…but there’s an event that ought to be on your calendar this weekend:

Seriously, all your friends will be there–and a few enemies, too. So much drama!

Bad news: Our housemate made a complete ass of himself at French Quarter Fest.

Good news: The high point of his ass-foolery was dancing onstage. With Chris freakin’ Owens.

Best news ever: It was totally captured on video.

I’m not ordinarily a jealous man, but Chris Owens? Damn….

Over the last few weeks some friends and I have been heading out to the hinterland to do some exploring. It began with a trip to Natchez MS.,  with my friend, E.  We visited Longwood and a few other antebellum homes.  Longwood is a must see for architectural buffs. There aren’t many good places to eat in this sleepy town on Sunday but I always go to the Magnolia Cafe on the Mississippi River because I enjoy the dramatic view of the river which is rather humbling here. In fact, they are preparing for a rise in the river as floodwaters from the Midwest move south.  This event threatens the Isle of Capri riverboat gambling stationed near the Magnolia Cafe.

Last week we went on a walking tour of Avery Island and Rip VanWinkle Gardens. These were all really pretty adventures. The flowers are in full bloom. At the end of our safari, we rewarded ourselves with a delicious meal at Cafe des Amis.

Today we pumped it up a notch or two and visited Clark Creek, MS.  I was almost too tired to shower. The hills are a workout that can’t be mimicked on the stairmaster and the waterfalls were really beautiful. It’s a totally different world just 2.5 hrs away.

More Photos Sorry, I didn’t feel like taking photos while in Natchez. Next time for sure.

While relaxing on my day off I was fortunate enough to catch the Keepin It Real second-line on Bienville today. It was a gorgeous day. It’s such a luxury to be in a place where you can experience a second-line in between cleaning out the cat-box and doing laundry. My neighbor and I shared some ginger snaps and did some booty shakin together. After enjoying the parade, Alvin went back to spraying pigeons off his roof with the hose and I back to my Sunday ablutions, both with the fuller sense of well-being that only a good dose of a brass band and its connections to your ‘peeps’ adds to everyday life here in New Orleans.

Full disclosure: I can’t stand Anne Rice. I mean, yes, on the handful of occasions I met her, she was a lovely and charming woman, but her writing…well, lovely and charming it ain’t. Even back in college, when I spent many a night dancing gloomily to Front 242 at the Blue Crystal–even then I thought she was a sloppy, slovenly hack. Her popularity completely mystified me.

But today I figured it out.* Today, in an interview in the Picayune, Ann Rice has inadvertently explained everything and made clear (at least to me) her intent to follow the American zeitgeist all the way to the bank–no matter the pit stops it may make along the way:

On leaving New Orleans: “My only beloved son was in Los Angeles, and I felt like moving out to California was a good thing to do.”

Did you catch the reference? Do you see where this is going?

On the success of The Da Vinci Code: “I’m so outraged by it,” she said…. There’s not a scrap of evidence to support any of those theories.”

Yeah, baby. Work the angle.

On the possibility of writing another Lestat novel: “That book will only be written if I can keep my commitment to the Lord,” she said. “If I can work out a book where Lestat is saved, yes, I’ll write it.

Bingo.

Having ridden the Gothic wave until it finally petered out at the threshold of a Claire’s Boutique somewhere in Missouri, Anne is now totally hot for Christian schlock and George W’s ballyhooed Base. She’s bid adieu to the slim-hipped young men, attracted by her daring views on homosexuality. She’s bid adieu to the plus-sized women, clad in crushed velvet, who often accompanied the slim-hipped men at book signings. She’s bid adieu to everyone drawn into her parallel universes of inverted but somehow totally right-on morality, and she’s gunning for Wal-Mart employees and the Songs of Praise demographic.

Which is not to say that vampire novels and biographies of Jesus Christ don’t bear similarities to one another: they’re both intriguing myths chock-full of blood-guzzling. In fact, if I were so inclined, I could give Ms. Rice the benefit of the doubt and presume she’s trying to modernize Christian ideology by working from the inside out. Sadly, I am not so inclined.

