this is your chance to be "Free to be Famous" with your original ideas. Unfortunately the video submission process isn't very easy, so don't expect to see a lot of submissions. Here are the requirements:
640 X 480, 30 fps, progressive video, no compression, Windows Media Video V8, 100 quality, 3 sec buffer, English with Window Media 9 audio
or
a Quicktime movie either emailed or burned to DVD.
Ugh. Time for the whiny blogger in me to come out. All CW stations are probably running this same contest in their local markets. I don't think it would have been to hard to take an existing video service and just create a "Free to be Famous" Channel on it. Even the military has one on YouTube. Then they would only need viewers to submit videos via YouTube and contact the best submitters to get the original footage. They would expand the audience (since even a 5 year can make a YouTube video) and enlarge the expected talent pool. Plus, then I could grab my favorites from their pool as an embedded video and stick a sample at the bottom of this post (thus giving them better publicity).
Oh well. In the mean time, go ahead and create some content and submit it CW38, maybe you'll be free to be famous. Good Luck
It's time for the twenty-sixth Blogging New Orleans podcast. Each week I record a podcast about all things New Orleans on Tuesday evening and upload it for all of you to listen to on Wednesday afternoon. Comments, questions, concerns? Comment on this post or contact us via the tips link on the site. This week we'll discuss the return of Essence Fest to New Orleans.
This podcast is almost a 'betacast' and should be treated as such. We don't have theme music yet, but in the future we hope to have that and interviews with movers and shakers from around our fair city. If you would like to be interviewed on the podcast feel free to contact us via the tips page or the comments below.
SUBSCRIBE to the Blogging New Orleans podcast in iTunes LISTEN to the podcast now ADD the Blogging New Orleans podcast feed to your RSS aggregator
There's a really cool event coming up nearby in Baton Rouge in October. Put together by the people at Culturecandy.org and the Baton Rouge Gallery, the Uncommon Thread Wearable Art Show will merge fashion design and visual art.
There's a call for artists out, and artists from all disciplines from all over the country (and world?) are encouraged to submit their proposals from now through September 17. You can find the entry forms at their website. The folks behind Uncommon Thread want to connect artists from everywhere and bring all different art disciplines to a wider audience. This juried competetion will be judged by Louisiana's own Suzanne Perron, who has worked for Vera Wang's design house. Artists will be judged on craftsmanship, innovative design, dramatic detail and use of alternative materials.
Truly in keeping with their desire to bring all artistic disciplines together, all of the accepted entries will be presented in a stage performance choreographed by the Cangelosi Dance Project. There will be a collaboration of musical artists as well; DJ Gabriel Saint will join forces with a string quartet led by violinist Joanna Steinhauser to help create an artistic fusion for all the senses. The show itself will be held on October 12, 2007 at 8 p.m. at David Cano's workshop (521 N. 19th Street) in Baton Rouge.
I'm so glad something of this nature is happening so close to home! Let South Louisiana be an artistic force to be reckoned with! Oh, and just a quick reminder for fans of alternative art and fashion, the Worn Again Fashion Show is coming up this Saturday evening at The Green Project. I'll be there...will you?
Blogging New Orleans's big sister Cinematical posted last week about a three city concert and a movie series that Netflix is doing around the country. Around the same time tipster Erik (from Netflix) pinged us about the show. Thursday June 21st at 7:00 pm CST in Riverfront Park at the Spanish Plaza (on the Mississippi River side of the Aquarium) Netflix is presenting the first of three free Summer concerts (the other two are in Baltimore, MD and at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida) as part of their Live! On Location tour. Dennis Quaid and the Sharks will start the night. Then the crowd will watch Quaid starring in 'The Big Easy' with a Southernized cajun accent. Luckily we will see the movie and not that strange USA network TV show. Should be interesting to see if another star of the film (and local resident) John Goodman makes an appearance. The best part about all this... This is a nationally promoted event that shows we are still in the hearts and minds of the rest of the country and even major companies are willing to help relieve some of the city's recovery stress with a night out on the river. Thanks Netflix.
edit: deleted the unneeded end phrase and half thought...
If you're looking for something a little out-of-the-ordinary to do this weekend, there's a few different events happening around the Quarter, being put on by some friends of mine. 
[Recovery Pen is a blog devoted to the addiction that is New Orleans.]
First off, let me say I should have 'turned down my tv and turned on WWL," but I don't have a radio in the same room as my TV so I couldn't listen (though I could have listened to the simulcast online via 
Looks like I was right about local NBC affiliate channel 6 
It's time for the thirtieth Blogging New Orleans 
Over the weekend Comic-Con in California revealed some new information about who will be featured in the Heroes:Origins spinoff series on NBC. Origins will be a limited series of shows featuring a bunch of new hereos that the audience will get to pick from to add to the main Heroes cast at a later date. According to our big blog sister 
To add to 
New Orleans CW38 is looking to viewers to add content. They want to make their station identification spots unique and part of New Orleans. CW38 is asking the public to submit 10 second video clips that end with the "Free to be..." slogan. All clips will be available for public viewing on the CW38 website and the best will be formatted into station ID commercials on television. They say this is your chance to be 
There's a really cool event coming up nearby in Baton Rouge in October. Put together by the people at 
Blogging New Orleans's big sister Cinematical 
