Michael !!! Row the (damn *pirogue) Boat Ashore!!!
Listening to a Fresh Air program about New Orleans memories and music. old and new interviews with Professor Longhair, Dr. John, Alan Touissant ("It's Raining," "Mother-in-Law" ), Harry Connick, who started playing in the FQ clubs at age 12. Fats is alive! rode it out on his second-storey balcony in the 9th ward, until a rescue boat came by. god, just occured to me that "Walking to New Orleans," one of this biggest hits, could have been "Walking _Through_ New Orleans." the traditional food, the jazz funerals, the music, the second-line, the Zulu Crew and the Mardi Gras Indians ... so much of south LA culture comes from the blacks and Creoles. i've been listening to my 2 NO/LA mixes for 3 days. love them anyway, but now they soothe and make me happy. been two-steppin' and freestylin' all over the house -- washing dishes, taking a shower, taking a break from the computer, just going from one room to another.
Leah Chase, owner of Dooky Chase's, an icon in the NO restaurant empire (and waaaayyyy overrated as far as i can tell after 3 meals there) is here in Birmingham, cooking for her displaced family of 20. what's going to happen to that unique culture when people are so widely displaced? i have a feeling that Mardi Gras will go on, in some fashion. it's pumps multi-millions into the city economy. i, who get confused and claustrophobic in a crowd of more than 50 people, would go this year, for no other reason.
Still, after almost a week, nobody's heard from Michael. but i feel in my heart & soul that's he's o.k. maybe just stayed in Colorado, where he covered the shooting of Hunter S. Thompson's ashes into the wild blue yonder. or with friends in San Francisco. but it that's true ... why hasn't he called anybody? like the old folk song says, "Michael row the boat ashore," dammit!
* a pirogue is a wide, flat-bottomed Cajun-style canoe, used for traveling in swamps
Leah Chase, owner of Dooky Chase's, an icon in the NO restaurant empire (and waaaayyyy overrated as far as i can tell after 3 meals there) is here in Birmingham, cooking for her displaced family of 20. what's going to happen to that unique culture when people are so widely displaced? i have a feeling that Mardi Gras will go on, in some fashion. it's pumps multi-millions into the city economy. i, who get confused and claustrophobic in a crowd of more than 50 people, would go this year, for no other reason.
Still, after almost a week, nobody's heard from Michael. but i feel in my heart & soul that's he's o.k. maybe just stayed in Colorado, where he covered the shooting of Hunter S. Thompson's ashes into the wild blue yonder. or with friends in San Francisco. but it that's true ... why hasn't he called anybody? like the old folk song says, "Michael row the boat ashore," dammit!
* a pirogue is a wide, flat-bottomed Cajun-style canoe, used for traveling in swamps