Thursday, September 30, 2010

Where to Eat in Perfect Weather

Do not let yourself be trapped indoors while the weather is this gorgeous! Go out and enjoy yourself! Lift your face to sun! Let the breezes mess up your hair!

Here are my recommendations for dining al fresco during these lovely fall days:

For those flush with cash, Commander's Palace courtyard.

For everyone else, the courtyard at Café Rani on Magazine Street (the best combo ever thought of -- New Orleans and Indian), or the porch at the Audubon Clubhouse. The Courtyard Grill on Magazine Street, front or back, where the Turkish food is off the charts good. For a light lunch, the outdoor tables at the Village Coffee at the corner of Freret and Jefferson Uptown.

For those across the Lake, the front porch at Rip's on the Lake in Old Mandeville, with its fabulous view of the lake and the great lake breezes.

Of course, this being New Orleans, this is only a partial and prejudiced list. Readers are invited to send in their favorite New Orleans-area outdoor eating spot.

Birthday Weather

(or, How to Write a Week's Worth of Perfect Weather Forecasts)

I got home late on Monday from a trip to Atlanta to perform a wedding ceremony for friends of my son's, so I didn't realize that the weather had changed until Tuesday morning -- my birthday. I've written before how I developed this magical-thinking notion when I was a little kid, about how the weather would change to fall for my birthday. (Of course it's not logically true, and yes, of course, I do know that, but it's how it felt and still feels to me.) And so here it was, my classic birthday weather: perfectly clear blue skies, lower temperatures (even if only slightly), low humidity, and soft breezes. I can tell you, it put me in a great mood.

Tuesday morning I had a business meeting (the only one I had scheduled all day) at the Mojo Coffee House, and it was a pleasure to walk there from the house. While getting my cup of coffee, I overheard one young woman tell the barrista to read the weather page on the back of the Living section of the Times-Picayune. The girl behind the counter said she had read it, but the first girl urged her to look at it again. I was intrigued, and looked over their shoulders.

As faithful readers of the T-P know, the weather takes up a half-page at the back of the Living section and is printed in full color, with a close-up map of the Gulf Coast region, with whatever relevant weather patterns shown in symbols across the map. Tuesday's map showed the region clearly, with no clouds or arrows over it, and dotted with sun-circles from Galveston, Texas, all the way to Panama City, Florida.

Below that is the 5-day forecast, again, with a symbol for each day's weather and a brief word description of the weather predictions for those days. On Tuesday, the little boxes for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday all held bright sun-balls. And for each, the Times-Picayune writer, apparently reluctant to repeat the same thing over and over, outdid him- or herself in describing the week's perfect weather:

Wednesday -- "beautiful with bright sun"
Thursday -- "mostly sunny and pleasant"
Friday -- "delightful with plenty of sun"
Saturday -- "Sunny, breezy and pleasant"
Sunday -- "plenty of sunshine and nice"

But don't believe it -- with humidity this low and temperatures in the low 80s during the day and the low 60s at night, lovely breezes, and no clouds in the sky -- they just should have written PERFECT across the whole week and been done with it.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Crazy Town: NFL Opener

The NFL, in their wisdom, chose New Orleans and the Saints to officially open the 2010-2011 professional football season, and last Thursday, September 9, as the date. (I assume the NFL was trying to avoid the 9/11 anniversary weekend and so chose a weekday.) They planned a concert with nationally-known recording artists -- pretty little Taylor Swift and the perennial Dave Mathews. There were, of course, complaints that more local acts were not featured. We were told that the NFL made these particular choices so there would be "wide national appeal for their national audience"! Like our New Orleans musicians don't have "wide national appeal"! What a crock!

While their choice of this city and this team for this event was sensible, yes, even wise, then they dropped the ball by figuring that they could run the thing themselves. No matter what you can criticize New Orleans for, and of course there are many things, we know how to run musical festivals and, for God's sake, parades! But apparently nobody at the NFL saw fit to use our expertise in these areas.

