Michael Snyder is an old friend of mine from San Francisco-- as well as a talented writer, discerning critic and celebrated raconteur. He's the Around The World Blog go-to person for all things New Orleans. And he just returned from there and wrote up a report anyone interested in visiting post-Katrina New Orleans will want to read.

New Orleans Lives!

Make no mistake.
 
It's more than a bit broken. But New Orleans and its people are unbowed, and I had a tremendous time there this past weekend.
 
Yep, I'm back in San Francisco after my usual early-Carnival sojourn to the Big Easy. It was exhilarating, exhausting and left me feeling a little melancholy. And I wouldn't have missed it for anything.
 
The areas of town that are geared to entertainment -- the French Quarter, the Marigny and the Garden District -- are fine, although you can see evidence of repairs in progress, and some places (such as the Acme Oyster Bar) have yet to reopen due to personnel shortages. The first parades ran (albeit a little scaled-back) with a slew of cuttingly satirical, and brutally-topical floats, and beads and doubloons a-flying; the parties rocked, especially the annual all-night bash at Jamie's warehouse (a wild menagerie of fun-loving, incredibly creative people in beautiful, sexy and/or hilarious costumes); the food was exquisite (i.e. dinners at Irene's, Adolfo's and NOLA; beignets at the Cafe Du Monde; and some libations to delight: Restoration Ale and Carnival Bock from Abita, and the Chocolate City Stout from Crescent City Brewhouse); the Krewe of Barkus doggie parade went off without a hitch on Sunday afternoon as canines and their owners, done up in hilarious fashion to reflect this year's theme "The Wizard of Paws," strolled the Quarter to appreciative crowds; and my friends -- those who stayed or returned, and those I only just met -- were as gracious, warm and welcoming as ever.

I don't want to forget the music and clubbing I did: There was some eloquent small-combo chamber jazz from pianist Ellis Marsalis, the patriarch of the musical Marsalis clan, at Snug Harbor; techno-house dancing at Oz; the Bob French & Friends jam session Monday night at Donna's with the great Kermit Ruffins -- the Satchmo of the modern era -- sitting in on trumpet and vocals, and the brilliant humorist and comic actor Harry Shearer kicking back at the bar; and an ass-whuppin' midnight show by Nashville Pussy (X-rated, trailer-trashy Deep South metal-punk) at the best rock club in the Quarter, One-Eyed Jacks.

A mordant sense of humor was in evidence, no matter where you went. The Krewe of Carrollton dubbed its parade "Blue Roof Blues," in reference to the omnipresent blue tarps that FEMA used to cover houses left open to the elements by the storm; they recycled old floats to fit the "blue" theme. So, to pay tribute to the Blue Man Group, they took a float that was previously used as a tribute to Gandhi, completely spray-painted the bald figure at the front of the vehicle in a rich shade of blue and -- Voila! Hairless spiritual sari-wearing pacifist becomes freaky, post-modern performance artist!

And the novelty T-shirts, at souvenir shops from Bourbon to Decatur, were particularly prickly: a "Girls Gone Wild" shirt with the meteorological symbol that represents a hurricane duplicated under the names "Katrina" and "Rita"; a FEMA shirt that spelled the acronym "Federal Employees Missing Again"; a New Orleans Police Department shirt that said "Not Our Problem, Dude"; New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco and Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard depicted as the Three Stooges; and my favorite, which takes the poster art for the recent film "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory," and replaces star Johnny Depp's face with Ray Nagin's, alters the background to a post-Katrina NOLA skyline, and the title to "Willy Nagin & the Chocolate City -- Semi-Sweet & a Little Bit Nuts." Anger transformed to humor.

This is not to diminish the tragedy. Parts of the city are devastated. For instance, I made it over to the periphery of the Ninth Ward, and even now, it looks like a bomb went off and laid waste to everything. Although it will take years (and a much better series of levees) before those neighborhoods are back to something approaching they're previous condition (or hopefully, something better), there are clean-up crews and builders who are toiling every day with the determination to resurrect and improve upon that which was destroyed.
 
