thank you for loving the blues June 29, 2006
After my beauty sleep, Shannon and I stopped off at Brasserie Jo and had steak tartare and champagne. Remember when I said I was going to stop eating out so much? Well, I lied. After that, we went to Michigan Avenue and scorched our credit cards. Shannon needed to buy some shoes, so we went to Nordstroms. While she tried on normal-looking shoes, I walked around and looked at the selection. Having been in New Orleans for so long with no desire to shop, it looked like the most enormous showroom of shoes in the world. When I looked closer at them, I thought I must be getting old. The new style is very high heels and ankle-straps, kind of a 1930s look but with painfully high heels. I swear, I couldn’t imagine anyone wearing these shoes except a hooker. I even took a few photos because they were so bizarre-looking. I forgot to pack the USB cable for my camera, so the photos will have to wait for a day when I feel like shoe-blogging. I have to admit that I have pretty sedate taste in shoes. I am very tall and I wear a size 10. If I wear colorful, busy, tacky shoes it looks I am walking around on two Mardi Gras floats. And I am not one for very high heels since I am no longer with the very tall ex-Mr. Dangerblond. I think I stuck with that marriage for way too long partly because I could wear high heels when we went out. We also visited Sephora, Benetton and Kenneth Cole, all of which benefitted from these two New Orleans would-be fashion victims.
Our dinner at Kevin was incredible. Shannon called the food “Japanese fusion.” Whatever. It was creative, complex and delicious. And after seeing the erosion of restaurant service in New Orleans since the flood, we felt like royalty in the hands of our server, Victoria Vanourek. This woman should open a school for waiters. She is certified master sommelier, having actually passed an exam for that purpose. Kevin has an extensive wine list that impressed even Shannon and Victoria was on top of every wine on it. We had a Chateau Neuf du Pape with dinner. I had tuna tartare (when I like something, I do it to death) and then Yukon king salmon with risotto. Shannon had morel mushrooms and blue-fin tuna. Everything was exquisitely prepared, but Kevin does not use salt. The incredibly discreet Victoria sneaked up next to Shannon and asked, “is everything seasoned to your taste?” Well, no, we wanted just a speck of salt. It appeared in a tiny white saki cup with a silver spoon. After all that food, we decided to drink our dessert. There was eiswein, which is very rare, for $11 a glass, so I had that. It was better than a nectar cream snoball. To my utter amazement, Shannon asked Victoria to just choose a dessert wine for her. She never trusts waiters to choose wine. Our girl came back with Sineann late harvest gewurztraminer, which was not only delicious, but “Sineann” is the Irish spelling of Shannon’s name, something unknown to Victoria. I’m not saying that I expect waiters to have extra-sensory perception, but it certainly makes for a wonderful evening when they do. We tried our best to recruit Victoria to move to New Orleans, but she was too smart for that. She has heard tales of how some of the biggest names in New Orleans restaurants simply abandoned their employees to fend for themselves after Katrina, and she is looking for more of a committment than that. We couldn’t blame her.
After dinner, we went for a smoke in the hotel bar and were happy to discover that there was a fantastic blues band playing in there. Shannon relaxed in one of the plush over-stuffed chairs and I sat on the banquette. A waitress served cocktails. Shannon and I are in agreement that going to the House of Blues club in New Orleans can be as much of a pain in the ass as it is fun because you simply cannot sit down anywhere and you have to fight your way to the bar to get a drink. The band played some great songs and even their own version of “Sweet Home Alabama.” The lyrics went something like: “Sweet home Jamaica, where the weed grows so high. Sweet home Jamaica, ’scuse me while I kiss the sky.” Sitting in a comfortable incense-perfumed environment with the band playing and the waitress serving, it was like the House of Blues had read our comment cards and changed everything to make it more to our liking. The band was hot and the guitar player even hotter, so after a while I suggested we sit at the bar so we could be closer to them.