The giant concert stage took several days to build, over the granite steps of Washington Artillery Park over Decatur Street looking toward Jackson Square and St. Louis Cathedral. It was high-tech to nth degree, with fancy lights and what looked like millions of miles of cables. It was very impressive. The thing was, the parade was also supposed to go right down Decatur Street -- how was that supposed to work?? In order to stand in front of the stage, there was a lottery ticket process, in addition to the VIP-only area. Because of the parade, extra police and security had to posted on the day of the parade so that the crowd could be efficiently moved away from the stage for the parade to pass -- because the NFL wanted the concert AND the parade to go on *at the exact time and place*. (I guess to save on TV cameras?) It was a crazy idea.

On the days leading up to Thursday, the city went crazy. Stores on Magazine Street, from swanky dress stores to erotic lingerie shops, had window displays of black and gold merchandise. Even the expensive bridal shop was showing wedding dresses topped with Saints jerseys!! Saints banners -- Two Dat, Bless You Boys, World Champions, Do It Again, Our City/Our Boys, and of course, dozens of Who Dats -- fluttered from homes and businesses. The best was the giant handmade banner on the fence of Eleanor McMain School, which, besides the inevitable Who Dat sign, had done a portrait of Vikings quarterback Brett Favre sitting splay-legged on the football field, with the legend, "I've fallen and can't get up." (Big Man said it was cruel, but I thought it was funny.)

To make things a little more crazy in terms of logistics, it rained Thursday afternoon, pretty much straight up to the time the parade was supposed to roll. Of course, this being New Orleans, the town had taken this very, very seriously. City Hall was closed; most schools closed by 12 noon; even some law firms shut early. (Yes, I'll confess now: I cancelled a church meeting on Thursday evening.) When the rain finally stopped about 4:45 pm, officials started the parade early to take advantage of the stoppage. But they needn't have worried -- the clouds sped past and blue skies reigned til the sun set. The rain didn't matter at all, because Who Dat Nation was out in force.

Big Man and I parked the car in the area where he usually would've parked for a night at his Bourbon Street gig (100 block of Carondelet or St. Charles are his usual spots) and walked to the nightclub for Big Man to store his horn case til needed. Then we walked over to Decatur, corner Iberville. Along the way, indeed, starting at Poydras as folks streamed to the Superdome, there were crowds and crowds of people dressed in Saints jerseys, black and gold outfits, and various kinds of costumes. (There were also a few brave Minnesota fans in purple and the occasional blonde Viking wig, but they were vastly outnumbered.) Many people had created Saints themed outfits for their babies and small children, and thus there were big and little Reggie Bushes and Drew Breeses and Jeremy Shockeys. In other cases, moms had gone all out and decked little bitty girls in black and gold tutus, studding their hair with shiny fleur de lis barrettes and/or giant lamé bows. Some people had treated it like a mini-Mardi Gras, with big shiny black and gold beads and even some costumes.

There was a real spirit of comaraderie and community among the Saints fans along the parade route. A family near us had brought their elderly paw-paw in his wheelchair (and with his oxygen tanks!), pushed to the front by the barricade so he wouldn't miss a thing. Despite the signs saying "No chairs along the parade route" (I'm sure an NFL rule -- which cruelly prevents the elderly and disabled not in wheelchairs from hanging), two pretty Creole girls across the street were standing dangerously on folding chairs, shaking their booties to the bands as they went by. (By the way, Big Man says he thinks saying "pretty Creole girls" is redundant, since it's his considered opinion that all Creole women are, by definition, attractive.)