New Orleans will survive, and it's ready to accommodate those who love it, or will love it if they visit. It's a national treasure, and it needs us. I encourage any and all of you to go there and support the most unique, exotic and seductive metropolitan area in North America.

 There are a few more days left until Mardi Gras. And how about Jazz Fest in April? It's coming up, and it's a music-lover's dream. I'm just sayin'...

by Michael Snyder

Every year, I head to New Orleans to participate in the pre-Lenten carnival. I’ve done this without fail for two decades-- even in February of 2006, mere months after the natural disaster-- and the less natural Bush-connected aftermath-- that has since come to define the area in many minds.

I choose the early weekend of the twelve-day festival that culminates in Mardi Gras, because it offers plenty of celebration with easier access to amenities, but fewer yahoos over-indulging, acting the fool, and making the rest of us pay for their folly. There is a stretch of Bourbon Street that should be overseen by the NCAA, since many nights, teams of drunken college students appear to be competing in the sport of distance vomiting. That sort of behavior increases during Carnival season, but it’s easy to avoid when you know where it tends to happen.

So I went back to New Orleans yet again. I couldn’t not go. And I was so happy to be there. In its own way, this trip was as lovely as all of my prior visits, despite the knowledge that so much has changed, will never be the same, and needs to be done to insure the town’s future. At least, the entertainment districts were in good shape-- with the exception of a few storefronts that remain shuttered. Music rang out of every corner, whether it was a ragtime band on Royal Street, trumpeter Leroy Jones at Preservation Hall, the old-timey New Orleans Jazz Vipers at the Spotted Cat, or vocalist John Boutte and his ensemble at d.b.a. As usual, there were moments that I’ll absolutely cherish:

Sunday night, I ate dinner at Coop’s-– an informal joint in the French Quarter-- with a buddy from San Francisco and the great singer-songwriter-guitarist Alex Chilton of Box Tops and Big Star fame. I was still recovering from the indulgences of the previous night’s costume party in the two-story warehouse of a renowned local artist. I’d had my fill of the weekend’s street parades with float-riding maskers tossing beads, aluminum doubloons, plastic cups and who-knows-what-else at rambunctious crowds. I’d had the thrill of watching the afternoon’s Krewe of Barkus dog parade as a thousand cleverly-costumed canines dragged their masters through the Quarter to the cheers of appreciative onlookers. (This year’s Barkus theme was “A Streetdog Named Desire.” Loved the dachshund in the torn t-shirt with the name “Stanley Bow-Wow-Ski” scrawled across its back.) I was ready for the joys of good Cajun-style cooking and good company.

Local resident Chilton lives in the Tremé, the primarily African-American neighborhood that spawned jazz giant Louis Armstrong, and he’s been happy there for many years. Yet these are troubling times. Between bites of an oyster po’boy, Chilton expressed his concern over the loss of thousands of hard-working lower-middle-class New Orleanians who were flooded out of their homes by Hurricane Katrina and may never come back. Suddenly, he noticed the sound of R&B queen Aretha Franklin coming over the restaurant’s sound system. She was singing the Burt Bacharach-Hal David classic “I Say a Little Prayer.” Chilton marveled at her stirring gospel inflections that clearly turned the object of the singer’s affection from a boyfriend or new-found lover to a certain Lord and Savior. “Not what Burt and Hal intended,” Chilton said with a grin, before devouring the rest of his po’ boy.

On Monday afternoon, the day after the Grammys, I was walking down Frenchmen Street in the Faubourg Marigny district next to the Quarter. I’d just been hanging out with fervent NoLa musician Kenny Claiborne, the guitar-slinging soul rebel who defied civic, state and national troops in the wake of Katrina; stayed in his home after the citywide evacuation; and, with the aid of a gas-powered generator, his home studio and a couple of speakers on his balcony, played DJ eight hours a day for his few remaining neighbors, the police, soldiers, and relief workers. With a microphone in hand, he asked passersby for requests, spun his favorites, and called it Radio Marigny. He’s a remarkable guy.

