Best Celebrity Sighting Ever!

So as I mentioned last night Kim and I spent the weekend in our adopted home of New Orleans. If my math is correct (and let’s be honest, it always is) I’ve been traveling to New Orleans myself for eighteen years and have spent the last five years with Kim by my side for events that have included our first date and our wedding (though not on the same trip). I’ve come to the conclusion that I have spent more time in New Orleans than any other city where I did not have a mailing address and I believe I have spent more time in NOLA than I did in Overland Park, Kansas which is by all accounts a good thing.

Anyway, as is our tradition no trip to New Orleans for us complete without at least one random and totally insane moment. We’ve found ourselves VIP members of a Mardi Gras Krewe, being introduced to Paul Prudhomme and caught up in the celebration of the Saints Super Bowl victory. We’ve also apparently caused one store in the Quarter to change its policy after we entered the store without recalling that a) we had been in the store the previous day, b) we had spent a good hour looking at everything there and c) had apparently purchased a four foot long alligator. That store is now one of our favorites, mainly because they sold us a four foot long alligator.

This trip was no different and may have set the bar for complete randomness. Over the years Kim and I have become defacto members of the Krewe of Barkus, which is the Mardi Gras parade dedicated to the dogs of the city. Meaning that everyone dresses up their dogs in costumes and marches them through the French Quarter and in the process help to raise money for Animal Rescue New Orleans and encouraging the adopting of rescue dogs. It is a total blast and a cause that we both support (particularly Kim who has been doing this for years and has her two adopted dogs that I have been absolutely blessed to know.) As a result of this and the friends that we have made over the years we are lucky enough to have VIP access to the viewing stand; which really means that we have access to the balcony of a bar to watch the parade.

So we are up there, joking around with some people we had just met and others who remembered us from years past. At one point we look down to the street below and Kim turns to me and goes “Isn’t that Jesse from Opposite Worlds?”

Now I wrote a week or two ago about Opposite Worlds, a Sy Fy channel reality show that is a weird mix of Big Brother, Survivor, Captain Caveman and Twitter advertising dollars. Kim and I might be the only people who have actually watched the show and were certainly the only people who, in a Mardi Gras crowd, could pick out one of the villains of a third tier reality. Kim, in all her persuasive glory, got one of the guys next to us to yell out “Jesse!” to which he turned to us, smirked and waved. Kim and I immediately yelled out “We voted for you! We wanted you to win!” to which he replied “So did I!” At which point Kim and I just burst out laughing.

I’m sorry but that was so random that it made our trip. That was the last celebrity that I expected to see and it was just a brilliant random encounter that only meant something to the two of us. That is why I love going to NOLA, you just never know what is going to happen. As always, I have to thank all of our great friends who live there and show us unbelievable hospitality every time we make our way there. It is incredibly appreciated.

Wednesday Night Music Club: This is a Lydia Loveless song from her Indestructible Machine album and was the first time in ages I’ve heard something that just made me stop and swear at how good it is. This is from when she was 21 years old and there is no way that a 21 year old should either be able to write or sing like that. People are comparing her to Neko Case, which might not be a fair comparison but I remember seeing Neko in concert in 1999 and my reaction was the same and I don’t know if I can name anyone else who just made my jaw drop with just her voice like these two did.

I was there!!!!!

Ok, time for the latest round of Where’s Waldo. Kim and I are somewhere in that picture. I think. Things are a little blurry as you might expect.

A few of you are probably wondering why there has been a lack of posts the past few nights. The reason is rather simple: Kim and I decided to spend the weekend in New Orleans. How we happened to get caught up in the greatest party in the history of mankind is slightly more difficult to explain.