We were immediately set upon by three very muscular-looking guys. They had just come from the David Lee Roth concert. They bought us drinks and the one named Mark, a plumber, proposed marriage to me while massaging my shoulders with huge hands. While I was thinking it over, the one named Larry got on his knees and put his head in Shannon’s lap. It was Thierry’s worst nightmare come true. I told him to quit it, but he couldn’t keep his hands off Shannon. Seeing the look on Shannon’s face, I broke off my engagement with Mark and we came up to our room without finishing our drinks. I am still mad at that pushy Larry, but it’s nice to know that an old grandma can still attract a horny drunk plumber. If he lived in New Orleans, I would have a few projects in mind for him at Chateau le Maison Dangerblond.
you must spit June 28, 2006
Shannon says it’s crucial to spit wine out when you go to a tasting. She says that even when you spit, your body still absorbs 4% of the alcohol. I just can’t stand spitting. That was one of the things that drove me crazy about Don, he was always clearing his throat and then spitting. Yuck. So, we had oysters for lunch and then went to the afternoon wine tasting where I practiced spitting. I almost spit wine all over Shannon, but I managed to keep it pretty clean. It is much easier to spit when you are in a room full of very refined-looking people who are doing the same thing. There was a very tall guy there and Shannon gave me the “do not flirt” look, so I was behaving. All of the wines at this tasting were Australian. I’m not a huge fan of shiraz, but the cabernets were delicious. There is a fad now for sparkling shiraz, which tastes like the Cold Duck that was popular in the 1970s.
I cracked Shannon up with a story about my grandmother and her sister who once went to Hawaii to visit my uncle when he lived there. It was their first airplane ride. They went with my aunt’s mother, now passed away, who everyone called “Arbie.” My uncle bought them first-class plane tickets. After they were in the air, the flight attendant came around asking everyone if they would prefer champagne or Cold Duck. “Well, I’ll have champagne,” said Arbie. “I never did like duck, much less cold.”
Staying here at this hotel, ordering room service and eating oysters for lunch unfortunately has me thinking about my trip to San Francisco with Steve, who turned out to be completely full of shit. I’m sure he is somewhere now obsessing over his self-obsessed cheating wife. Good luck with all that, dude.
bacon of the month
Shannon’s official reason for being in Chicago has to do with The Grateful Palate. The Grateful Palate is a wine import company, but they are most famous for their Bacon of the Month Club, where you can have “artisan bacon” delivered to your house every month. That’s a habit I’m not sure I want to develop, lest I have to change my name to “dangerhog.” Yesterday, a “welcome basket” was delivered which contained two pig glasses, a plastic pig-nose mask, a pig pen (for writing, not for containing your pigs), several tiny miniature pigs (which will very soon find themselves attached to one of dangerblond’s decorated plungers), a bacon-scented “air freshener,” and a very unappetizing-looking bag of “bacon brittle.” I’ll bet they have a lot of that lying around!
Last night, I went down to the bar to meet Shannon. While I waited, I eavesdropped on the conversation of three guys at the end of the bar. One guy owns property in New Orleans and is looking to buy more. One of the others said, “but don’t you think it’s just a matter of time in that place?” I introduced myself and told them I lived in New Orleans. They were surprised when I told them about the American Library Association convention going on in New Orleans right now. Shannon came in and got interested in the conversation. The one guy who was being very negative about New Orleans started really trashing the NOPD. I thought he was over-doing it, but I can’t defend the New Orleans police after they made themselves look like a bunch of venal cowards on national television. Because of that bad reputation, it appears that people in other places are assuming the National Guard was called back in because the NOPD are incompetent idiots or criminals. Then, this same guy asked us if we carried firearms. No. He looked incredulous and asked if we didn’t think we needed to get some firearms. No. This guy would have fit right in with the clueless Northshore Republican contingent.
Asking us about guns reminded me of a long time ago after my apartment in the Bywater was burglarized. My mother’s current husband bought me a gun, a small .32 caliber pistol. I was still kind of freaked out about the burglary, so I accepted the gun and he taught me how to load and shoot it. I brought it back to the house where I had moved on Prytania Street and I stuck it as far underneath the mattress as I could get my arm. Then, I totally forgot about it. Much later, I moved to Don’s house and an artist friend moved into my former place. When he moved again, I told him he could have my old bed. He called me on moving day and said, “Um, Kim, I was taking the bed apart and, um, I found a gun! And I think it’s loaded!” At first I didn’t know what he was talking about, then I remembered putting the gun under the mattress. “oh, my god! I forgot about that! Be careful, it IS loaded!” I asked if he wanted it and, being a guy, he said, “oh, hell yeah! Cool!” I still feel responsible for that gun, and every time I think about it I hope to god no one has used it to kill another person.