Nor is it to say that a person can’t appreciate these two divergent styles of Ms. Rice’s work (three, if you count the A. N. Roquelaure erotica). Such a person may well exist, but I wouldn’t wanna be his therapist.

Anyway, given Ms. Rice’s stated and unstated intentions, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess at her immediate goals:

1. Buy an abandoned church and start her own denomination (working title: International House of Ann-cakes).

2. Trample Dan Brown on the bestseller lists and leave behind those Left Behind guys.

3. Enshrine Christopher in the literary heavens (just below her), so that he’ll be wealthy and well-connected enough to care for her in style throughout her waning years.

* Her son’s popularity, however, continues to boggle my wee mind.

Who are these Who Dats?

As in:

Who Dat playing quarterback? It’s not Drew Brees.

Who Dat playing defense? Looks like absolutely no one.

Who Dat breaking long touchdown runs, leaving 10 players in your wake? David Beckham he ain’t.

Who Dat breaking a city’s heart almost as fast as the Katrina gut punch? Dem Saint’s dat’s who.

The spirit, the fire, the energy to win football games in the NFL has not been apparent from the start of the regular season. The boys seem flat and uninterested. No sneaking up on the league this year. The passion that the team displayed last year is what took all of us, these brave souls fighting for a city’s life, on the ride of a lifetime. It’s foolish of us, any of us, fans, media, or the team itself, to EXPECT the Who Dat’s to play the same way. I covered sports for a long time before I came home. I’ve seen it before. Not anywhere to the degree of last season, but I’ve been around teams that had a special season, a breakout year. The next season, every team was coming after them, to knock them back down or to just get the publicity of beating a “better” team. Playing sports is about emotion. A average team that has something to prove can and usually does beat a superior team that isn’t into the game emotionally.

So what does it all mean Howard Cosell? Hell I don’t know, it’s just football. But I do know that a whole bunch of Who Dat’s are close to crying in Who-ville.

The Fox Network’s national debut of the “gritty cop drama” K-Ville will occur September 17th. The locals have gotten a chance to check out the premiere early, thanks to NOLA.com and the Fox Network.

Normally, I have better things to do than to watch a TV show on the internet. But seeing how life is a puzzle right now for the majority of us, meaning we are still trying to put the pieces back together, I thought I’d watch to see how the show will come across to the rest of the nation.

First, I don’t expect this program to depict life as it is for the majority of us in the city. No one wants to watch that frankly. I watched it as a casual observer really, not trying to focus too much on either how good or how bad the producers/writers portrayed New Orleans.

I was really more interested in how Louis in Topeka or Mary in Idaho would view the show. If we, meaning locals, get too bogged down with the “that’s not how we do it” or “I’ve never seen a criminal that looks like THAT” then we’re not getting what the show could mean to the city/recovery. A cop show in general is that, a cop show. Good guys, bad guys, good cops and maybe a bad cop or two. The basics are in there. Just like Ragu spaghetti sauce, It’s in there!

I’m not a TV critic, (Boy that must a tough gig). But I rather enjoyed the show. Is it perfect? No, not at all. But I did vibe with some of the post katrina takes and think that, as much as can be expected, the people involved are trying to do the right thing. Will it work? Not sure on that one. We all know the Katrina Fatigue excuse that we’ve heard the rest of the country suffers from, so some folks will be turned off right away. But it’s not just about Katrina. It kept me interested enough to want to see what’s next in K-Ville.

Take an hour and watch. See if you think that it’s close to realistic or that it’s just nutty. These aren’t sweet and cuddly cops like all the REAL NOPD officers are. Can a TV show help an area recover? Or will it just shed more bad publicity on our 2-sided sword city?

I’ve never felt this way before concerning the football team that calls New Orleans home. I doubt if the entire city has felt this way about our football team before. Sure, we’ve always had the crazies who think the Saints will be good every year, no matter the record. But much like our political process, the majority of us have been in the middle when it comes to believing that the boys could be good.

No more. The city’s water supply has been sadly lacking fluoride since Katrina, but me thinks the Sewage & Water Board has been spiking the city’s water supply with some kind of non-flavored Saints Kool-Aid. Call it Black and Gold fever, cause the entire city cannot wait for the NFL season to begin.