As I have mentioned before, Kim and I had our first date on Valentine’s Day in the French Quarter. She had never been to New Orleans and it is my favorite city so we felt that it would be a perfect first date destination. If it worked out well then we would have the greatest story ever and if it didn’t, well, at least we could drink beer on the street. What we really loved about that weekend, which is the weekend before Mardi Gras weekend, is that there is the Krewe of Barkus parade. A parade in which all of the residents of New Orleans dress their dogs up in costume and parade them through the French Quarter. It is hysterical and joyous and we immediately decided that we would be at the parade every year from that point on.

So a few months ago I booked our hotel and flights for our return trip. A few days later I realized that it was Super Bowl weekend. A few days after that I realized that the Saints had a legitimate chance to be in the Super Bowl. Two weeks ago I realized that we were in for the biggest time of our lives.

I’ve been going to New Orleans for about fifteen years now and I have never seen the city like this. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was wearing black and gold. The streets were filled more than I had ever seen them before and outside of Mardi Gras and the Sugar Bowl I have been down there for the busiest days of the year. It was wild but in a completely joyful way. I don’t recall seeing any fights or arguments or anything outside of the normal lunacy found in the French Quarter. It was days and nights of people drinking and celebrating and screaming “Who dat!” at the top of their lungs. And this was before the game even started.

You could feel the roars in the French Quarter as the game went on. The entire place would shake after a good play. And after the game it was just bedlam. I’ve been in Chicago for the Bulls championships and nothing could compare. As we left today we saw Bourbon Street as they were trying to clean it and you couldn’t believe what it looked like. It was like a war zone if the war only took place inside a brewery. And no one had a care in the world about it.

Many more stories to come. Until then, here is the song (specifically starting at the 3:34 mark) that almost brought me to tears before the game even started.

The five random CDs for the week:

1) Loreena McKennitt "The Visit"

2) R.E.M. "Reconstruction of the Fables"

3) Ryan Adams "Gold"

4) The Sundays "Static and Silence"

5) R.E.M. "Document"

The best game I never saw

Anyone who knows me knows about my love for New Orleans. It is simply my favorite city in the country and probably the world (though Dublin can make quite an argument.) There are very few cities that feel like home to me even after I spend years living there. New Orleans is just a place that makes me feel like I am always at home there and typically I head down there once a year just to reconnect.

Obviously this means that I follow the Saints with interest and consider them to be my second favorite team after the Bears, whose most recent season is not worth discussing. Or at least I can’t discuss it without sobbing uncontrollably. I like the team and the fans and the fact that despite a history of failure everyone keeps on trying to do their best in the hope that this time would be different.

So I was extremely happy to see that my Saints were in the NFC Championship game tonight. However, in continuing with my “never be home” schedule I was stuck on a plane for the entire game. Took off when the game started and got into my car right as the fourth quarter ended. This meant that I was able to listen to the New Orleans announcers call the overtime with the game ending just as I pulled into my garage. One of the most exciting drives of my life.

I can’t tell you if the calls were good or bad. I don’t know if those interference calls were crap or that it wasn’t a catch. I can’t even say if the NFL overtime rules are fair or that Minnesota had enough chances to win the game and just blew it. All I know is that once the kick went through I have never heard such a scream of joy come from announcers. It was just like my reaction when the White Sox made the World Series; just a sudden outburst of hysterical laughter. One of the announcers yelled “Pigs have flown, hell has frozen over, the Saints are in the Super Bowl!” The joy in his voice was contagious.

You are going to hear a lot of talk about how the team has helped New Orleans post Katrina. It is very easy to be cynical about it. I mean, what does a football team have to do with getting a major city to recover from a natural disaster? But I have met a lot of people from New Orleans in my life and they truly have used the Saints as their rallying point. The team was their escape from the challenge of rebuilding and a point of pride for the city. It was why there was a focus on rebuilding the Superdome in that first year. The city needed to point to something and say that we are back. We were knocked down but we got back up. That is what this game means to the city. We are back. We have rebuilt. And I couldn’t be happier.