After that, we left and went to join the winos in the wine bar. Shannon had been up since 4:30 a.m. because she had an early flight, so we didn’t hang for very long. The next book club selection, chosen by Meredith, is The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway. I had picked up copies for Shannon and me before I left New Orleans and I read a couple of chapters on the plane. I have never read anything by Hemingway except The Old Man and the Sea, which I found to be a dead bore. I’ve always thought I must be missing something when it comes to Hemingway because I’ve never felt like reading another of his novels. I have thought of Hemingway as a “guy thing” and Fitzgerald as a “girl thing.” Well, even though Shannon and I were tipsy and sleepy when we got back to our room, I had to read some more because I am totally hooked on the book. I couldn’t put it down. I ended up reading for about two hours before I went to sleep. Don’t tell me how it ends!
This morning, poor Shannon has to go to a wine tasting. I really can’t imagine tasting wine first thing in the morning, but it goes with Shannon’s territory and she loves it. She put on her sterling silver pig pin and left me here to blog, drink coffee (which tastes like Louisiana coffee - one more excellent feature of the House of Blues Hotel), read the Chicago Tribune and look out the window where it’s raining and about 79 degrees outside. When she finishes with that, we are going to lunch and shop until the next wine-tasting. By that time I will be ready for the taste of wine so I am joining her for that one. Shannon reported that the dinner last night, which was at the Blue Water Grill, was delightful. She had scallops and squab, then they brought out lamb. By that time, she was sated, so she didn’t even taste the lamb. She met one of the hottest new chefs in town, Kevin Shikami, and arranged for us to have dinner tonight at his restaurant, called, appropriately enough, “Kevin.”
I was checking all my usual blogs this morning and Shannon and I were excited to discover that her husband, Thierry, has been written up by Ernie the Attorney! Ernie is a big fan of the Delachaise. Shannon called Thierry and told him. She asked if he wanted to read it. and he said, “no. I already know myself, why should I read about myself?” Then, they reviewed yesterday’s World Cup game and complained about the officials. Thierry is the only person I know who wouldn’t immediately download Ernie the Attorney and read about himself. Maybe it’s a French thing.
toddlin’ town June 27, 2006
I had a very pleasant flight, partly because I was upgraded to First Class, but mostly because the weather was perfect and it was an up-and-down straight shot from New Orleans to Chicago. First Class still has lunch! I sat next to Lee, a very attractive and nice man who is, tragically, married. I told him about my blog and he told me about his internet radio show. He had been in town for the American Library Association convention and was returning to his home in Connecticut. He told me that he had a wonderful time in New Orleans. He had seen a jazz funeral and ended up on Frenchmen Street, which he loved. He had even checked out prices on condos in the Quarter. He said it was impossible to tell that anything bad had happened until he got out of the downtown area. Yep.
My cab driver told me that the House of Blues Hotel is “always full of celebrities.” I wouldn’t recognize most celebrities if they came up and smooched me, so the place could be crawling with them for all I know, but I haven’t spotted any. When you walk into the lobby it smells of incense, which is sold in the gift shop along with t-shirts and folky art. Being from New Orleans, I am kind of used to the folk-art look, but it’s still a pretty cool hotel. David Lee Roth is playing at the House of Blues Club next door, but I have no interest in him at all. The Go Gos, in whom I am very interested, are playing after I leave.
When I knocked on the door, Shannon ran to open it, and yelled, “come on in, they’re winning!” She was sitting in the bed eating a room service lunch and screaming at the television. Futbol. Right after I got here, France scored their third point and beat Spain, which puts them in the quarterfinals. Shannon screamed and jumped around the room for a while, then she called Thierry and e-mailed Katherine in Vienna. Katherine immediately e-mailed back that she had watched the game with a bunch of French boys and they were all going crazy. I warned Shannon to take it easy because she needs to start training for the quarterfinals. They can’t beat Brazil without Shannon. Shannon said Thierry is “mad” because she and I are in Chicago having fun. Heh Heh.