Anyway, I was heading back to Decatur Street to quaff a pint of Crescent City Brewhouse’s Carnival Bock, and suddenly, there was legendary producer-composer-keyboardist-singer Allen Toussaint driving his shiny convertible, top down, a female companion by his side. They slowly tooled past the strip of hotspots on Frenchmen: Ray's Boom Boom Room, Café Brazil, d.b.a., the Spotted Cat, and the venerable Snug Harbor where pianist Ellis Marsalis-– father of jazz masters Wynton, Branford, Delfeayo, and Jason-- is in residence with his trio every Friday night. The previous evening, Toussaint was in Los Angeles to attend the Grammy ceremony. “The River in Reverse,” his 2006 collaboration with Elvis Costello, had been nominated in the category of "best pop vocal album,” but John Mayer won the award.

Hours later, Toussaint was back home to New Orleans, and cruising along in elegant fashion. People on the sidewalk greeted him with words of respect and encouragement. All on Frenchmen who saw him knew him and gave him his props. Toussaint-- local royalty-- acknowledged each of them with a gracious nod, and motored on.

Despite the banners and posters trumpeting “Rebuild, Restore, Renew” or similar positive sentiments, a number of T-shirts for sale at various souvenir shops in the Quarter tell a different story. Of course, there are the usual vulgar inscriptions such as the popular “I Got Bourbon-Faced on Shit Street.” Then, there are shirts of a different stripe, reading “Make Levees, Not War”; “FEMA: The New Four-Letter Word,” “F.E.M.A.: Fix Everything My Ass”; and, both lurid and pointed, “Katrina Gave Me a Blow-Job I’ll Never Forget.” All of it is justified. It’s been way over a year since the flood. The fix-up has been slow and, in some sectors, non-existent.

After what Katrina did, did the weather deities think that a tornado or two could faze the Crescent City? Lightning flashed, wind howled, rain came down, and at least one tornado ripped through and ripped up the streets on the night before I left town, by then, completely spent from my long weekend of food, drink, music, dance, and camaraderie. A number of buildings were leveled, some people were injured, and an elderly woman died. More tragedy for a locale that has far exceeded its recommended dose. Yet…

The next day dawned sunny and warm. Around noon in Armstrong Park’s Congo Square, the current model of Paul Kantner’s Jefferson Starship played a free concert sponsored by Microsoft. A polyglot crowd whooped it up to a lively Starship career retrospective, preceded by a few songs from a reconstituted Quicksilver Messenger Service.

Yep. The party resumed, and will continue into next week. It'll only stop when Fat Tuesday turns to Ash Wednesday, and Lent begins. Caught in the vortex of Carnival, people will willingly succumb to pleasure and (thanks to spicy food and excessive drink) pain until the madness ends. Then, it’ll happen again next year.

You can’t stop Mardi Gras.

Hard to Leave the Big Easy

I’m continuing to depressurize. Trying to reintegrate right and left brains. Weaning myself off of Pimm’s cups and Ramos fizzes and Sazeracs. Occasionally shaking from gumbo withdrawal.

Of course, I already miss New Orleans, and it’s only been a couple of days since I left. I actually began to pine for the city as I pulled away from the French Quarter and headed for Louis Armstrong Airport. (And if that name ain’t a promise of good times as you arrive in town and an invitation to melancholy as you leave, I don’t know what is.)

Carnival is in full swing, dressed in the traditional green, gold and purple of Mardi Gras, and heading for its ecstatic culmination next Tuesday. (The green stands for faith, the gold for power, and the purple for justice – so decreed by the membership of the New Orleans social club the Krewe of Rex over a century ago.)

Showing up for the first few days of what amounts to a week and a half of increasing dementia allows one to avoid the massive crush of yahoos and loonies looking to get completely plastered and heedlessly bare body parts by the end of the celebration. At the start, the numbers are smaller and the behavior more civilized. Nonetheless, the spirit of revelry was in the air this past weekend. Yes, there were some remnants of what a couple of locals warily/bitterly called “that weather incident.” The French Market is being renovated and, the promise of renewal aside, its husk is a sad sight. The Lower Ninth Ward is still largely a mess.