Die-hard football fans, casual football fans and people who wouldn’t know a football if it hit them in the crotch are hyped, over-hyped and positively giddy over the prospects of the 2007 edition of the New Orleans Saints.

I will not bore you or myself with some “analysis” of the offense, defense or special teams. I will not go into detail about this back up or that back up. I don’t want to talk about the play calling or any such nonsense.

Last season, the staff at the radio station (new web site btw), attempted to predict the final regular season record of the beloved gridiron 11. Some went as high as 7-9. Myself I thought they would go 2-14. Shows what I know. Or anyone knew for that matter.

So tell me, dear faithful metro blogging readers, how will the Saints do this season? What will the regular season record be for the team that restored hope in a city? Basics: 16 game season, wins go first, losses second. No sneaking up on anyone this year folks, this team is expected to be very very good.

If I thought it would work, I’d give another horrible prediction as to not put the whammy on the boys. But I don’t believe in that stuff so I’m going to say 12-4, South Division Champs and yeah you right New Orleans, the Saints will be in the Super Bowl!

Are you ready for some football New Orleans? Tell me what you think!

Maybe or maybe not? I really don’t care anymore. Knock yourself out Mayor Kevorkian. What really does interest me is that naginforgovernor.com has been purchased and is “under construction”.

It’s not so interesting that the website/domain name has been reserved. To me, the more interesting part of the whole short story is what company reserved/purchased the website name.

Imagine Software LLC, the company that has essentially run the city’s Office of Technology since Nagin was elected in 2002 is the owner of that domain name.

Imagine Software LLC is the company that was begun by Greg Meffert and other friends who ran the city’s IT department for about 4 years.

Imagine Software LLC is the company that has received large city contracts for “work” that frankly is weak. Anyone tried to use the city web site in the last two years? Anytime I click a link I get an internal error message.

Imagine Software LLC is the company that “owns” a yacht that was used as a “party ship” after Gov….err Mayor Nagin’s re-election campaign.

Imagine Software LLC is the company that was or did bid on crime cameras for the City of New Orleans. They installed some cameras that never worked or did not have any “innards”. Kind of like an empty shoebox. Nice box, where are the shoes?

Greg Meffert btw is the guy that squashed a 7 million-dollar federal grant for interoperable communications before Katrina because the technology companies that Meffert dealt with were not involved in the grant.

So where’s this going? Not sure, but I know registering domain names is rather cheap. Not a big amount of money to be lost if you choose not to do something with it. But I also know and have known since Katrina that something in the mayor’s office really stinks and it’s seeping out of the city’s IT office on a daily basis.

In the interest of not offending anyone, scaring off potential tourists or new residents, and portraying the city of New Orleans in the most positive light possible, I’ve decided to go for a new style when I post something. Certainly hope that you enjoy and learn just how easy and wonderful the city of New Orleans is after Ms. Katrina. I hope this new style will bring millions of people rushing to New Orleans, to experience just how great we are rebuilding America’s most unique city.

I woke up this morning and had some cereal for breakfast. The milk was so cold I got a brain freeze and almost passed out! What a way to start the day! Plus it was Capt’n Crunch. I just love those little red cereal pieces. Did anyone know they tasted like fruit? I was very surprised.

The Pepper-naitor was jumping all over the place wanting his walk. I wouldn’t want to hold my bladder either so I threw on some shorts and out we headed. Boy has anyone noticed how hot it is? I have a brilliant idea! Why don’t we build a big plastic bubble over the country, air conditioned of course, so we don’t have to suffer in this heat? I’m going to write my wonderful congressperson and senator on this idea. I know they will jump right on it because my ideas are perfect for everyone!

As Pepper and I were taking our laps around the French Quarter, a wonderful man approached us. In other cities, I might have been concerned about some kind of criminal activity. But not here in New Orleans. Everything is wonderful, all is well. This wonderful man just needed some spare pocket change because his momma’s baby needed some diapers. That is really a worthy cause so I went to the ATM and got him 50 dollars. Diapers cost money now a days you know. As long as that baby’s ass isn’t dirty, I’m a happy camper. I’m sure he would never use the money for some other less-worthy cause.
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