The House of Blues has a great wine bar attached to it, Bin 36. Shannon and I had a glass of sparkling wine there and then she left to go to a business dinner. She said it would be more business than dinner, and I saw her leave with a group of serious-looking guys in suits. Not dangerblond’s scene. We are going out later tonight with the fun group. While I finished my wine a young man came and sat in the chair next to me. He was wearing a very nice white shirt with monogrammed French cuffs, a tie and the whole nine. He was an attorney from Los Angeles. We started talking and, to my amazement and great enjoyment, he let loose with a profane tirade against Bush and Cheney. I am used to that from my blue-jeans-and-t-shirt-wearing friends, but to see this very buttoned-down fellow light into the Preznit was hilarious.
Then I walked around a little and discovered that the hotel is right in the middle of things. It’s right next to the river and next to those two round towers that the locals call “the corncobs,” where Steve McQueen drove the car into the river in “Bullitt.” It’s windy, but the wind is very warm. I walked down to the Frontera Grill and sat at the bar. A young guy from Seattle sat next to me. I was still thinking about Bush and Cheney, so I made some remark and he said, “you know, we’re not all like that.” Right up until that moment, I thought he was cute.
rough girls June 26, 2006
Meredith sent me this and I thought it was something from The Onion. Nah. It’s true.
Transvestite gang pesters Magazine Street
Here is my favorite part:
Next door at Winky’s, Bonga heard people screaming inside Vegas, then saw a blur of cheap wigs and masculine legs in designer shoes streak past her door.
[UPDATE: It turns out that almost every New Orleans blogger has written about the Magazine Street Transvestite Raids. I hope everyone can now see the REAL threat that gay people pose for us - they don't want your husband, they want your shoes, belts and bags.]
the garden of quirks and delights
I have been having the best time looking at real estate on the internet. It’s so much fun now because with high-speed internet and wonderful new web technology you can look at pictures of each property. Some of them even have pictures of the interiors. The listings include information like the lot size and sometimes room dimensions. It makes it much easier to decide if you want to see something. I have also been able to e-mail the listings to Shannon and my other compadres in this venture. I can report that there are some fabulous buildings in the French Quarter available that have not been on the market in a while. There are two buildings on Bourbon. I ain’t sayin’ they are cheap, but they are available.
I will soon be taking my blog on the road to Chicago. Shannon has to make a trip up there for her work as a professional wino, and I am accompanying her as a lady’s maid. We are staying at the House of Blues Hotel, which is a whole hotel decorated like the House of Blues. I like Chicago and I am looking forward to getting out of Debrisville for a few days. Not that the weather here hasn’t been pretty nice, though.
I’m adding some more cool blogs to my blogroll. I had forgotten about AngryBlackBitch. I used to read this blog back before I got almost exclusively preoccupied with New Orleans. The Bitch is hilarious, but her writing can also be very moving. Scroll down to the post called “By Request - September.” I can’t find a permalink (that’s blog-talk for a link that takes you to a specific post). It’s really great. I think she lives in St. Louis, but her voice sounds like it could have come from New Orleans. She goes under “bigtime blogs.”
A New Orleans blog that is new to me is The Garden of Irks and Delights. The author is living the common, everyday New Orleans life - i.e. the life that I was lucky enough to escape by living on higher ground. She writes about the irks and the delights of New Orleans life with equally interesting results. At some point, I should divide my New Orleans blogroll into one for New Orleans and one for Louisiana, but that is going to have to wait until I feel the fullness. Most of the Louisiana bloggers are as interested in what goes on in New Orleans as I am.
I am also adding some national politically-oriented blogs. Crooks and Liars and AMERICAblog are two left-wing blogs that are frequently updated with commentary that links to news reports that our right-wing media here at home and on television decline to cover. Incidently, now that the Picayune has done a huge story on the Landrieu family, about whom they already did a huge story back when the whole family was honored by Loyola last spring, d’ya think they can find Sugar Ray and figure out what he is up to? The disconnect between the dominant media and the people on the ground is something to behold.