But the end result of this excitement and craziness was a big dud. The NFL staged the parade and concert for the benefit of their TV audience (and sponsors) and we, the New Orleans Saints fans on the street, were mere props. It was the choppiest, cheesiest parade I have ever not seen the end of. For one thing, the NFL decreed the parade had to stop *for every commercial*. Second, the parade also had to stop for the concert -- and the crowd on the street for the parade carefully stage-managed in front, and then just as artificially, moved back out of the way for the parade to continue after number. For us poor peons on the street, this meant in practice that the damn parade ground to a halt like every five minutes. It was awful. It was worse than Bacchus on its worst night.

We might have been able to stand it if the parade itself had been anything good. But even the bands didn't play when they got stuck in front of you, and the floats were nothing special, all floats we had seen before, with no signs to let us know who was supposed to be on board. And each and every float was marred by disgusting corporate logos and signs and banners (and those corporations won't get a boost from ME by complaining about them by name), and the throws, such as they were, were all cheesy corporate beads (that didn't even light up!) and a few NFL visors. I tell you, it sure brought home why we never, ever, ever want to allow corporate sponsorship of Carnival. It would ruin it for good.

We could only stand a little of this stupid start-for-a-little-while-and-then-stop-for-a-much-longer-while parade. (High point to me: seeing Deuce Macalister hoofing it hard down Decatur, to get to the Dome on time, because of course, with all this stop and start, nobody at the parade was gonna make kick-off.) Big Man and I caught a handful of stuff which we promptly gave away, and then we walked back to the good ol' Country Flame, a marvelously inexpensive and delicious restaurant on the edge of the Quarter. We got them to turn on the game channel and watched the end of the pre-game festivities on TV, seeing Dave Mathews joined onstage by Trombone Shorty and Kermit (so they did allow a few locals, after all), just before the gigantic fireworks finale. (They were sure impressive, and we could hear them clearly on Iberville.)

The NFL loaded so many damn commercials at the start of the game that we missed the coin toss and the start of the new Who Dat chant tradition, but we were able to view the handshake of the team captains and quarterbacks and all the raised forefingers to symbolize "we're all unified" that Drew Brees devised (that sweet young man must really like ritual).

The game was almost TOO exciting, with all the back and forth, and wasn't particularly pretty (but there's no such thing as an ugly win!), but the Boys did pull it out. Bourbon Street, which had been empty during the game, erupted and the fun began. It was like a mini-Carnival or mini-Superbowl on Bourbon, and Big Man and the band at the Blues Club played til 2 am. (And I stayed the whole time! But I can't do *that* too often, not as young as I used to be.)

Monday, September 6, 2010

Sunday at Café Negril

Lately Big Man's been gigging with John Lisi and Delta Funk from 7 to 10 pm (roughly, give or take) on Sunday nights at Café Negril on Frenchman Street. It's basically for tips, and it's big money or anything -- like we're not gonna pay the rent with it or go to the real Negril on it, but it's a fun, musically rewarding, low-stress gig. Big Man really enjoys it and so do I.

In terms of crowds, some Sundays are better than others (obviously) but since this is the Southern Decadence weekend, tonight is a good Sunday indeed -- a good number of folks, really enjoying the music, dancing, drinking, flirting. Good street traffic too. You could tell a lot of them were first-timers at Café Negril, 'cause they had no idea where the rest rooms were, and kept trying to walk across the raised seating area (where I am sitting) in front of the rest room area. (For the record, you can't get there from there, you have to walk around the railing-ed area to go to the rest room.) I'm starting to feel like the rest room traffic director.

Not many people smoking in the club tonight (thank God!), and so there's nothing to dilute the fantastic, mouth-watering aromas coming from the Taco Grill, operated by Ruben, same guy who has the taco truck at the gas station at the uptown-river corner of Louisiana and Claiborne. Ruben's from Honduras, and serves terrific cheap Hondurenos tacos, tamales, burritos, and quesadillas with your choice of beef, pineapple pork, chicken or veggies. (Ruben's occasional helper is an attractive young Latina with gold hoop earrings the size of bracelets.)