But the people are still warm and welcoming. Construction is happening throughout the town. The Quarter and Magazine Street in the Garden District are pretty much back to speed. New businesses are opening – and a few storm-devastated old businesses are reopening. The restaurants – from the familiar and classic to the recently spawned – were, as expected, producing the delectable regional cuisine that has inspired watering mouths and rave reviews - nay, poetry! - for decades.

Certainly, the music-- particularly at the clubs on Frenchmen Street in the Marigny-- was superb and rollicking and wistful and even hopeful, just like the residents who stayed or returned, and endured.

Last Friday night, pianist Ellis Marsalis-- patriarch of the renowned musical clan-- had his small ensemble cooking on the standards as usual at Snug Harbor. At d.b.a. (the New Orleans branch of the New York City/East Village brew pub), the weekend schedule was top-notch and delightfully indigenous with torchy blues-rock chanteuse Ingrid Lucia doing the early evening show on Friday, followed by some rousing frenzy from the folk-rockin’ Zydepunks; jazz crooner John Boutte and band opening the Saturday bill, with a wild R&B/Tex-Mex-fueled late show from the roots-rockin’ Iguanas; and retro le jazz hot singer/cutie-pie Linnzi Zaorski playing a happy-hour set on Sunday, with the Washboard Chaz Blues Trio wrapping up the night.

There is no greater ambassador for genuine New Orleans jazz in this day and age than the terrific, tradition-wise singer-trumpeter Kermit Ruffins, who, with his band the Barbecue Swingers, done tore up the Blue Nile on Saturday night. Very few artists can turn a club into a carnival at will. Kermit is one of them. And Monday night’s jam session at Ray’s Boom Boom Room, led by drummer/DJ Bob French, was a wonderful, improv-heavy ramble through Tim Pan Alley and the Great American Songbook.

It would be a mistake to forget the fabulous band that played Saturday night’s annual costume ball hosted by a New Orleans artist of note. The group’s horns-and-all cover of the Beatles’ “Got to Get You Into My Life,” done-- no lie-- Parliament/Funkadelic-style, almost shook the filled-to-the-rafters warehouse apart. Nor should I neglect to mention the amazing Sunday night all-45 rpm vintage-soul-and-rockabilly DJ set at the Saint bar in the Garden District. And the melodies that waft from legendary venues, hot spots and dives as you walk past or are produced by street performers that are far too accomplished to be relegated to passing the hat.

This is on top of the parades (raining beads and doubloons on fervent crowds of onlookers) by the krewes that roll through the area on the early weekend. And the yearly Krewe of Barkus dog parade through the Quarter, with the 2008 theme “Indiana Bones & the Raiders of the Lost Bark”-- complete with canine fashion plates and their owners in Indy fedoras, pushing along lovingly-forged Arks of the Covenant on wheels.

My last evening in town featured an orgy of exquisitely delicious food shared with three friends Uptown at Jacques-Imo’s restaurant-- cornbread muffins, stuffed shrimp, fried green tomatoes, onion rings, succulent glazed duck, blackened redfish, collard greens, and strawberry shortcake, washed down with Abita’s Mardi Gras Bock. We topped it off with nightcaps at La Crepe Nanou, where we talked music and the beauty of Southern Louisiana with Vicki and Debbi Peterson of the Bangles who were in town for a couple of shows.

Like Vicki and Debbi, I harbor an inordinate amount of love for the city of New Orleans. Call it what you will: Nola, the Big Easy, the Crescent City, the City That Care Forgot. Its socio-economic problems and precarious, post-Katrina condition notwithstanding, it’s like no other place in America-- a cultural cauldron rich with history, art, music, culinary delights, and the joy of living. I encourage everyone to visit and drop a little cash there. The Jazz & Heritage Festival is coming up in the spring-- and, judging from schedule, it looks like it’s gonna be one to remember. So go. Or visit some other time. Help the regeneration of this national treasure. You will be repaid a thousand times over with peak experiences that will linger in your memory long after you return to your everyday biz.