I am adding James Wolcott because I just love the way he writes. I’m also adding the City of New Orleans’ website and the City Council.
e-mail gets response; blogger’s life now complete June 25, 2006
After I finished my post about the Cynthias, I wasn’t in the mood to re-craft my essay into an appeal suitable for the fragile egos of politicians. So, I just copy-pasted the whole angry post into an e-mail and sent it to the council members, including the Cynthias. Let the fur fly! Of course, I am familiar with what happens when you send a letter or e-mail to an elected official when they have done something you are critical of. I have received comically absurd responses to letters I have written to senators and congressmen over the years. I once wrote Jesse Helms begging him to retire and I got a form letter back thanking me for my support of his re-election. I have been warmly thanked for my support of the Right-to-Life movement, the impeachment of Bill Clinton and the National Rifle Association. They definitely have me mixed up with some other blond.
So, I sent my e-mail off into a black hole. I thought. This morning, on a Sunday, I got a response back from Councilwoman Stacy Head:
The issue is not dead. I, for one, am committed to filling that position. But as I learned in 11 years of litigation, there are times to push and times to give — but the goal has not changed. Now, a more well-prepared effort will succeed in getting the insp. Gen. Posit funded & filled.
Thank you for your passion abt improving our city. Stacy
Well, Holy Cannoli! The subject of this response is actually the same subject as my e-mail to her! And I don’t even live in her district! Head even comes out and says she is in favor of doing something that will benefit the citizens of this city. She’s working on a Sunday. Let me be the first to say it: Stacy Head is a responsive elected official who believes in reform. That doesn’t mean she can make it happen, but at least we don’t have to feel like we need to take a shower after shaking her hand.
Being dangerblond, I won’t hesitate to hammer on Stacy if she back-slides, but she will always hold a special place in my heart. I will vote for her if I ever get a chance. If I keel over and die this afternoon, though, I will die a happy woman. And I owe it all to Stacy Head.
UPDATE: Late Sunday evening, I received this response from Cynthia Hedge-Morrell:
Gentilly is alive and well. I represent a strong district of citizens concerned with rebuilding their homes, the city and education. MY FOCUS is rebuilding. Cynthia Hedge Morrell
Cynthia, thank you for your reponse, but it did not address the issue I am complaining about. That would be your lack of interest in an ethics board and an independent inspector general. We need some assurance that you are not actually spending your time rebuilding your power base at the expense of the citizens of New Orleans.
the cynthias: steamroll them June 24, 2006
Back during The Most Important Election of All Time, the shell-shocked refugees of New Orleans East and Gentilly re-elected the Cynthias, Hedge-Morrell and Willard-Lewis, to represent them on the city council. These two were part of the problem from the beginning and they should have been fired, but this is a democracy and who really knows if the voters of those districts had any better alternatives. Willard-Lewis, from New Orleans East, is the phony chattering kindergarten-teacher-lady who used to have a TV show. Hedge-Morrell is the uninspiring wife of uninspiring legislator-turned-clerk of criminal court Arthur Morrell. These two Cynthias have every right to do everything they can to represent their constituents. They are working on my last nerve, however, when they prevent my council woman from representing me.
I noticed a little item on Blagueur that told me that the New Orleans City Council had voted to defer voting on a resolution to implement an ethics board and an independent office of the inspector general. This is a provision from the 1995 charter revision that has been deferred for over ten years. I couldn’t imagine why this would be a controversial vote. It should have been a unanimous slam dunk, but the council voted 6-1 to defer it. What the hell? I voted for Shelley Midura and Arnie Fielkow precisely because I was led to believe they were in favor of, y’know, ethics.
The Times-Picayune article by Bruce Eggler gives you a good idea of what happened:
The seven-member ethics board was supposed to have been appointed by July 1996 and to have enacted a code of ethics for city workers and contractors by Dec. 31, 1996. But the board has never held a meeting, and the code has never been written… The inspector general would have wide powers to investigate allegations of wrongdoing in city government, but no one has ever been named to the position.
Apparently, Midura proposed that her governmental affairs committee be directed to look at the inspector general position, see how much it would cost and present a proposal to the council for debate and a vote. She had lined up Oliver Thomas, Fielkow, James Carter and Stacy Head as co-sponsors of the resolution. So what happened?
But Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis objected to the resolution, saying the council shouldn’t consider it until a “fiscal note” has been prepared saying how much the office would cost.
Midura said there was no way to figure out the cost until the committee does its work, and that all the resolution called for was a committee hearing, which would cost nothing.
“We can’t do a fiscal note until we know what the best practices in other cities are, and we can see what the costs might be and what grants might be available,” Midura said.
But Willard-Lewis repeated her position, and Councilwoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell said she had not had a chance to read the two-page resolution, which Midura said she sent to all her colleagues last week.
With that, Thomas moved to defer the issue for two weeks, promising that in the meantime he would “help (Midura) put it together so we can get this done.”
Midura said after the meeting that she might decide to schedule a discussion of the issue before her committee even if the council never passes the resolution.
By sitting there and acting like they are deaf, mute and blind, the Cynthias derailed my councilwoman’s ethics proposal, which started out with a majority of the council behind it. When two city council members dump sand on an ethics proposal, what does that make you think? And why did Oliver Thomas cut off the debate? Why didn’t the clear majority just steamroll the Cynthias? It’s an ethics board, not a 40-story hotel next to someone’s house. What is the downside of voting in favor of a resolution to direct a committee to EXPLORE fulfilling this provision in our charter?
I suppose the Cynthias will now use Midura’s desire for an ethics board and an inspector general for horse-trading. They will throw obstacle after obstacle in the way of any attempts at reform in city government, all the while saying they are representing their districts. I predict the Cynthias will be the major obstacles in the way of any attempts at intelligent rebuilding of this city, as well. They are both holding a tenuous grip on power because so many of their constituents are gone. Midura represents devastated Lakeview, but also a good chunk of Uptown and into Mid-City. Even in the unlikely event that Lakeview is returned to nature, Midura will still have a constituency. James Carter’s and Stacy Head’s districts (Algiers and the French Quarter, and Uptown) are the most thoroughly repopulated zones in the city.
At some point we are going to have to accept the fact that the population has shifted and there are fewer people here. It is becoming apparent to me that the Cynthias are not representing anyone but themselves. There are so few people living in their districts that they are holding an inordinant amount of power over the rest of us. In my district, Uptown and council-at-large, the people voted to change the old ways of doing things. I don’t want to horse-trade about ethics any more than I want my city council arguing over whether or not the moon is made of green cheese. Some things should just be obvious, even to the Cynthias.
It’s possible that the issue isn’t completely dead, so I am going to e-mail all the council members and tell them how much I value ethics and accountability in city government. I am also going to tell them that I hope this is the last time a majority of the council gets clothes-lined by the Cynthias. Both their districts may soon be represented by only one Cynthia, so all Cynthias better get on the clue train.
New Orleans City Council e-mail addresses:
Oliver Thomas: OMThomas@cityofno.com
Arnie Fielkow: AFielkow@cityofno.com
Shelley Midura: SMidura@cityofno.com
Stacy Head: SHead@cityofno.com
James Carter: JCarter@cityofno.com
Cynthia Hedge-Morrell: CHMorrell@cityofno.com
Cynthia Willard-Lewis: CWLewis@cityofno.com
sunshine interviews springsteen
Check out this video of Soledad O’Brien interviewing Bruce Springsteen on CNN, posted to Crooks and Liars. I fell in love with him all over again. Springsteen is so huge that he can go on the mainstream media and spit in their face and get away with it.
first draft and firedoglake June 23, 2006
There are two excellent national blogs that I read every day. I read others, but I find that First Draft and Firedoglake consistently “get it” about what is going on with New Orleans. Both blogs have a variety of writers, all with a left-of-center point of view.
Scout Prime at First Draft has kept reporting on the story from New Orleans long after Katrina Fatigue had begun to set in and other stories took our place in the public consciousness. Today, Scout Prime posted a very nice love note to New Orleans bloggers and included links to my site as well as almost everyone on my New Orleans blogroll. Thanks, Scout! The reason why I am writing this blog is because it makes me think someone is listening. It’s gratifying to find out someone is.
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