The five random CDs for the week:
1) The Freddy Jones Band “The Freddy Jones Band”
2) Rhett Miller “The Believer”
3) Jack Johnson “In Between Dreams”
4) The Jayhawks “Tomorrow the Green Grass”
5) Robbie Fulks “Revenge”

Every dog has his day

I’ve been promising this story for two weeks now. I figure that I should write it now before various people become so upset at my lack of writing it that they begin to remove some of the less vital organs from my body.

As I mentioned before I spent Valentine’s Day in New Orleans this year with an amazing woman by my side. What was interesting was that leading up to the trip neither of us would admit that we were going to be there on Valentine’s Day. We continually referenced the fact that this was a President’s Day weekend trip. It was easier to justify that we were there to celebrate the man, the myth, the legend that is Millard Fillmore than just saying, “Wouldn’t it be incredible if we ended Valentine’s Day by sitting across from each other at Café du Monde eating beignets and drinking really good coffee?” It’s amazing the way we need to craft every moment of our lives.

But it was Valentine’s Day as well as the start of the major Mardi Gras parades. So on Valentine’s Day we decided to catch one of the ones that runs through the Quarter (Krewe Shangri-La for those who are interested in those sorts of things. It wasn’t exactly one of those things we planned on seeing. More like we knew it was going to happen and while wandering the Quarter we ran into the parade route. So as you always do in New Orleans, when you see a lot of people waiting for something to happen you join in with them.

It wasn’t long before we noticed that we were joined by a small, unleashed dog and his rather interesting owner. Interesting in the ways that only people in Nola can be. She would make her way through the crowd, start conversations with anyone, go up to people in the parade and ask why things weren’t moving and be oblivious to the fact that her dog is just wandering amidst the crowd. She was just one of those women who you know is simply referred to as a character.

My traveling companion views dogs as superior to humans in most aspects so she just immediately took a liking to the little guy and tried to make sure that he was ok. From that we learned his story. The dog’s name was Valentine and he was one of the many pets that survived Katrina. Even she wasn’t sure exactly what he survived on or what he went through but he made it through that mess. She didn’t intend to take him to the parade that day but when she left the house he jumped the fence and followed her. I mean, you couldn’t blame him. It was his day and who wants to miss out on a parade?

The parade itself wasn’t one of those massive ones that go down Canal Street with the huge floats. This was more of a neighborhood feel to it even if it was in the Quarter. You had high school marching bands and dance squads and various people being pulled on horse drawn carriages throwing beads to the crowd. Best was the motorcycle rider in drag who was dressed as “Mary Tyler Ramone.” With all the noise and the crowd though you could see that Valentine was getting a little frightened and without a leash we weren’t sure where he was going to go. So, my traveling companion reached into her bag, undid one of her camera straps, and improvised a leash for the little guy. Like I said, she is a rather amazing woman.

The reason our friend was at the parade was that the king of the parade was a friend of her from work at the fairgrounds. When he came by in his carriage she went up to him to say hi and get a hug. In the Mardi Gras tradition he gave her something special, which was his arm garter that read “Krewe of Shangri-La”. When she came back to the sidewalk she immediately handed it to us as a gift. I was happy to get beads and whatever other trinkets were tossed our way. To get something from the king of a Mardi Gras parade? That is pretty special.

When the parade ended we all went our separate ways. Valentine was released from the Canon leash and he went off with his owner, jauntily walking through the Quarter like he owned the place. Which in a way, he did.

Later that night while walking through another part of the city we came across a guy holding a little puppy. When we asked him his story he explained that he had just picked up this dog from a litter of pups that had been born that morning. The dog’s name? Valentine, of course.

People still wonder what I love about New Orleans. It’s a dirty, smelly, crime ridden city with the ever possible threat that the levees may fail again. But that is what I love about the place. Because the people who live there are there because the city speaks to them. This is their home and they could be whoever they want to be. And all you have to do to experience it is go there and open yourself to the moment.

Best of 120 Minutes: Let’s rock out to some Morphine tonight, shall we?