There's no cover at Café Negril on Sundays, and if you'd like a fun, inexpensive night out, with music and food, come hear Big Man and Delta Funk next Sunday. Maybe you'll see me there.

And if you go, remember: the band is playing for TIPS, so for heaven's sake, t'row a little somethin'-somethin' in the bucket.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

The Fifth Anniversary

It's hard to know what to say about the 5th anniversary of the federal levee failure after the landfall of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. New Orleanians were of two minds about it -- those who wanted to cocoon, stay home, turn off all media, and try to not to think about the whole thing; and those who with varying degrees of mixed feelings, felt that the occasion should be marked.

Accordingly, the variety of commemoration events was enormous, running from the religious (several interfaith/ecumenical worship services were held at congregations of different faiths, from St. Louis Cathedral to small neighborhood Baptist churches, to the grand St. Charles Ave. Presbyterian Church, where the Uptown Interfaith group held its service, in which I participated), to the cultural/spiritual (several secondlines starting at levee breaks and proceeding through recovering or struggling-to-recover neighborhoods, and at least one voodoo ceremony), to the educational (lectures and programs at Tulane, Loyola, UNO, and Xavier on different aspects of What Happened), to the entertaining (countless concerts and musical events and of course the play in St. Bernard I already posted about), to the cinematic (Spike Lee's 2-part follow-up to When the Levees Broke, entitled God Willin' and the Creek Don't Rise; Harry Shearer's angry movie The Big Uneasy). News media outlets were everywhere, every network and organization you can think of and probably several small ones you wouldn't.

Nearly everyone who is anyone at all got interviewed. (Even *I* got interviewed! by a small public radio station owned by a university Up North.) Some people got interviewed too many times -- Ms. Leah Chase grumbled to me and a friend that she was "sick of bein' interviewed," and added, "Wish there was nothin' to interview me about."

While I did watch the Spike Lee documentaries (and as always, he gets some things right and some things wrong, but his heart is in the right place), and did watch some of NBC's Brian Williams' reports (god bless him for not giving up on us!) and the Frontline on the NOPD criminal misconduct, I mainly tried to avoid Katrina overload. Some pictures and films just bring it all back to me, and I don't want to end up paralyzed with grief and rage as I was 5 years ago. (At one point, Big Man actually thought he'd have to put me in a hospital!)

Yes, things are better -- not as many as you would think/expect/hope for the so-called "greatest country in the world" but still things are better and getting mo' better all the time. Just not as quickly as you'd want.

And some things, some people, some parts of the city, are gone forever, though we will remember them always.

Here's the Prayer of Remembrance I shared at the Interfaith Katrina Commemoration Service on Sunday night:

We ask for the presence of the Spirit of God
as we come together in a spirit of prayer and remembrance:
We remember our old sense of invulnerability,
how we used to think, “Hurricanes always turn away,” or
“Hurricanes always lose strength as they come onto land,”
and we wonder, will we ever feel so safe again?
Keep us safe, we pray, O God.

We remember family members, friends, acquaintances,
neighbors, members of our religious communities,
some of whom have died directly or indirectly from the Storm,
and others who have had to make the hard decision to live elsewhere.
We miss them, each and every one, each and every day;
in our lives, in everything we do, we keep them in our hearts.
Keep them within your care, we pray, O God.

We remember the simple yet important landmarks of our lives,
the fabric of neighborhoods, the homes, schools, businesses,
places of worship, restaurants, places intimate to us,
and those we only knew from driving by,
washed away or demolished, irrevocably lost to the Storm.
The lost city of our memories will remain with us;
we will forever be saying “where this and that used to be.”
Keep our city from losing dear and familiar landmarks,
we pray, O God.

When our hearts were broken and we were near despair
we remember what it took for us to come this far –
courage, hard work, humor, the celebrations of our culture and heritage,
the kindness of many many strangers,
and most of all, faith.
Help us keep the faith, O God, and remember us
as we remember and remember.