Handbill Handout

Looks like a Jiffy Lube supporter didn't like what the cabby from my previous post said. Sorry buddy, I just report what people say. I don't make it up. If you'd like to take it up with the guy who said it he drives a large white United Cab van on the day shift, you could probably find him in the Quarter near one of the hotels. Easter parades. Never been to one in New York, checked out two in New Orleans and was going for a trifecta but the third parade never materialized at the time and location noted in the paper. Too bad too, it was the gay Easter parade which would've likely been all kinds of fun. The first parade we went to before brunch was a relatively staid affair. No music, just ladies of a certain age in giant hats riding in convertibles and horse drawn carriages doing a lap in the quarter before church, though it bears noting that they were served either a sizable cup of wine, a cocktail or a shot before heading into church. Why not? Easter is a da...

"I used't live in a wood frame house but I moved out because I had to repaint the damn thing every three or fo' years". The van rumbled and rattled over every single pothole between the Quarter and the Audubon Zoo , but I didn't mind a bit. Our driver was an immaculately dressed black gentleman who was 70 if he was a day, and he was dispensing wisdom on a variety of topics. For instance, you don't want to live in a wood-frame house unless it's "the right wood", which is Cypress. Cypress lasts forever even if this climate, but if you have some other kind of lumber you're always repainting it. Better to live in a brick house. You should buy all your work clothes at Wal Mart. Nobody can beat the prices and if you wash a pair of pants 4 or 5 times and then take 'em to the dry cleaners to get the creases back in 'em they'll last you for years. Don't go to Jiffy Lube for your oil change, go to your local mechanic. Jiffy Lube...

Land and begin eating. That's what you do here. Or at least what I do. A half-dozen lovely oysters at Acme and then a cab ride out to Willie Mae's for "the best fried chicken in America" only it ain't, though it is damn good and worth a pilgrimage. The wait was long but the day was nice and the neighborhood, was, well, a neighborhood that was knocked on its ass and shows all signs of trying to pull itself back together. There are still trashed houses out there to be sure, though I only saw one with the spray paint markings that followed the storm. What's that about the chicken? Well, the coating is excellent, the meat is nicely cooked though I felt like they pulled a little bit of a fast one on us when we both ordered 3 piece lunches and they served us six pieces family style and 3 of the 6 pieces were wings. It was really, really good fried chicken though, though the fried chicken I had for part of my dinner at Coop's Place was just as good. Th...

Tomorrow is the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent levee failure that nearly destroyed New Orleans. My feelings for the city have been made pretty clear on this blog. I'm not going to hop on a soapbox and preach about what should have been done or who screwed up where. Brighter minds than mine should be allowed to figure that one out. Politics is not my forte. I don't have a mind for sophism or a stomach for shrill yelling. Instead, I will humbly suggest that you plan a trip to the city yourself. Go there, eat the food, hear the music, see the bayous and the rivers and museums and the old buildings. Then decide for yourself if America is a better place because New Orleans exists. What are you waiting for? (8/31 addendum): If there's anything left after Tuesday they'll probably need even more tourist dollars than ever. I fear I might have written a eulogy here instead of a simple expression of affection. I hope Gustav misses as much of the popula...

NY Times . "...They created a New Orleans party, the kind that simultaneously defies sorrow, affirms continuity, heartens the locals and draws eager tourists..." Yep.

God bless Lee's Tavern pizza for taking the edge off of being back in NYC. It's an analgesic by the slice. Though it's always good to be in my house with my wife and cat it's a sign that return to work is around the corner. And so here I am. Goodbye elegant jazz brunch at Commander's Palace. Hello street cart bagel and coffee. Then again, I may be banned for life from Commander's. Yes friends, we had a little, um, incident there. It all started innocently enough. There are balloons tied to a centerpiece on each table for the brunch service. I decided it might be funny if someone took a picture of me with the balloon obscuring my head. You know, a jacket and dress shirt topped by a balloon head could be an amusing new "Who is" photo for this blog. Well anyway, nobody took the hint so I kept playing with the thing. Then my mother-in-law started doing the same thing with another balloon (there were three on the centerpiece). Imagine our surp...

They say you learn something new every day. We learned something new yesterday that was a tough lesson to take. You can, in fact, get a crummy meal in New Orleans. I won't go into the details nor will I mention the place's name to protect the innocent and the guilty even though to me providing food and service as careless as what we experienced in a city where food may be the most important cultural element after music is an insult to one's community. I will say that my wife is a genius who saved the evening with quick thinking. "Let's just go and see if that guy in the alley is still playing" she said referring to a small courtyard right off Bourbon street where there's a cafe that sells coffee and beignets along with (of course) a bar. The previous night an act called Steamboat Willie had played and my mother in law had enjoyed the small part of the show that we saw. Thank God he was still there last night and the evening was saved as we got a table, gr...

The words came out of the radio (old fashioned Frequency Modulation , not fancy satellite) as I lay in bed making a plan for the day. If you didn't know where you were because you smacked around too many brain cells the night before, that phrase would be the giveaway. What other city would be so absorbed by a jazz festival? What other city has a radio station devoted to "its sound"? I imagine you could create a radio station with the sounds of New York, but how long would you listen to sirens and car horns? "I visited New York City once, right before 9/11. Man everything was so fast up there. Everyone in a hurry." That was my cab driver's assessment of New York. "I know, that's what I'm trying to get away from." I said, thinking of the relentless river of humanity marching to and from the glass cages that line 6 th avenue. I remember reading that during the 1960s when some of those buildings went up people said they had no soul. I...

"Right now we're driving over the levee that broke." The traffic was crawling toward downtown on I-10 and I had started to zone out from a combination of heat, lack of sleep and back to back two hour flights. Still, a statement like that will wake you right up. "You see that rust line over there?" the cabbie said pointing at a pipe on the noise barriers that lined the road "That's how high the water was all the way downtown". The line was at least six feet above the ground. "Wow" "Yeah....but we're comin ' back now. We doin ' good. We had a record crowd here for Mardi Gras . The people are startin ' to come back" New Orleans feels different this year. Last year it still felt like a city victimized. The crowds in the French Quarter weren't what they were when I had been here before Katrina. It seemed like boarded up or shuttered store fronts equaled or outnumbered operating businesses. There was an ...