Morphine MTV Music

The five random CDs of the week:
1) The Postal Service “Give Up”
2) Continental Drifters “Better Day”
3) Nora O’Connor “Til the Dawn”
4) Beth Orton “Pass In Time”
5) The V-Roys “All About Town”

A bit of the big easy

Three topics tonight for the price of one…

I’d like to thank everyone who stopped by the blog yesterday as I had my biggest traffic day ever as a result of my Oscar blog. 61 hits yesterday, which doesn’t sound like much until you realize that I don’t think I actually know 61 people. In fact, that amount allows me to cross one of my New Year’s resolutions off the list as it was my goal to break 50 readers in a day. Looking back at my resolutions (posted on January 1 for those interested in seeing the list) I am surprised at just how much progress I have made in the past two months. Just wait until I actually buy a yoga mat…

On the topic of resolutions today is Mardi Gras and that means tomorrow is the start of lent otherwise known as the second chance at new year’s resolutions for Catholics. At this time of year those of us who were raised in Catholic schools feel obligated to give something up for lent. Now I always feel like I must point out why we do this and why for the next few weeks I will no longer eat meat on Friday. It is not that cows are suddenly evil or that the Catholic church has a great deal of investments in the fishing industry. No, the entire idea of giving something up is to remind ourselves how blessed we are in life and to clear our minds of some of the superfluous fluff that overtakes it.

People always have interesting choices for lent. Many people give up beer, which always confuses me as I assume that God wants us to enjoy life. For the past few years I have given up negativity for lent. It never works and usually by Thursday my snark level is at unprecedented heights but at least I try. This year I am going to do something a little different. I’m giving up junk food for lent. After putting on a few more pounds over the winter (and realizing that I have been eating like crap) I’ve decided that I must really focus on how I am treating my body. So I am putting away the Twinkies and the Chewy Chips Ahoy and the I Can’t Believe It’s Not a Large Tub of Saturated Fat. Sigh. It’s going to be a long lent.

Since it is Mardi Gras I felt like I should share one small story from my trip to New Orleans last week. This explains all that I love about the city…

It was Monday and my travelling partner and I had spent an eventful weekend in the Quarter. Given that it had been the weekend before the weekend before Mardi Gras the Quarter had been filled with people and parades and energy. We had no real plans when we got there so we were just sucked into the entire atmosphere of joy and excitement and energy. On Monday though there was nothing scheduled and the two of us just planned on walking around, making those last purchases and enjoying our last moments in the city.

One of the things that I enjoyed seeing on this trip was that all of the people who make the city interesting were back. The painters, the fortune tellers, the people who ask you where you got your shoes at, they all had returned to the city after a brief respite after Katrina. They are what gives the city its unique charm. There is no organization or structure behind them, you are not quite sure where they came from or where they go at night, but they create this other worldly atmosphere to the city. They make it unlike any place else.

My travelling partner would always carry money on her so she could put a few dollars in the hat of all of the performers. She would occasionally go into a bar with the intent of getting change just so she could tip the next person she came across, even if it meant crossing the street to do so. That just amazed me. Most people (including myself, sadly) are all too tempted to just increase our pace as we walk past and not appreciate the fact that there is a human being behind the performance. That this is not a theme park employee; this is someone for whom this moment is their life. To say that she impressed me with these small acts does not do the word or her justice.

So on our last day walking around the city we came across a guy with a mane of rather wild, curly hair playing a cello. On the list of instruments one plays to impress tourists a cello is rather highbrow. It is Mardi Gras after all and the drunken frat boys are surprisingly uninterested in classical music. We pass him by and she puts a few dollars in his hat and he thanks her. We walk around for a few hours, make a few purchases and while walking in a different part of the Quarter we walk by him again. She once again drops a few dollars in the hat and as we are about ten steps away he yells out “Thanks again!” as we both turn to see him waving and smiling at us.

Day turns into night and we end our trip with just a fantastic dinner and one last walk back to our hotel. We step onto Jackson Square and from a distance I can hear a cello playing. There is our friend, in his third location of the day at least, set up in front of St. Louis Cathedral as the last bits of light are fading from the city. I pause for a second, look at her, and went “Let’s make this guy’s day.”

The two of us rush over to him and put enough money in the hat to cover a few nights at the youth hostel. I know this because he told us exactly what he needed for the night and how he was hoping beyond hope that someone would give him enough just so he could go back and go to sleep. And instead of just doing this and walking by we talked with him to find out his story. His name was Bracken and he was from Wisconsin and he was doing this as part of what could only be described as a musical dream. He wasn’t sure quite what he was trying to accomplish but he knew that if he could go to parts of the country and just play the music that he loved and survived that it would make him a better person and a better musician. He missed his family, he missed his home, but something told him that if he made his way to New Orleans everything would work out. That this was a place he was just meant to be. When we last saw him he was making his way through the Quarter, cello in hand, with the biggest smile on his face.

I’ve often said that what I love about New Orleans is that it is an actual place and the US has very few of those. On the surface that means that the city itself is not a Xeroxed version of every other city in America with the same strip malls and chain stores. But what I really mean is that the people in the city are a wonderful set of madmen and dreamers who want to see what will happen if for one moment in your life you try to make your wishes come true. The city is built by people who pursue their art and their joy of life come hell or high water, literally.

Why do I always visit New Orleans? Because dreams permeate the city in a way I have never seen anywhere else in the world. And it is the most intoxicating sight one can imagine.

Happy Mardi Gras everyone. Enjoy some Cowboy Mouth.

Watching the clouds...

Three years later and I once again find myself on a Sunday night watching CNN and scared to death about what I see. A hurricane is once again bearing down on New Orleans and I am waiting with baited breath to see what will happen tomorrow.

I’ve mentioned on this blog a lot about my love for New Orleans. Throughout my entire job search I would constantly look for jobs there and even applied for a few, though nothing ever came out of them. I’m probably one of the few people in my situation from a career standpoint who would willingly relocate to New Orleans. Yes, the city is being rebuilt and had crime and infrastructure issues. But every time that I am there it just feels like home.

What I love about New Orleans is that it is its own place. The architecture is its own, the food, the music, the art, it is all uniquely tied to this one place. So much of America is cookie cutter. I was talking to a friend today about her cross country road trip and she said that she hated highways in which she looked out the window and couldn’t tell what state she was in. Everything was just the same. You can’t say that about New Orleans. It is its own little world.

I was there a few months before Katrina, back when life was free and easy. I sat in my apartment and cried watching the aftermath of Katrina. It was tough to explain to people. I would watch the news coverage and see places where I had walked submerged. I’d see the people suffering at the Superdome and know that someone I had met on my travels was there at that moment. It was like seeing all of your dreams being destroyed in front of your eyes with no one bothering to stop to help.

A year later I was back to help with the rebuilding efforts. I only spent a few days volunteering but I helped to gut a couple of houses and get them ready to be rebuilt. I was proud to do the work and gladly took vacation time to do it though I will still say that when you need me to swing the crowbar to get things done the government is doing things really badly. I was happy for the rebuilding but the city wasn’t the same. It was quiet and empty and more than a little sad. The life just wasn’t there.

When I came back last year though the Quarter had at least returned to its old self. The population was slowly coming back and while you could still see the devastation and the FEMA trailers at least the vibrancy of the city had return. A lot of the joy was back. Times were still tough but the people were making it work. I left feeling really happy about what I had encountered.

From people I know who have been there recently things have only gotten better. That is why I am scared tonight. I don’t know what will happen if the levees fail again. It has taken three years and the city still isn’t rebuilt. I don’t know if people will have the energy to try again.

I am going to say a prayer tonight for the people and the city that I love. I hope you do the same.